It seems to me that trying to credit Newton’s alchemy dabbling with the development of his theory is like crediting Einstein’s violin playing with responsibility for his explanation of the photoelectric effect. Or rediting Niels Bohr’s habit of charging around on his motorcycle with his leadership in the development of Quantum Mechanics.
Thing is, Newton failed; only the creator of Harry Potter showed us later how to turn a leaded book into gold. (I keed, I keed)
In an Alchemical process called “vegetation of metals” inert metals seem to grow like plants, it fascinated Newton. Today we know it was a chemical reaction of mercury and silver with nitric acid. Newton thought “active principles” were working in nature and this growth was the key to create the Philosopher’s stone, as it happens with many mystical solutions, one can do neat stuff but the result is misleading for an alchemist.
Why yes, I learned about what Newton was up to from the modern world, thank you very much (tip of the hat to J.K.Rowling):
NOVA on PBS took a recent look at Newton’s alchemy:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/newton/alch-newman.html
I have the educated guess that he will not disappear, the research so far is interesting, but in a historical setting. As the research continues, it is painfully clear that Newton was indeed chasing a dead end with Alchemy.
That’s biology, not physics. Show me the immutable natural laws of biology (not biochemistry.) You’re not even close to being relevant with this one.
I’m sorry you don’t understand the difference between a hypothesis and showing something. And the God of the Gaps exists to explain what is not yet known, not what contradicts physical laws. I’ve already said that just not understanding why something is happening which does not seem to contradict any known laws is no reason to call in a supernatural hypothesis. A God who started repeatedly doing supernatural stuff is not a god of the gaps.
But they also keep looking for alternate explanations. After the Michelson-Morley experiment some scientists kept looking for an explanation of the apparent lack of the ether. It turned out the right thing to do was to consider the ether hypothesis a failure and go with relativity. This is not to say that those who kept looking were wrong, but Einstein certainly wasn’t, either.
If you get outliers from your instruments they’re committing fraud? You of course rerun to see if the outliers are real. Sometimes they come from things outside the bounds of the experiment, and, if understood, can be explained. But not by trying to come up with a new theory to include them in the main body of data. Which all is getting pretty far from the analogy.
If you throw out this principle, you don’t have science any more, since anything can happen at any time. I’d prefer to consider something supernatural than to say the laws of the universe vary with time and position. YMMV.
But what if light were clearly shown to have no mass anywhere else? So, except for around black holes, our current understanding works just fine. We know that we cannot see within a black hole, so we might think that the black hole has some sort of effect. In the real case, light still has no mass and we change our understanding of space. But in some other case if that was not causing the problem, we could try to measure the impact of the black hole on the universe, without ever being able to look inside the black hole to find the cause. I’d probably not call that supernatural either, but it has the same characteristics - the impact of an unobservable entity on the natural world.
If stuff started impossibly shooting out of a black hole, you can measure the stuff, but you might not ever be able to find out why it was doing this. Was it the impact of some law of physics that is different within the black hole? Some natural law we don’t understand. Or some incredibly advanced alien playing a trick?
Haven’t you ever heard a theist claim that the universe is evidence? These people also claim that the reason everything works out so neatly is that god loves neatness. They’re claiming that god explains the observed results, not predicting different results with fudge factors that god must explain. Perhaps I should have added that we also reject F=ma because of a godly fudge factor. Given that natural laws are the same everywhere, and that we can explain all without resorting to god (the god of the non-gap here) there is good reason to reject this as evidence of god. But if you start throwing away the notion of consistency, then you got problems.
No, that is what the non-scientific creationists do. Surely you’ve read the scientific creationists explanations of where the water came from and other nonsense. They came up with this to try to get their garbage taught in schools as science - since even they had figured out teaching Genesis was not going to work. Their claim was that there did not have to be a supernatural explanation for Genesis to be accurate. They wrote reams and reams of bullshit to avoid saying “goddidit.” The Biblical believers were just wrong, the scientific creationists were both wrong and dishonest.
