TO THE

TRUSTEES AND DISCIPLES

OF THE GREAT HERMES TRISMEGISTUS

Others leave various things to those they depart from: they increase the wealth of those remaining, often publish their opinions, read for years, and burden them with fideicommissis legal trusts or legacies and restitutions for those they seemed to have blessed. How many, even among the most prudent, have suffered from their own errors in this common matter of delusion! Their wealth and ideas are later overturned by the grave or worn away and delayed by time. Here, we do not sketch for you some Cretan labyrinth of Daedalus, nor the fleeing apples of Tantalus, nor the hanging gardens of Semiramis. Nor do we bring the final honor of Colchis the Golden Fleece or show the kingdoms of Saturn, recounting the blessed and fixed hours of the Goddesses. We have frankly professed that all things reside in Sulphur the active, combustible principle, Sal Salt, the stabilizing principle, and the Sol naturae Sun of nature. Like the thread of Ariadne leading Theseus, we guide you through the womanly and humble task alchemical operations were often called "woman's work" because they required patience and gentle heat of solution and coagulation. We show how two are made from one, and how these are united again and return to a circle. Finally, we sing of and recommend the nourishment and the use of Mulciber fire/Vulcan in the Mœchic adulterous or mixing digestion with boldness. You have no need here for the conjectures of a diviner, nor the interpretations of F. Vasquius on the progress of successions or final wills. More plainly than Majesty allows, with the Archeus the vital, governing spirit of nature unlocked, we bring forth the immaterial matter to be materialized, and we bare the kernel by breaking the shell. We are not merely imitators of the Testament of Lull a famous alchemical text attributed to Ramon Lull, but its interpreters. Be strengthened in your hearts, therefore, and show yourselves worthy to be made the noble heirs of such a great Treasury. This will happen when you have joined a friend, grateful to nature, and the radical Aphrodisia vital or sexual energy of the Mind in its own bath by its own path, through which you will be able to grow and multiply. Farewell, descendants, and enjoy the legacy of Hadrian.