In Indian Alchemy Dr. Mahdihassan attempts to elucidate the point that Alchemy is a science through which the higher states of being reveal themselves with the matrix of spatio-temporal world. It is a science that is directly related to temporal levels of the universal hierarchy which is totally beyond the reach of any of the profane methods employed during the past century.
“[A] brilliant disquisition on . . . mostly unpublished texts for three allied systems of tantric thought and praxis (sexual, alchemical, and hatha yogic).” —The Journal of Asian Studies The Alchemical Body excavates and centers within its Indian context the lost tradition of the medieval Siddhas. Working from previously unexplored alchemical sources, David Gordon White demonstrates for the first time that the medieval disciplines of Hindu alchemy and hatha yoga were practiced by one and the same people, and that they can be understood only when viewed together. White opens the way to a new and more comprehensive understanding of medieval Indian mysticism, within the broader context of south Asian Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, and Islam. “White proves a skillful guide in disentangling historical and theoretical complexities that have thus far bedeviled the study of these influential aspects of medieval Indian culture.” —Yoga World “Anyone seriously interested in finding out more about authentic tantra, original hatha yoga, embodied liberation . . . sacred sexuality, paranormal abilities, healing, and of course alchemy will find White’s extraordinary book as fascinating as any Tom Clancy thriller.” —Georg Feuerstein, Yoga Journal “Remarkable . . . a study of the language of mystic experience and expression—the multitudinous symbols, rituals, and doctrines of the medieval siddhis, yogis, and alchemists.” —Skeptic Meditations
Description: The book is an epoch-making work - a paradigm-shift in Vedic studies, which identifies soma as electrum (gold-silver metallic compound). Soma is referred to in the Rgveda as the soul of the yajna (atmayajnasya). The path-breaking identification is based on textual evidence and a penetrating analysis of the Indian alchemical tradition, spanning nearly five millennia. The author is also the discoverer of the integrating role-played by the mighty Sarasvati river adored in the Rgveda as the best of mothers, best of rivers and best of Goddesses. Sarasvati and soma are no longer mythology but relevant to present-day children, respectively, as the repository of groundwater sanctuaries in North-West India and the metallurgical tradition starting with the bronze age civilization, c. 3000 BC. Sarasvati and soma are the symbols of the great Indian traditions of Devi worship and personification and deification of natural, material phenomena. The Tirthas along the rivers are reminders of the critical nature of water management problems all over India and soma as an integral part of the yajna process, is the embodiment of the scientific, technological and materialist temper of ancient India. Contents Preface Introduction 1. Gold and the Grammar of Money in Antiquity 2. Indus : Roots of Alchemy 3. Yaksa : Alchemical Potential and Transmutation 4. Soma and Alchemy 5. Brahmanas : Aurifiction 6. Alchemy as a State Enterprise 7. Political Economy of Alchemy 8. Siddha and Tantric Alchemy 9. Apparatus, Terms, and Symbols Conclusions A Survey of Sources for History of Alchemy
The Tantric Alchemist is a work on alchemy as decoded by Tantra and a work on Tantra as understood by alchemists. It uncovers works by Thomas Vaughan and suggests how he and his wife—a 17th-century Welsh couple unique in the history of western alchemy—met their fate when dealing with forces they knew only too well, but which were stronger than their ability to control them. Using the works of Vaughan as his text, Levenda applies the “twilight language” of Tantra to the surreal prose of the alchemist and in the process lays bare the lineaments of the arcane tradition that gave rise to the legend of Christian Rosenkreutz, the reputed founder of Rosicrucianism who learned his art in the East; and to the 19th- and 20th-century occult movements lead by such luminaries as P.B. Randolph, Theodore Reuss, Helena Blavatsky, and Aleister Crowley who also sought (and discovered) this technology in the religions and cultures of Asia. Readers will find that the many disparate threads of an authentic spiritual tradition are woven together here in a startling tapestry that reveals—without pretense or euphemism—the psycho-sexual technique that is at the root of both Tantra and alchemy: that is to say, of both Asian and European forms of esoteric praxis.
Named 'Top 6' South Asia studies publications of 2016 by the British Association for South Asian Studies The Alchemy of Empire unravels the non-European origins of Enlightenment science. Focusing on the abject materials of empire-building, this study traces the genealogies of substances like mud, mortar, ice, and paper, as well as forms of knowledge like inoculation. Showing how East India Company employees deployed the paradigm of alchemy in order to make sense of the new worlds they confronted, Rajani Sudan argues that the Enlightenment was born largely out of Europe’s (and Britain’s) sense of insecurity and inferiority in the early modern world. Plumbing the depths of the imperial archive, Sudan uncovers the history of the British Enlightenment in the literary artifacts of the long eighteenth century, from the correspondence of the East India Company and the papers of the Royal Society to the poetry of Alexander Pope and the novels of Jane Austen.
Reacting to the perception that the break, early on in the scientific revolution, between alchemy and chemistry was clean and abrupt, Moran literately and engagingly recaps what was actually a slow process. Far from being the superstitious amalgam it is now considered, alchemy was genuine science before and during the scientific revolution. The distinctive alchemical procedure--distillation--became the fundamental method of analytical chemistry, and the alchemical goal of transmuting "base metals" into gold and silver led to the understanding of compounds and elements. What alchemy very gradually but finally lost in giving way to chemistry was its spiritual or religious aspect, the linkages it discerned between purely physical and psychological properties. Drawing saliently from the most influential alchemical and scientific texts of the medieval to modern epoch (especially the turbulent and eventful seventeenth century), Moran fashions a model short history of science volume
More than magic... Where else can one combine chemistry and philosophy to turn base metal into gold while discovering a magical elixir to prolong life? Here's a simple and straightforward guide to alchemy that explains its basic principles. Written by one of the world's few practicing alchemists, it's a concise reference guide that provides easy-to-follow information so that anybody can be a wizard-in-training.
"What emerges from Kachru's fine work is the potential demarcation of an entire field, rather than merely the fruitful exploration of a topic. . . . [Kachru] is to be congratulated for having taken us as far as he already has and for doing so in so stimulating and so productive a fashion." -- World Englishes "A potent addition to theoretical, sociolinguistic, attitudinal and methodological explorations vis-à-vis the spread and functions of, and innovations in, English from the viewpoint of a non-Western scholar." -- The Language Teacher Winner of the Joint First Prize, Duke of Edinburgh English Language Book Competition of the English-Speaking Union of the Commonwealth, 1987
