“Human beings can be born without natural parents,” wrote the physician, astrologer and alchemist Paracelsus in De Natura Rerum. “In other words, these creatures can grow up without being born and born of a female organism, through the skill of a skilled alchemist.”

Thus, in parallel with artificial insemination, a trend developed that suggested the possibility of creating a person asexually. Later, this method of obtaining people will be called "in virto", "from a test tube".

There is a legend according to which Paracelsus grew homunculi, for which he was persecuted. Most scientists completely deny this possibility.

However, even Moleschott, Liebig and Goethe believed in the possibility of artificial creation of people.

There are historical facts that suggest that in some cases such experiments have led to success. In 1775, Count von Küfstein in Tyrol produced certain creatures, which he called "spirits". The assistant of the said count left diaries, from which it followed that as a result of alchemical experiments, ten human essences were obtained in sealed bottles.

The spirits floated in these huge bottles and were about 23 cm in size. Later, the creatures grew to about 35 cm, they showed secondary sexual characteristics (beards in men). The count fed these creatures every three or four days with some substance in the form of balls the size of a pea, once a week he changed the bottled water to clean rainwater.

In the air, the "spirits" lost consciousness. These "genies in bottles" were used during Masonic meetings for divination. These predictions were usually confirmed, which is attested by Masonic manuscripts and books, which are referred to, for example, by the German physician Franz Hartmann, who left us a biography of Paracelsus.
Further events with the spirits are completely detective in nature.

One of the homunculi ("monk") died when the bottle accidentally broke. The second ("king") escaped from his bottle, but was caught and put back in place. The terrified count, who brought all this devilry to life, began to pray for sins and save his soul. In the future, he got rid of the homunculi by destroying them.

There were witnesses of this experiment - well-known personalities of that time in the history. According to their testimony, the homunculi had visible and tangible bodies, spoke and acted like people. If the information given in the records is suddenly correct, then this case remains, perhaps, the unsolved mystery of the successful search for an artificial creation of a person or a human-like creature.

In the 17th and 18th centuries, there were legends about artificial people who appeared here and there, who served their masters, met guests, etc. They say how Rousseau (or Voltaire) once visited a monk friend. At the garden gate, the guest was met by a man who escorted him home. Something strange seemed in the movements and voice of the "servant", in which then a mechanical man was revealed. Enraged by the blasphemy of the host, the guest smashed the mechanical servant to pieces with the help of his cane and left in anger. Perhaps this is how one of the first biorobots died.

The Austrian writer Meyrink called one such creation, supposedly man-made, the Golem. Created on Alchemists Street in old Prague, in the Jewish ghetto, this creature was the embodiment of ancient Jewish beliefs in the possibility of creating artificial people, captured in the Talmud, Torah, Kabbalah.

The golem was a wax man created in ancient times and periodically appeared in the Jewish quarter. The golem terrified people. Such is the legend.

This legend focuses on the dream of people, preserved in esoteric books, about the repetition of the act of divine creation of the human mind. Mechanical people subsequently found a brilliant embodiment in robots that moved, spoke, taught, worked. They were anthropomorphic.

In 1933, the robot lecturer became famous in the United States. He could unbutton his shirt, reveal a transparent chest and belly, and give a 20-minute lecture on the structure and function of human organs. It was a completely anthropomorphic robot that mysteriously inherited from people their main vice - aggressiveness and the ability to destroy.

The robot killed its creator. When he tried to improve its design, the steel "hand" of the machine suddenly fell on the inventor's head. The designer died in the hospital from a skull injury.

Virtual reality is a reality created with the help of computers and the means of modern electronics, video technology, engineering psychology and physiology. This is a complete imitation of the properties of the surrounding world. With the advent of neurocomputers, a real opportunity arose to almost completely simulate the work of the human brain. Although a neurocomputer is an ordinary machine consisting of microcircuits, it is very intelligent and even surpasses a person in terms of speed, ability to distinguish and recognize, and analyze the situation.

With the help of neural computer networks, specialists create programs for identifying galaxies, diagnosing diseases, optimizing banking operations, and predicting the strategy of scientific research.

But perhaps the most striking thing about the use of computerization to model the human mind and its other properties and functions is the ability to program a virtual person that is being discussed today. In one version it looks like this. Suppose that with the help of the latest biophysiological and medical-cybernetic technology, it was possible to capture the physiological parameters of the human brain of a newborn.