That’s an excellent comparison!
Right. And without confirmed evidence of the so called supernatural events, alternate explanations (such as fraud, wishful thinking, hallucination) are far more likely. We need a very high standard of evidence for the supernatural, which hasn’t yet been met.
Perhaps a new term in logic fallacies is needed. We can use the term “Red Shirt Argument” to signify a premise that holds when I use it, but not when you do — as when I say that the existence of A proves my point, but that the existence of B proving your point is garbage.
A scientific standard of evidence for the supernatural cannot be conceived, let alone met — high, low, or merely waist level.
:rolleyes: There doesn’t seem to be a point in continuing this. You ignore the semantic roots of what I’m saying and continue, based on the presumption that I’m using the words the way you’re using them, to attribute a lack of comprehension to me. This is not productive or interesting.
Daniel
But being that fraud, wishful thinking, or hallucination are not necessarily verified either, these answers which seem more plausible to you are not necessarily correct.
Though, I still think the word supernatural is stupid.
Erek
You are assuming that I do not. I have never proposed any work as though it is the gospel of the lord. All words are the word of God. Seperating out which are useful to you personally is something that only you can do. I am simply disputing a jingoistic claim that you and Der Trihs are putting forth.
I am still not convinced you comprehended what you were reading. You would have to further convince me that you actually understood the material before we could even have a discussion on this matter.
Basically, I don’t agree with your premise that you can dismiss all of the mystical tradition based upon what seems to me from what you have said, was a cursory and superficial study of a particular subject matter. I believe that most of the case as has been presented by you and others depends upon semantically denigrating your adversary, by defining words such as supernatural in a very limiting way in order to create an arbitrary seperation that propagates a false dichotomy. I do not agree with the definition of mysticism that you are using, to put it quite simply. The definition that people like you and Der Trihs seems to have the word bullshit in it. I don’t think either of you have delved into the subject matter at all. For instance, how can Der Trihs possibly know that he can dismiss Babylonian cosmology when he has fully admitted he knows nothing about it.
If you are aligned with Der Trihs as you ahve said, then you are proposing ignorance as a virtue, something that I cannot abide. Ignorance is a willful lack of knowledge. It is not the same thing as naivete or simply not knowing. It is choosing not to know something, and resisting that knowledge whenever it is presented for you. You cannot know if something is worthy of dismissal if you do not know anything about it. You can say “I’m not interested in that, I don’t know about that.” but to dismiss it is an ignorant position, as you are dismissing knowledge that you have no knowledge of, no way to VERIFY whether or not it is worthless.
To me the height of ignorant arrogance is to think that people were only capable of knowing the truth since the advent of modern science. I don’t understand how someone can look at the pyramids in Egypt and the Mayan Calendar and still adhere to such a pigheaded and ignorant position. Your position quite frankly is anti-intellectual, though you are trying to spin it as intellectual.
People get on my case for saying that they don’t understand. But it’s true, they don’t, they don’t know jack shit about mysticism half the time when they are arguing against it. And the fact of the matter is, I DO know more about it than either of you do, having studied multiple traditions, rather than giving Catholicism a cursory trial and then dropping it because it didn’t work out.
