BOOK ONE.

B

...and they obey with greater joy. And the more each person keeps this science hidden, the more easily he will operate. And note, that this Padiel with his Spirits is assigned to announce secret warnings for the correction of wrongdoers, for imprisonment, and for punishment, as we have demonstrated by the example below. original: "subiecto demonstravimus exemplo"

THE SECRET OF THE INTENTION, WHICH IS committed not to letters, but to the Spirits of the second mansion.

Roth.

Someone has been reported to a prince, accused of some crime of high treason high treason (laesa maiestas): literally "injured majesty," a crime against the state or sovereign or any other offense. The prince wants him punished by his official, from whom he is far distant, but he does not want to write those specific instructions to him, lest the letters be discovered for any reason and the accused become warned and flee, or resist by joining forces with friends, or attempt some sinister plot against the prince or the laws of the country. He writes this or any other narrative whatever to his prefect, which he does not fear to have read by everyone: but he commits the secret message to the Spirit, in the manner we have said before. The Spirit will faithfully narrate the secret to the person to whom it is sent, provided they were previously instructed in this art.

Sincere affection. I send you a prayer for the devotion of penitents, quite beautifully composed and brief, which the full benevolence of my mind did not wish to keep for myself alone, and it is as follows:

Free us, Jesus Christ, eternal savior of all good things, and forgive the sins of the guilty; hear our groans, calming the storms of vices, and renewing the oldness of conscience, lead us back to the eternal paradise. Good Jesus, remit to us who pray our sins: since we have offended gravely and have often relapsed. Sweetest savior, heal our infirmities, we pray. Be kind to those who ask you, most pious Jesus, and hear us, your supplicating servants. We are men involved in constant miseries, and immersed in the greatest storms. Rescue us, most victorious consoler of the troubled; since our life, buried in constant unhappiness, is corrupted. Have mercy, most merciful Jesus savior, look upon the humility of those who love you and do not permit us, exiles, to be drowned in the mud and filth The Latin "turpitudine" is faded here. of vices, in the love of the world. Up to this point we lie The Latin "iacuimus" is partially obscured. torpid, and entangled in vices, our small worth—