The Gowrie House Mystery

[Paul Ferguson]

"Probably the most prolific alchemists in the [Ruthven] family were ... William and Patrick. William was reputed to have the alchemists’ Holy Grail, the ‘Philosophers Stone’. Patrick Ruthven’s alchemical notebook, known as his commonplace book, is preserved at the University of Edinburgh, and contains much correspondence, diagrams, tables, symbols, and information on various alchemical processes; which clearly highlight his knowledge of the art; both in a practical, but perhaps more importantly for this discussion, a spiritual sense. As will be demonstrated, their brother John, the third Earl of Gowrie, also had an extremely keen interest in occult subjects, and it is proposed that this interest, may have been at least one of the reasons behind the incident which took place in Perth, and which has aptly been described ever since, as the ‘Gowrie House Mystery’. Mysterious indeed, by dint of the fact no one has ever satisfactorily resolved it."


https://www.thesquaremagazine.com/mag/ar...e-mystery/