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While I was reading through the Wax and Wayne trilogy, there is a part in it were Wayne thinks to himself about how it seems illogical to him that people would die when they are old, as that is the time when they should have the most experience staying alive. This caused me to consider: What if a bloodmaker or gold compounder actually believed themselves to be immortal, or that they should be a certain age forever? Would their cognitive aspect then interfere with their spiritual aspect enough to extend their lifespan, would it just not age them while they healed, or would it do nothing?

I tried looking around, but couldn't find any topics with this theory, so I figured it might be an interesting first post. I will here try to give my theory for the mechanism that makes healing, in general throughout the cosmere works, and hopefully back it up with some good sources. Statement 1: Physical healing (at least the ones I will talk about, e.g. F-gold & stormlight) heals by making the physical body adhere to the Spiritual ideal. Statement 2: Spiritual healing works directly on the spiritweb, and there is no ideal for the spirit to adhere to, and must therefore be a different mechanism. Statement 3: Forgery instantly affects the physical, by causing it to adhere to the Forged Spiritual ideal. Statement 4: The body can be changed without changing the Spiritual ideal. (This is obvious because the body can be damaged and then healed back it's unchanged ideal) Statement 5: Time does not exist in the Spiritual Realm. Statement 1 & 2 I will only use to remove Spiritual healing from this theory, as my proposed solution would not affect the Spiritweb. Statements 3 & 4 together show that static spiritweb without external influence does not affect the Physical aspect, while a changing spiritweb does affect the Physical aspect. This makes me to come the conlusion that: A static Spiritweb does not filter down into the physical, but a changing Spiritweb does. Using this concept I believe that physical healing works by "rippling" the Spiritweb. This causes the Spiritweb to change, as in not being static, but it doesn't actually change any of the information contained in it. By rippling the Spiritweb like this it forces the Physical aspect to adhere to the Spiritual again, and a stronger ripple would result in a faster healing. The reason Forgery looks instant would be because the change is severe enough to count as a very large change, and cause the Physical to update quicker. Since time does not exist in the Spiritual Realm, the only way for things to change is through at direct causal chain. In other words things can't change (on their own) or over time. Therefore the only way to cause an update in the Spiritual realm is to directly start a causal chain from the Physical Realm, where time does exist. I've included what evidence for I could come up with, but there are some other explanations that could also explain it. The side effect of each magic could simply directly cause these things to happen. Gold could simply "look at your spiritual, and then change the Physical to match it", rather than go through the extra step of starting a ripple in your Spiritweb. Since every time the Spiritweb changes, there is some cause, proven by the fact that time does not exist in the Spiritual Realm, means that we don't, and likely never will, have a case where the Spiritweb constantly changes without some external cause. And this would really be the only way to prove or disprove the over-arching theory, as the static Spiritweb part is proven trivially. Thank you for taking the time to read this theory, may the ripping-it-to-shreds begin.

