MICHAEL MA-

IER, IMPERIAL COUNT PALATINE,

PREFACE TO THE READERS.

If you wonder, kind readers, what cause arose for me, why I should publish this treatise distinguished by the name OF THE MOST SECRET THINGS original: "ARCANISSIMORVM" after so many and such great authors published on the subjects of Hieroglyphics, allegories, fables, theology, philosophy, poetry, Chemistry original: "Chymicis". In the 17th century, the term "Chymistry" encompassed both practical laboratory work and the symbolic, spiritual pursuit of alchemy. and medicine—and why I have finally scattered it into the public light of the world, and specifically addressed it to you to be judged despite so many existing prejudices—once you have looked upon the matter itself, my studies and intentions, and your own integrity all at once, you will without doubt cease to wonder.

Among Christians, I believe, there is no one so unskilled in all things—provided they possess common sense and hold the first rudiments of literature—who has not at some time read the books of the Pagans original: "Ethnicorum", referring to non-Christian classical authors like the Greeks and Romans. (of which a vast number has reached our age) and has not observed these two things within them: First, the names of gods, goddesses, and heroes, such as Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, Juno, Venus, Pallas, Hercules, Jason, and the rest; Second, the monstrous, horrendous, and incredible deeds of each of these gods and heroes. For all the books of the Pagans are so stuffed with these two things that on almost every single page, by hammering them in, they contain hardly anything else worthy of memory.

For example, if one were to take away the gods and the deeds of the gods and the heroes descended from gods from Homer and Herodotus among the Greeks, or from Livy and Virgil among the Romans, the greatest part of their works would be marked with an obeliska critical mark (—) used by ancient grammarians and editors to indicate that a passage of text is suspicious, spurious, or should be deleted. For the deeds are so bound together with the persons, and the persons with the deeds, that if one is removed, the other cannot stand.