Aphorismi Urbigerani

Questions for Study

The Appeal to Experience

What does the repeated appeal to experience establish within the book, and what would still need independent evidence? Compare the title motto, the claim of practice and the warning about hearsay.

Knowing an Undetermined Matter

How can a matter be present and describable while not yet determined? Read the definition, the vapour and its capacity. What work is done by the difference between a thing’s availability and its recognition?

Transformation and Continuity

Which features must remain for the author to call an operation a true transfiguration rather than a disguise? Compare the governing distinction, art and nature and a union preserving qualities.

One Beginning and Three Ways

What is shared among the three ways, and what changes between them? Read the common first matter, the first way, the combined instructions and the image explanation.

A Figure and Its Subject

How do the Serpent, Dragon, Virgin, and infant organise the relations among subjects? Which passages also make explicit claims about material states? Compare virgin’s milk, death and rebirth and the postscript.

Diagnosing a Failure

Why does the author give more than one explanation for a failed stage? Read the three alternatives and incomplete separation. How does that plurality affect the reader’s judgement of a claimed rule?

Preparing and Joining

Why are the Herculean preparations insufficient without conjunction? Compare the three completed labours, the further requirement and the lesser union.

The Extent of a Power

How can a preparation act upon a subject yet lack the power claimed for another preparation? Compare the vegetable kingdom and the tincture and the principles. What would be lost by treating every successful action as proof of universal power?

Several Interpretations

What authorises more than one interpretation of the engraving, and what constrains those interpretations? Read the explicit claim and the detailed account. Distinguish an interpretation supplied by the author from a reflective application supplied by an editor.

The End of the Work

The ending directs endeavour towards immortality. How does that stated end relate to the preceding promises of transmutation and healing? Compare the medicinal intention, health and happiness and the final explanation.