P r e f a c e .

them speak their own language, even if it is a dialect that has gone out of fashion or barbaric Latin: A term for medieval or non-classical Latin often used by scholars and occultists that did not adhere to strict Roman grammatical rules.. This, however, applies primarily to the actual alchemical and magical works, for in them kabbalistic transposition: The practice of rearranging letters or words to reveal or hide mystical meanings. or steganographic masking: The art of hiding a secret message within an ordinary-looking text. is something very common.

Through the instruction of a man whose teaching remains eternally venerable to me, I have seen how detrimental it can often be in original manuscripts to assign even a single word a different position than the artist: In this context, the practitioner or author of an alchemical or magical work. had ordered for it. I have seen that through certain "beautifications" of this kind, it is not uncommon for an entire work to become incomprehensible. Its embedded secret—whether real or intended, that does not matter here—is wiped away, and now nothing remains of all that which was, in fact, not very hidden in the original.

The division of each volume shall be sevenfold. The beginning will always be made by a preface or introduction, in which I will sometimes say something in general about writings of this kind, but at other times I will stay only with what occurs in the specific volume provided, providing what can serve as either a history or an explanation of its contents.