To the Most Excellent Majesty of the Illustrious King Maximilian,

John Dee, of London,

wishes him the most prosperous rule.

WHAT two reasons can move a man of my station, a KING so great, to present with so small a gift, both of these have now impelled me to do it. Namely, my very great goodwill toward your Majesty, and, as for the gift itself, though small, both its great rarity and its goodness, which is not to be despised. Your admirable Virtues have aroused in you, and secured for you, my everlasting goodwill; and they are so great that those who have not seen them with their own eyes will give others only moderate credit, since those who tell of them, though most truly, tell of the rarest things. But those who have contemplated them diligently and closely in person will confess that they labour under the greatest poverty and want of words and speech, as soon as they wish to pour themselves out in oratory upon the whole breadth of those virtues. The causes of this I myself, having lingered for some time last September at Pozsony in your Kingdom of Hungary, came to know as an eyewitness, most splendid and tested in various ways.

Now concerning the Rarity of the gift (small indeed in bulk) of which I should speak, in as few words as possible, with the whole effort of my searching mind there occurred to me a consideration of humanlife, twofold, and running in different directions (of which nearly all enter upon one), to be considered in this way. As soon as, the course of infancy and boyhood being finished, the Choice of what kind of life they shall next enter upon begins to torment the minds of the young, then, hesitating somewhat in doubtful judgement at the fork in the road, they at last decide: either (captivated by love of Truth and virtue) to strain every sinew to philosophizing for the whole remaining span of life; or (those, certainly, ensnared by worldly enticements, or burning with desire for riches) to lead a soft and profitable life, and to labour anxiously by every means. And of the latter you may readily find a thousand; whereas of the former (those, that is, who more sincerely devote their effort to Philosophy) you could scarcely point out one who has tasted even the first and true foundations of Physics. But as for him who has searched more deeply and fully into the causes of celestial powers and actions, and of the Origin, State, and Death of other things: not even one in a thousand of those who have turned wholly to the study of Wisdom can the Republic of Letters bring forward. What, then, of him who, having overcome all these difficulties, has aspired to the contemplation and comprehension of Supercelestial Virtues and Metaphysical Influences? WHERE in the whole orb of the earth (in these our most lamentable times) shall we hope there is even ONE magnanimous HERO of this kind? For according to the progress of the THOUSANDTH Proportion of our earlier reckoning (not rashly adopted): FROM A HUNDRED MYRIADS OF THOSE SINCERELY PHILOSOPHIZING, BUT FROM THE PROMISCUOUS LOT OF MEN, FROM A HUNDRED THOUSAND MYRIADS, WE MUST EXPECT THIS ONE MOST FORTUNATE OFFSPRING. The HIEROGLYPHIC Figure of this RARITY, thus demonstrated, we shall depict upon the so-called Pythagorean letter. There, to your Excellency looking more attentively, greater Mysteries (worthy of consideration) will seem to present themselves, described in this way from our COSMOPOLITICAL Theories.

In which degree of this threefold Rarity, now philosophically explained, (most Clement KING) I should wish this gift of mine to stand and to be reckoned, you yourself, who excel in knowledge of the greatest Arts and the most secret Things, and abound in them, can easily guess. But as to placing it in the lowest and first kind of philosophizing, I do not think that I have done this arrogantly. Even if, from the ground, one may sometimes seem to wish to raise his head higher, from that same degree of GOODNESS, then, I dare to promise your Highness abundant fruits to be hoped for from this gift of mine. And this gift of ours is endowed also with this Rarity: that it is woven together, to the very last thread of its discourse, in that kind of writing in which, up to this very day, I could neither learn by hearsay nor understand from the records of our forebears that any complete work has ever been achieved.

Though I may call it Hieroglyphic, whoever examines it more deeply will confess that there lies beneath it both light and, as it were, Mathematical strength; and to bring this about in matters so Rare is, it is clear, rare enough. Is it not Rare, I ask, that the common Astronomical Characters of the Planets (until this hour Marks that were dead, or mute, or at least as if Barbarous) should now be imbued with immortal Life, and be able, in every Language and Nation, to explain most eloquently their own powers? To which is added this also, a thing very Rare: that their outward Forms have been recalled and restored to their mystical Symmetries (by the best Hieroglyphic arguments), as if they had once been the same in an earlier Age, or such as our forefathers might have wished. In the Marks of the Dodecatemories of the Ecliptic, with what new and happy success we have attempted to achieve the same, and to see it, is as Rare as it is altogether New. And to enclose all these things in one single, and that Hieroglyphic Character of MERCVRII, CVRII, (fortified beforehand with a certain point), is altogether most rare. Truly, then, he may be named for us the Restorer and Renewer of all Astronomy, and the Messenger of our IEOVA in this kind, so that we might either be the first to found anew this Sacred Art of Writing, or, it being wholly extinct and blotted out from all the memory of men, recall it by his admonitions. And this has been done by us in such a way that, most gently, and as if of their own accord, all those Hieroglyphic Interpretations set themselves forth in the midst; nothing Violent, or as it were Improper, can appear throughout the whole little Work.

