nuclear power is not the devil. maybe.

(photo courtesy of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory)

In the book Dreaming the Future, Clifford Pickover describes a few themes recorded during several future life progressions (as opposed to past life regressions):

21st Century-World peace is attained and lasts three thousand years. Hunger, greed and prejudice are reduced. 22nd Century-Solar power is part of daily life. The average life span is ninety years. 23rd Century-Transportation is noiseless and efficient. Nuclear power is used extensively. Average life span is 110 years. 24th Century-Humankind reexperiences earlier mistakes. International political problems recur. A small scale-nuclear war reduces human population. 25th Century-Humans control the weather. Androids perform all menial tasks. A major nuclear war occurs that decimates most of humanity.

When I first read this, I was surprised that nuclear power was a major source of energy. I had always thought the nuclear power was bad, bad, baaaaddd. So I looked it up on Wikipedia. Here’s the skinny:

Nuclear power is cheap (around the same cost as coal), it doesn’t produce smoke or carbon dioxide pollutants, it requires very little fuel to create a LOT of energy, and there is only just a small amount of waste produced in nuclear power production. HOWEVER, that small amount of waste is highly toxic (can cause genetic mutation, cancer, and death) and takes 10,000 to 1,000,000 years to break down.

Sheesh.

So as I’m reading this on Wikipedia, I run across a curious word: transmutation. Transmutation is an alchemical term. Yes, alchemy. The scientific study of the ancients (Mesopotamians, Egyptians, Indians, Persians, Greco-Romans, medieval Islamics as well as the ancient Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans). Alchemy is the art of refinement. The alchemist’s goal is to separate the ingredients of different chemicals and refine them using various means (extraction, fire, distillation, etc.) to their purest form. The most popular goal of alchemy is turning lead into gold, however, alchemy is first and foremost a spiritual discipline. Transmuting base metals into gold is a metaphor for purifying the human body, with the highest goal being no less than immortality (enlightenment).

What can this have to do with nuclear waste? Well, here it is: scientists have discovered ways to transmute the elements (not fire, water, air and earth…I’m talking about the actual elements on the periodic table). In 1901 Fredrick Soddy noticed that thorium can convert into radium. In 1919 Ernest Rutherford converted nitrogen into oxygen. And in 1957 scientists recorded their discoveries that elements are transmuted in the fires of the stars. Now, scientists are using this nuclear transmutation, a hearkening back to the theories of the ancients, to de-toxify radioactive waste.

Transmutation was banned in the US in April 1977 by President Carter due to the danger of plutonium proliferation, but President Reagan rescinded the ban in 1981. Due to the economic losses and risks, construction of reprocessing plants during this time did not resume. Due to high energy demand, work on the method has continued in the EU. This has resulted in a practical nuclear research reactor called Myrrha in which transmutation is possible. Additionally, a new research program called ACTINET has been started in the EU to make transmutation possible on a large, industrial scale. According to President Bush’s Global Nuclear Energy Partnership (GNEP) of 2007, the US is now actively promoting research on transmutation technologies needed to markedly reduce the problem of nuclear waste treatment. (from Wikipedia)

Wow. Maybe there’s hope yet. (At least until the 25th Century that is…)

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isaac newton was a sinner.

Once recently, a friend mentioned offhandedly that she was trying to stop talking about people behind their backs. I thought to myself, wow! that’s neat! I wonder how she’ll do? It didn’t really occur to me until about an hour later, when I noticed myself talking about somebody behind his back, that perhaps I should work on this too. Thus began my yo-yo attempt at being nice behind people’s backs.

I just finished a book called Ghostwalk (written by Rebecca Stott) which is about alchemy, Isaac Newton, and a few killins’ (I won’t say by whom, in case you want to read it). In the book there is a lot revealed about Isaac Newton, including a list of sins that he’d committed (written in code, of course). Here are a few interesting ones:

1. Using the word (God) openly. 2. Eating an apple at Thy house. 3. Making a feather (quill?) on Thy day. 4. Denying that I made it. 5. Making a mousetrap on Thy day. 6. Contriving of the chimes on Thy day. 10. Putting a pin in Iohn Keys  hat on Thy day to pick him. 13. Threatening my father and mother Smith to burne them and the house over them. 17. Stealing cherry cobs from Eduard Storer. 26. Calling Derothy Rose a jade. 43. Missing chapel. 44. Beating Arthur Storer.

