The History of the Two Worlds

LETTER TO THE READER.

...finished; who, after he learned their essence and beheld their proper nature, desired even then to penetrate and break through the boundary of the circles, and to comprehend the power of the Governor presiding over the fire. By these things, he [Hermes] clearly teaches that it has been granted by GOD original: "DEO" to men, because of the nobility of their form, not only to know the natures, movements, and actions of the stars upon these lower things, but also to progress further to the fiery and Empyrean The Empyrean was considered the highest part of the heavens, a realm of pure fire and light where the Divine resided. heaven, and to contemplate and admire the power of the Governor presiding there, the first of all. From this, he also called GOD the mind of human reason, whom he also named life and light in that place, from which he willed man himself to be born and composed. It is therefore impossible to know yourself unless you also know GOD himself; for → he who knows himself, according to the testimony of the same Trismegistus Hermes Trismegistus, the "Thrice-Great," a legendary sage to whom many foundational texts of alchemy and philosophy were attributed., passes over to GOD. It is enough for us, therefore, that we cannot know ourselves unless, with all the effort of our intellect, all the powers of our soul, and with constant prayers for grace and divine light, we approach step-by-step each day to rightly contemplate such things, and to perceive the admirable idea of the Creator through reasoning from effects original: "demonstratione à posteriori." This refers to the logical method of observing the physical world (the effects) to understand the nature of God (the cause).. May the Almighty mercifully grant this to you, to me, and to all, through the merits of his only-begotten Son, Amen.