The red lion : the elixir of eternal life : an alchemist novel

A 16th century alchemist's apprentice drinks his master's elixir of life after killing him. But the potion does not bring Hans Burgner immortality, instead he repeatedly dies and is reborn, cursed with foreknowledge of misfortunes which will befall him. By a Hungarian writer. 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 alchemist's primary aim was not to so much to get rich as to find the Philosopher's Stone and thus the tool to attain immortality. Gold had the power of magic, and magic was part of alchemy. Such was the Philosopher's Stone, which could take the form of red powder or its solution, the Elixir - the Red Lion. This story begins in the 1940 when a stranger, named Adam Cadmon, visits the author in her seclusion and gives her a manuscript. Adam Cadmon surprises, frightens, and amuses the author with his unusual mental abilities. The stranger seems to know everything about her, answers her questions before she asks them, and knows what she will do before she acts...Thus unfolds a story told through four lifetimes of the suffering, yearning for freedom and growth of the fallen novice, Hans Burgner