Short Preface /

of Fr. BASILIUS VALENTINUS

on the secret miraculous birth

of the seven planets and metals,

I have indeed undertaken to describe, according to God's order of philosophy and the art of the true Cabala mystical tradition, in a simple manner and according to the limited understanding of my mind, how the seven planets and metals were originally born, as other poets have done before me. But I do not intend for this to be interpreted as sorcery or in a godless and un-Christian sense. Rather, it is to the end that wisdom upon wisdom, and worldly understanding, might be mirrored and sharpened therein, to learn and fathom something through speculation and investigation, so that what the world had not previously noticed, or had not understood at all, might be made manifest. In order to make a beginning of the work through this preface—the rest has been divided into chapters—our Redeemer and Savior Christ himself says in the 6th chapter of John: The words that I speak are spirit. Item / That