Entered into a computer and evolving further according to a certain program (symbolizing the growth and development of the "organism"), they will eventually lead to the emergence of artificial intelligence similar to natural. There may be a human phantom in a computer version. He will think, it will be possible to communicate with him, he will have age, character, temperament.

The “virtual man” will in principle be similar in everything to the legendary “spirits” of Count von Kufstein from Tyrol or the homunculi of Paracelsus, but at the same time it will be enclosed not in a bottle of water, but in the electronic “habitat” of a computer. A virtual person is “grown” in the electronic bowels of a computer in a very real time scale, “growing” and “developing” into an adult in parallel with a natural prototype (however, everything depends on the program, and there may be accelerated development).

In April 1994, a special commission of the US Congress decided to acquaint the public with a unique experiment on scanning the human brain (it was about a baby named Sid, doomed to die). The scan data were entered into the so-called cluster computer - a network of personal computers throughout the country.

The information taken from the neurons of the brain began to live its own life in the electronic Looking Glass, developing in accordance with the program laid down by the experimenters. A virtual child (the real one died shortly after the experiment), “grown up” to the age of three, allegedly even communicated with his parents through multimedia systems and holographic equipment equipped in the house.

Three-dimensional computer models of people are being successfully created. Already now they serve as a manual for doctors. Virtual people can be given movement, the ability to act, to talk. This is how already dead artists and scientists can be “revived”.

Consequently, in visual and acoustic terms, artificial computer people have already been created. It is expected that in the foreseeable future, there may be communication with the virtual world at the level of tactile sensations, smells, and taste. Fantasts wrote about computer sex with virtual partners. This has now become a reality. Reality overtook the alchemists' dreams of an artificial intelligent anthropomorphic creature.

The direction "in virto" does not die either. Such studies are being carried out in many countries. The pioneer of this direction in our time was the Italian researcher Petruchio.

In the middle of the 20th century, Petruchio conducted experiments that became a sensation at that time. He managed to grow a human embryo in a test tube to the state when it is born. The question arose as to what to do next. Science has been silent so far.

It is extremely difficult to grow a completely artificial person, and Petruchio was forced to interrupt the experiment. The press of those years wrote a lot about this promising undertaking, while the Church reacted extremely negatively to the experiments. It was believed that such an embryo could not have a soul.

Petruchio's experiments were further developed in attempts to grow a living organism using lower animals: fish, frogs, and warm-blooded animals such as sheep and rabbits. Paracelsus' idea of ​​growing an organism from a single cell proved to be productive. It has been confirmed by genetic studies.

However, if Paracelsus had to obtain a living organism from a male seed, then according to modern views this is possible from almost any cell of the body, not necessarily a sexual one. Each cell of the body, according to geneticists, carries a complete set of hereditary information.

The whole question is how to make it work. It turns out that if you “cut off” one single cell, say, from the skin of a finger, then even from this seemingly genetically neutral substance, you can grow an embryo.

Further, the heads of the researchers began to spin! The prospect of repeating countless individuals of the same creature, say, a person, opened up. In the fantasies of scientists and unlearned men, enticing distances of receiving hundreds of Einsteins, Galileans, etc. were drawn. If only there were, somehow the cells of great people remained. Someone was already thinking about the revival of the Fuhrer, and not in a single copy. In a word, the latest genetics and genetic engineering promised humanity a complete revolution in the reproduction of people.

Real experiments on sheep confirmed the fundamental possibility of such fantasies. Sensational experiments, information about which went around the world, were carried out in 1996 in England. An embryo of a mountain Welsh sheep was taken. Thousands of cells from this embryo have been isolated. Some of them were placed in a special solution. Then each of these cells was implanted into an unfertilized sheep egg, from which the gene-carrying chromosomes were removed. That is, the egg served only as a nutrient material.

Currently, British researchers have already managed to get a pair of genetically identical lambs, which entered the history of modern genetics under the names Magen and Morag. These experiments are called cloning.

Artificial insemination of not only animals, but also humans, seems to really have prospects in the coming civilization. This method of rearing people is most widely used in the United States. True, the bottles of Paracelsus are not used, but the sperm of men is necessary.

Some celebrities of America, it turns out, regularly donate this valuable product to some secret bank of seminal fluid. The names of donors are hidden. Women are very willing to use this simple, hassle-free (no need to serve a man, cook, wash socks, etc.), but an expensive way to get pregnant.