I maintain that Science is a mystical pursuit. You are still locked into a thesis anti-thesis relationship of a false dichotomy, I have gotten past that dichotomy because it never made sense to me anyway, so where I am at is a synthesis position, where both sides are equally valid. As Voyager pointed out the Dalai Lama is working on some studies, and has said that if Science doesn’t jive with Buddhism, Buddhism will have to be re-evaluated. That’s great, that’s a wonderful position, it doesn’t mean that Buddhism is crap. It doesn’t mean that people didn’t figure things you. You are treating science as your golden calf, as though scientists have some sort of handle on the truth that others don’t, it’s simply not the case. Scientists are wrong about lots of things. There are probably many people on these boards who can school me in Genomics. However, I bet I know how to throw a better party, and pick up a chick in a bar better than some of them do. Both are knowledge of “The Truth”, there actually are methods to throwing a better party and some of them are fairly universal, and one can take it to a very deep art form if they want to. Genomics and the Art of throwing a party are not at odds, they are both disciplines that one can study, neither is of greater value than the other, because measuring them against one another is stupid. This is the same for science and mysticism. Mysticism is about achieving knowledge, it is about an experience of God. The word God is describing Existance, but it’s using a different lingual format than you are. You are like a fortran program trying to tell the C++ program that it’s full of shit. It’s not about one being right and the other being wrong, it’s about different code sets. Science is a form of mysticism as it is seeking greater knowledge. Greater knowledge of “the Divine” is basically just saying you are seeking greater knowledge of the universe.
When you can understand why I view people like the two of you as rednecks making fun of someone for speaking French but who is bilingual, then possibly you’ll understand the point I am trying to make, and the point that Robert Anton Wilson was trying to make in “Cosmic Trigger”, but until then you’ll probably continue to point and laugh and think that you are superior.
You could really benefit from learning the difference between facts and knowledge. You can collect all the facts in the world, but if you don’t understand their interrelationships, then they are completely useless to you. I don’t always get my facts straight, as was evidenced by what I said about Newton and Gravity, but that didn’t diminish my point in even the slightest bit, it only made it easier for you to not think about my point terribly deeply, because I showed that I didn’t know all the facts. Trust me, I am trying to learn those facts but until then you might want to give some thought as to why I don’t think you can seperate Newton’s mystical pursuits from his scientific achievements, or that it’s even desirable or necessary to do so. You are expecting a superhuman level of knowledge from Mystics that you don’t expect from scientists, and are more ready to dismiss a Mystic’s achievements if they are shown to be wrong at all ever, than you are with a scientist. It’s ludicrous, and it’s anti-intellectual. So my advice to you is learn a little bit more about what you are talking about before you go spouting some bullshit.
I might be wrong a lot of the time, but at least I am TRYING to correct my ignorance. You seem to think it’s unecessary.
Erek
And you do show your ignorance constantly, looking at the pyramids the Egyptians succeeded only after several disasters, and the great pyramids were loathed by many Egyptians then as a waste of resources, The Mayan calendar is impressive but it showed where the misleading priorities of the failed empire did go.
Your ignorance that Newton’s alchemy was being investigated shows volumes.
I am beyond that, and you are only doing your best effort to ignore what I’m saying: even mysticism is present, their solutions are inefficient or misleading.
Wrong, to me is about who has the most efficient answer and the best interface to reality… Newton got a socket error in his alchemist network.
I only feel I know more because when one has failed in their predictions and analysis then yes, one has to consider Wilson an inferior.
No, the history is full of scientists that were wrong, the right solutions are found by other scientists, but not my mystics now.
Ignoring that that clearly Wilson and Newton missed the mark on their mystic pursuits shows that the anti-intellectual is really someone else.
If you could stop insulting the intelligence of many you may attract more attention. As the Newton example showed you are lying here.
If I thought it was unnecessary I would ignore you, as I promised myself many years ago when joining this board I was not going to ignore anyone.
I can review the changes or progress mysticism has performed after I read so much of it in my youth, so far I remember seeing science shooting down several researchers that were wrong or misleading; I have, even in this thread, seen mystics be deadly wrong and no mystic is willing to shoot them down or even drop them from their trusted sources.
Who can sincerely say is the pigheaded and anti-intellectual now?
-Ed
mswas (following bolding mine):
For someone who has earned multiple warnings regarding the verbal abuse of other posters, you certainly seem to enjoy being intemperate in your language. If you cannot discuss these issues without resorting to name calling (even when carefully couched in third party descriptions and conditional syntax), you will not be allowed to continue posting.
