PREFACE

Wisdom 13:1

Are we not admonished by the Wise Man referring to the author of the Book of Wisdom that we should learn about a craftsmanship unknown and hidden to us through its works, if we do not wish to be considered vain? That is, that we should apprehend the divine and eternal cause through its created and temporal effects? Or as that sacred Philosopher, Saint Paul, has it, so that we might see and understand the invisible things of God;
Romans 1:20

even his eternal power and divinity through those things which have been made: namely, in his creatures and through his creatures. Not otherwise than the internal and central unity original: monas or point of a circle is found by an investigation made from the circumference, descending through the parts or points of the radii: so certainly does the true Philosopher immerse himself into the creature by proceeding from its external circumference, as it were, even into the center, in which its cornerstone lies hidden. Since this is so, and since the Holy Page the Bible is full of demonstrations of both these professions or sciences, my confidence is that it will seem foreign to no one if I use the axioms and testimonies of the Bibles of highest truth to establish this sacred Philosophy. Moreover, that the sacred text, through almost its entire thread, delineates the subject of both Philosophy and Theosophy Theosophy here refers to "divine wisdom" or the direct knowledge of God appears clearly enough therein, since it copiously describes the acts and operations of the aeovial original: aevialis, meaning everlasting or pertaining to the angelic realm beyond linear time or Angelic world, and of that temporal world (both celestial and elemental), as well as those of the eternal and divine. But it is evidently clear that the eternal world (which has neither beginning nor end), since it exists filled solely by the divine Majesty, is that principal and most solid foundation upon which Theology is situated and placed; just as, on the other hand, the temporal or inferior world, which has both a beginning and an end, and is visibly distinguished with its creatures into heaven and earth, is the unique subject or basis of true Philosophy. Truly, regarding the Angelic or aeovial world—which has a beginning but no end, and is ordained by God as the seat and receptacle for Angelic spirits and blessed souls—just as it has its site and position between the aforementioned extreme worlds (namely the eternal and this temporal one), so indeed it has an immediate connection and relation with both extremes. For it receives its light and life, or formal essence, immediately from eternity, a portion of which it afterwards pours downward and communicates with the temporal world or inferior mansion, so that the world itself with its creatures might thereafter be created and quickened. From which it follows that, just as the form of the temporal world is Angelic or aeovial, so the soul and life of the aeovial world is divine or eternal. By these things it is made manifest that the nature or property of angels is neither to be excluded from the subject of Theology—inasmuch as it participates in the divine light or the splendid and shining presence of the divinity—nor can it be removed from the substance of Philosophy, insofar as Angelic light is the soul and life of temporal nature. Consequently, it is necessary that one expert in true philosophy recognize that his science, or the foundations of his Philosophy, proceed radically from the eternal God through His aeovial or Angelic Spirits into His temporal creatures (I mean the stars, winds, Elements, Meteors, and perfectly mixed bodies). Therefore, insofar as the Philosophical subject is animated by angelic influences, we must believe that by mental intuition it penetrates into that eternal light which quickens both temporal and aeovial spirits or creatures, beyond which nothing can be discerned or devised either by imagination or mental apprehension.

This, therefore, is that tripartite measure of Jacob’s ladder, which he saw in his dream while he had placed his head upon a stone in place of a pillow; in the length, breadth, and depth of which the images or characters of the three aforementioned worlds were delineated or depicted: and for this reason that Stone was called the house or tabernacle of God. Whence it is certain that, just as that stone had its external and internal, so the Patriarch in this divine dream [saw] the angels from the earth (which is the footstool of God’s feet) as if from the external and corporeal, [ascending] through the aeovial or Angelic world to the eternal world as if to the center and most internal part, in which...