Not only men, but also women participate in the artificial insemination program. The eggs are taken from the latter and fertilized when needed, then implanted back into the donor woman. The most amazing thing is that an egg fertilized on the side can be injected into another woman. A barren woman can thus "buy herself a baby in the bud" and bear it.

Let us welcome the stubborn striving of science to unravel the mysteries of human birth and accept its attempts to create by artificial means a thinking, rational being. In this process, biological, machine, genetic, cybernetic, computer and other ways of "creating intellect" are connected.

What will prevail, the electronic or biological method of obtaining artificial people and human intelligence? Or will they merge into some kind of bioelectronic variant? There are signs of such a convergence. And then the emergence of a fundamentally new offspring of future superhumans is not ruled out. People biologically and intellectually more perfect. People from the electron-biological Looking Glass.

In the meantime, experiments and experiments continue. And, as always, the Americans were again "ahead" of the whole planet.

Richard Seed, for example, promises to put "photocopying" of people on stream. After the first experiments, the success of which Sid has no doubt, it is planned to produce up to 200,000 cloned people a year. The doctor allegedly has already found assistants for himself and, moreover, recruited volunteers - childless couples who are ready to get a cloned child for "just" a few hundred thousand dollars.

Alarmed by such a development of events, psychologists and philosophers, physicians and politicians, theologians and jurists cross polemical swords, and the parliaments of different countries and international organizations are preparing laws to prohibit technological reproduction of a person. Perhaps the fears are too exaggerated?

Of course, the experience of Edinburgh scientists in cloning Dolly the sheep was interesting, but they had to do 277 procedures to achieve a single positive result. The percentage of marriage is too high, many lambs died in utero, others were born with severe deformities, with damage to various organs and systems. It’s unworthy to even experiment on animals, and if we are talking about human cells…

Sid, if taken as authenticity, is going with his company to get a technological likeness of people endowed not only with somatics, but also with the psyche, emotional sphere, and intellect. When they talk about exact copying, this is a red word.

You can only create a likeness of another person. Spiritual appearance, moral categories are formed in other ways - in interaction with parents, the social environment, etc. If this is a “human copier”, then, continuing the metaphor, we can say that this is a black and white copier from a color original, the form is the same , and the entire gamma is missing.

This idea, again, if you believe it, is not so much immoral or immoral as adventurous. As far as cloning experiments are concerned, this is still a poorly performing technology with a very low efficiency. It does not require an absolute ban, but a long moratorium is urgently needed. Cancellation of it can be justified only when long-term safety is proven in experiments on animals (not of the same species - different).

This, if we switch to religious terms, is sinful. And scientifically, it's unfounded. Under Soviet rule, there was an anecdote: “They asked the Armenian radio: is communism a science or an art? Armenian radio answered: art. If it were a science, then they would first try it on dogs ... ”With cloning, the situation is the same. One poor sheep and no more positive results. More messages flashed, but it is difficult to judge the degree of their reliability.

There is not a single laboratory in the CIS that would work in this direction. There is a livestock laboratory in Dubrovitsy, Leningrad Region, and there is the Institute of Genetics and Animal Breeding. They keep doing things like this. True, this is not so much the cloning of animals as the production of transgenic animals, that is, genetically transformed ones. Cloning is still only a heated discussion, from scratch.

In general, discoveries in the field of experimental embryology should be treated with caution. It's not just about the content of the opening. It's just that around such things all sorts of commercial interests immediately begin to wind up.

But the opinions of scientists from different countries.

"Per"

USA. “Experiments with genetic copying of people are inevitable,” said American scientist Dell Gibson.

RUSSIA. In principle, the Russian Academy of Sciences is not against the genetic "copying" of a person, if it ever happens at all. They believe that a cloned person will only look like his "donor". It is likely that temperament will also be similar, since it is highly dependent on genes.

GREAT BRITAIN. Grim Bullfield, director of the Roslyn Institute, believes that in practice, cloning technology can be used to “design” pigs with human genes, then their heart or kidneys could be used for human transplantation.

"Against"

USA. Official Washington described R. Sid's idea as "irresponsible, unethical and unprofessional."

POLAND. Cloning people can only be done by "terrorists from science".

GERMANY. A survey conducted in the country showed that approximately 97% of the burghers unequivocally spoke out against the "replication" of people, and they prefer to reproduce offspring in the old proven way.

