<p>Archibald Cockren was a practising physician who became disenchanted with the reductionist medical interventions of his day and sought a method of treating the whole person. This led him to alchemy, and to experiments in the spagyric art that produced substances of astonishing therapeutic value.</p><p><em>Alchemy Rediscovered and Restored</em> is Cockren&rsquo;s attempt to make the physical benefits of the art accessible to everyone, stripped of its tortuous and mystifying symbolism. Cockren gives the reader a brief and accurate history of alchemy, along with biographical accounts of some of the major adepts who have figured in its story. The process of extraction of the alchemical &lsquo;seeds&rsquo; or vital essences of various metals is revealed, and Cockren describes the medical elixirs that can be obtained, climaxing with the final step in the great arcanum &ndash; the discovery of the <em>alkahes</em>t or universal solvent of the philosophers, also known as the <em>philosophers&rsquo; stone</em>.</p><p>This is a book for all those interested in the alchemical process, one that can be read with profit by adept and newcomer alike.</p>