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ROSICRUCIANISM, ALCHEMY, AND MAGIC. 205
Nature's book, which are not to be read or comprehended
save with the eyes of understanding, being traced by the
Spirit of the living God on the hidden fleshly tablets of our
own hearts. . . . These internal and spiritual characters,
constituting the interior writing, may also to the bodily
eyes be the cause and origin of the things which do ap-
"that those
pear." 1 "It is manifest," he also remarks,
vivific letters and characters impressed on the Bible and on
the great Book of Nature, and which we call arcane, be-
cause they are understood only by the few, are one thing,
and that the dead, destroying letters of the same books,
whose cortices contain the living and spiritual characters,
are another."
IV. These speculative principles appear to have been
united with some form of practical magic.
Now magic is
a term which conjures up into the mind of the ordinary
reader some hazy notions either of gross imposture or
diabolical compacts and hellish rites ; it seems necessary,
therefore, to state what it really was in the opinions of
those who professed it. According to Paracelsus, magic is
that great and hidden wisdom which discovers the interior
constitution of everything.
"
It teaches the true nature of
the inner man as well as the organization of his outward
body." It includes " a knowledge of visible and invisible
nature." It is the only true teacher of the art of healing. If
physicians possessed it, their books might
medicines be thrown into the ocean.
be burnt and their
"
Magic and sorcery
are two entirely different things, and there is as much dif-
ference between them as there is between light and dark-
ness, and between white and black." The same authority
1 Robertas de Fluctibus, "Apologia Compendiana Fraternitateir*
de Rosea Cruce."