Things they get wrong: Some of them believe in rebirth, too much reverence for “ancient masters” without good reevaluation, some believe in weird miracles.
I kept waiting for ‘alchemy’ and immortality to show up in your list!
I recently read through an anthology of Taoist texts, and essentially every single thing postdating the Lieh Tzu or the Huai-nan Tzu (-200s) was absolute rubbish, but the preceding texts were great. I’ve always found this abrupt disintegration very odd.
I kept waiting for ‘alchemy’ and immortality to show up in your list!
Know what alchemy’s good for? Art and its production. Terrible chemistry, great for creation of art.
Know what’s actually a good text for this angle on alchemy? Promethea by Alan Moore, in which he sets out his entire system. (Not only educational, but a fantastic book that is at least as good as his famous ’80s stuff.)
Respectfully disagree. I found Promethea to be poorly executed. There was a decent idea somewhere in there, but I think he was too distracted by the magic system to find it.
One exception—the aside about how the Christian and Muslim Prometheas fought during the Crusades. That was nicely done.
Yeah, the plot suffers bits falling off the end. Not the sides, thankfully. I think it’s at least as coherent as Miracleman, and nevertheless remains an excellent exposition of alchemy and art.
I kept waiting for ‘alchemy’ and immortality to show up in your list!
I recently read through an anthology of Taoist texts, and essentially every single thing postdating the Lieh Tzu or the Huai-nan Tzu (-200s) was absolute rubbish, but the preceding texts were great. I’ve always found this abrupt disintegration very odd.
Know what alchemy’s good for? Art and its production. Terrible chemistry, great for creation of art.
Know what’s actually a good text for this angle on alchemy? Promethea by Alan Moore, in which he sets out his entire system. (Not only educational, but a fantastic book that is at least as good as his famous ’80s stuff.)
Respectfully disagree. I found Promethea to be poorly executed. There was a decent idea somewhere in there, but I think he was too distracted by the magic system to find it.
One exception—the aside about how the Christian and Muslim Prometheas fought during the Crusades. That was nicely done.
Yeah, the plot suffers bits falling off the end. Not the sides, thankfully. I think it’s at least as coherent as Miracleman, and nevertheless remains an excellent exposition of alchemy and art.