And that these things, thus, with the LONDON our SEAL OF HERMES (for the everlasting memory of men) should be sealed, so that in it there is not one superfluous Point, and, for signifying the things we have said (and far greater ones), not one Point is lacking: all will be compelled to confess it supremely Rare. But above all others, those who can profess their name in the deeper Inquiries of Philosophy and Wisdom. For thus will bear witness the Grammarians, when they see themselves reminded here that an account must be given of the forms of Letters, their Position, their Places in the Alphabetical Order, their various Ligatures, their Numerical Value, and very many other things (which ought to be considered concerning the primary Alphabets of the Three Languages). As elsewhere I once discoursed apologetically, it is as Rare to find a Grammarian who, in Grammar, can exactly defend that there is ONE Science, to be learned from ONE man, as it is to find that Man whom we have shown above on earth to be Most Rare. But so great are the Mysteries that I find in these matters, which have their most solid Foundations laid (both of that Grammatical Art, and of those Mysteries which may be drawn out by the aid of the same) in the Sacrosanct Scriptures of ALMIGHTY GOD, that I could not explain them even in a large Book, nor does this place now seem to require it. Nor should you wonder, O Illustrious King of the Romans, that I now report in passing that Alphabetic Literature contains great Mysteries (since HE HIMSELF, who ALONE is the Author of all Mysteries, compared HIMSELF to the First and the Last Letter. (Which is to be understood not only in the Greek Language, but can be demonstrated in the Hebrew and in the Latin too, by various ways from that Art.) O, how great, then, must be the Mysteries of the Intermediate ones! And it is no wonder that this is so established in letters: since all things Visible and INVISIBLE, Manifest and most Hidden (by Nature or by Art), emanating from God Himself, must be searched out by us with most diligent Inquiry, to proclaim and celebrate His GOODNESS, WISDOM and POWER. Hence Paul said that MANKIND is without any excuse, even if it had no other written Record of these things than what, from CREATION, by the very Finger of GOD, is inscribed in all Creatures. But this I do not now pursue. I am not so curious as to wish to demand these things of all Grammarians; rather, I would both make witnesses of those very men who labour to dig out the hidden Mysteries of Things, that we have demonstrated a certain RARE Example in this Genus (from our MONAD), and also admonish them in friendship that the first and mystical letters of the Hebrews, Greeks, and Latins proceeded from God alone and were delivered to Mortals (whatever human Arrogance is wont to boast), and that the Figures of them all came forth from Points, Straight Lines, and the Circumferences of circles, disposed with wonderful and most wise Artifice. And although the eternal Wisdom of our Heavenly Father has taught us that every sense of the Mosaic Law is to be considered, down to the fulfilment of every jot and tittle, as though in IOD and Chireck (from which all the Letters and Vowels of the Hebrews arise) the final point of Legal Consideration were reached by analysis, yet it is not contrary to us, while the UNITY OF THE POINT CHIRECK REMAINS UNMOVED, to embrace the TRINITY OF CONSUBSTANTIAL MONADS, VISIBLE IN THE UNITY OF IOD ITSELF, FORMED FROM ONE DESCENDING STRAIGHT LINE AND TWO DIFFERENT PARTS OF A CIRCUMFERENCE. Whence, with the same labour, we discover quite plainly that the first Men could not have constructed so Stupendous a Fabric of Hebrew Letters and Nekudoth from such Mystical Principles without the most present Inspiration of the Divine Will. Though these are the Least of the things weighed by the Judgements of common Grammarians, yet when the Wise duly consider how they adapt themselves to every Generation of Letters and Nekudoth, and by how wondrous an Artifice, they teach them the greatest and very many Mysteries (a most perfect Anagogy). But having thus dismissed these Philosophers of Letters and Language, I shall bring forward my MATHEMATICIANS as the most sincere Witnesses of the Rarity of this our gift. Will the ARITHMETICIAN (I do not say the LOGISTICIAN) not marvel that his Numbers, which he used to store away, abstracted from corporeal things and free from everything sensible, in the recesses of the Dianoea, and there to handle by the various Actions of the Mind, are here, in our Work, shown and made Concrete and Corporeal, and that their Souls and Formal lives are separated from them for our uses? Will he not marvel most to see so great an Offspring of the MONAD, to which no other Monad or Number is added, and to which nothing can be applied extrinsically in order to multiply it? Will he not be seized with the greatest admiration, in the most subtle and general Rule of the Thing and the Census, that, of ONE THING proposed like a Chaos (fit to resolve every Arithmetical Doubt), the CENSUS itself and the Value, or Estimation (of the Power latent in the THING itself), is here explained, always at the first Examination, by the number TEN, exact operations of Division and Equation (or as that Art prescribes) having first intervened? The GEOMETER (my King) will begin to hesitate whether he is quite sure of the Principles of his own Art (which is very wonderful), when he understands, here, murmured in Secret, and as his own: that a CIRCLE wholly Equal to the SQUARE is given by the Mystery of this Hieroglyphic Monad. And that the so-called SWEATS of Archimedes can here be compensated by most excellent Fruit, although he himself did not attain the Problem he attempted. In great things it is enough to have willed. The MUSICIAN, with what amazement may he justly and most deservedly be struck, when without Motion and Sound he shall here understand the inexplicable and Celestial HARMONIES? And the ASTRONOMER, will he not most regret the cold endured under the open sky, the vigils and the labours, when here, without any injury of the Air to be borne, under a roof, with windows and doors closed on every side, at any given Time he can observe most exactly with his eyes the Revolutions of the Celestial Bodies? And that without any Mechanical Instruments made of Wood or Brass? And the PERSPECTIVIST will condemn the dullness of his own Wit, he who laboured by all means to make a Mirror along the Line of the Parabolic Section of the Cone (suitably turned in a circle), so as to torment any proposed Matter (liable to fire) with incredible Heat from the Sun's Rays; since here, from the Trigonal Section of a Tetrahedron, a Line is displayed, from whose Circular Form a Mirror can be made which (even with Clouds withdrawing the Sun) can reduce any Stones or Metals whatever, as it were, to Impalpable Powders, by force of Heat (truly the greatest). And he who has sweated over the subtle Speculation of WEIGHTS all his lifetime: how well will he judge his Labours and expenses to have been placed, when here the Mastery of our MONAD will teach, by most certain Experience, that the Element of Earth can float above Water? No differently, those who have most diligently winnowed the reasons of the PLENUM and the VACUUM (an argument disputed from the very cradle of Philosophy), and have seen that the Surfaces of the nearest Elements are co-ordinated, connected, and joined together by God Best and Greatest, by that Law and (as it were Indissoluble) bond of Nature, so that, by leading and driving Fire, Air and Water up, down, hither, thither (as they please), they can most confidently show Marvels to men (and these, by various Inventions, are indeed useful to the Commonwealth, as the whole Artifice of Hydraulics shows, and the rest of Hero's Thaumatopoetica, as it now pleases to name them). But that any Machine could draw the Element of Earth upward, into Fire, through Water, none of that Profession will claim for himself. Yet the Theories of our MONAD demonstrate that this can be done. O Wisest King, lay these things up in the most secret Treasuries of your Mind and Memory.

