I've been reading the post and found everything familar...I lived in Atlantis(Atlanta,Ga) which his home to the occult, masonary and the secret teachings. What you just said conjures memories of the Movie Dune. Dune was a late 80'-early 90's sci-fi flic about intergalactic struggles centered around the production and/or mining of a element called spice. I was given information, from a friend who advised the movie was based on true alchemy and the fine processing of not gold but white gold, better known as The Manna/Shrews Bread. This powdered substance/gold was ingested and caused one to experience heightened levels of awareness, psionics and magery leading to the ability of levitation and more.