PREFACE.

...[not] by the impulse of their own free will, but by the inspiration original: ambitione; here used in the sense of the Holy Spirit's pervasive influence or "going about" its work. of the Holy Spirit, whose nature it is to teach all things not through deceits, but with pure and most essential truth. From these things we understand that this society observes not only the mere laws of Nature and her naked processes in the secrets they propose to us, but also that to execute them justly and lead them to the determined goal by a straight path, they seek not the aid of a malignant spirit, but of the divine and sacrosanct Spirit. Without His divine will, the true key of knowledge is not to be obtained.

For what, I ask, would it profit the brothers to announce their wonderful works to the world with haughty speech and a blast as if from a trumpet, and to soothe the ears of men with empty rumors, if the promise of their word could not be fulfilled without the wicked tricks of Magic? For in every Christian Commonwealth, it is decreed and ordained by specific law that Necromancers, Sorcerers original: Venefici; literally "poisoners," but in a 17th-century legal context, it referred to those who practiced harmful magic or witchcraft., and Enchanters should be punished with the death penalty, whether by the gallows or by fire.

But since Dr. Libavius Andreas Libavius (c. 1550–1616), a German physician and chemist who famously attacked the Rosicrucian manifestos, accusing them of being both scientifically unsound and heretical. seems so fixed in that opinion and view that he can in no way be moved from it—namely, that such works, so marvelous to the world, cannot be accomplished and performed without the Devil's help—we have published this Apology An Apologia is a formal written defense of a doctrine or person. of ours. In it, we shall declare it probable that the intentions of the brothers made known to the public shine forth and are brought into view partly by divine gift, and partly by secret reasons and the light enclosed and kept hidden within the very bowels of Nature. But now, since all the hiding places of suspicion have been traversed by Dr. Libavius, into that...