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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Sat Feb 8th, 2014 10:03 am |
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"This book is a definitive study on alchemy in which I provide proof beyond reasonable doubt for the existence of a single specific and replicable chemical procedure and accompanying philosophical theory."
"This is the flagship book. An in-depth statistical analysis of 64 alchemical tracts in which I can prove that there is a single unified method of alchemy."
"Alchemy.ws is the only source of true information about alchemy that exists in the world. This is a site for honest, genuine seekers of nature's secrets. Everyone else please go away." 
Free downloadable pdf at:
http://alchemy.ws/Last edited on Sat Feb 8th, 2014 10:04 am by Paul Ferguson
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adammclean
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Posted: Sat Feb 8th, 2014 12:13 pm |
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| What a strange approach to the subject.
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Alexander Guthrie Stewart
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Posted: Sat Feb 8th, 2014 05:08 pm |
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That's interesting, although after looking through it the approach reminds me more of the good old "pick the best quotes that support what you want to say" approach which is pretty old.
The modern patina is provided by the statistics thing, but when at one point you mention 3 texts, another 21, it makes you wonder how they are doing the statistics.
Anyway, some alchemists were so afraid of being discovered that they went to the King and asked for a licence to practise (e.g. Kyrkeby and others in 15th century England) or just went ahead and did it anyway, then published about their work later.
In the chapter 14, "Alchemy is about making the Philosopher's stone", we find the coommentary says:
Alchemy is exclusively concerned, from a practical perspective, with
making the Philosophers’ Stone. There is no mention of any intermediate,
beginner’s level or ‘Lesser Work;’ only the Philosophers’ Stone or nothing.
This premise is a dire contrast with opinions forwarded by modern self-
proclaimed alchemical practitioners, who are largely of the opinion that there
are lesser works and/or different types of Stone. The alchemists themselves,
however, define alchemy and ‘alchemists’ as those who are exclusively
concerned with the creation of the Philosophers’ Stone
Whilst I agree with the general excoriation of modern self proclaim ed practitioners, I do wonder if this fellow has read pseudo-Lull, Ripley etc etc. Amusingly their idea of the quintessence seems a bit odd, they define it as the one thing from which others come, yet their supporting quotations do not use the word at all. Why choose those when there are a wealth of texts which use the term "quintessence"?
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Alexander Guthrie Stewart
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Posted: Sat Feb 8th, 2014 05:19 pm |
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Also, anyone who has had any further science education, and I would also include statistics, wouldn't use numbers to 7 decimal places. It should be noted too that the sample they have chosen is hardly random, nor complete, insofar as they won't have included all relevant texts, and there are of course issues of translation; their bibliography is written in English and gives no clue as to the origins of the titles used; in fact I can see a blatant error right away, in that the "compound of Compounds" listed is neither by Albertus Magnus nor of 13th century date.
Then we come to the issue of deciding upon keywords. Language is hardly the most solid thing upon which to base it all.
Anyway, the entirely unsurprising thing is that the final list of statistically significant phrases is basically a collection of short quotes that would be ideal to anyone wanting to fake up an alchemical text. They are so generally phrased as to be useless, yet accurate enough to fool people. It certainly doesn't prove anything about alchemy, that's for sure.
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Sun Feb 9th, 2014 05:58 am |
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Apparently he's written a companion volume which he is in the process of recompiling and which should be available from the same site very soon. That may shed some light on some of the idiosyncrasies of "Alchemy Deciphered".
He also appears to be the previously anonymous author of the The Book of Aquarius:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Book-Aquarius-Alchemy-Philosophers/dp/1451020163
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adammclean
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Posted: Sun Feb 9th, 2014 09:49 am |
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He also appears to be the previously anonymous author of the The Book of Aquarius:
I was hoping that one book from that author would suffice.
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Alan Pritchard
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Posted: Sun Mar 9th, 2014 12:59 pm |
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| Do we know which country he comes from?
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Paul Ferguson
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Posted: Sun Mar 9th, 2014 01:05 pm |
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Alan Pritchard wrote:
Do we know which country he comes from?
I believe the family is Hungarian. I have no idea whether he's related to Count Almásy, upon whom the main character of "The English Patient" was based:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A1szl%C3%B3_Alm%C3%A1sy
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