1985-1990

In the Bodleian, I devoured hundreds of rare volumes of mediaeval and renaissance science, magic, mysticism and alchemy, including the works of: Roger Bacon; Cardano; Gesner; Bruno; Della Porta; Campanella; Scaliger; Casaubon; Maier; and Kircher. In early 1986, I discovered the necessity to examine the archaeology of Egypt, the land of the origin of alchemy. In the Griffith Institute, I read many volumes of Egyptology and investigated the archive of Howard Carter, his notes and manuscripts, as well as the photographic archive of the tomb of Tutankhamun.

I visited Joseph Needham and Lu Gwei Djen in Cambridge to discuss the importance of psychoactive substances in Chinese alchemy and its emergence from Taoist shamanism, in the context of the immense Chinese pharmacopoeia.

I investigated the biographies of many British intellectuals and discovered their study and use of psychoactive substances: Roger Bacon; King Henry VIII; Thomas More; Thomas Linacre; Walter Raleigh; Dr. John Dee; Francis Bacon; Robert Fludd; Kenelm Digby; Elias Ashmole; Robert Boyle; Christopher Wren and John Locke.

As a typical Victorian case history, I examined the biography of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who wrote classical children's literature under the name 'Lewis Carroll' and discovered a plethora of evidence for his vast knowledge of the psychoactive properties of mushrooms and many other powerful plant hallucinogens.

In the Museum of the History of Science, I was the first to read the manuscripts of Henry Ernest Stapleton, the great historian of Islamic alchemy. During the mediaeval, the Islamic alchemists were among the world's leading pharmacists, and they recorded their esoteric traditions in a brilliant body of literature, the Islamic alchemical corpus. Jabir ibn Hayyan wrote a vast collection of treatises on alchemy and one of the most important catalogues of drugs in world history. Jabir's successor as the leading alchemist of the Islamic world, Ar-Razi, recorded the secret tradition of Egyptian alchemy, as transmitted by the pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Democritus. The Islamic alchemists operated a broader programme of scientific exploration than we do today, and, at some point in the future, modern science will recognize that it is deeply indebted to their foresight.

1990-1999

In conversations with Oxford's chemists, I confirmed the importance of faunal materia medica in the extraction of alkaloids in esoteric alchemy. In a casual conversation over tea, Graham Richards suggested the importance of tryptophan in the early chemistry of psychoactive substances, and Jeremy Robertson tutored me in the classical strategies of alkaloid identification, via aggressive extraction procedures with metallic salts.

In the 1990s, I have deepened my investigations into the Islamic alchemical corpus and continued to examine Chinese alchemy. The emergence of a coherent academic specialisation in narcotic archaeology in Oxford has been a welcome development, and, after years devoid of any academic interest in the subject, I am delighted that scholars are boldly entering a field of enquiry which is by definition, controversial.

I look forward to the continuation of my research into esoteric Taoism and the variety of shamanistic practices of heightened awareness: healing; seeing, dreaming and the full gamut of extra-sensory perception (remote-viewing, precognition, telekinesis and telepathy). A great deal of scientific research into extra-sensory perception has been witheld from publication, due to government security. Several governments have financed secret research programmes into extra-sensory perception, which have obtained crucial results in: remote viewing (clairvoyance); precognition (divination); telekinesis and telepathy. The scientists who have participated in these programmes will eventually publish their findings. Few, if any of them realise that they are merely rediscovering the lost sciences of shamanism, magic and alchemy.

Today, I believe that western medicine is coalescing with traditional medical theory from the Orient, a refinement which will lead to many advancements. This process, which is well underway in medicine, will eventually extend into the more traditional sciences, through psychology, biology, physics and chemistry. New fundamental theories for physical processes will emerge from this synthesis, and the centre of gravity for scientific enquiry will shift from theoretical physics to physical chemistry. These developments will have direct relevance for our understanding of the operations of the brain, and neurochemistry will become the epicentre of a new phase of discovery in medical history. After the dissolution of the Cartesian barrier, the expansion of the boundaries of science will encompass a great deal more data into psychology. A new understanding of the properties of the mind is already emerging. The scientific interpretation of consciousness will occupy the centre ground of a new era of revolutionary science.

The possibilities for advancements in science, medicine and psychology are among the most hopeful probabilities in the future of our civilisation, which is replete with a chaotic and dangerous lack of respect for technology, that has produced doomsday devices, biological warfare and the multi-faceted contamination of the environment.

2000 MICHAEL CARMICHAEL - Alchemy Online. All Rights Reserved.

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