AMERICA again. The idea is as old as the world, but still shocking. In the state of New Mexico (USA), a group of scientists creates an artificial person. For six years, biologists, chemists, cyberneticists and other specialists conducted thousands of experiments in the strictest secrecy.

The first robot, created in the image and likeness of a man, will have a female figure and be named Miriam. The robot will be equipped with a human-like circulatory system and even a kind of heart. In Miriam's veins, "blood" will flow, intended, however, only to cool the entire system.

A fuel tank will be placed in the belly of the artificial woman, designed in such a way that the fuel will be supplied to the right places through its walls. It will even be supplied with metabolic organs. Gaseous wastes will be removed in the same way as ordinary mortals.

The skin will be very similar to human. The chest is also not forgotten, although it will be purely decorative. There is also a brain. This is a somewhat unusually designed computer. Miriam will be able to distinguish smells and analyze the level of air pollution, will hear, see and follow instructions.

Auditorium, department of 2-7 courses

Lecture 8
"Inhabitants of the Astral Plane: Artificial Beings"

Greetings to all. To begin with, a small announcement, and then we will move directly to the topic of our today's meeting.

I want to note that, despite the fact that for the period of the current trimester I refused to accept reports on a free topic, limiting myself to only creative works, your owls constantly continue to attack me with a bunch of requests for topics and even ready-made works. :) In this regard - okay. I give up. You can send. Yes, on any topic related to Dreams, Astral, etc. However... (!) Keep something in mind. Why did I initially decline admission? Yes, because identical and monotonous works began to come - and all of them had topics like "how to enter the astral plane", "exercises for exiting", "methods", etc. In case of refusal, questions arose "why?? after all, this is on the topic of the lesson!!". Literature on such practices in the world and the Internet is a dime a dozen - and every such comrade strives to tear out a piece from one of these books and make a report out of it.
So - no "practical instructions". Leave them to me.
And one more thing - before choosing a topic for a report, I recommend looking through the archives of reports (including for the last trimester) so that you don’t accidentally repeat yourself and write about the same thing - in such a case, the work will simply not be accepted, and your work will be in vain.
This applies to all courses!
Before the New Year, I won’t be able to deal with the reports - I have catastrophically little time now. However, later (numbers 4-5) - I will check everything.
Now, let's move on to our lesson...

Today we have a relatively small lesson, since we have little left to consider, and in a certain sense the final one. On it we complete the review of the population of the Astral Plane.

At the last two lectures on the Inhabitants of the Astral Plane, as you remember, we studied two sections - People and Not People. The "People" section contains human beings who, by one means or another, find themselves in the Astral for different times, as well as their ... uh ... remnants. The "Not People" section includes non-human beings, but nevertheless, rational to varying degrees. Today we will consider the last of them, "Artificial Creatures", which differs from the two previous ones in that it combines creatures created not by natural evolution, but by human activity.

So, the section of Artificial Creatures.

The most numerous of all sections, it combines creatures wholly and completely created by man himself. We will divide them into three main groups, since it makes no sense to classify them in any more detail - individual creatures differ too much among themselves. The first and second groups distinguish between two different categories of elementals created by people, and the third combines rather small artificially created human beings, who are not elementals, but, nevertheless, also created by people.

1) Unconsciously created elementals.