[ /Moderator Mode ]
While I am not persuaded by most of the stuff mswas is posting, these appear to be a non sequiter followed by an unsupported assertion, followed by a second unsupported assertion.
You are aware, I hope, that there have been failures in modern building construction, even with better math, a better understanding of physics, more hard evidence concerning structural loading, and significant advances in machinery for constructiojn and optics for surveying? That the pyramids were not glorious achievements on the first try says nothing to disparage the ones that were successful or the intelligence invested in them.
(It would seem to have been a more fruitful reply to note that they were the product of engineering, not mysticism.)
It would be interesting to see actual evidence that the contemporaneous Egyptians actually believed that they were “a waste of resources.”
Your declaration regarding the Mayan Calendar seems like little more than cultural bigotry. The Mayans flourished for hundreds of years, during which time they worked out the principles of an exceptionally accurate calendar. What do you think thay “should” have been doing instead? (And how do you know how much of their time or energy was invested in it? They might have counted off a single pair of watchers for a hundred years, or so, to gather data and then had one or two people work out the calculations to organize the calendar. It is not as though we have records of 22% of their GDP being invested in calendar computation for 400 years.)
Because it’s thousands of years obsolete ? Because the people who thought it up were utterly ignorant of real cosmology ( and physics, and so on ).
Really, I only picked that as as example of something it’s ridiculous to believe. I didn’t think you’d actually defend it.
Well, you are right, the mistake there was not to mention the support for my assertions.
I’m coming more from the angle that many opposed the megalomania of the Pharaohs but since their religion was set to obey the god king, well, they could only complain mostly in secret; it is clear that some mystics of the day were opposed to the big pyramids too, Khufu, for example put the priests to work, possible because of that opposition, the priests in turn spread the rumor that the Pharaoh set his own daughter for prostitution to help finance the project. IMHO even if that was a rumor, it showed that resources were being foolishly wasted and while we admire the results, the people then were not amused:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/egy/eml/eml13.htm
Learning to progress and survive, but do not think I’m ignoring that then Spanish barbarians (I’m an equal cultural offender 
) destroyed what was left, it is important to remember that the Maya civilization was a shadow of their former self when the Spaniards came. And my shot to the Calendar was more in tune with the coming nonsense of 2012 when the Maya world was supposed to end (The calendar really missed the mark).
Mark my words: lots of mystic nonsense will be spouted when we get closer to that date.
The thing is, the calendar days and months represented the gods and it affected the lives of everyone:
http://www.civilization.ca/civil/maya/mmc06eng.html
Droughts have been mentioned as one reason for their demise, Warfare took care of the rest, and since warfare and what to do during famine times was guided by the calendar, I have to conclude it was not a very good guide.
Thank you for posting this. And I will curb my fingers a little better as far as the personal attacks go.
Again you are making an arbitrary seperation. Engineering built the pyramids, but Mysticism had everything to do with the why of them being constructed in the first place. I was using them as an example of why the idea that “We only know the truth now because of modern science” is flawed. Modern Science is a set of critical thinking skills developed over thousands of years by well MYSTICS. This is why I am fond of pointing out Pythagoras and Newton. There was no such thing as a “Scientist” until modern science came around. What I have been proposing this whole time is that the idea of seperating the mystical pursuit from another type of pursuit of knowledge is a relatively new one. Certainly there were certain schools that had varying methods, and a certain amount of cultural conflict arose from that, but what I am trying to get at is that the seperation of scientist and mystic that is being put forth is a modern construction, and to truly understand the history of where the modern pursuit of knowledge comes from one has to go back and look into the ancient mystics.
