The Ecstatic Journey

To the Reader

...revelation, no angelic epiphany; nor would I wish for any inspiration of the Delphic Oracle original: "Oraculi Delphici" — a reference to the famous Greek oracle at Delphi, used here to mean pagan or mystical prophecy to be underlying this; but so that all things may be clearly demonstrated, and the reasonings about matters so unknown might be more pleasantly introduced to the mind of the Reader, I would wish the Reader to be persuaded that they have been presented under the veil of an ingenious fiction fiction or the covering of a feigned rapture; lest, indeed, the intellect alone, captured by the greatness of the wondrous works without any reflection made upon the wisdom, goodness, and love of so great a Creator, should deprive the will of its due affections of praise, honor, and love—pastures uniquely intended in this Little Work; hence, in the manner of the Ascetics Ascetarum (Greek: asketes): those who practice disciplined spiritual exercises for religious growth, Theodidactus Theodidactus: literally "God-taught," the name of the protagonist in Kircher's narrative after [witnessing] the greatest works of the most wise Creator, having been snatched up into acts of divine love and into affections of wonder, intends nothing else than to stir the Reader to similar thanksgivings owed to God, and to similar affections of a soul full of God, so that in this way, through the visible wonders of this worldly machine mundanæ machinæ: a common Early Modern metaphor for the universe as a complex, divinely-engineered mechanism, he may aspire to the abundance of invisible goods that never fail, seeking them with the whole affection of the mind, and finally, being made a partaker of the perennial fellowship of the children of God and of eternal happiness, may rest in Him who is the ultimate end, eternal bliss original: "beatitudo æterna", and the center of the entire creation. These things having been established, let us now at last pursue the argument of the subject matter proposed to us.