Phul is the Moon-associated Olympic governor named in the Arbatel. The 1575 Basel print and Turner’s later English version preserve different forms of his account.
- Planetary category
- Moon ☽
- 1575 province line
- 7
- Source passage
- Aphorisms 16–17
Place in the seven-name list
Phul closes the seven-name list and has seven provinces on the Basel page. Aphorism 17 says the governor rules lunar things and attributes the changing of metals into silver, healing of dropsy, provision of water spirits, and unusually long life. These claims should be read as the text’s account of a lunar office. The astronomical Moon is an observable body; the figure Phul is part of the Arbatel’s spiritual cosmology. The two are linked by the writer, but the link is not an empirical finding.
What the book attributes
The placement at the end of the group is mathematically important. The number seven completes a descending sequence whose ideal total is 196. The 1575 book nonetheless prints Bethor as 32 and the total as 196. Reporting Phul’s seven alongside the whole list reveals why the inconsistency can be diagnosed. If a source reproduces 42 for Bethor, it may be a correction, a different witness, or an unmarked modernization; it is not a literal reading of Basel page 24.
The printed record
Phul is sometimes described in modern occult summaries through a blend of lunar, water, healing, and divinatory correspondences. The first three elements have a basis in the brief Aphorism 17 passage; more elaborate systems add later correspondences. The dated print, Turner’s later English, and contemporary interpretations differ in language and context. The Basel leaves show a particular character, while free-floating “Phul sigil” images can combine later forms.
