the fire of the sun (my 5000th post!)

Scribd | There were others who have claimed to have met Fulcanelli. First of all there is Jacques Bergier (1912-1978). Bergier, together with Louis Pauwels, is in fact the creator of the whole Fulcanelli legend of modern times. The legend began with the publication of "Le Matin des Magiciens" ('Morning of the Magicians', in English published as "The Dawn of Magic"), written by Bergier and Pauwles andpublished in 1960. In this book, of which it is said that it single-handedly started the New Age Movement, Fulcanelli is described as an Alchemical Adept who warns of the evils of atomic energy. As a matter of fact, Bergier identified the alchemist as Fulcanelli (in all probability) in a work entitled "Faire del'Or", Bergier claims that in the summer of 1937 he was visited in a Parisian laboratory at the offices of the Gas Board in Paris by a mysterious stranger. From 1934 to 1940 Jacques Bergier worked with André Helbronner, a brilliant physicist - on researching nuclear physics. Helbronner -with the help of several industrialists- had created a nuclear research laboratory. The visitor immediately had identified himself as an alchemist.

The following account is taken from The Morning of the Magicians , published in London in 1971:“M. André Helbronner, whose assistant I believe you are, is carrying out research on nuclear energy. M.Helbronner has been good enough to keep me informed as to the results of some of his experiments,notably the appearance of radio-activity corresponding to plutonium when a bismuth rod is volatilized byan electric discharge in deuterium at high pressure. You are on the brink of success, as indeed are several other of our scientists today. May I be allowed to warn you to be careful? The research in which you and your colleagues are engaged is fraught with terrible dangers, not only for yourselves, but for the whole human race. The liberation of atomic energy is easier than you think, and the radio-activity artificially produced can poison the atmosphere of our planet in the space of a few years. Moreover, atomic explosives can be produced from a few grammes of metal powerful enough to destroy whole cities. I am telling you this as a fact: the alchemists have known it for a very long time.”Bergier was warned by the unknown alchemist against the dangers of nuclear energy, eight years before the first atomic tests that were carried out at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Until the hour of his deathin 1978 Bergier remained convinced that the enigmatical visitor was no other than Fulcanelli (Robert Amadou claimed that Bergier identified Fulcanelli in 1983 as Schwaller de Lubicz - see "L'Enquete deRobert Amadou" p10 -) . Following the experiments of Bergier and Helbronner, it is claimed that the American "Office of Strategic Services" (O.S.S., forerunner of the C..I.A.), established in 1942 under Roosevelt, tried to find and locate Fulcanelli at the end of the War. The Americans, as well as other allied intelligence agencies, wanted to gather as many expert scientists as possible to prevent them from passing to the enemy, the Sovjet Union. This claim is allegedly confirmed by Canseliet. For these agencies Fulcanelli seems to have been a real person at the end of the War in 1945. But he remained untraceable….

Then there is the account of Frater Albertus, the German alchemist Albert Richard Riedel, who had information which descended from independent sources on an alleged alchemical transmutation performed by Fulcanelli in 1937! The transmutation supposedly had been performed in Bourges in the presence of Ferdinand de Lesseps II and the famous physicist Pierre Curie (Together with his wife, Marie, they were awarded half of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1903 on account of their study into the spontaneous radiation discovered by Becquerel, who was awarded the other half of the Prize.) This information descends from Jay Weidner and Vincent Bridges, from the article "The Fulcanelli Mystery". There's something wrong about this story since Ferdinand de Lesseps II died in1894 and Pierre Curie in 1906. Weidner and Bridges furthermore state that Frater Albertus "does not supply us with the source of his information." When Canseliet was asked to confirm Albertus' claim heclaimed to know knothing of the incident. Canseliet stated that he only knew that both De Lesseps and Curie belonged to Fulcanelli's large circle of friends (Canseliet in an interview with Frater Albertus in1976). Finally, I want to refer to page 3 - without any further comment - where it is stated that Jean-Julien Champagne was a friend of Ferdinand Jules De Lesseps, one of the sons of the famous Ferdinand Marie De Lesseps, builder of the Suez-Canal. Ferdinand Jules was an alchemist.

"According to the thread skilfully left by Eugene Canseliet who was the unique disciple of FULCANELLI, we devoted ourselves here to a true investigation which led us to inquire into the alchemical but also into the scientific spheres of the years 1880-1920. It appeared slowly but clearly that the one who was dissimulated behind the pseudonym of FULCANELLI, was also a prestigious member of the Institute. Indeed, a great number of his reports and communications were retained by the Academy of Science. It is thus by no means surprising that he was in contact, according to the own testimony of Eugene Canseliet, with the scientists of his time, such as the elderly Chevreul, Marcellin Berthelot or even Pierre Curie, but also with the popular politicians of his time, whom he was meeting at his friend's Ferdinand de Lesseps, the man at the origin of the famous Suez Canal!" Patrick Rivière - "Fulcanelli Sa véritable identité enfin révélée" - Both claims indicate that Fulcanelli was still on the scene in the late 1930's, which would suggest that Jules Boucher was right ….. And so the Fulcanelli phenomenon continues, "his"works venerated by an audience which seem to read his writings from a reverential perspective. And don't we all just love a mystery?