The whole concept of Freemasonry is that it is a mystery school that draws from the metaphor of Craft Masonry, and all of the allegories of Masonry come from the Hiramic legend of Grand Master Hiram Abiff who was a Master MASON. In otherwords he was the lead engineer of King Solomon’s Temple. Ancient Egyptian cosmology draws HEAVILY from the relationship between Engineering and Mysticism known as Masonry. This is why you will see things that talk about how the history of Freemasonry comes down from ancient Egyptian Masonry. In otherwords, the ancient Egyptians didn’t make the same seperation between Engineering and Mysticism that you do with your modern American conception of the two terms.
When I hear Der Trihs say that Mystics never did anything useful, I can’t help but think of the irony that he is WRITING this. Mystics invented writing. Mysticism has been a very integral part of all cultures throughout history and is even a major part of culture in modern society. I personally find it unfortunate that mysticism has been propagated in secret mystery schools due to a fear of bigotry in the general populace, or out of the belief that the average populace simply won’t understand. I would like to see a newer society where people can accept the mystical pursuits even if they don’t understand them.
The thing to realize is that I haven’t been proposing pretty much ANYTHING except that modern science owes it’s existance to the trial and error of those mystics. I have been saying that there is an arbitrary standard being held to mystics that isn’t being held to scientists. Scientists figure things out by trial and error too. Also there is an idea that is prevalent on these boards that mysticism hasn’t updated with the times. The only people that I find who think that science and mysticism are at odds, are proponents of science. Most mystics I know think that Quantum Mechanics is pretty damn interesting. They are just as likely to read Hawking or Planck as they are Wilson or Crowley. Crowley himself was a major proponent of science. He believed that to practice magick, one should be able to perform experiments accurately in at least two sciences.
It would.
Again thank you. I’d also like to point out that civilizations rise and fall, it is the natural cycle of things. People don’t talk smack about the achievements of the Romans because the Roman empire fell and evolved into Christendom. The Aztec calendar draws heavily from the Mayan calendar, just as the Byzantine Empire has a historical lineage coming out from the Roman empire. The Mayans and Aztecs both draw heavily from Toltec and Olmec traditions as well. There are also still mayans around to this day, they live largely in Guatemala. Many of the traditions have been kept alive.
I would say that the single argument I have been making this entire time is exactly what you said to GIGObuster about cultural bigotry. I think that the hate on people have toward mysticism here on these boards and is prevalent in the larger western world is nothing more than cultural bigotry. As Der Trihs said, he doesn’t have to know anything about Babylonian Cosmology in order to dismiss it. He is only basing his willingness to dismiss it on the fact that others have also dismissed it, though Babylonian Cosmology figures pretty heavily into our history and culture, from The Code of Laws of Hammurabi, and before that the Sumerians, and after that the Zoroastrians and the Mithraic cults that lead to what we know of as modern Christianity. People like Der Trihs love to bash Christianity, without being aware that a lot of the American ideals are based strongly off of Christ’s message, and that a very significant factor in the reason that we have a global system now at all is Christian missionaries.
All I have been arguing this entire time is that these traditions are not seperate from the opinions that Der Trihs and GIGObuster have formulated, and that to simply dismiss them as irrelevant is ignorant. It is not skeptical, and I wish I’d see more posts like this one where people get called on bullshit skepticism, because I think it’s one of the most profound and entrenched forms of ignorance in modern western society.
It isn’t skepticism I have a problem with, it’s people who can’t get it right, and make fun of others for not being skeptics that I have a problem with, and more over the people I REALLY have the problem with are the skeptics who understand skepticism and will let this sort of anti-skeptical attitude remain so pervasive on a board that professes to be fighting ignorance. While I appreciate the love of ‘facts’ on these boards, I think a few more lessons in critical thinking skills for those that profess an adoration for critical thinking skills would go a lot farther in the fight against ignorance than merely correcting people on their facts. We live in a country that has outright failed to properly teach critical thinking skills, and has inundated us with facts, and I think people like Der Trihs and GIGObuster could use a bit of schooling on the subject from people who understand these notions better than I do, and who they will identify more with than me, because they won’t have the problem of thinking that those people are on opposite sides from them.
