INTRODUCTION Did you ever wonder just how long a lifetime should really be? Or if it's possible, just barely possible that we could extend it a little? Sure you did. We all do at one time or another and the reason is that the very act of dying (apart from being monumentally [!] inconvenient) involves a tremendous waste of experience, ability and unfulfilled potential. What is even more to the point is that most of us have, at the very least, a sneaking suspicion that death itself serves no useful biological purpose and may very well prove to be entirely unnecessary. Mostly, thinking along these lines is inconsequential since we all feel, deep in our hearts, that we are unable to affect the issue one way or another. Push it a step further. What if it is possible to beat death? Why should death be inevitable? Well, that's what this book is all about. Death is not inevitable. It only appears that way as a result of our lifetime conditioning. Perhaps it is, after all, possible to side-step the inevitability of death! As I write, the average life span of our kind is about seventy years for a man (right in there with the biblical three score years and ten!). Women outlast their male counterparts by some seven or eight years. Nice, but hardly long enough to get excited about, is it? Things could be a lot worse, of course, and they were in times past, when living conditions left a lot to be desired. Measured against our current western standards the average life span was considerably less! Look at the following table. It will give you a better idea of just how short life has been at different times during the history of the race: Chronology Average Life Span Pre-historic 18 years Ancient Greece 20 years Ancient Rome 22 years Middle Ages 33 years 1750 AD 36 years 1900 AD 47 years 1939 AD 63 years 1949 AD 68 years 1988 AD 70 years The above figures relate only to the western world and are, of course, averages. They include infant deaths and the deaths of octogenarians and centenarians so the figures themselves are pretty abstract! Abstract or not, they're nothing to really brag about. Even when we examine a few longevity records (of people who died at an advanced age and for whom authentication records exist), it's still no big deal. In our own time, those of us who reach their ninth decade are considered to have had a pretty good run for their money. Those of us who make it to our tenth decade are encountered even less frequently. Making it much past the one hundred mark, say a hundred and four or a hundred and five is so unusual that it will get you a visit from a bunch of media reporters with nothing better to do with their time. They visit the nursing home or whatever and view the chronological celebrity. The celebrity probably has some little difficulty in communicating and in the majority of cases couldn't care less about the visit anyway. After the prescribed gushing, and talking very slowly and distinctly (as well as a couple of decibels too loudly) for ten minutes or so, they trundle back to their newspapers or studios. There, they will write some funny human interest stories about the celebrity and the reason that he or she has lived for such a long, long time. In fact, the celebrity hasn't the faintest idea of why he or she should have been so unfortunate as to go on living after everything and everyone meaningful has passed away. If anything, he or she is hoping that an unkind God didn't keep him, or her, alive this long just to meet the bunch of idiots who conducted the interview! Any age past a hundred and four or a hundred and five years is truly exceptional. It is even more exceptional if someone, somewhere can notch up a hundred and ten or a hundred and fifteen years of living. Doing so is guaranteed to catch the attention of the entire world. At least for an hour or so. A hundred and fifteen years of life is also about the maximum that the biologists will accept as the upper limit of life for the human animal. Anyhow, let's take a look at a cross-section of otherwise normal people who have lived, or who are reported to have lived for an abnormally long time. In the year 1980 the oldest living person in the entire world was one Shigechiyo Izumi, a Japanese citizen of Kagoshima. He was one hundred and fifteen years old in that year, but lived on until February 21, 1986 when he finally died at the age of one hundred and twenty years two hundred and thirty seven days. At the time of writing, the oldest living human is a French lady, Mme. Jeanne Calment. She celebrated her one hundred and twentieth birthday on February 21st. 1995!, her comment at the obligatory media interview? 'God has forgotten me!' The oldest person who ever lived (or at least the oldest who had a birthdate and a date of death that could be considered authentic) was a New Hebridean native who rejoiced in the name of Yaupa. Yaupa died of measles in the year 1899, at which time records showed that he was one hundred and thirty years old. History and legend (I sometimes wonder what the difference really is) mention many individuals who died at an age equal to or exceeding Yaupa's. One fairly recent example was a farm laborer known as 'Old Parr' who lived in England in the seventeenth century. Old Parr, or Thomas Parr, to give him his proper name, was even older than Shigechiyo Izumi. He was born in the year 1483 in Shropshire and he died in London, November 4th. 1635, aged one hundred and fifty two years. An agricultural laborer in his native Shropshire, he was forced to give up working in the fields at the age of one hundred and thirty, when his eyesight began to fail. That