The Black Alchemist is a puported nefarious occultist described by author Andrew Collins in a series of Psychic Questing books in the late 1980s and early 1990s. An adept black magician, Collins pursued him through the landscape, but the Black Alchemist always remained aloof of Collins and his various psychic friends, most notably the enigmatic Bernard, who went on to feature as a character in the computer game Lara Croft and the Black Alchemist, based on Collins's books. Collins has always maintained that his psychic questing books are factual, and that the Black Alchemist was a real person, even though his identity was never established. The books enjoy a huge cult reputation and even nearly two decades on, a frenzied debate on who the actual Black Alchemist might have been, with Collins's friend and colleague David Southwell even claiming that he is now dead, his ashes scattered in a rose garden in the churchyard at Seddlescombe in Sussex. Many who have tried to expose the Black Alchemist as a hoax have ended up concluding that Collins is telling the truth. No one has ever admitted being the Black Alchemist, but a number of names have been floated in the occult community with some suggesting the Black Alchemist was even operating as early as the 1960s.
|