The Author to the Readers

THE AUTHOR TO THE READERS

Three things principally have I set before me as my aim in these magical and natural discourses of mine; and they are clarity, order, and truth: qualities and conditions which render any composition whatsoever forever praiseworthy, welcome, and worthy to live eternally, but likewise not a little difficult to attain in full, and to be found complete and united together within the human sciences. And as it is with such labour and such difficulty that these sciences may show themselves adorned with so precious an ornament, so natural Magic, their chief and Queen, openly discovers herself the enemy and the despiser of it. There is not one, I believe, among the innumerable multitude of ancient and modern Writers who does not in some manner, and according to the nature of the art and faculty he treats, aspire, and with all his strength and power endeavour, that the three aforesaid conditions should shine forth or be discerned within his writings. From the natural Magus alone do they receive a rigorous banishment, being of set purpose in part removed from his volumes, and in part concealed.

And first, as to clarity: who does not see with how great an obscurity his books are overshadowed, and with what artifice the mysteries contained within them are veiled and covered over? Indeed, that they may accomplish this the more conveniently, these Magi are accustomed to treat their doctrines not only in their own proper magical terms, but in those besides of every other science, faculty, and art; employing thereafter, and without distinction, every allegorical manner, the parabolic as well as the typical, the problematic, and the like. In sum, leaving behind neither enigma, nor metaphor, nor any other figure whatsoever, they are intent upon nothing but to obscure and to drive out the aforesaid clarity.