I am simply tired of this idea that Mystics and Scientists are “teams” in some ludicrous sport. I am not anti-scientist, I am anti-hypocrite. (Yes I am well aware that I can be a hypocrite too)
So if one of you skeptics would be so kind as to tell Der Trihs that it is NOT reasonable to dismiss Babylonian Cosmology without knowledge of it and remain a skeptic, I would again, be eternally grateful. Please just confirm this one for me, and I promise I will calm down a lot.
Erek
I can see that you are ignoring what I said about Newton.
Cite? Relying on Masonic legends does not show that one is an skeptic.
:rolleyes:
Cite that writing was invented by Mystics.
Not true as I already ponted out.
Well then, show me the mystics that were accepted as good before that are not today.
Once again: mystic solutions may be good, but are not effective or reliable as new non-mystic research is showing today.
I’m waiting.
Uh, we do, A recent show about their technology demonstrated that they came close to industrialization; there is a reason why their rediscovery was called the renaissance.
I already mentioned that on the whole the Spanish conquerors were more barbaric, so once again, ignoring posts and lying about what I posted is getting silly.
I have taken a look at your sources, I have shown with examples how wrong they are, you don’t show anything but willful ignorance on what I posted before.
Just on your last post you have two pronunciations without any evidence to support them.
:rolleyes:
I showed that several of your examples were wrong. it is only your misguided opinion what’s left if you continue putting bad examples forward.
:rolleyes:
So much for to tomndebb’s warning on name calling even when carefully couched in third party descriptions and conditional syntax.
You are also purposely avoiding the fact that the evidence for your say so’s is demonstrated to be missing in action.
I don’t think Der Trihs was talking about their records and their ability to predict eclipses and planetary motion, it is just that like Newton running into a dead end like Alchemy the Babylonians never developed a cosmological model in which to interpret their observations, And so it is modern mysticism, it arrives to misleading conclusions before the research is done. And as I say before: you get to do neat stuff, but what to do with the results is were mysticism misses the bus and drops the ball.
The Bus dropping the ball and still the Steelers winning the game was a mystic experience, I grant you that.
- Ed.
I started to ignore you when you started talking about Harry Potter. Maybe you said something worthwhile but I missed it.
Man you are really missing the damn point. I am not trying to prove I am a skeptic. You guys are the ones so enamored of skepticism. Though I would say I am more of a skeptic than either of you, because I don’t decide either way on an issue without proof. The point on masonry is that the ancients didn’t draw the cultural distinction that you are drawing, and that mysticism was an integral part of their lives. I am sorry you are incapable of understanding this small little point.
In early societies the Temple priests were the keepers of knowledge and generally they were the ones that held the keys to literacy. Religion held a much different function then, than it does now, as much of the function of the social structure was maintained by the priests. They were the keepers of knowledge, and therefore had a need for writing beyond what the average populace had a need for.
So the original mesopotamians used writing to keep track of commerce. So I guess saying that it was “invented” by mystics is a bit much, but again, the simple point I am making, which is the ONLY point that I am making, is that mysticism wasn’t seperated from the rest of day to day life until recently. The Priest or Shaman was a position of respect, and was one of the most learned men in the society. Your position that Mystics have been wrong is not compelling, because EVERY type of person has been wrong about something or other.
Statement of opinion is not a statement of fact. You have not presented any compelling evidence. You point to Newton’s failures as examples of how his ‘unscientific’ pursuits all met with failure. What I am arguing with is the point that he had ANY pursuits that were not mystical in nature. You are trying to create a duality, that I think is false. You have yet to point out anything.
This is just a road to irrelevancy. My point is that mysticism didn’t take on the perjorative connotation that you apply to it until modern secularism. Your conceit is largely western. Mysticism is viewed quite differently in non-western cultures. Again, I don’t think you know the first thing about mysticism. You have yet to show me any evidence of understanding what you are talking about at all. You can’t seem to grasp that Alchemy was the precursor to chemistry, or that Astrology was the precursor to Astronomy. What I have true trouble comprehending is the level of denial and arrogance it requires to deny this, and still claim intellectual superiority.
