Who was Fulconelli the alchemist?
Fulcanelli (1839 – fl.1953) is almost certainly a pseudonym assumed, in the late 19th century, by a French alchemist and esoteric author, whose identity is still debated.[1] He is also called the Master Alchemist. The appeal of Fulcanelli as a cultural phenomenon is partly due to the mystery that surrounds most aspects of his life and works; one of the anecdotes pertaining to his life retells, in particular, how his most devoted pupil Eugène Canseliet performed a successful transmutation of 100 grams of lead into gold in a laboratory of the gas works of Sarcelles at the Georgi company with the use of a small quantity of the “Projection Powder” given to him by his teacher, in the presence of Julien Champagne and Gaston Sauvage. Fulcanelli was undoubtedly a Frenchman, widely and profoundly educated, and learned in the ways of alchemical lore, architecture, art, science, and languages. Fulcanelli wrote two books that were published after his disappearance in 1926, having left his magnum o