The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)
The text is shown on its own: no facing layer is held for this issue.
The translator’s English as printed (A. E. Waite). The original-language text is not held; names are romanised as the translator printed them.
• The Turba Philosophorum does not betray anywhere the hand of a Christian compiler, and although the reference to the despised stone suggests the stone which the builders have rejected, the idea is derived from Zosimus, and not from the New Testament, except in so far as Zosimus himself may have drawn it irom that source. Treating, in his dictum on the subject of calx, concerning the uncommunicated mystery of the encephalous stone, the Greek adept calls it the despised thing which is most precious, and so on through a number of contradicting denominations.
t The second recension reads : " clean water." \ The symbolism of the venom of the philosophers is also found in Zosimus, commenting upon Democritus.
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rated without the Sun and its shadow. He, therefore, who attempts to make the venom of the Philosophers without these, already errs, and has fallen into that pit wherein his sadness remains. But he who has tinged the venom of the wise out of the Sun and its shadow* has arrived at the highest Arcanum. Know also that our coin when it becomes red, is called gold ; he, therefore, who knows the hidden Cambart of the Philosophers, to him is the Arcanum already revealed. The Turba answereth : — Thou hast even now intel-
The Greek word signifies, says an annotation of M. Berthelot, the romlle of metals, the specific virtue of bodies, and the venom of serpents. According to Zosimus, it is the spirit separated from the substance of a body. — On Virtue and Interpretation.
t This oriental term is referred to by M. Berthelot in his Essay on the Transmistion of Ancient Science without explanation of its significance, and it is not found in any of the Lexicons of Alchemy. In an ancient alchemical treatise, entitled The Code of Truth, it figures as the name of an adept.
* A quotation firom Mary (the first) in Zosimus On the Measure of Yellowing runs thus : — Copper when burned with sulphur, treated with oil ot natron, and recovered after having undergone the same process several times, becomes an excellent gold without shadow.
The Turbo, Philosophorum. 71
ligibly described this stone, yet thou hast not narrated its regimen nor its composition. Return, therefore, to the description. He saith : — I direct you to take an occult and honourable arcanum, which is White Magnesia,* and the same is mixed and pounded with wine, but take care not to make use of this except it be pure and clean ; finally place itinitsvessel, and pray God that He may grant you the sight of this very great stone. + Then cook gradually, and, extracting, see if it has become a black stone, in which case ye have ruled excellently well. But rule it thus for the white, which is a great arcanum, until it becomes Kuhul, closed up with t It does not appear that the conception of the Philosopher's Stone as a medicine of metals and of men was familiar to Greek alchemy.
* The Chemistry of Moses gives the following process for the whitening of Magnesia : — " Taking Magnesia and an equal quantity of Cappadocian salt, place in a vessel of burnt clay. Let it stay there from evening till morning. Then, if it be black, let it be cooked till it whitens, but it is far better to cook it in a glass-maker's furnace. Hide this mystery, for it comprises everything which concerns whitening by decoction."
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blackness, which blackness see that it does not remain longer than forty days. Pound the same, therefore, with its confections, which are the said flower of copper, gold of the Indies whose root is one, and a certain extract of an unguent, that is, of a crocus, that is, fixed exalted alum, or Tj ;* cook the four, therefore, permanently for 40 or 42 days. After these days God will show you the principle (or beginning) of this stone, which is the stone Atitos, of which favoured sight of God there are many accounts. Cook strongly, and imbue with the gum that remains. And know ye that so often as ye imbue the cinder, so often must it be desiccated and again humectated, until its colour turns into that which ye desire. Now, therefore, will I complete that which I have