was about all that did fail Old Parr! He married for the first time when he was eighty years of age and fathered an illegitimate child at the age of one hundred and six! Who says that it's all in your mind? Tom might have fathered a couple more but unfortunately for him the Earl of Arundel heard about his extreme age. The result was that when Tom was a sprightly one hundred and fifty one year old, the Earl hit upon the bright idea of presenting Old Parr to the court of King Charles I, in London. The journey, which Old Parr made in a litter, was very successful. At least, as far as the Earl was concerned. Tom was the celebrity of the month and everyone who was anyone vied one with the other to entertain him. King Charles himself showed a personal interest and the Earl gained stature thereby. Unfortunately, the sudden change of diet, from the frugal bread and cheese plus a pint of wallop at home,to the rich and varied diet of the court was too much for Old Parr. He tried to hold his end up, but it was just too rich for his aged constitution and he cashed in his chips forthwith. The Kings personal physician examined the body and his probably valid opinion was that Tom would have lasted a year or so longer had he not made the trip to London. As an aside, the good doctor reported that the body was covered from head to foot with a healthy coat of soft, fine hair. Maybe that's what you get from Tom-catting around. (Sorry about that!). Parr's age has never been really authenticated. I doubt it ever will be after this time, but every effort was made to prove or disprove Tom's real age. There is no reason to disbelieve contemporary accounts, but they just will not stand up to the rigid standards of the present day. Sad, but the Old Parr investigation simply didn't come up with the requisite piece of paper and because of this, his remarkable life-span has been consigned to legend along with the Unicorn and the Wyvern. Legend is actually a pretty good place to look for other oldsters. Records were pretty spotty in and around the middle ages (and even later for that matter) yet stories keep cropping up in the contemporary and later literature about individuals who lived far longer that Old Parr, sometimes for hundreds of years longer. Of course, they are only stories are they not? Yet on this basis, at least two of the old time Alchemists could still be alive, even though a few hundreds of years have passed since their birth. There are quite a number of other possibilities, but the following two examples are my favorites. The first is Perenelle Flamel, a French seventeenth century Alchemist and the wife of Nicolas Flamel, who was an Alchemist himself. Nicolas admitted that his wife was quite capable of making the projection that resulted in the Elixir, or the transfiguration of the Alchemist. He himself was reputed to have changed base metals into gold and he certainly died a rich man in his eighty seventh year. Not so Perenelle. On the death of her husband she simply vanished from the scene like the intelligent woman she was and maybe still is. Another seventeenth century Frenchman, M. le Comte de St. Germain, was also believed to be an Alchemist. He kept a higher profile than the Flamels but his origin is unknown and nothing at all is known about his early years. Even his title was nothing more than a polite fiction accepted by the circle in which he moved. It was in fact taken from the name of St. Germaine, a suburb of medieval Paris. Other than this, it is well established that the Count first appeared on the social scene of the French capital somewhere around the year 1710, at which time he had already reached maturity. He maintained some sort of a presence in Paris until about the year 1822, at which time he must have been at least a hundred and forty two years old. Obviously, if the Count was extraordinarily long-lived, it is also conceivable that he was born before the year 1680 (just a guess that would put him at about thirty years old when he first 'came out'). Perhaps even a very long time before! He was recognized at the signing of the American Declaration of Independence (Ben Franklin spent a lot of time in France and he and St. Germain would have been kindred souls. Such a relationship would certainly have explained his presence). He made at least one more appearance. In the early 1960's he contacted and met with one of the authors of the books 'The Morning of the Magicians' and 'Impossible Possibilities', Jaques Bergier and Louis Pauwels. Now there is really no moral to be found in the foregoing. They are just a few stories about some unusual people who seem to have lived for a long time. In some cases, a very long time! If there is any truth to them, then the Count of St. Germain has been around for over three hundred years! The stories simply serve to underline the fact that in all probability we do not have to die quite so early as we do. We could live for a lot longer. Quite a concept, isn't it? Immortality. The ability to live forever (or at least, for a very long time) with the appearance and abilities of youth (it's not such an attractive proposition without it). So, why do we die? Why does death appear to be inevitable? There is absolutely no biological reason why we do not live far, far longer than we actually do. We could, and should live for a lot longer. I'll tell you why. We generally shuffle off this mortal coil after a measly eight or nine decades because we are programmed to do so! Millions of year ago someone, or something, was forced into making a decision. The decision was how the very primitive life form that would eventually