On Occult Philosophy or the Secret Miraculous Birth of the Seven Planets and Metals

which will be from God into the world, from the Heavenly into the Sidereal, from the Sidereal into the Elemental, and from the Elemental into the Terrestrial. That is now the comprehensible world, and that which has been born from me is a flying being that is held for a god in every language of the world. And this animal is called Mercurius, a swift messenger by which all secret letters can be brought to the right place quite deftly. As all this came to pass, heaven and earth separated from one another, and the elementa elements joined together again so that the dwelling of the planting would not be destroyed. And Mercurius was now a movable spirit, visible and invisible, graspable and ungraspable, and was able to do all that was impossible to others. But he made friendship and loved himself wonderfully with others. Thus the elementa had cooked Mercurium, brought him into form, and made him into a graspable being. This Mercurius was named in his baptism an hermaphrodite, turned himself around, and