Ornate woodcut headpiece featuring symmetrical scrolling foliage, floral motifs, and grotesque elements including a central mask and seated figures at the sides.

TO THE VENERABLE AND REVEREND MAN, AND

most diligent in the accurate investigation of the

mysteries of Nature;

JOHN THORNBURGH,

BISHOP OF WORCESTER, MY SINGULAR

FRIEND, IN HIM WHO IS THE TRUE LIGHT

OF THE WORLD, AND THE TREASURE OF TREASURES,

Large historiated woodcut initial C featuring a seated figure in scholarly robes within decorative scrollwork and foliage.

When I set out to dedicate these internal revelations of things or hidden mysteries of Nature, the vain multitude of common men—those occupied only with gross, corporeal, and merely external matters—rendered me uncertain. The ignorant and profane crowd of mortals made me waver, since among a thousand men, scarcely a single worshiper of naked Nature or one who rightly knows himself is to be found. Therefore, the worldly hold in hatred and pursue with vain derision anyone who is least concerned with deceptive and outwardly visible things; for to those wandering in darkness and constantly traveling about the "bark" original: "corticem" - the outer shell or husk of reality as opposed to the spiritual core (as they say) or the plainly cloudy circumference, the entrance to the most fixed center of virtue—the palace flashing with divine light—is denied as if to the profane. This man, I say—being a son of light and charity—they reject with contemptuous custom. From this sort of worldly grain original: "farinâ" - literally 'flour' or 'batch', meaning people of that ilk my Muse, burdened with the reward of truth, turns away; having been instructed by experience, she has become entirely foreign to them. Furthermore, we are taught by the admonition of Holy Scripture that pearls are by no means to be cast before swine, nor the bread of the children of men to be offered to dogs.

To whom, therefore, shall I better steer this ship of mine—laden with riches (though of a chemistry original: "chemiæ" - here referring to alchemy and the transformation of matter far from common) and even now plowing the turbulent seas of worldly opinions—than to a man learned, grave, and studious in tracking and searching out the mysteries of Nature, and finally, one looking into the abstruse centers of things with the most acute lens of genius? For the sons of light exult and rejoice among themselves, since experience indicates that like things, by a certain natural instinct, enjoy and delight in like things.

Therefore, toward your shores (Reverend man, most to be cherished for your profound learning in the chemical art) my full-sailed ship tends: with a favorable breeze of love and benevolence, she directs her course to you. My skiff of this History strives with all its might to put in at the firm and auspicious shores of your character, and that under this secure confidence: because the rays of the Triune original: "Triunius" - referring to the Trinity or the threefold nature of the divine have shone upon your mind, since the "Nothing, Something, and All" original: "Nihil, Aliquid, Omnia" - a reference to Thornburgh's own alchemical treatise 'Lithotheōrikos' of the ancient sages are by no means hidden from you. For you have nobly acknowledged the Chaos and the Darkness in your writings—