People, as a rule, do not realize how strong their emotions, desires and thoughts really are. Muggles are used to thinking that all these things are so "immaterial" and "unreal" that they do not deserve special attention in handling them. Meanwhile, according to occultism, the matter of "thin" planes, in which a person is present in the form of his bodies - "imprints", is constantly subjected to strong influence from him. Any emotion associated with a thought gives rise to the excitement of astral matter, which does not pass without a trace - since the space is "permeated" by the same "original elemental matter", a separate being appears - an elemental. The term of its existence is not too long, and depends on the strength of the thoughts and feelings that gave rise to it. Such a creature acquires individuality and its own consciousness, and acts independently of its human creator, living an independent life.
Since this happens unintentionally, this elemental is included in the category of "unconsciously created." Usually the thoughts of most people are so wandering and indefinite that the lifespan of the elemental beings they create is limited to minutes or hours. However, a frequently repeated thought or desire can give such an elemental life in a few days.
Usually, a person's thoughts for the most part revolve around himself. The elementals produced by them thus accompany him constantly, and by their very existence at his side tend to arouse in him analogous thoughts and emotions. Thus, they only become stronger.
Thus, having a persistent desire (or "obsessive" idea), a person creates for himself a kind of "astral companion", which, being constantly nourished by it, accompanies its creator, sometimes even for many years, becoming stronger and stronger. Accordingly, this "elemental companion", being created by positive or negative thoughts and desires, determines the basic behavior and aspirations of a person. If the artificial elementals accompanying him are created by good thoughts and desires, then the presence of such a person is always pleasant to other people, and they often cannot even rationally explain why - a feeling of purity and benevolence simply comes from him. Well, the one whose thoughts are directed to rudeness, hatred, envy and other negative feelings - such a person, respectively, is surrounded by a host of harmful elementals, and carries a similar harmful atmosphere around him. And here already anyone will feel how unpleasant it is to be in his company ...
A person's thoughts about other people in the same way create elemental creatures that rush to them and cling to thoughts of other people similar to themselves. So it is quite a mistake to think that any thought, wish or emotion in the direction of another person "is wasted." On the influence of these "elemental messengers" various "evil eyes", "curses" and so on are based, which ordinary Muggles usually mean by this. Here it is worth once again paying attention to the fact that such unconsciously created "messengers" will have an impact on their target only if the target has similar "mental images" and desires in its aura, even if in an embryonic and unformed state - and can start developing them. In the absence of such, the elemental sent in this way will simply return to its creator - and join the elemental company that surrounds him. This is how the kickback law works.

2) Deliberately created elementals.

If such creatures are created even by a simple, obscure human thought, then one can imagine what a magician can create intentionally, having sufficient knowledge in this area. Adepts of White Magic often resort to the use of artificial elementals, created intelligently and for specific purposes. Among these, one can cite as an example a kind of "guardian angels", which can be given by adept magicians as protective forces to their students, during certain dangerous missions.
Black magicians are also capable of creating powerful elementals, but these are used by them for harmful purposes, usually to influence and harm others. However, there is no small danger that such an elemental will turn against its creator - if the victim is sufficiently "pure in mind". He will simply have nothing to cling to - and he will return back to the sorcerer who created him. If such a sorcerer manages to put up a certain defense, and repels this back blow of his own creation, then such an elemental becomes a kind of "wandering demon", which, like "animated shells", will try its best to prolong its existence and search for it. suitable victims.

3) Artificially created human beings

These creatures could be classified as "Shadows", discussed at one of the previous lectures, if not for the circumstances of their creation.
To understand what this is, one must turn to what is called "spiritualism."
Some secret magical organizations, in order to "defeat" the materialism of Science, tried to prove the existence of life outside the physical body (which Science officially denies), and organized special "spiritual circles". In these "groups" experiments and experiments were carried out, familiar to most as "sessions of mediums" - that is, contacts with spirits (spiritualists).
They acted as follows: on the Astral Plane, they chose some "deceased" person who sufficiently corresponded to their goals, helped her to become fully conscious there, and communicated all the necessary information. After that, such an "astral inhabitant" became the leader of the next "spiritual circle", in the same way he "developed" some other "dead", after which they all came into contact with the mediums of this circle.
Thus arose the trend of "spiritualism".
It is worth noting here that such activity of such "astral leaders" of course greatly "slowed down" their own progress through the planes. Therefore, it was decided that one "spirit leader" should not be left in his "post" for too long. After a certain time, they "responded", were released from the obligations imposed on them, and were replaced by others.
However, when for some reason it was impossible to bring another "spirit", a special trick was used. And here we come to the description of the creatures of this section - "artificially created human beings." And the trick was as follows: the "leader" who had "served" his "leader" was released to continue his delayed "journey upwards." They took the "shadow" left after him, supported and nourished it, and left the "departed" at the same post. (As far as you must remember, the Shadow retains some of the basic mental traits of its "original" and can therefore sometimes be mistaken for it.)
In most cases, such a substitution went unnoticed by the members of the "circle", but sometimes, nevertheless, especially sensitive "mediums" were able to catch a change in the manners and character of the "spirit".
This is the origin of beings of this type. In the end, I note that those, as already mentioned, may well be classified in the category "People" and the subcategory "Shadows", however, it is still believed that since such a shadow is maintained intentionally and contains enough mental plane matter (not only remaining from its "original", but also specially transferred to it), then it should be attributed to "artificial creations".

