A key to physic, and the occult sciences

...is no less simple than it is important to our welfare. Without knowing these things, we know nothing that can elevate us above the instincts original: "sagacity" of the animal kingdom original: "brute creation". We can neither foresee danger nor avoid it when it is near. We are subject to misguided treatment and mistakes in our medical applications and advice. We receive intuitive signs and omens original: "tokens" of misfortune or advantage without knowing how to benefit from the warning. In short, without this study, our inquiries are in vain, our perceptions are clouded, our views are limited, and all our pursuits end in vanity, frustration original: "vexation", and disappointment. The weakness of our reason, and the distractions arising from the infirmities and necessities of our lives, require the most powerful instructions and the clearest perceptions of heavenly and earthly things. These are necessary for the preservation of our souls and bodies and for the enlightenment of our minds—advantages that can be obtained in no better way than by an intimate acquaintance with the Occult Sciences In this context, "Occult Sciences" refers to the study of hidden natural laws, such as magnetism, herbal properties, and astrology, rather than modern "magic.", or, in other words, by a contemplation

OF GOD.

Though God has given us no innate ideas This refers to the philosophical concept that the mind is born as a blank slate and that knowledge of God must be reached through reason and experience rather than being hard-wired from birth. of Himself, He has furnished us with the faculties our minds are endowed with. Therefore, He has not left Himself without a witness, since we have sense, perception, and reason. We cannot lack a clear proof of Him as long as we carry any thought of ourselves within us. To show, therefore, that we are capable of knowing—that is, being certain—that there is a God, and how we may arrive at this certainty, I think we need look no further than ourselves and the undoubted knowledge we have of our own existence.

I think it is beyond question that man has a clear perception of his own being: he knows certainly that he exists, and that he is something. In the next place, man knows by an intuitive certainty that absolute nothingness can no more produce a real being than it can be equal to two right angles A geometric analogy: just as it is mathematically impossible for "nothing" to equal 180 degrees, it is logically impossible for "nothing" to create "something.". If, therefore, we know there is some real being, it is an evident proof original: "demonstration" that from eternity there has been something. This is because whatever was not from eternity had a beginning, and whatever had a beginning must be produced by something else.

Next, it is evident that whatever has its being from another must also have everything that belongs to its being from that source as well. All the powers it possesses must be owed to, and received from, the same source. This eternal source of all being must also be the source and origin of all power; and so, this eternal being must also be the most powerful.

Again, man finds within himself the capacity for perception and knowledge. We are certain, then, that there is not only some being, but some knowing, intelligent being in the world. There was either a time when there was no knowing being, or else there has been a know-