evolve into humanity would better survive as a species. This in an environment where ninety five percent of the flora and fauna spent their time in killing and eating each other one hundred percent of the time! Someone, or something was faced with two possibilities. A choice between a high rate of reproduction combined with early maturity, or extended longevity. Either choice would achieve the desired result. Someone, or something performed the equivalent of flipping a coin. It came down tails and a high reproductive rate won out. We don't have a high reproductive rate anymore, but we don't have much in the way of longevity to compensate for the loss either! So, what has happened is that we are stuck with an out of date program in our chromosomes and literally, it's killing us! Fortunately, what has been done once can be done again, only this time we have to do it to ourselves. It is feasible for us to re-program our biological computer, although we will be using genes instead of bytes. We can reverse that flip of a coin and switch over to longevity. When we can do this, immortality is available. Have no doubts about that. The point is, what kind of immortality are we talking about? There is more that one kind, or at least there is more than one concept of immortality and some of them are unacceptable to our western society. Who, for example, wants to stay alive in a body that continues to age? Immortality has to be more attractive than that. Furthermore, we of the West have developed a different cultural mindset than those of the East. This is the result of a lifetime spent within a set of established values and concepts, both social and cultural with which we are entirely comfortable. Just as we are comfortable with the concept of an eternally youthful immortality that such factors instill into us. This is what we must have! It is different for us. We cannot empathize with the immortality of the Hindu, who anticipates re-absorption into the Universal Spirit after death. Nor can we empathize with the even less appealing post-mortem achievement of Nirvana by the orthodox Bhuddist, which calls for the total extinction of personality! To the Western mind the appeal of practical immortality could very well mean tramping down some dusty lane on a newly colonized earth type planet in another star system several hundreds of years from now in the still distant future. Or perhaps undertaking some self-imposed task or responsibility that would require several normal lifetimes to achieve a particular desired result. It could mean that you have the choice to either become a major player in molding the continuing history of the race, or standing, and living contentedly on the sidelines as an observer rather than a participant. But whatever it is, it will be your choice to make. This kind of immortality is available in the here-and-now. Real immortality. Practical immortality. Once you can accept the fact that it really exists, that it really is a viable option, then you are almost ready to make both a decision and a commitment. Personal immortality is not a new concept. Since pre- historic times our society has not only been aware of the possibility, we have actively and consistently sought to capture it and, against all the odds, some of did exactly that. How did this awareness and subsequent research come to take place? Well, anyone discussing the pre-historic search for longer life is skating on pretty thin ice. In spite of that, there are still indications and logical inference that such a search was taking place very early in the game. I believe that the emergence of what is essentially modern man (Homo Sapiens, or Cro-Magnon as he is frequently called), and the disappearance of his immediate predecessor, Homo Neanderthal which took place about and around forty thousand years or so ago, marks the beginning of the attempt to gain individual immortality. Neanderthal was not quite capable of executing the essential mental technique, which is, and was, supported almost entirely by the facility of fluent and rapid speech. Not that Neanderthal wasn't intelligent enough to comprehend the quest, for he was. It was simply that his mental processes and response time were not quite fast enough. On top of that, his underdeveloped pharynx, which is essential to the facility of speech, limited his use of language and verbal communication. Due to these drawbacks, Neanderthal, while he could communicate, was only able to do so at about one seventh the speed of you or I. Not his fault, but the lack of these two physical properties were sufficient to ensure that he did not make the 'A' team. His successor, Cro-Magnon, or modern man, was sufficiently advanced to develop not only a fluid and fluent speech system but also a fairly sophisticated theology and a supporting caste devoted to interfacing between the totemistic Gods and the people. The interfacing caste were the Shamans, and Shamanism was probably the social mechanism that enabled the discovery of the immortality technique. That the knowledge or the search for immortality did continue throughout the period of time dividing pre-history from history is a little easier to establish. The Egyptian Book of the Dead is devoted to immortality, albeit the post-mortem kind. It does, however, underline a racial awareness of immortality and although it is devoted to the Egyptian cult of death it may be inferred that immortality per se was already incorporated into the human psyche. The earliest versions, or component parts of the Book of the Dead date back to the immediate beginnings of the historical period and it has been