Homework (1-10 points; +2 possible additional):

1) Artificial elementals affect people - their creators or others. Can they influence each other? If yes, how? If not, why not?

2) Does the law of blowback work with artificial elementals sent to another not with bad, but with good intentions? Why do you think so?

3) Tell us about any session of mediums that you have read about or that you know about. (Or in which, perhaps, you even participated yourself :).

Give up homework! (reception time - until the end of the trimester)

Additional task (1-10 points):

Today we have an essay on the topic "Astral Plane". In it you must disclose your own opinion, how you feel about the theory of Occultism regarding the Astral Plane and the beings inhabiting it, how this theory seems to you, how plausible and convenient, how difficult or easy, and so on. Try not to be brief, but write broadly and extensively. And I ask you not to tear the material from the relevant literature - I immediately recognize this. In this work, only your point of view, your opinion is important, and it will be evaluated, accordingly, not for Correctness / Incorrectness, but for your thoughts and conclusions. Own, I want to add more.

According to legend, Rabbi Yehuda Lev ben Bezalel from Prague restored the ancient Kabbalistic formulas and with their help created a golem man of clay (translated from Hebrew means “unfinished”, “unformed”). The golem performed hard work, and also served the rabbi's family on Saturday, when, in accordance with the precepts of Judaism, a person cannot work. There is a version that the formula for creating a golem, thanks to Rabbi Bezalel, has survived to this day and is at the disposal of modern occultists.

Wizard's Helpers

To err is a human property; forgiveness is a property of a deity

If golems were for Kabbalists a confirmation of their high level of spiritual development and comprehension of divine wisdom and were used exclusively to perform primitive rough work, then European witches and occultists competed with God in the creation of life with slightly different goals. Their main task was to create a kind of magical assistant, endowed with a number of supernatural abilities: the ability to foresee the future, timely warn his master of imminent danger, facilitate the administration of witchcraft rituals and ceremonies, and perform some tasks of a magical nature.

Since the scope of these creatures was limited exclusively to the field of secret sciences, their creators did not endow them with either huge growth or physical strength, on the contrary, the dimensions of these assistants were so small that a small chest or an alchemical flask could well serve as their abode. In the European occult tradition, the Latin name "magistelli" - "little masters" - was attached to these creations of the secret sciences.

Plants were the material for the creation of artificial creatures, and the preference was invariably given to the mandrake, known for its magical properties. This explains another name for supernatural helpers, common in the witchcraft environment - apraun (the German name for the mandrake).

Anyone who decided to create their own alraun had to, first of all, find a mandrake whose gender would be the opposite of his own. So, the witch should look for a white, "male" mandrake, while the sorcerer's alraun should be created from a black, "female" plant. The best time to dig up a mandrake is one of the nights after the new moon between the winter solstice and the spring equinox.

Before proceeding with the operation itself, one should outline the plant with a sword or a knife with a black handle in a triple circle, then, loosening the ground around the mandrake with the same knife, carefully pull it out of the ground without damaging the root. This procedure was considered the most dangerous part of the operation - there was a belief that a mandrake pulled out of the ground emits a terrible cry, sometimes leading to madness and death. From the root of the plant, a human figure should be cut, be sure to mark the signs of sex on it and repeat the words during this work: "Keep this house in the name of Hertha."

The resulting chrysalis had to be buried in the ground for one month according to the lunar calendar and poured with a mixture of pure water and blood during all this time (some witchcraft traditions prescribed replacing blood with milk).

In case of luck, the magician, having dug out his alraun a month later, found that the root really looked like a little man. Now that the work was completed, the sorcerer or witch could rely on this supernatural creature created by their hands, which from now on became the devoted assistant and protector of its creator.

The process of creating an artificial creature was imagined differently by the Swiss physician, naturalist and occultist Paracelsus (1495-1562). In his fundamental work “On the Nature of Things”, he scientifically substantiated the possibility of “the birth of human beings without natural parents” and left for posterity a detailed guide to creating artificial people, whom he called “homunculi”, that is, translated from Latin, “little men ".

In accordance with the methods developed by Paracelsus, to create a homunculus, a male seed had to be placed in a retort and the temperature in the vessel should be maintained for 40 days, corresponding to the temperature of the horse's entrails. The human figure that appeared in the retort after the allotted time had to be fed with human blood for another 40 days, until it finally acquired the full extent of its ability to see the future and communicate to its creator the most intimate information that he only wishes to know.

