Alchemy in the East

If the origins of Western alchemy are shrouded in mystery, the beginnings of Eastern alchemy are even more obscure. The art was known to have been practised in India, Tibet, China, Japan, Burma, Korea, Indonesia andVietnam. Eastern alchemy, while it has a laboratory tradition, is generally more concerned with the search for elixirs of immortality, longevity and vitality than attempts to transmute metals, and incorporates disciplines such as yoga, and diet and breath control. The two most important schools in the East are the Chinese and Indian traditions. 

It seems that Chinese alchemy is the oldest of the Eastern branches, and may even predate Western alchemy. (The Chinese word for elixir, chin-je, may be the root of the Arabic imic i.)The Yellow Emperor EhiangTi (2704-2595 BCE) is the legendary first alchemist in China, who learnt the art from three immortal women, who also generously saw fit to instruct him in the arts of love. Chinese alchemy inherited a number of facets from folk belief, such as the idea of a plant that, when eaten, will grant immortality, together with the mystic quest for spiritual illumination. 

Like their Western counterparts, the Chinese laboratory alchemists believed that they were speeding up natural processes  

In 60 BCE, the Emperor Suan granted the alchemist Liu Hsiang a license to make gold. Liu had the funds of the imperial 

The earliest Chinese alchemists seem to have been the Taoists. Indeed, Chinese alchemy would be unthinkable without Taoism. Tradition ascribes the origin of Taoism to LaoTzu, a sage who was said to have lived around S00 BCE, although the wisdom 

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Martin, Sean. Alchemy alchemists. Revised updated edition ed. 2001 reprint, Harpenden Pocket Essentials, 2003. 96p. ISBN 1-603047-52-8 Introduction Basic ideas and themes A brief history of alchemy in the West A brief history of alchemy in the East Moden alchemy The Hermetic Museum (brief biographies of more than 100 alchemists) Suggestions for further reading. 

The second part of this book reveals that many alchemists were notable scientific and philosophic figures of their day Helvetius, Paracelsus. Dr John Dee, Isaac Newton. They believed that the search for the secret of making gold was tied in with the search for spiritual perfection, and that success meant the achievement of immortality. There are traditions of alchemy in the East as in the West, today as in the past"... 

I also taught Malcolm mystical Alchemy, which is the Yoga of the West. I taught him how to pick up the forces from the earth center and draw them up the spine. These form the basis of all that follows. Only those who can do this can do magic. We in the West work with a tree in the East they work with flowers [lotuses], but it is the same thing.6... 

The establishment of the Israelites has traditionally been a controversial subject for scholars. This book presents a new theory. This is that the unique characteristics of the Israelites arose in the east of Bronze Age Anatolia. Here the two great language groups of the world, the Indo-Hittites and the Afro-Asiatics, were culturally compressed or fused." The outcome was a unique people with interwoven cultures. The Alchemy Key unlocks the door to this Anatolian cultural compression. Inside we find answers to many questions preserved by different groups throughout the millennia. 

The word alcohol, like alchemy, has its origins in the Middle East. The Arabs are said to have made cosmetic paints by heating and vaporizing a mixture of compounds. The residue was used to paint eyeUds and called "kohl." When they later heated wines, they gave the product the same name as the cosmetic "kohl" or "al kohl." The word whiskey is said to be derived from the Celtic "uisge baugh" or "water of life."... 

Needham, Joseph. The refiner s fire the enigma of alchemy in East and West the second J. D. Bernal lecture, delivered at Birkbeck College, London, 4th February 1971. London Birkbeck College, 1971. 31p. ISBN 0-900975-12-1... 

Jewish and Islamic scholars were invited to the court of Frederick II in Sicily, and the Knights of St. John opened communication with the East on the island of Rhodes. Due to this influx, Sicily, Spain, and southern France rapidly became multicultural communities. In these areas Jewish and other scholars began to translate Arabic and Greek texts into Latin, which made them available to the rest of Europe. One of the first of these texts was the Book of the Composition of Alchemy, translated into Latin by the Englishman Robert of Chester in 1144. By the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the art of gold-making was integrated into Western mystical philosophy. 

By the beginning of the thirteenth century, Europe was primed for alchemy. In addition to the intellectual material from the scholars who were rediscovering Greek matter theory and the seemingly mysterious and even magical material wealth of the East, one further condition made Europe receptive to the... 

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