Ali Puli, also known as Alipili, is the attributed author of a number of 17th-century alchemical

Alchemy

Alchemy is an influential philosophical tradition whose early practitioners’ claims to profound powers were known from antiquity. The defining objectives of alchemy are varied; these include the creation of the fabled philosopher's stone possessing powers including the capability of turning base...

 and hermetic

Hermeticism

Hermeticism or the Western Hermetic Tradition is a set of philosophical and religious beliefs based primarily upon the pseudepigraphical writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus...

 texts. However, his historical existence is doubtful, and A.E. Waite went as far as to describe the work attributed to him as "forgery pure and simple in respect of age and authorship [which] may be left to stand at its value in the matter of content."

He is described as a Mauritanian

Mauritanian

Mauritanian may refer to:* Something of, from, or related to Mauritania, a country in northwest Africa.* A person from Mauritania, or of Mauritanian descent. For information about the Mauritanian people, see Demographics of Mauritania....

 Christian

Christianity

Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...

 of Asia

Asia

Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...

tic extraction - also variously as an Arab

Arab

Arab people, also known as Arabs , are a panethnicity primarily living in the Arab world, which is located in Western Asia and North Africa. They are identified as such on one or more of genealogical, linguistic, or cultural grounds, with tribal affiliations, and intra-tribal relationships playing...

 (because he was said to have written in Arabic), and a Moor

Moors

The description Moors has referred to several historic and modern populations of the Maghreb region who are predominately of Berber and Arab descent. They came to conquer and rule the Iberian Peninsula for nearly 800 years. At that time they were Muslim, although earlier the people had followed...

.

Influence

The most influential work attributed to him is Centrum Naturae Concentratum. This work was purported to have been written originally in Arabic, though no Arabic version is extant. It was published in Dutch in 1694, and first translated into English by Edmund Brice

Edmund Brice

Edmund Brice was an English translator and schoolmaster.-Life:Brice, whose dates of birth and death are unknown, became a member of Jesus College, Oxford on or before 27 October 1648, matriculating on 12 March 1649 and obtaining his B.A. degree on 12 July 1650...

 in 1696. It is most noted for the following passage:
This passage is cited by Waite as evidence of a spiritual mystical tradition within alchemy, and has been widely quoted, notably by the theosophist

Theosophy

Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...

 Madame Blavatsky

Madame Blavatsky

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky , was a theosophist, writer and traveler. Between 1848 and 1875 Blavatsky had gone around the world three times. In 1875, Blavatsky together with Colonel H. S. Olcott established the Theosophical Society...

 (who misattributes him as Abipili).

The passage has been identified as a source of the Wicca

Wicca

Wicca , is a modern Pagan religious movement. Developing in England in the first half of the 20th century, Wicca was popularised in the 1950s and early 1960s by a Wiccan High Priest named Gerald Gardner, who at the time called it the "witch cult" and "witchcraft," and its adherents "the Wica."...

n Charge of the Goddess

Charge of the Goddess

The Charge of the Goddess is a traditional inspirational text sometimes used in the neopagan religion of Wicca. Several versions exist, though they all have the same basic premise, that of a set of instructions given by a Great Goddess to her worshippers...

produced by Gerald Gardner

Gerald Gardner

Gerald Brousseau Gardner , who sometimes used the craft name Scire, was an influential English Wiccan, as well as an amateur anthropologist and archaeologist, writer, weaponry expert and occultist. He was instrumental in bringing the Neopagan religion of Wicca to public attention in Britain and...

 and later revised by Doreen Valiente

Doreen Valiente

Doreen Edith Dominy Valiente , who also went under the craft name Ameth, was an influential English Wiccan who was involved in a number of different early traditions, including Gardnerianism, Cochrane's Craft and the Coven of Atho...

. It is the oldest of the sources so identified.

Further reading