Posted by fachad on March 27, 2005, at 21:32:10
In reply to what do you think of these arguments?, posted by greg diamond on March 26, 2005, at 13:11:48
Below is an excerpt from an alchemical essay written in 1617. If you read between the lines, you will see that many of the issues we struggle with now have been questions reflective people have been asking for hundreds or even thousands of years.
I stuck a few of my "between the lines comments" into the text to suggest some possible lines of thought. My remarks are in parenthesis, to set them apart from the text. I hope you find this Alchemical manuscript interesting and suggestive in your inquiry.
****
A Subtle Allegory concerning the Secrets of Alchemy. By Michael Maier
I had heard that there was a bird called Phoenix, (or, a puvule called Prozac)...whose feathers and flesh (or neurotransmitter reuptake properties)... constitute the great and glorious medicine for all passion, pain, and sorrow;...
This bird I could not indeed hope to obtain entire, but I was seized with an irresistible longing to become possessed of at least one of its smallest feathers; (would you be satisfied with a partial response?)...and for this unspeakable privilege I was prepared to spend all my substance, to travel far and wide, and to endure every hardship.
There was, of course, much to discourage me. Some people denied the very existence of this bird; others laughed at my faith in its wonder-working properties (17th century Scientologists and anti-med naysayers?).
I was thus brought for a time to regard all that Tacitus, Pliny, and all other writers have said as fabulous, and to doubt whether, after all, the different narcotics and opiates were not a better remedy for anger and sorrow than the supposed virtues of the Phoenix (some here at Psychobabble have discussed opiates for depression).
Moreover, I had heard of the simple method of curing these mental ailments suggested by a certain wise man to Augustus, whom he bade run through the twenty-four letters before saying anything whenever he was angry; (compare with Cognitive Behavior Therapy or Rational Emotive Therapy) and this suggestion appeared to supersede all other remedies.
I had also read the books of those moral philosophers who undertake to prescribe an effective remedy for every disease of the mind. (was Dr. Phil blathering on way back in 1617?)
But after giving all these boasted specifics a fair trial, I found, to my dismay, that they were of little practical use.
(...HERE COMES THE BIOLOGICAL ETIOLOGY THEORY OF PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS, and nearly 400 years before the discovery of imipramine and the mono-amine hypothesis)
In many cases, the causes of mental maladies appeared to be material, and to consist in an excess or defect of the bile, or of some other bodily substance; in all these cases a medical treatment seemed to be indicated;
(that was written in 1617. There is nothing new under the sun.)
...whence Galen, that prince among physicians, was led to believe that character depends on temperaments of the body. As a soldier may lose all his bravery and strength by being starved and confined in a close prison, so even a good person may yield to anger, simply through some vicious habit of body...
What has been said about anger applies with equal force to grief; for while the symptoms of anger are more or less mental, those of grief produce a more perceptible and lasting effect on the body.
This great Remedy for anger and grief, then, it would be most desirable to have, if we could only find the Phoenix which affords it, Where shall I look for it? Where shall I enquire after it? Whom shall I ask?
A Subtle Allegory concerning the Secrets of Alchemy (very useful to possess and pleasant to read.) By Michael Maier
http://www.levity.com/alchemy/maier.html
poster:fachad
thread:475844
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20050326/msgs/476474.html