What the hell is a mystic solution anyway?
What does this piece of trivia have to do with what we are talking about? I was simply dismissing your cultural bigotry that implied that one culture being replaced by another had anything to do with what we are talking about. Kind of like how this statement has little to do with what we are talking about.
One, barbarism is a matter of opinion. Calling ANYONE barbaric is cultural bigotry. Barbarism is a vague perjorative term that doesn’t tell us anything about the people we are talking about except that YOU think they weren’t nice enough. Comparative barbarism is silly, the Aztecs enslaved people and cut their hearts out in ritual human sacrifice, sometimes killing scores at a time. The Spanish came in and enslaved people so they could mine silver and dominate the European economy. The word barbarism tells us very little about anything, because it uses your current civilization as yoru standard by which to judge other civilizations.
You have done no such thing. You made some comment about Mystics being anti-science. I pointed out three works where it is explicitly stated that they are pro-science. It only takes one example to falsify a hypothesis, I came up with three. Context is your friend.
You have done nothing except demonstrate that you know how to make a :rolleyes: smiley. You consistently take things out of context, so your facts are pretty much meaningless.
umm, no you think you presented several examples, but your inability to work with context has made them pretty much irrelevant.
Saying you are failing at being a skeptic is not the same as calling you a redneck or an idiot. I merely asked someone else who you will believe is on the skeptic side of the coin, like Tomndebb, Left Hand of Dorkness, or Citizen Bob, because when I say it you keep looking at me like I am on the other team or whatever. So I am hoping that they will disabuse you of some of your anti-skeptical behavior. Doing so would alleviate your ignorance in a much more significant way than correcting you on a factual basis ever could.
It’s impossible for me to give you any cites, because the people who are likely to be interested in the Mystic/Mason connection in Ancient Egypt would all be people who have an interest in Masonry. So how could I possibly provide you a cite because all mystics are lying charlatans.
Though you’ll accept Herodotus
But how does Der Trihs, or you for that matter know this about the Babylonians, when he has said clearly, he doesn’t need to know in order to dismiss it. However, you are flat out wrong. They did develop a cosmological model by which to interpret their observations. You just find the modern one more useful, as do I. The difference between you and I, is that I don’t need to feel like the ancients were stupid in order to feel intelligent.
I think you are confusing religious ecstacy with the mystical experience. They are not the same thing.
Erek
The above was supposed to precede the quote that it came after.
You found by yourself that you where indeed wrong regarding writing good. But the rest of your comments only amount to whistling passing the graveyard.
I will leave anyone else to judge: My point was that his clearly mystic pursuits are not important even for chemistry. I never said he never got any mystical pursuits.
You are putting words in my mouth, care to show were I said that Alchemy or Astrology were not precursors? I am concentrating more now on what works better for humanity.
So are you saying there are no answers or good things to come from mysticism?
Nah, on one mystic book there was a tale I remember that showed socialism was not new and many aspects of it existed with the Incas:
The tale described how the Spaniards were amazed to see a house of an important Inca that had valuable possessions protected only by the doorway with only by a symbolic stick of wood that meant that the owner was absent and no one was supposed to enter. When the Spanish began to settle and added locks and chains to their doors the Inca then knew that thieves had conquered them.
Did that mystic book committed cultural bigotry? I warn you here to think before you answer.
Saying we had no schooling after all that was said and posted is.
Check around and you will see that the historical evidence is missing. why is that you can not see you accepted the Mystic/Mason connection with no evidence whatsoever?
I see that you never get tired to keep digging yourself into a hole:
http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/ast123/lectures/lec01.html
The big point left is that it is you who is the one that does not know what is talking about; conclusions reached with faulty or incomplete data are the ones that cannot be trusted.