There are lots of strange (and mildly amusing) things in this list (even more in the expanded version) which is perhaps why it was written in code (putting a pin in somebody’s hat to prick them? sheesh). Of course, I’d be mortified to find that in the year 2500 someone decoded and read my secret-list-of-sins journal.

But Isaac Newton was an alchemist. He knew that a person grows more and more spiritual with every bad habit he (or she) releases into the wild. He, like spirit seeking folks before and after him, felt the burn of guilt that follows doing something that you feel is wrong, something you have challenged yourself to overcome.

I talk a little shit about people from time to time (pardon my Old English). Sometimes I don’t for a while. It confuses me, because sometimes somebody does something that really bothers me or hurts my feelings, and talking about it, telling about how mean that person was or how thoughtless, makes me feel better. Until I begin to feel guilty about talking so mean about them, anyway.

Like Newton, I want to be better. I want to burn that part of me away, let it go.

Step 1: admit to millions of people that I talk smack about others. (ok, my readership is slightly lower than that, but we’re talkin’ potential here!)

Step 2: read a self-help book.

Step 3: begin again.

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alchemical spagyric complete.

(etching by Durer: Knight, Death and the Devil)

I nearly lit my kitchen on fire burning the plant feces (also called caput mortuum or dead head) in the last steps of my calcining process. Who would’ve known that the grain alcohol would explode with such ferocity? And who could’ve guessed how easily the trusty terry cloth oven mitt would catch on fire when put in direct contact with a 6- inch fireball?

But don’t worry. I got the salts. My tincture is complete. My metaphorical house guest, my little child of spirit has been birthed.

Non nobis Domine! Non nobis, sed nomini tuo do Gloriam! (that means “Not unto us, O Lord! Not unto us, but unto Thy name give Glory!” Mark Stavish says that this is the motto of a true alchemist, because an alchemist is not working just for herself, but to help all humankind.)

I must admit, standing over my crucible (ok, it was a mixing bowl) and stirring the embers of my caput mortuum (I guess I prefer this to feces), smoke filling the kitchen, I felt the presence of Paracelsus. I imagined him grinding black coals and burning them down to ash, perpetually refining his surroundings.

For it is we who must pray for our daily bread, and if He grants it to us, it is only through our labour, our skill and preparation. –Paracelsus

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solve et coagula: rip it open, let it heal.

The other day I was talking to my lady and I told her that sometimes I go through periods of feeling bad inside. I told her that I felt like I had wound inside me that needed to be cauterized. She winced a good deal at that revelation.

Once when I was in high school a friend of mine sprained her ankle badly doing some crazy dance move. Soon after, I saw her stepping on her own sprained ankle with her good foot, pressing down on it with all the weight she could. She said that making it hurt worse actually relieved the pain a little bit. Makes no sense! thought my 16 year old self. What a weirdo.

I took the first steps to making a spagyric potion today. A spagyric is like a tincture, only it’s made using alchemical methods. That means that, after you mash up the plant and soak it in grain alcohol for 40 days, you have to take out the plant matter and burn it and then add the ashes back into the tincture. (of course, this is an over simplification of the process and should NOT be tried at home without proper headgear.)

From The Path of Alchemy by Mark Stavish:

As you separate the sulphur [soul] from the murky sludge of the herbal mass, so you are separating your soul from the constraints of physical life and incarceration. Just as the soul of the plant is what distinguishes it from other plants, so you soul, your consciousness, and your inner impulse to realize your self is what separates you from other human beings…Every time we repeat the ‘solve et coagula,’ we are regenerated by minute degrees and brought closer to perfection.

Spagyric etymological origin: Gk: spao, to tear open, + ageiro, to collect. I tore it open and poured grain alcohol on it. In 30 more days I’m going to light it on fire and then bake it at 500° in the oven (“it” being the herbal mass of Melissa officinales from my backyard). Mark Stavish calls this my “philosophical child” and warns me to remember that this is a representation of my soul-personality and to treat it as I would a small child or a house guest, ie with love and respect.

This is as close as I’m going to get to cauterizing my insides. I have to admit, it is pretty fun.

