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Aurora Consurgens - 01 An allegory of the Great Mother
Identifier
016052
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
The Aurora consurgens is an illuminated alchemical manuscript of the 15th century, attributed to a writer called the "Pseudo-Aquinas". It is a Latin translation of Silvery Waters by Senior Zadith (Ibn Umayl). The manuscript contains thirty-seven fine miniatures in watercolour. The illustrations are allegorical representations of alchemical stages and symbols. They incorporate some of the earliest Greek alchemical symbols known, found in Zosimos’ of Panopolis Authentic Memoirs.
The explicitness of sexual details varies from text to text. In an illustration from the Zentralbibliothek in Zürich MS Rh. 172 (f. 11r), a menstruating woman bleeds profusely within a zodiac circle. This combines the symbolism of the Mother and blood
Another text of this site the Rosarium philosophorum was derived from scenes in the Aurora consurgens and the Donum Dei series.