Tobias ChurtonThe First Alchemists
The Spiritual and Practical Origins of the Noble and Holy Art
Tobias Churton is Britain’s leading scholar of Western Esotericism, a world authority on Gnosticism, Hermeticism, and Rosicrucianism. He is a filmmaker and the founding editor of the magazine Freemasonry Today. An Honorary Fellow of Exeter University, where he is faculty lecturer in Rosicrucianism and Freemasonry, he holds a master’s degree in Theology from Brasenose College, Oxford, and created the award-winning documentary series and accompanying book The Gnostics, as well as several other films on Christian doctrine, mysticism, and magical folklore. The author of many books, including Gnostic Philosophy, The Invisible History of the Rosicrucians, and Aleister Crowley: The Beast in Berlin, he lives in England.
FOREWORD
by Frank van Lamoen
Introduction
ONE
Ancient Recipes for Gold— and Other Things
Discoveries at Thebes
A Theban Magical Library?
The Leiden Papyrus
Papyrus V
Papyrus W
Papyrus X
The Stockholm Papyrus
Pseudo-Democritus
TWO
The Origins of Alchemy in Roman Egypt
Akkadian Origin of Chēmeu?
Heat and Glass
THREE
The Pioneers of Graeco-Egyptian- Jewish Alchemy
Cleopatra
Jewish Chemistry
Mary the “Prophetess”
FOUR
Zosimos I
Clearing the Decks
Was Zosimos an Egyptian Priest?
FIVE
Zosimos II
Alchemical Yoga
Practical Dreaming
SIX
Zosimos III
From Omega to the Final Quittance
On Destiny, Fate, Worldly Thought, and Noetic Understanding
The First Book of Zosimos the Theban’s Final Account
SEVEN
What Did the First Alchemists Do?
Making Talismans?
EIGHT
How Did They Do It?
Sulfur Water; Divine Water
Apparatus
Putting the First Alchemists to the Test
NINE
Where Did They Do It?
A Hermetic “Lodge”?
A Guild for Theosebeia?
Laboratories?
TEN
The Myth of Transmutation
Philosophical Background
The Stone
The Tome of Images
Myth and Reality
ELEVEN
Forbidden Knowledge
TWELVE
A Strange Relation
Alchemy and Gnosis
Mercury and Christ
THIRTEEN
Legacy
Arabic Alchemy
The Inheritance
“Good Health!”
Notes
Bibliography
Index
