Friday, November 03, 2006

Alchemists, all of them, and not a sane man in sight

When you think Alchemy, well, thoughts of madness are not far behind.
Kind of the way when I think scientist, and I mean, hard core, on the fringe of breakthrough scientist, thoughts of madness are not far behind.

Well, in conducting my research through Hermitca and History by wandering randomly through sites and searches, I learned some interesting things.

Sir Issac Newton, the man credited with discovering gravity (at least, recognizing it), was an alchemist. Indeed, chemistry emerged from alchemy, when science decided mysticism and metaphysics had no place in discovery. *snort*( Yeah, right. And if you believe this, you believe that the feud in modern physics will be put to bed with some milk, cookies, and tales of a unified field theory. )

But wait, there’s more: I just HAD to add this clip from Wikipedia. You see, Hermetic magic is concerned with, among other things, transmutation. The change of one element to another (in a nut shell). Most oft this is equated with turning a base metal into a precious metal, the infamous "Lead to Gold" gig. Which, I might add, has been done with the application of wild thinking and a boat load of high end nuclear power. And, mercury has also been turned to Gold (among other things). But I digress. I tracked back from the Emerald Tablet into Transmutation, and came upon ORIGIN, in the Wiki write up. Here’s what they say about ORIGIN, and, what two erudite scientists had to say as well:

Origin
The term dates back to the search for the philosopher's stone. It was applied consciously to modern physics first by Frederick Soddy when he, along with Ernest Rutherford, discovered that radioactive thorium was converting itself into radium in 1901. At the moment of realization, Soddy later recalled, he shouted out: "Rutherford, this is transmutation!" Rutherford snapped back, "For Christ's sake, Soddy, don't call it transmutation. They'll have our heads off as alchemists."


Apparently, calling a physicist an alchemist is the equivalent of making fun of someone’s mother. Them’s fighting words, folks. But what I really want to know, is what the hell was Thorium doing when no one was looking?

And one last parting thought. Remember many posts ago I suggested that the Emerald Tablet had all the hallmarks of an alein artifact, or one brought from the future to the past? Well, if it's the main cornerstone of alchemy and Hermeticism, and both are concerned with transmutation, and said transmutation is happening with our awareness, understanding and use of nuclear power as we head blissfully into the aforementioned future, is my suggestion that out there? I think not.

2 comments:

Merriwether said...

Christine,

Hope you don't mind that I tracked you back to your blog. I'm assuming our mutual friend told you my background. This post reminded me of something once said of me:
"There's a fine line between genius and madness, though in your case it's really more of a fence."

Long live the Fett Family!!
-Merriwether the Adventurer

Ursula said...

Hey! Glad you stopped by! Funny line: I think I know a few folks that could apply to...

Good luck in your upcoming voyage.

Chris