Malfuzat – Volume X — Page 217
17 March 1908 217 The Practice of Alchemy and an Honourable Means of Living The Promised Messiah as said: Many people squander their lives, constantly preoccupied with alchemy. Instead of gaining anything, they end up losing whatever they had to begin with. There was a man who lived in Batala and was somewhat poor. The house that he had built for his residence was made of brick on the outside while the inside was all made of mud. One day he met a faqir [ascetic] who indulged in prolonged supplications and appeared to be very pious. On account of this apparent holiness, that simple- ton [of Batala] would often sit with him and started associating with him. After a while, the faqir asked him earnestly why he had constructed his house that way and why he did not use all bricks. He replied that he was poor and did not have enough money. The faqir nonchalantly said that money was no big deal and then became quiet after saying that. This dubious reply intrigued the man, giving rise to some suspicion, so he asked the faqir if he had some familiarity with alchemy. The faqir responded to his inquiry by saying that his mentor knew it. And after much insistence, admitted that he also knew it but would not tell anybody, but since the man was so insistent, he would be willing to share it only with him. The faqir asked the man to collect all the jewellery in his household and then went to an open area and started his ritual invocations and occupied himself with it for a while. One day, the faqir took the jewellery and, while pretend- ing to put it in a pot, stole it and somehow placed some stones and pebbles in the pot instead. He went outside with excuse to perform his ritual invocations and told the man to keep heating the pot on the fire by using lots of dried cakes of cow dung and