alchemy

Does anyone here practice alchemy and can give me some tips on how to get started

[Edited on 26-6-2003 by weeman]

This post assumes you are referring to internal alchemy and not alchemy that strictly uses metals (metallurgical engineering as it is called today).

Well, alchemy started in ancient China. The grand idea was to make an elixir that would grant immortality. Bad idea. Don't drink something that contains lead, mercury, and gold. Anyhow, everyone who took the immortal elixir died. Many of the other chemicals that were formulated were not that good, either.

The main thing that seems to work are herbs. Medicine men have been around for thousands of years (or longer). Herbal remedies work fairly well, but they do not take the place of surgery. The idea of Chinese medicine is to keep the body healthy so no disease occurs. Alchemy and herbalism are not wonderful for curing modern illnesses, however they do help to relieve many of the symptoms and lighten the workload the body must do to get rid of a disease. The best thing you can do is start reading books on internal alchemy and herbs. The only better advice would be to live and work with a medicine man. Good luck.

If this is what you mean by your inquirey, I'd suggest you go to school for it. This is a lesser popular major in college. The founder of Intel (the computer company) majored in this. Again, good luck.

Alchemy refers to a wide range of subject matter. If you are interested in herbal alchemy you may want to research the following books:

Herbal Alchemy by Phillip Hurley
Practical Handbook of Plant Alchemy by Manfred Junius
Herbs in Magic & Alchemy by Chris Zalewski

I'm sure most of the books have a bibliography section which would have listings of the materials the authors consulted when researching their book.

I need to figure a way out of saying something without the use of a certain arrangement of vowels and syllables, without producing a certain noise that would offend certain people who have not yet realized that words only have as much power over them as they let the words have.

Alchemy is bullcrap.
n 1: a pseudoscientific forerunner of chemistry in medieval times

Why dont you study medicine or metallurgy instead? At least they arent psuedoscientific.

All hail dictionary!

I'm a writer specializing in the history, folklore and mythology of herbs. You may call alchemy bullcrap but to me it (at least herbal alchemy) is just another research tool for my writing endeavors. I don't take it seriously anymore than I take using herbs for witchcraft seriously.

My latest article will hopefully be in the Fall issue of The Herb Quarterly and is titled "Historic Herbs of Halloween" and it focuses on the bad rap that local healers/wise woman were given. They were often the ones accused of being witches. It falls right into my area of study but I don't proclaim to be a witch.

Let everyone enjoy whatever topics they like to study and learn about without making fun of them.