Correlative cosmology

In a tradition like the one we study here, nonetheless, ritual is needed to frame doctrines and techniques into a practice. Without the mediation of ritual, the methods would be experiments, and the doctrines would not offer a way of approach to themselves, a praxis that allows to attain to them. As the patterns of emblems of correlative cosmology do in the later tradition of ivai-dan, so does ritual in the Taiqing tradition dictate the times of the alchemical work and regulate its progression. From the transmission of the methods to the ingestion of the elixir, all the major stages of the practice are marked by the performance of rites addressed to the deities who revealed the alchemical scriptures, those who should protect and favor the compounding of the elixir, and those who are offered the elixir when it is achieved. 

In parallel to the events summarized above, and probably also in reaction to them, new forms of doctrines and practices developed from around 500 CE that relinquished virtually any form of support by ritual and relied, instead, on correlative cosmology. The text that reflected and supported these developments within the alchemical tradition, the Token for the Agreement... 

Besides the above, there has been another—and possibly more consequential—reason for ascribing Zou Van with an active role in relation to alchemy, namely his traditional image as the creator of the system of correlative cosmology. Whether this image has any historical foundation or reflects even partially the truth is not the main issue, and does not need to be discussed here. The main fact is that, for approximately eight centuries after Zou Van, no Chinese alchemical text is based on that system. 

The main study of the cosmological tradition of waidan is found in Sivin, The Theoretical Bac ground of Elixir Alchemy. On correlative cosmology... 

Whereas in most later texts the system of correlative cosmology, with its abstract notions and images, plays a major role in formulating the import of... 

Before continuing the study of the dynamics of the inflationary phase, let us focus on one specific example of inflationary scenario chaotic inflation. Historically, this was not the first model that was proposed but we think it was the first to provide a satisfactory scenario. The main difficulty with inflation is to have the slow roll conditions to be satisfied at some epoch. Indeed, as we saw, one need to put the field away from the minimum of its potential for the inflaton to behave like a cosmological constant. The first inflationary model ( Guth 1981) supposed a potential like that of Eq. (7.28) where the field slowly moved away from its minimum because of a phase transition. However, this led to a number of difficulties, see for example Ref. (Liddle Lyth). Fortunately, it was soon realized that it was not necessary to have a time dependent potential for inflation to proceed. Linde (Linde 1985) noticed that inflation could start as soon as the Universe would exit the Planck era. The idea was that it is reasonable to suppose that at the end of the Planck era (when p > ), no large-scale correlation could be expected in the scalar field, so that one could expect very irregular (hence, chaotic) initial condition with... 

Planck-power input is initially as positive-cosmological-constant A. Positivity of A is required for positivity of Planck-power input, and constancy of A is required for constancy of Planck-power input. Constancy of A is requisite for A to be most simply encompassed within Einstein s field equations [65-67], besides correlating with constancy of Planck-power input. Positive-cosmological-constant A also implies, or at least is consistent with, constant H (t) = Hq at all cosmic times r, and hence a fixed size of our L-region, with its boundary... 

The final conclusion is clear Uniform correlation between nuclear stability and abundance cannot result from nucleogenesis in a large number of unrelated processes under a variety of reaction conditions, as required by the big-bang mechanism. The suggested alternative of nuclear synthesis by an equilibrium process of systematic a-addition points at a completely different cosmological model and to the direction which this enquiry must follow, while remaining consistent with physical theory. 

The author himself regards SSCM in its present form as natural philosophy rather than proven science, but its potential to elucidate cosmic phenomena is enormous. Cosmological redshift is a relevant example. As observed it is a galactic-scale phenomenon, which should correlate with an atomic-scale counterpart. The proposed chemical redshift (5.1.2) is the most likely candidate for this role. The theory predicts an enormous number of small black holes, which, re-interpreted as penetrating a vacuum interface, may lead to the recognition of new sources of astronomical luminosity. 

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