P R E F A C E.

Therefore, he who strives to please the world must believe that the crooked is straight and must approve of everything, otherwise he is rejected everywhere. And since our good Paracelsus has suffered such bitter things until now, with no one daring to close the mouths of those slanderers, I shall begin by explaining and illustrating his principal books—not to show him as a liar or an impostor, but as one most experienced in the light of Nature—starting with this Heaven of the Philosophers. I will not, however, prove that he could create heaps of Gold and Silver, a subject he does not treat at all, but he demonstrates only the possibility of the thing, which I too shall endeavor to show. Although I am ignorant of the great work and not even very desirous of it, I am content to be able to discern the true from the false and to convince the incredulous. I hope that by this writing of ours, an opportunity will be given to others for faithful investigation and for reaching the desired goal, and that great benefit will come to our Germany, now lost and miserably devastated. May the kind God deign to assist me mercifully, so that I may begin and complete this undertaking to His Glory and the good of many. Amen.