Now I come to the CABALIST, the Hebrew: when he sees that his so-called Geometry, Notariacon and Tzyruph (as it were the three chief Keys of his Art) are practised outside the bounds of the Holy Tongue, so called; indeed, that from everywhere (from whatever comes to hand, visible and Invisible) the Marks and Characters of this Mystical Tradition, received (from God), are gathered together, he will then either call this Art too HOLY, (compelled by truth, if he understands), or else he will confess that, not of the Jews only, but of all Peoples, Nations and Languages, truly without respect of persons (ἀπροσωποληψία), there is the same most Benevolent GOD, and that no Mortal can excuse himself for ignorance of this our Holy Language. This I called, in our Aphorisms for the Parisians, the REAL CABALA, or that of τοῦ ὄντος (of Being); just as I call that other, vulgar one the Cabalistic GRAMMAR, or that of τοῦ λεγομένου (of what is said), which rests on the well-known Letters that Man can write. But this one, which is born to us by the Law of Creation (as Paul hints), the REAL CABALA, is also a certain more Divine GRAMMAR: since it is the Inventress of New Arts and the most faithful Explicatress of the most Abstruse, so that others may henceforth attempt it by this example of ours. You will not shrink, I know well (O KING), though I now dare to set forth this MAGIC Parable in your Royal Presence: this our Hieroglyphic MONAD possesses a certain Terrestrial Body, lying hidden in the Centre of the Centre; which, by what means it is to be ACTUATED by divine Power, it itself teaches without Words. To it, once ACTUATED, the Gonetic Influence of the Moon and the Sun is to be COUPLED (in perpetual Marriage), although before, in Heaven or elsewhere, they were most SEPARATED from the SAME Body. This Gamaea having been made (by God's Nod) (when I interpreted to the Parisians τῆς γαμῆς αἶαν: that is, the Land of Marriage, or the Terrestrial Sign of Influential Conjugation), upon its Native Earth it can be Nourished or Irrigated no further than until the Completion of the FOURTH great and truly Metaphysical Revolution. With this progress finished, he who nourished it will himself first pass into METAMORPHOSIS, and thereafter will very rarely be seen by the eyes of Mortals. This, O Best King, is the so often sung (and without Crime) INVISIBILITY OF THE MAGI: which (as all later Magi will confess) is granted to the Theories of our MONAD. The most expert PHYSICIAN too will, from the same Theories, most easily attain the Mystic will of Hippocrates. For he will know WHAT is to be added to WHOM, and what taken away; so that he will gladly then be willing to confess that the Art itself, and MEDICINE itself, are contained under the great Compendium of our MONAD. The BERYLLISTIC, here, in a Crystalline Plate, can see most exactly everything that goes on under the Heaven of the MOON, on Earth or in the Waters; and in the Carbuncle, or אדם Stone, he will explore the whole Aerial and Fiery Region. And if the twenty-first Theory of our Hieroglyphic MONAD satisfy the VOARCHADUMIC, and VOARH BETH ADUMOTH itself furnish matter for Speculation, he will confess that he need not travel to the Indies or the Americas for the sake of Philosophizing.