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alchemy, alcohol and addicts.

(engraving of Kepler’s Platonic Solids)

I was talking with two colleagues this afternoon about movies which feature famous addicts and their life stories. We covered Ray Charles, Johnny Cash, and Crazy Heart. (I’m not really familiar with Crazy Heart. I thought he was a Native American Chief. Somehow I got away without being made fun of when I said this out loud in front of my usually dork thirsty colleagues.)

Anyway, it brought to mind all the famous people who’ve been in the news lately –Jesse James, Tiger Woods, Russell Brand, David Duchovny, Eric Benet–because they spent time in sex (and love) rehab.

What is it about these things? Alcohol, sex, drugs, love–things that are supposed to make you feel good and happy–seem to take over and set up house in your brain.  Why?

An etymological response from Joseph Shipley:

Alcohol is from Arab. al, the + koh’l (Heb. kakhal to stain, paint), a fine black powder for painting the eyelids. The word kohl is still used in this sense. Applied later to any fine power, the word alcohol was then used also of liquids extracted, distilled or “rectified”–that is, the spirit or quintessence of a substance.

Aha! I knew there was a spiritual connection, I could feel it.

Quintessence.  The fifth essence or element: ether–added by Aristotle to the first four elements earth, air, water, and fire–was the purest and most pervasive element of all, permeating all things. Also, from The Path of Alchemy by Mark Stavish,

The elements in balance, or in perfect proportion to each other, is also known as the Quintessence.

No wonder alcohol is so great. It is the height of refinement! Well, at least it’s named after something that was made using an extensive refining process. Who cares if it was eyeliner! It’s the mystery, the intrigue of the fifth essence, the essence of the five petaled rose, that whispers your name as you walk through the shining rows of bottled spirits–drink me, they call, I’ll make all your dreams come true.

Alas, sayeth Paracelsus via me, the refinement process cannot stop with the bottle. It must continue on with the holder of the bottle. And I am not talking about a koozie.

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“Decay is the midwife of very great things…” Paracelsus

Paracelsus was an alchemist and physician from the 1400’s. He was a very unusual character, accused of being a drunkard and and a knave by many upstanding citizens in many countries in and about Europe. He happens to be one of my favorite characters, mostly because he said that you can make a “little man”–a homonculous–by mixing human semen with putrefied “venter equinus” (horse manure) for forty days:

After this time it will be in some degree like a human being, but, nevertheless, transparent and without body. If now, after this, it be every day nourished and fed cautiously and prudently with the arcanum of human blood, and kept for forty weeks in the perpetual and equal heat of a venter equinus, it becomes, thenceforth, a true and living infant, having all the members of a child that is born from a woman, but much smaller. This we call a homunculus; and it should be afterwards educated with the greatest care and zeal, until it grows up and begins to display intelligence.

I’m not making this up. It comes from a book called De Natura Rerum, written by Paracelsus. He wasn’t the only one either. Thomas Aquinas, Jabir the Kufan alchemist from the Middle Ages, Avicenna, and poor, poor Goethe’s Faust all putrefied stuff in glass jugs to make creepy little people who helped them with the house work.

Besides all that though, Paracelsus was a successful doctor (by the successful doctor measure of 1450, that meant that half of the people he treated lived to trill the fife another day). He had the unfortunate habit, however, of irritating his colleagues until they ran him out of town. Which brings back me to the topic of today’s blog…excrement.

In chapter 11 of The Devil’s Doctor, Philip Ball describes a scene in which Paracelsus announced to the doctors of Basle that he wanted to reveal to them the greatest of medical secrets. The doctors gathered in the finery afforded the physicians of the day, silk and feathers flowing. Paracelsus stood before them with a covered dish:

As he held up [the] dish and revealed its contents, the assembled crowd was confronted with steaming human excrement. Predictably, they stormed from the hall in outrage, pursued by Paracelsus’s accusations: ‘If you will not hear the mysteries of putrefactive fermentation, you are unworthy of the name of physicians!’ But it was not all calculated insult; Paracelsus genuinely believed that ‘decay is the beginning of all birth’ –and that all health, for ‘that which prevents putrefaction also will prevent health.’

Life is a series of sublimated putrefications. Let it be.

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