Symbols ana a

^E. O. Lippman, Emscehung iiber Ausbra'rung ckr Alchemic (Berlin, 1919), 34.

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^CAG, 2:84

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^CMA, 2:1.

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^Arnold of Villanova, Rosarium, 1, §5; R. Lully, TTieor. cesc., 31.
1JL8

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■’ Leiden papyrus X, in Berthe lot, Introduction, 19.

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Geber, Summa, in BCC, 1:520, and BPC, 1:90.

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^ Cf. Geber, Livre des balances (CAM, 2:147): "The balance oi the natures is indispensible to the Science of Equilibrium and the practice of the Work."

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*So Kremmerz describes the hermetic preparation in La. Porta Ermcr;ca(Rorne, 1905); Awiamento alia scicnza del magi (Spoleto, 1929); Commcntarlum, nos. 4-5, 6-7 (1921).

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^E. Levi, Dogma and Ritual of High Magic (1921), 243-45 , 264, 271, 279-80.

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^Physica Trirhcmii in Thcarrum chcmicum, 1:472. [This quotation from Dom appeared in an earlier edition of The Hermetic Tradition, "Ex aliis numquam usum facies quod quaeris nisi prius ex te fiat unum. "—Trans.)

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^Geber, Summa, 1, §4; and in the proem: "What is cast off by imperfect bodies and without which they cannot receive perfection, is . . . useless Sulfur and impure earth."

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^Cf. Pernecy (Dictionnairc, 24.T46): "Sulfur external, dry and separable from the true substance of the metals (i.e., of the vulgar ego] suffocates rhe inner and deprives it of its activity; and mixing its own impurities wirh those of Mercury [as produces the impertecr metals”

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¹¹ Geber, 5umma, 3, §§1, 2 (BCC, 540, 541). "Sulfur or Arsenic (bearing always in mind the [Greek] homonymy in which arsenic signifies virility), which it resembles, have in themselves the same two causes of corruption and impurity One is rhe inflammable substance, and the other the facx (dregs) or earthly impurities.” The dregs—he adds—impede the fusion and penetration (which is the solution of the fixed, in order to reach chat for which the fixed constitutes an impediment); the inflammable substance cannot sustain the Fire (the emotions, the impulses, and turmoils proceeding from the depths) and in consequence cannot confer the fixation (that is, maintain the domination on the part of the ego as incombustible Sulfur). The Mercury also has two forms of impurity: an earthly impure substance (the body) and a superfluous and volatile humidity or fluidity (desire or insrabiliry) that is evaporated in the Fire, but without burning (it is the dissolution in rhe negative sense in the act of separation, where on the contrary there rnusr intervene an active, i.e., inflammatory quality). Alberrus Magnus (Cumposicum dc compusitis, §1) speaks of Sulfur’s modes of existence, two of which constitute impurities (combus­tible and liquid), while that of the third is separated from rhe others and preserved: "rectified by resolution, it yields only a pure substance containing in itself the active [perfecrable] force nearest to the metal.” The central nucleus (0 or t) of the operator is unveiled.

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^ For the technique of the "mirror," see Inrroduzione alia magia, F85ff.

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