I think we'd all agree that Atium and Lerasium are both awesome metals. Having enormous powers (Atium spikes can steal any attribute; Lerasium-burning grants Mistborn Investiture), both obviously deserve their reputation as God Metals. But when it comes to pure mystery, I don't think anything can beat the metals aluminum and gold. The Allomantic effects of these two metals have been called "weird" and "strange" by many people, and even their Feruchemical traits are treated with wonder. I have already theorized about the relationship between Gold Allomancy and Aluminum Feruchemy before. To summarize, I linked Gold Allomancy and Aluminum Feruchemy by associating the Temporal shadows of Gold with the concept of Spiritual Identity. I would like theorize further about these two metals, and perhaps figure out what makes them so special. Part I: Aluminum Allomancy - Epilogue, The Alloy of Law So, what's up with this frustrating, seemingly diabolical metal, aluminum? If you look at all the other Enhancement metals (duralumin, chromium, and nicrosil), aluminum is the only Enhancement metal that seems detrimental to the user burning it. Aluminum Allomancy prevents end-positive power by erasing the user's metal stores so that they cannot be burned, while leaving the user himself unchanged. If you think about it, even chromium has some use to the person burning it, since he can use it to disable enemies. But I think there's another way to look at Aluminum Allomancy. If you think about it, burning aluminum removes something foreign from a user (his metal stores) from his body, returning him to his "normal" state, the state in which his Identity views itself. Aluminum Allomancy creates Spiritual harmony by removing outside Investiture. Talking about harmony reminds one of Harmony the god (a.k.a. Sazed), doesn't it? We'll talk about Harmony in the last part of this post, but it's important to note that the restorative aspect of Aluminum Allomancy makes it the Allomantic power nearest to the intent of balance and harmony. The intent of Aluminum Allomancy is balance. It is not an anti-Preservation power, though that's what it looks like on the surface. In fact, I bet there are other beneficial uses for it. For example, burning Aluminum might render a Hemalurgist's spikes inert. (Edit: Apparently burning Aluminum would be "good" for a Hemalurgist. Perhaps it heals the spiritual wounds caused by Hemalurgy without removing the charge itself, allowing the Hemalurgist to use spikes on himself safely. Nonetheless, this actually proves my point that Aluminum Allomancy isn't anti-Preservation.) Part II: Gold Feruchemy -Chapter 15, The Alloy of Law Most Feruchemical abilities follow a straightforward rule: The user can only tap what he stored. This is what makes Feruchemy end-neutral, a power based on balance and harmony. I believe Gold Feruchemy takes this one step further. Health is a complex attribute that has many forms: lack of wounds, protection from disease, normality of bodily functions, etc. But instead of storing each type of health separately (like how Feruchemy of other complex attributes like Memory or Senses work), Gold Feruchemy stores a general and abstract concept of Health based on the Feruchemist's conception of his ideal self. Gold Feruchemy treats the tapping of its attribute as a restoration of this ideal, rather than a mere retrieval of what was stored in the metalmind. After all, healing is only healing if it returns the person to what he believes is his "correct" state of being. When a person believes he is not well, an imbalance occurs between his body and his conception of himself. This is the imbalance that Gold Feruchemy fixes. Gold Feruchemy restores balance by aligning one's Physical aspect with his Cognitive Identity. Because of this, I speculate that any physical change, whether negative or positive, even those brought about by Physical Feruchemy can be reverted by Gold Feruchemy. (Lesson: don't tap Pewter and Gold at the same time!) Part III: Harmony -Chapter 18, The Alloy of Law And so we have two metals that fix imbalances in a person's body, mind, and spirit. In other words, they restore harmony in the person. Ever since I learned that Sazed obtained the Shards of Preservation and Ruin, I've always wondered when the God Metal Sazedium will appear. But now I doubt it will ever happen, simply because he has chosen Harmony as his Intent. We've been told that while most matter contain both Ruin and Preservation, atium is fully Ruin. I suppose we could assume that lerasium is fully Preservation. I think this symbolizes the conflict between Ati and Leras. There is no harmony between those Shard holders, and so the existence of separate god metals are necessary. I believe Sazed is perfectly content with metals that have both Preservation and Ruin in them, especially the two that symbolize harmony so very well: one in Preservation's Enhancement quadrant, the other in Ruin's Temporal quadrant. Aluminum and gold are not Harmony's god metals. They are just the harmonious metals, bringing balance to Scadrial's metalborn from the very beginning, long before Sazed was born, from the time when Preservation and Ruin still worked in harmony with each other. Edit: Just to be sure I cover all the bases, the spiritual and physical changes done by Aluminum Allomancy and Gold Feruchemy are still subject to the power of the Cognitive Realm. The way a person sees himself affects the way those powers work. This shows how Aluminum Allomancy and Gold Feruchemy can be linked to Aluminum Feruchemy and Gold Allomancy: A person's concept of his Identity also affects the way his physical and spiritual aspects can be balanced. Edit: Re-worded stuff to make them sound less crazy or idiotic. Edit: We have WoB that "harmonium" is a thing. I believe my thoughts on aluminum and gold's relation to Harmony can still be salvaged, though. I shall create a separate thread about it.