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them. It was customary to call such illuminated sages adepts, a title which indicated that
they possessed the true secrets of transmutation and multiplication. These adepts were
polyonymous individuals who unexpectedly appeared and disappeared again, leaving no
trace of their whereabouts. There are indications that a certain degree of organization
existed among them. The most powerful of the alchemical organizations were the
Rosicrucians, the Illuminati, and certain Arabian and Syrian sects.

I n the documents which follow, references are made to the "Brethren "or "Brothers. "
These are to signify that those who had actually accomplished the Magnum Opus were
banded together and known to each other by cipher codes and secret signs or symbols.
Apparently a number of these illuminated adepts dwelt in Arabia, for several of the great
European alchemists were initiated in Asia Minor. When a disciple of the alchemical arts
had learned the supreme secret, he guarded it jealously, revealing to no man his priceless
treasure. He was not permitted to disclose it even to the members of his immediate
family.

As the years passed, one who had discovered the secret--or, more properly, one to whom
it had been revealed--sought for some younger man worthy to be entrusted with the
formulæ. To this one, and to this one only, as a rule, the philosopher was permitted to
disclose the arcanum. The younger man then became the "philosophical son" of the old
sage, and to him the latter bequeathed his secrets. Occasionally, however, an adept, on
finding a sincere and earnest seeker, would instruct him in the fundamental principles of
the art, and if the disciple persisted, he was quietly initiated into the august fraternity of
the Brethren. In such manner the alchemical processes were preserved, but the number of
those who knew them did not increase rapidly.

During the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries a considerable number of
alchemical adepts made their way from place to place throughout Europe, appearing and
disappearing apparently at will. According to popular tradition, these adepts were
immortal, and kept themselves alive by means of the mysterious medicine that was one of
the goals of alchemical aspiration. It is asserted that some lived hundreds of years, taking
no food except this elixir, a few drops of which would preserve their youth for a long
period of time. That such mysterious men did exist there can be little doubt, as their
presence is attested by scores of reliable witnesses.

It is further asserted that they are still to be found by those who have qualified themselves
to contact them. The philosophers taught that like attracts like, and that when the disciple
has developed a virtue and integrity acceptable to the adepts they will appear to him and
reveal those parts of the secret processes which cannot be discovered without such help.
"Wisdom is as a flower from which the bee its honey makes and the spider poison, each
according to its own nature." (By an unknown adept.)

The reader must bear in mind at all times that the formulæ and emblems of alchemy are
to be taken primarily as allegorical symbols; for until their esoteric significance has been
comprehended, their literal interpretation is valueless. Nearly every alchemical formula
has one element purposely omitted, it being decided by the mediæval philosophers that