| It is incumbent on any serious student of the sages to | | | | wisdom in all philosophy and the verbiage or jargon |
| actually study what system of thought they were part | | | | can send a lay person into paroxysms or convulsions |
| of, I think. But how many scholars are alchemists? It | | | | of laughter given the oxymoronic nature of defining |
| would be difficult to be a paradigm academic person | | | | wisdom. I will endeavor to simplify and make less use |
| and retain the kind of involvement an alchemist must | | | | of the obfuscating semantical diatribes. But beyond the |
| have. It was even difficult for Socrates and Aristotle in | | | | semantics of academics lies archetypes and codes |
| far less socially controlled times. I am regarded by high | | | | that must be understood if we are to pierce |
| Rosicrucians I have met - as an alchemist. I have | | | | somewhat the nature of Socrates and Plato or other |
| demonstrated to them - in advance in one case - that I | | | | humanist/alchemist/sages. The Socratian Dialectic or |
| am adept! So you can be assured that my point of | | | | 'questioning' has much to offer society at present, as I |
| view is unique in regards to Plato, Socrates and other | | | | see it. |
| alchemists or humanists who have blessed the world | | | | "Thus we find that John of Salisbury, Lambert of |
| with their great works and the over-arching Great | | | | Auxerre, and Albert the Great--in discussing 'methodus' |
| Work we all must aspire to. That Great Work includes | | | | as they found it in Boethius' translation of the Topics or |
| the Great Architect of the Masonic religion and it is | | | | in the standard medieval definition of dialectic--tended |
| akin to Intelligent Design. | | | | to emphasize the point that method is a short cut to |
| So I humbly agree and disagree with Borro who knew | | | | knowledge, or a short art or compendium. As yet, |
| the method of Aristotle well enough to see that | | | | however, no very well-developed doctrine went with |
| Aristotle himself said a few years of studying science | | | | this rather vague formulation, which, as we have seen, |
| did not allow one to rise past the method itself and yet | | | | is somewhat foreign to both Plato and Aristotle, and |
| Borro did not adequately address the devious affect | | | | which yet purported to be a 'Greek' notion. In fact, |
| of Direct Inferential injection of theory upon the | | | | 'methodus' did not become a common philosophical |
| observations of reality that a true science must | | | | term until much later, in the Renaissance, when, as |
| achieve. But Borro was not alone in this, and most of | | | | Melanchton observed, it was adopted by 'the |
| science still fails to integrate and apply their 'gradualistic' | | | | dialecticians' for the most correct order of explication." |
| or 'reductivist' opinions to a reality that includes ethereal | | | | (2) |
| things. In fact many scientists reject the ether exists at | | | | All right, maybe this is true--but we must question the |
| all. | | | | specialized de-construction of the early thinking which |
| In the last decade I have taken it upon myself to | | | | was more whole and integrated. The sophists that |
| create a whole new history of man's cultural | | | | Socrates railed against can appear in many forms and |
| development which shows Pythagoras was actually | | | | even Hume and Ayer in a far later time seem quite |
| not the first sage or alchemist. That kind of fiction is | | | | sophistic despite their attempt to denounce mere |
| the work of people who sought to claim all | | | | sophistry. Things are not always as easy as they |
| advancement was of their own making as they | | | | might appear, to say the least. Words are part of the |
| developed Empires and refined various means of | | | | way we think it would appear. I think Socrates and |
| enslaving people. These same Spin-doctors try to say | | | | Plato were less affected by the meaning attached to |
| there was no Hermetic School of thought or no | | | | words partially because Plato observed that disciplined |
| alchemy until after the time of Christ. | | | | knowledge or wisdom had diminished in the millennium |
| In 1960 Dr. Neal Ward Gilbert wrote Renaissance | | | | since the Phoenicians gave them a writing alphabet. |
| Concepts of Method which was reprinted in 1963. He | | | | "But it is not clear what Hume took their 'sophistry and |
| documents the debate that "Foreshadowed the great | | | | illusion' to be, precisely speaking. It is not clear, either, to |
| expansion of scientific research" in the ensuing years. | | | | what extent his own philosophical practice and |
| (1) I side with Peter Ramus who proposed that the | | | | propositions require us to revise and loosen his two |
| Aristotelian science is not different than the Humanist | | | | criteria for what is not sophistry and illusion. |
| pedagogical efficiency. I know the Humanists include | | | | In speaking of necessarily true propositions, Ayer |
| the great sages or alchemists including Aristotle. | | | | evidently has in mind much more than the contents of |
| Unfortunately the academic world hides the book The | | | | formal logic and pure mathematics. He takes it that all |
| Secretum Secretorum which was a letter to | | | | these necessarily true propositions are merely analytic. |
| Alexander explaining alchemy. Thus I will have to get | | | | That is, they are not made true by any necessities in |
| past the Euro-centric propaganda that hides the | | | | the world, any natural necessities, but just by meanings |
| alchemical root of the teaching of the family of | | | | of words alone and the logical structures into which |
| Merovingians including Yeshua again. There is a great | | | | they enter. |
| deal of circumlocution and vague attempts to distill | | | | |