Preface

Alphidius, one of the
ancient sages,
says: whoever
cannot imagine
anything in the art
of the Philosophers' Stone the goal of alchemy, the substance said to transmute base metals into gold,
to him it is more
useful not to
practice it at all
than to attempt
anything. Rasis says
the same in his book
Lumen Luminum Light of Lights.
One must be
diligently on guard.
I exhort you herewith
most highly
that no one presumes
to investigate
the unrecognized mix-