Quest For Immortality

Mythology serves to catalog the dangers involved in a "fruitless" quest for immortality. Mythology tells us the quest for longevity is as ancient as man himself.

These Long Ago mythologies include:

- The antediluvian myths, derived largely from the Bible, such as a heavily-armed archangel appointed by God to guard the path to the "second" tree in the Garden of Eden (The Tree of Life). Curiously, the direct descendants of Adam and Eve allegedly all lived to be over 900 years; the eldest of the patriarchs was Methuselah who was supposed to have lived for 969 years.

- The Babylonian epic of Gilgamesh (650 B.C.), one of the earliest myths to explore the theme of the quest-for-immortality.

- The myths of the Egyptian high priests who apparently knew a thing or two about herbs. According to a Hollywood interpretation of the Egyptian Book of the Dead, tree tanna leaves are needed periodically to keep a mummy in hibernation, while nine leaves are needed to awaken him.

- Ahasuerus (Xerxes), the Wandering Jew, who was sentenced to walk the Earth until the Day of Judgement or the Second Coming.

- The Medieval Alchemists (such as Paracelsus, a German-Swiss Physician) who had more to their agenda than just seeking ways to transform base metals into gold.

- Juan Ponce de Leon who sought for the Fountain of Youth in Florida (1513).

- Dracula, of course, who was a well-known successful practitioner of experimental gerontology; (vampires normally subspecialize in hematology!)

- Frankenstein, who, thanks to the wonders of electricity and the skills of the good doctor, overcame the ravages of the grave.

- The Golem (Jewish folklore) in which a rabbi fashions a clay statue and then endows it with life by supernatural means.

- Metropolis in which Maria is transformed by a "mad scientist" into an immortal robot.

Then there are the Hyperborean myths.

- Shangri-La is the tale of an intriguing mountain utopia.

- Greek legend held that those who lived there for thousands of years--free from all natural ills--in a land of perpetual sunshine beyond the North Wind.

We should also include real places in which excess numbers of centenarians per capita are supposed to be living:

(1) the isolated village of Vilcabamba, Peru high in the Andes mountains;

(2) Azerbaidzhan high in the Caucasus Mountains of Russia; and

(3) the Hunza people high in the Karakoram (Himalayan) Mountains of Pakistan.

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Response to Skeptics:

"Man who say it cannot be done should not interrupt man doing it."
- Chinese Proverb

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