The Turba Philosophorum (complete) — trans. A. E. Waite (1896)

* The text is corrupt and unintelligible. The second recension reads : " Therefore that nature from which the humidity has been removed, when it has been left iot nights, is like to one dead ; and then that nature is wanting in fire until the spirit of that body returns ; and then it becomes dust like unto one dead in his tomb."

103 The Turba Philosoplwrum.

with the humour until it assumes a fairer colour than it previously possessed. Consider, therefore, O ye Sons of the Doctrine, that artists are unable to paint with their own tinctures until they convert them into a powder; similarly, the philosophers cannot combine medicines for the sick slaves until they also turn them into powder, cooking some of them to a cinder, while others they grind with their hands. The case is the same with those who compose the images of the ancients. But if ye understand what has already been said, ye will know that I speak the truth, and hence I have ordered you to burn up the body and turn it into a cinder, for if ye rule it subtly many things will proceed from it, even as much proceeds from the smallest things in the world. It is thus because copper like man, has a body and a soul, for the inspiration of men cometh from the air, which after God is their life, and similarly the copper is inspired by the humour from which that same

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copper receiving strength is multiplied and augmented like other things. Hence, the philosophers add, that when copper is consumed with fire and iterated several times, it becomes better than it was. The Turba answeretk : Show, therefore, O Bonellus, to future generations after what manner it becometh better than it was ! And he : I will do so willingly ; it is because it is augmented and multiplied, and because God extracts many things out of one thing, since He hath created nothing which wants its own regimen, and those qualities by which its healing must be effected. Similarly, our copper, when it is first cooked, becomes water; then the more it is cooked, the more is it thickened until it becomes a stone, as the envious have termed it, but it is really an egg tending to become a metal. It is afterwards broken and imbued, when ye must roast it in a fire more intense than the former, until it shall be coloured and shall become like blood

104 The Turba Philosophorum.

in combustion, when it is placed on coins and changes them into gold, according to the Divine pleasure. Do you not see that sperm is not produced from the blood unless it be diligentlycooked in the liver till it has acquired an intense red colour, after which no change takes place in that sperm ?* It is the same with our work, for unless it be cooked diligently until it shall become a powder, and afterwards be putrefied until it shall become a spiritual sperm, there will in no wise proceed from it that colour which ye desire. But if ye arrive at the conclusion of this regimen, and so obtain your purpose, ye shall be princes among the people of your time.

The Thirty-Third Dictum.

NiCARUS saith: — Now ye have made this arcanum public. The Turba

• The comparison of the progress of the work to the development ol the embryo, which is suggested by the above reference, and is, in fact, common to all Latin adepts, is found also in the Greek writers, and among

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answereth : Thus did the Master order. And he: Not the whole, nevertheless. But they : He ordered us to clear away the darkness therefrom ; do thou, therefore, tell us. And he : I counsel posterity to take the gold which they wish to multiply and renovate, then to divide the water into two parts. And they : Distinguish, therefore, when they divide the water. But he : It behoves them to bum up our copper with one part. For the said copper, dissolved in that water, is called the ferment of Gold,* if