(no subject)
I've been reading David Goddard's The Tower of Alchemy. I've had it for a while here on my work shelves, and when the email server went offline earlier (which screwed up other programs as well), I pulled it down and started reading.
It's good. If I were the editor, I woulda said "Look, you can't talk about the student performing a mudra all of a sudden without then, or previously, explaining the mudra. . ."
That said, this is an "advanced" text, so I suppose I'll have to go find it elsewhere. Most likely, I already know it, just not by that name. Still, I suppose there's a certain sort of laziness. . .
But I do wish he'd cited something for his description of Thomas Aquinas as an Alchemical Student . [In chapter 3, "The Holy Grail", Goddard mentions ". . .This is what the Alchemical Student, Thomas Aquinas, called latens Deitas and what the Western mysteries term the "God-Within" or Adonai Interna. . . ]. Curious, you know. How do we figure that St. Thomas Aquinas studied the "forbidden" area of Alchemy? Or, are we using a looser definition of the term, that all sages and saints and "enlightened" ones can be called alchemists? This can certainly be done, but I think that one cannot simply say "All true paths are alchemy!" I mean sure, most paths have something of turning profane into sacred . . . but especially when discussing Western figures, the term Alchemy has much stronger connotations which, try as one might, cannot be divorced from the word. To say that Aquinas was an alchemical student might be true on the cosmic scale, but when communicating between two mortals--author to reader-- I cannot help but find this. . . misleading, implying things about the saint which simply are not true. I sincerely doubt (unless
theocracyor someone can enlighten me otherwise) that Aquinas would have considered himself an "alchemical student".
It would be like saying that St. Theresa of Avila was a Merkabah or Kabbalah practitioner, based on her Interior Castle. While there are plenty of things in common in the writings, and perhaps in her way, on a cosmic scale, she was such a person, it also proclaims things about her that have no basis in known history. There is, despite all her interesting writings, no reason to think she knew anything about Merkabah or Kabbalah as we know them. And so to say such a thing, while perhaps cosmically true, is still misleading in this plane.
All that aside, it's still good reading. Like a breath of fresh air.
It's good. If I were the editor, I woulda said "Look, you can't talk about the student performing a mudra all of a sudden without then, or previously, explaining the mudra. . ."
That said, this is an "advanced" text, so I suppose I'll have to go find it elsewhere. Most likely, I already know it, just not by that name. Still, I suppose there's a certain sort of laziness. . .
But I do wish he'd cited something for his description of Thomas Aquinas as an Alchemical Student . [In chapter 3, "The Holy Grail", Goddard mentions ". . .This is what the Alchemical Student, Thomas Aquinas, called latens Deitas and what the Western mysteries term the "God-Within" or Adonai Interna. . . ]. Curious, you know. How do we figure that St. Thomas Aquinas studied the "forbidden" area of Alchemy? Or, are we using a looser definition of the term, that all sages and saints and "enlightened" ones can be called alchemists? This can certainly be done, but I think that one cannot simply say "All true paths are alchemy!" I mean sure, most paths have something of turning profane into sacred . . . but especially when discussing Western figures, the term Alchemy has much stronger connotations which, try as one might, cannot be divorced from the word. To say that Aquinas was an alchemical student might be true on the cosmic scale, but when communicating between two mortals--author to reader-- I cannot help but find this. . . misleading, implying things about the saint which simply are not true. I sincerely doubt (unless
theocracyor someone can enlighten me otherwise) that Aquinas would have considered himself an "alchemical student".
It would be like saying that St. Theresa of Avila was a Merkabah or Kabbalah practitioner, based on her Interior Castle. While there are plenty of things in common in the writings, and perhaps in her way, on a cosmic scale, she was such a person, it also proclaims things about her that have no basis in known history. There is, despite all her interesting writings, no reason to think she knew anything about Merkabah or Kabbalah as we know them. And so to say such a thing, while perhaps cosmically true, is still misleading in this plane.
All that aside, it's still good reading. Like a breath of fresh air.