The End of Alchemy

Paracelsus-03 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

or The End of Damascus Sword.

THE INTERNAL ALCHEMY OF THE TAO

http://www.healing-tao.co.uk/tao_of_shopping/CH48_Inner_Achemy_Chart.htm

This chart was never copied for several hundred years. There was only the
original. It was never passed down to the rest of the world because it is so
profound and mysterious that an ordinary person would have no way to understand
it. It was rediscovered in the library at High Pine Tree Mountain in China
suspended from the wall. It was carefully drawn and the printing was clear, so
it was eventually reprinted at that time. When I first discovered this, I
decided to reprint it with a complete explanation using the Universal Tao
practices. By practicing the Universal Tao formulas you can start to comprehend
the detailed illustrations of this mural connecting with our body and the
universe. The Tao adept saw the human body as a microcosm of the natural world.
Its anatomy was a landscape with mountains, rivers, streams, lakes, pools,
forests, fires, stars etc. a natural harmonious landscape. It show a torso and
head with few easily identifiable structures. - Mantak Chia

The Arabs appeared in history in the seventh century. Alchemy had by then gone through a long path. The first contacts took place in Egypt, in Alexandria, where the traditions went back several centuries before Christianity. Muslim alchemy was derived from the Greek. The frequency with which Greek authors are quoted, the numerous theories that are common to both Greek and Arabic alchemy, and the large number of Arab technical terms clearly taken over from Hellenic treatises (e.g. hayuli, atisyus, athalia, iksir, qambar,S) prove beyond doubt the affiliation of Muslim and Greek alchemy. The transmission was made partly through direct contact in Egypt, partly through the medium of Syrian Christian translators, and partly by way of Persia. There are unmistakable traces of Persian influence, manifested distinctly by linguistic affinities in technical names and usage and in names of minerals. These traces are sufficiently well marked to render it probable that Persia was, indeed, one of the main channels through which alchemy came to Islam; and it is not without interest to note that many of the principal Muslim alchemists were Persians.It has already been observed that Chinese alchemy has so much in common with Greek and Arabic alchemy as to afford support to the hypothesis that all three had a common origin; and there is some reason to believe that the Chinese practiced a kind of alchemy long before the days of Islam. The remote origins of Arabic alchemy are therefore still to some extent uncertain, but there is very little to recommend the suggestion that the Arabs received any direct introduction to alchemy from the Chinese. Whatever may be the cause of the similarity between Chinese, Greek and Muslim alchemical ideas.
Information provided by:

http://www.levity.com

http://www.cartage.org.lb/en/themes/Sciences/Chemistry/Aboutchemistry/Islamictimes/MuslimAlchemists/MuslimAlchemists.htm

Paracelsus, Philippus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim
(1493-1541)Paracelsus was a physician and Alchimist, who
introduced the treatment of diseases with chemical means to the Renaissance. The
progress of the practical medicine at the beginning 16. Century is to be owed to
a large extent to it, like also the beginning to the modern medicine and
chemistry.
Time life did not omit it an opportunity, in order to make
academic authorities ridiculous. When it accepted a teaching profession in
Basel, it provoked the authorities, by burning the works of the well-known Greek
physician Galen publicly. It worsened its situation further still by the fact
that it opened its lectures for everyone and held it into German, instead of in
latin.
Like Hippokrates Paracelsus believes in a treatment, those of the
body as a whole one goes out and in the welfare strength of the body. It means,
it developed an effective means against the plague - a pill from paste with
traces of eliminations of the patient. He regarded magic or "mental forces" as
important for the healing process.
While he scoffed the Astrologie, he
looked in the Alchimie for fundamental truths: "magic is a large hidden wisdom
-, he explained understanding a large open foolishness". Its interest to the
Alchimie finally led it to some fundamental realizations in the area of the
chemotherapy.
And so the Damascus Sword reciept was lost. But new words like
swords appear: chemy, chemoterapy.How? " Paracelsus was first, which assumed
lung diseases were caused by mountain workers by inhalation of metallic "steams"
and not by bad spirit."
Alchemy was splited on two: chemistry and
chemotherapy. On the blade remain astrology!And spiritual problems passed to
religion.

http://www.paracelsus.unizh.ch/
Volumen Medicinae Paramirum Theophrasti, de Medica Industria

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