Some credible sources claim that Paracelsus did not limit himself to theory, but repeatedly applied this knowledge in practice, which caused extreme discontent among the clergy, but nevertheless managed to gain a certain number of supporters and followers. Most of them over the years tried to repeat the experiments of Paracelsus and create homunculi in the retort. And almost everyone failed, until, finally, in 1775, luck smiled at the Austrian count von Kufstein, who managed to create as many as ten magical creatures, which he called spiritualists. Sealed in huge bottles of rainwater, the spirits were about 30 centimeters in size, had a completely human appearance and, like the homunculus of Paracelsus, possessed mystical abilities.

Written testimonies of the count's contemporaries have been preserved, claiming that these creatures created by the power of magical art were used by Masons to predict the future and comprehend the secrets of nature and man. Interestingly, all the information reported by the mysterious spiritists was subsequently confirmed. Unfortunately, the description of how to create such useful magical advisers has not survived to our time: the count, repentant of his deed, destroyed his creations and all materials related to the creation of artificial life. It is possible that the highest hierarchs of Freemasonry, who always zealously guarded their secrets from the uninitiated, played a certain role in this.

The true knowledge of mankind is the knowledge of man

History knows many examples when the skill and inspiration of a skilled craftsman and the secret knowledge of a magician combined, creating unique and inimitable creations, genuine masterpieces. Now it is difficult to say exactly when the first mechanical creature was made, endowed through special ceremonies and rituals with the ability to think and feel.

Ancient Greek myths tell of Talos, a giant who guarded the island of Crete. The myth attributes its creation to Hephaestus, the god of blacksmithing. Three times a day, this mechanical guard went around the entire island and, noticing an enemy ship, threw gigantic boulders and pieces of rocks at it. Made of bronze, Taloe was completely invulnerable to weapons of that time, and it was possible to hit him only by striking a single vein on the ankle, through which the creator of Talos filled him with some kind of magical substance that supported vital activity. The copper giant was overtaken by death at the hands of the Argonauts, and they were only able to defeat the invincible guardian thanks to the help of the sorceress Medea.

In other ancient Greek myths, one can find mention of other mechanical creatures animated by the will of the gods or powerful magicians: iron birds, a copper bull that belched fire, a copper boatman, on whose chest a lead tablet was attached, covered with mysterious hieroglyphs and symbols. In Scandinavian myths, the boar Gullinbursti, forged in the forge of skilled gnomes from lead and gold, was harnessed to the chariot of the goddess of love Freya.

However, among the creators of animated automata, there were not only fairy-tale and mythological characters, but also real historical figures, of which the German scientist Albert von Bolstadt, also called Albert the Great, gained the greatest fame in this area. One of the medieval legends tells that the Virgin Mary visited Albert during one of his prayerful ecstasies and revealed to him many secrets of being, including the secret of the creation of life and the revival of dead matter. Based on these revelations, the scientist created a mechanical woman, which he called Android, and all the work took him more than 30 years. It is said that this animated statue was so human-like that Thomas Aquinas, a disciple of Albertus Magnus and one of the most eminent theologians of the Middle Ages, considered it a diabolical creation and destroyed it.

Advances in the field of exact sciences and applied mechanics allowed the masters of the 18th and 19th centuries. create automata, "animated" through a variety of springs, levers and gears; in essence, the mechanical people of the New Age were improved watch mechanisms and could not stand any comparison with the thinking and feeling apparatuses of legends. These masterpieces of mechanics were designed to perform a single action, such as playing one piece of music or drawing several drawings.

Attempts to artificially create life do not stop today. True, modern imitators of the Creator rely not on mysterious spells and magical ceremonies, but on the power of computer processors and the development of high technologies, genetic engineering. And although there are already some successful developments in this area, the laurels of the ancient Kabbalists, Albert the Great and Paracelsus, apparently, will remain an unattainable dream for the creators of artificial life for many years.

artificial man

We must distinguish between two problems. The first is the problem of the artificial in natural people. At the same time, that in people is considered natural that is the result of their biological evolution and is inherited using the biological mechanism of the reproduction of the genus. All those means invented by people and serving to preserve, enhance, restore and compensate for the natural properties of people are considered artificial. The role of these artificial means in the life of Westerners is so huge that we can no longer exist without them.

