Holy Blood, Holy Grail and The Messianic Legacy, both by Baigent, Leigh, & Lincoln. Any reputable bookstore should carry them. Between

Considered from the wider perspective of the history of the human spirit, alchemy and its goal appeared not only as physical processes leading to chemistry, but also as a religious discipline whose goal was the transformation of earthly man into an illuminated philosopher.

Alchemy was a slowly evolving, loosely knit, and not mutually exclusive group of Gnostic and Hermetic theories concerning human origins and the dichotomy of spirit and matter. Its roots reached back deep into time, to at least Dynastic Egypt and the slow accumulation of jealously guarded secrets of processes for dyeing fabric, gilding metals, and