PREFACE. 3

principle, Aristotle called his Form, Plato the Soul of the World, Pythagoras the Triad, and Hippocrates that immortal thing which he called Heat original: "Calidum"; which, when all things were in turmoil, withdrew to that supreme region which the ancients called the Ether. Is this not a monstrous robbery among the pagan teachers, by which they do not blush to falsely and through subtle ways claim for themselves the principles and doctrine of the Divine Leader Referring to Moses? And yet we Christians, who are the possessors of the doctrine of Moses—indeed, of all the other prophets and writers—and who have been truly instructed in them as if by a sacrosanct finger, are nevertheless moved by I know not what madness. Abandoning the divine fountain and neglecting to look into the mirror of truth, as if intoxicated by a lethal cup, we do not cease to plunge ourselves into the deceptive filth of the pagans—into a Philosophy, I say, erected upon sufficiently firm foundations, but poorly arranged insofar as it was fabricated and chained together by various imaginations of its inventors; indeed, even defiled and contaminated. For what does it profit to find stable and firm bases for a structure, when the parts of the house are joined from reeds or straw, vulnerable to every wind?

Therefore, the more learned of the sects of pagan philosophers perceived the formal light from afar with the dark eyes of their minds, but they were by no means able to penetrate to the deep fountain of all wisdom from which that form flowed forth. Wherefore it must be considered an extreme madness in us Christians to dwell rather in darkness, and to extract a bastard philosophy from the dung-heap and filth of the pagans, rather than drawing the subject of a sacred, naked, true, and clear Philosophy from the bright spring of life arising from the Holy Bible. Let us therefore reject those profane books of the pagans and flee to the sacred lights and remains of the Patriarchs, Prophets, Apostles, true Philosophers, and mystical theosophers Scholars of divine wisdom; in these, through the virtues of the spirit of holy discipline (whose role alone it is to teach all things), we shall find the truth of all sciences.

It shall be my task, however (with God's favor), in this my volume, to speak of the essences of meteors In the 17th century, "meteors" (original: meteora) referred to all atmospheric phenomena, including wind, rain, snow, and lightning, not just falling stars., since they are the mothers of all composite things. Here also I shall strive to compare the positions and axioms of both the ancient philosophers and their recent disciples concerning these "imperfectly mixed" things A technical term in Renaissance science for substances like clouds or rain that are temporary and not yet "perfected" into solid matter. with the testimony of the Holy Bible, so that you may clearly perceive the difference between them and the Holy Scriptures. Consequently, I wish you to determine whether the sacrosanct Bible, or the vain writings of the pagan philosophers and the uncertain scripts and sayings of their Christian followers—which wander from the truth—are to be embraced.

Indeed, the aim of this whole volume of ours is to show that meteors are daily produced by God in the world in a mystical manner, and are the immediate causes both of health, restoration, and preservation, and of diseases and death, in both the Macrocosm Macrocosm: The universe or "great world" and the Microcosm Microcosm: The human being, seen as a miniature reflection of the universe; which I shall attempt to prove with testimonies derived from the sacrosanct fountain and to support upon Atlantic shoulders A reference to Atlas holding up the heavens; Fludd suggests he is taking on a massive intellectual burden.. From here, therefore, I shall endeavor to extract and fish out the principles, differences, causes, and signs of meteors—both good and bad—as well as the cures for their worst effects, from the deep spring of the Bible and the theosophers or Hebrew and Egyptian Doctors. According to the smallness of my talent, I will strive to reveal and publish them to the world, having girt my loins with the belt of truth, with the favor of a fortunate and propitious divinity.