Adamic Magic, or the Antiquity of Magic

To the Reader.

...often stirs up, puzzles, and helps our Reason; it so often appeals to her when she is restless, and so often when she is watchful—and this by strange means, not by chance or external additions, but by the genuine provocations and pleasures of nature. Since all these Motions In this context, "motions" refers to the internal impulses, stirrings, or inclinations of the soul and mind. are not without purpose, it eventually happens that in due time we reach the true Knowledge of those things that are.

and yet? you know nothing we have? attained

But because I would not have you build your Philosophy on corals and whistles Corals and whistles were traditional gifts for infants; the author uses them here as metaphors for trivial, superficial, or "childish" academic theories that lack substance., which are the Objects of little children (whom we have spoken of previously), I will speak somewhat of those Elements The fundamental building blocks of the natural world. in whose contemplation a Man ought to employ himself. This Discourse may serve as a Preface to our whole Philosophy. Man, according to Trismegistus Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary Egyptian sage and purported author of the Hermetic Corpus, regarded as the father of alchemy and secret wisdom., has but two Elements in his power: namely, Earth and Water. To this Doctrine, I add this—and I have it from a Greater than Hermes Likely a reference to Christian scripture or divine revelation, which the author values above ancient pagan philosophy.—that God has made Man absolute