By MARIA SZEPES
A Synopsis by Mária Szepes
"Alchemy" brings to mind an obscure laboratory in the Middle Ages where a sinister figure clandestinely conducts experiments to produce gold. What is less known is that the true alchemists' primary aim was not so much to get rich as to find the Philosophers' Stone and thus the tool to attain immortality. Gold had the power of magic, and magic was part of alchemy. So was the Philosophers' Stone, which could take the form of a red powder or its solution, the Elixir — It is the Red Lion. Hans Burgner was obsessed by it. Born under wretched circumstances to the miller of the small German town of Swandorff in the early 16th century, he was driven by a craving for immortality, a longing that was there in his very soul and would allow him not a moment's rest. Something told him that he had to go to Nuremburg, and when he met a vagrant French doctor, Adeptus Eduard Anselmus Rochard, he knew that he had his man. As for Rochard, he knew that he must bow to the will that had brought this young man to him. What blind passion and what little knowledge of the real meaning of the Elixir was there in Hans! Rochard knew it, with a knowledge that was built on the experience of many centuries. Hans did not want to die. Little did he know or care that there are things much worse than death, and there was no certainty that he would ever reach the true knowledge. All Hans could think of was to attain the Elixir, and Rochard must give it to him. The drive was so strong that no moral bonds, no conscience could hold him back, even at the cost of killing the very master he respected. Rochard's eyes as he knowingly looked at Hans at the instant of his murder would haunt the young man for many centuries. Tearing the vial from his master's neck Hans drank the Elixir, and at that instant a third eye opened up within him. Humans, steeped in earhtly passions, cannot penetrate the veil that covers this window to the myriad of astral levels. Hans did become a seer, but his level was the astral underworld. Beneath the crust of illusions covering the physical world he now perceived a terrible other empire of unbearable intensity and a symbolism which he was unable to decipher and which therefore was menacing. Hans must live, every moment he must struggle with his demons, and death cannot release him. In this age of Alchemy there were those who had the Power, but they lived in disguise, because they knew that the outside world would not understand. Only the phony prophets' voices rang loudly. Kings and emporers, lesser lords and high priests all were out to fetch their very own alchemist to procure them power. They were willing to set up the best laboratories, to provide them with luxuries so long as they could be expected to fulfill their lords' expectations. But woe to those who could not. Hans Burgner fell into such a trap. His vanity and lust were his downfall. Having learned many of the basic tricks of the trade he showed off his ability to perform a transmutation in public. He was just the man Viscount of Brandenburg-Ausbach was looking for. With a character too weak to be either honest or utterly ruthless the Viscount himself was possessed by demons, just like Hans, and he forced him to evoke the spirit of one of his victims, the famous alchemist Solomon Trismosin. Before he disappeared from the Viscount's torture chamber Trismosin had left a warning message in blood on the wall. In the darkness of the laboratory Hans conjured up the spirit. But what to the Viscount appeared as Trismosin, to Hans took on the features of his own victim, Rochard. There was penitence in both, but neither had the strength to overcome his own nature. Thus they could not be absolved.
To the Viscount Hans was now the enemy because he knew what he should not, and he had failed to bring relief. Hans was thrown into a dungeon and left to die. But Hans had drunk from the Elixir, it was still there in the vial hanging from his neck. He was doomed to remain in the pit for all eternity. Alas! Although the strength in his body did prolong his agony, his soul was finally permitted to escape. Hans learned that immortality was not of the body but the mind. His consciousness forced him to see and remember his past life, and all the lives he was doomed to live and the deaths he was doomed to die after that.
Devoid of a body Hans' mind was tossed around in the astral world before he was reborn in Marburg in 1560. A frail boy he was relieved of his body again ten years later, but not before having re-encountered Amadeus Bahr, a one-time friend of Rochard's. Bahr learned of Hans' true identity and taking pity he revealed to him his chance for slavation. Hans must create the Philosophers' Stone and succeed in performing transmutations on all three planes of existence, the physical, astral, and spiritual levels.
In all subsequent lives Hans' mind was set on this one purpose. He chose his mothers and environments accordingly. Reborn in Milan in 1616 he won fame and infamy as Burrhus the alchemist, witch master, and doctor. His fame came from a pact he signed with a dark and mysterious creature named Homonculus. His first major experiments he conducted at the court of Kristina, Queen of Sweden, then in Denmark for Frederick III, and when subsequently he was incarcerated and taken to Rome, he again was given a laboratory. But he could not escape Homonculus and he could not find the way to his final goal.
Embittered and disappointed as an old man he one day met a young girl who conveyed a message to him from his dead mother. Following her advice he was able to shake off his fiendish partner Homonculus.
He died a free man, to be reborn in Varennes as the son of a nobleman exiled for his adulterous ways, and the mentally disturbed daughter of a local farmer. This life taught him the consequences of promiscuity, both his father's and his own. When finally he was consumed he suddenly realized that he had succeeded in transmuting on two planes, the physical one when he conquered Homonculus, and the astral one when he subdued lust.
Reborn in 1760 in Cassel, the capital of occult sciences and the center of the Secret Brotherhood, he was eventually initiated into the grades of the Order. His master became the Count St. Germain, the greatest magician in all Europe, misunderstood and gawked by his contemporaries. When together they reached Paris during the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, the revolution was already broiling under the surface. Shrugging off any advice by St. Germain the Queen made enemies in court and among her people. When she had become mature enough to realize her flightiness it was too late to ward off the catastrophy.
In the company of St. Germain, Hans encountered many of the people that had left their mark on him in previous lives. They, too, were now in new bodies, of Casanova, Balsamo, and a medium named Lorenza Feliciani.
Fianlly the time came when Hans learned to be at peace with himself. He rose in the Order to become a Magister, and pursued his studies. But the Laws of Karma overtook him once more. One day he met a young man, reckless and talented, who followed him everywhere, never taking his eyes off the man he believed had the Power. The man who was once Hans Burgner knew very well what drove this young man so fiercely, and he knew, just like Rochard had known, that the young man was his Fate. He was killed for the Elixir, just as he had killed for it centuries before. At peace with all, he was now purified, and thus he became one of the Faithful.
Choosing to return to life in the twentieth century, when the horses of the Apocalypse trampled down on the Western Hemisphere, his mission was to announce the coming of the Messiah in the Age of Aquarius who Cosmic constellations indicated would be born in a Polish ghetto in 1941 as the illigimate son of a harassed Jewish girl.