Let's take teeth as an example. We are a society with magnificent but artificial teeth. Very early in young people and even in children, their natural teeth deteriorate. Most Westernoids have partial or complete artificial teeth by the age of thirty. It is believed that artificial teeth are better than natural ones - more beautiful and do not deteriorate. Therefore, even those teeth that could be saved and cured are replaced with artificial ones. And in the interests of a beautiful smile, even teeth that are not much inferior to artificial ones are mercilessly replaced.

Another, even more typical example is the situation with sex. Most Westernoids develop sexual impotence early. To compensate for it, all kinds of artificial means have been developed. I have already spoken many times on this subject. We are a society of people with hypertrophied but artificial sexuality.

These are all well-known facts. But I was stunned by the speech of one scientist from the Eurasian Economic Union (the largest experts from many countries of the world were invited to the conference). He gave summary data on the position of all important organs, tissues, parts and functions of the human body. It turns out that the majority of Westernoids in all their vital functions can no longer live and act normally without artificial means. And the most striking thing is that this is not so much a biological necessity as a social relation. In at least seventy cases out of a hundred, artificial means can in principle be dispensed with. But our entire way of life is organized in such a way that only exceptional individuals can evade the use of artificial means, unless, of course, we count those sections of the population that fall out of normal life (the beggars, the homeless, etc.).

The second problem is the creation of artificial people in general.

There are two ways to create structures or creatures that mimic a person. The first way is to create robots capable of performing the intellectual and motor functions of people. The results achieved along this path are well known and beyond doubt. Robots now perform the functions for which they were invented immeasurably better than humans. The second way is relatively new. It is based on the creation of artificial substitutes for human body parts and the transplantation of body parts from one person to another. Now we are close to the final result of this path: in man, all his parts can gradually be replaced. Thus, the last step remained - to assemble a whole person from substitute body parts and from body parts of other people.

Is it possible in principle to assemble such a “person”? Yes, it is possible. But why?! To demonstrate the power of our civilization? To reinforce faith in the limitlessness of scientific and technological progress? a crime against man and humanity?

May we learn to gather new "people" in this way. But will they really be human? If they are considered in isolation, separately, it seems to be yes. But this approach to man is wrong. Man arose and exists as a member of an association of his own kind. In order to prove that an artificially created being is a human, it is necessary to create a sufficiently large number of such beings, leave them to themselves and see if they will be able to produce offspring similar to themselves, whether they will be able to create a stable and successive social association. At the same time, they will either die or degenerate into ordinary people, because the artificial mechanism of heredity is in principle impossible.

The second of the paths under consideration, unlike the first, means the creation of an internal "mechanism", similar to that of a person. This mechanism serves a person in order to think, act and leave offspring. Robots think and act. Their "offspring" is provided by people through their mass production. We, Westernoids, ourselves have embarked on the path of rapprochement with robots, not only in the sense that we think and act like robots, but also in the sense that the production of offspring is losing its former meaning of a biological phenomenon for us. There is an inexorable reduction in the number of Westerners and a decrease in their qualities as Westernoids. So, maybe the second way to create artificial people will help compensate for this loss? In no case! The production of such substitutes for people on a large scale is simply impossible. In addition, there is a cheaper way to reproduce people, namely, the cultivation of human embryos in special devices similar to the womb. But how many years have passed since this method was invented, and it still has not received mass application.

There remain internal sensations of the human body, which have no analogues in the structure of robots. But we, Westernoids, have ruled out all the more or less significant troubles associated with the activity of internal organs. Thus, we excluded all the pleasant things associated with it. We have turned sex into soulless engineering. We have cleansed our consciousness of all practically useless reflection, declaring it a disease of primitive peoples like the Russians. Intellectual activity has ceased to be an end in itself for us, it has become exclusively a means of external behavior. So will the substitutes for people, made from our parts, be better than us in this respect?!

It is believed that the assembly of people in the second way is a means of knowing the laws of the human body. This is the deepest delusion. Those laws that can be learned on this path are already known, otherwise we would not have learned to replace body parts with artificial ones. Nothing new here simply cannot be discovered by virtue of the discovery method itself.

Artificial intelligence? The essay was written in May 1997. 1In one of Garry Kasparov's games with Deep Blue, the computer, contrary to the expectations of its human partner, did not touch an easy-to-capture piece and, after a fairly large number of moves, won. Kasparov then said that he felt in