shown that they originated in folklore and legend that pre-date even that. As you can see, about the only literary baggage that carried forwards from the pre-historic to the historic period is a tradition of immortality! It is an unfortunate fact that the majority of the Egyptian religions got sidetracked into the life after death type concept, since it dominated their religious thinking for thousands of years and produced little of value in the search for personal physical immortality. Oddly, the fellaheen accepted this pie in the sky type of immortality just as easily as most of use have accepted the same thing offered to us by the priesthood of the Christian religion! Actually, this sidetracking was not quite as complete as it may appear. The priests of the Egyptian God Thoth, for example. They possessed the secret of immortality and they nurtured and developed it into the system that is still with us. Although one may imagine that the knowledge was concealed not only from the mass of believers, but also from other priestly organizations. The first recorded awareness of mankind's knowledge of and desire for immortality dates back to about 2000 BC That's about two thousand years on this side of the historic/pre- historic dividing line. An archeological excavation uncovered twelve baked clay tablets, each covered with incised cuneiform writing. Translated, the tablets turned out to be a copy of the worlds first epic novel, the story of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh was a tyrannical Babylonian king who ruled the city of Erech (now Warka, Iraq) and who among other things sought personal immortality. Cutting it short, it appears that Gilgamesh and his partner, Enkidu, were roaming ancient Iraq like a couple of early day knight-errants. Enkidu was killed in one of their adventures and Gilgamesh was left to search for immortality on his own. He finally learned that immortality was bestowed by an aquatic plant growing in the sea and for which he immediately commenced a search. Like all heroes, he found the object of his search but for some reason lost the plant before he could eat it and become immortal. On a more useful and practical level than eating seaweed is the mythical recovery of the famous Emerald Tablet from the tomb of Hermes Trismegistos (thrice blessed, Priest, Philosopher and King). It is this tablet that gives us the first recorded description of the meaning of the Alchemical work, together with the first written clues needed to achieve personal and practical immortality. I have included a more detailed description of the Emerald Tablet and the twelve Hermetic precepts which are engraved upon it, in the chapter devoted to Alchemy. To comprehend these precepts requires some background study and a little heavy thinking, but I believe you will agree that it is worth it. The Tablet, together with other indications culled from a wide variety of Alchemical texts show that the (now) Alchemical technique for achieving immortality was discovered, researched, refined and practiced many thousands of years ago. Long before its association with Alchemy. It serves to re-affirm the fact that the principle involved was discovered very early in the history of our race. This brings up another point. It is a matter of some importance to your own progress that you learn never to downplay the findings of individuals who lived in earlier times than our own. It is an unfortunate pre-disposition of our kind to assume that intelligence must of necessity advance hand-in-hand with technology. This is not so. Our ancestors were just as sharp as we like to think we are! Down through the countless ages, men and women with an intellectual capability at least equal to our own, have devoted a great deal of productive time and study to this most important of subjects. They were able to evolve their own techniques, and not only have these techniques withstood the acid test of time, they have also been shown to be remarkably similar to any of the versions that were developed closer to our own era. This similarity is not really remarkable. The techniques available to any pre-mechanistic, pre-technological cultures are bound to display many points of similarity. As a matter of fact, the similarity is due as much to the fact that what really happened is that the same process was discovered and re-discovered many times! Logic alone dictates that all of these discoveries involve the science of the mind and are limited to mental disciplines and practices. They have included hypnosis and perhaps, occasionally, the use of drugs. Without the technological advances of the last quarter of a century or so, there were very few other viable options. Nowadays there are a few more options than has erstwhile proven to be the case and one of them is genetic engineering. In this case the promise of immortality is based upon instrumental gene manipulation and may very well prove to be the method of choice sometime in the future. For the present however, neither the knowledge or the techniques required to locate and manipulate the genes controlling the aging process are available. Correction! They are not believed to be available! Yet! But even if such knowledge and techniques were to become available, the tremendous cost involved is likely to ensure that anti-aging treatments will probably be limited to the financial, intellectual and political elite. This is only to be expected in the society in which we live, so it will hardly come as a surprise. Fortunately, genetic engineering, while showing great promise, is not and never will be the only route to immortality!