Turba Philosophorum’s Ambition

Take the body out from that which has a body and give a body to that which has no body – Turba Philosophorum.

Although Turba Philosophorum is a short book written in obscure and metaphorical language by an unknown author in the Middle Ages, it has always been considered a source of alchemical aphorisms. And the one mentioned above is among the most evocative of the very essence of the Alchemy of metals (beyond that, it becomes Theurgy).

But to understand where the strength for this extreme transmutation comes from, we need to get to the end of the Last Cooking and witness the philosophical egg supreme spectacle, when the waves of the so-called “philosophical sea” oscillate within the “canons” of an astronomical code. “Canon” is a musicological term, which I use here appropriately. Indeed, for alchemists, the movements of growth and diminution that move matter follow mathematical-musical rules. Alchemy does not follow chemical-molecular models. The “music”, or waves of the philosophical sea,  is composed by oscillations sent by the cosmos, medium notes of the sun, lunar rebounds, the consistency of the air, and “whispers” that remain eternally in water – by water we also mean the movement that remains trapped in the crystals forming. But also inside funerary temples. However, to alchemists’ eyes, the philosophical sea seems completely independent “randomness”.

Several centuries later, in the mid-1900s, a great alchemist dared to publish excerpts from his correspondence with an alchemist friend, in which he described the bitter end of his spectacular final cooking of the Philosophical Egg:

… Like the last year, the first sound – very likely a C (do) – has made itself perceived very soon, one hour and thirty-two after the beginning… The second whistle – which gave the impression to be a D (re) – arrived just 24 hours later, yesterday, at 10 and 10 p.m., while the weight slightly increased and reached at the same time 333.65 grams, namely – and that’s amazing – the same increase proportion when the temperature was at 340 degrees Celsius… – Eugène Canseliet, L’Alchimie Expliqueé sur ses Textes Classiques.

Thus we learn that the Egg emits whistles similar to musical notes. And, above all, that the final disappointment is the failure of a final note. To those who are still stunned, we remind you that, by tradition, the legendary alchemist known as Ostanes witnessed in the supreme opening of the philosophical egg, and presumably to a successful “little Genesis”. For this reason Ostanes was honored with the title of “sovereign of the seven sounds”.

Ancient mythological tales from around the world have told us how important sound is in genesis, but many did not suspect that the Alchemy of metals was not exempt from the search for the “private channel”. See The Sound Sacrifice

Below is a list of articles I have published on the topic of sound in Alchemy.