Finally, as to the ADEPT kind (whatever either ARIOT: ON the Art can supply or promise, or the labours of twenty years of the great Hermes have attained), although I have elsewhere written about it to the Parisians, illustrated by its own MONAD peculiar to it (with an Anagogical Demonstration), yet we constantly assert to Your Royal Majesty that ALL THIS is expressed by the Analogical Work of our Hieroglyphic MONAD so much to the life that no more similar Example could be set before mankind. This ought to convert him into itself in two ways: namely, to Swallow the Dignified Work itself, and to Imitate the Dignification of the Work.

Enough has now been said by me (indeed I fear, if the common herd of men were to hear it, more than enough) of the Rarity of this our Theoretical Gift; grant it, O King Maximilian, (by the Honour of the Threefold Illustrious Diadem), and grant that its Goodness be defined within the same limits. Let it suffice, therefore, (singular Glory of all Kings), that when we have demonstrated more carefully how Rare this our Gift is, no one (though most slanderous, with the wantonness of an Envious Tongue) can yet mutter that it is an Aesopic Bird. So far, indeed, is it from bearing the Unworthiness of Calumny justly, that all the most Modest and Wisest Philosophers will confess that they will not disdain to join with me in singing Praise and Honour to that Phoenix, from the Wings of whose Mercy Alone we have drawn, with Fear and Love, all these most Rare Theoretical Plumes, against our Nakedness introduced through Adam; that with them we might resist, much more briskly, certain harshest colds of Ignorance, and cover the Foulness of Errors from the eyes of those who philosophize, most zealous of Honest TRUTH. And although we rely here on no human Authority at all, yet wherever some notable saying or writing of some most Ancient Philosopher could opportunely be illuminated by our Light, there we have not refused to present it in a friendly way to our Posterity: as in certain Mysteries of Hermes, Ostanes, Pythagoras, Democritus, and Anaxagoras; into which we descend from our Hieroglyphic Demonstrations, not as though begging credit in these matters from them. And so great a Rarity is everywhere accompanied by a Goodness joined to it, that we PROTEST that nothing, whether openly or covertly, has been set down by us in this little book which is not likewise Honest, sincere, fitting to Human Dignity, and most Useful for the pursuit of most perfect Piety and true Religion. And as no one can ΟΡΘΟΤΟΜΕΙΝ (cut straight) in such arduous Mysteries, except he who has the whole most perfect Amplitude of them, so no one would sooner betray his Infancy, Malice, or Arrogance than he who should dare either to Condemn as Impious, or to Reject as frivolous, anything of what we have here commended to Your Wisdom. Since no one can adduce a witness for this matter who is either Keener in Judgement, or more Expert in Practice, or more Powerful in Authority, or more Faithful in Sincerity, than that Highest King of Kings, the Almighty, who has made MAXIMILIAN King, Your August Majesty will therefore be to me in place of all others. For you to have these our things Approved and held Ratified will not only stop the mouths of many three-penny Grammaticasters, but will also raise the spirits of many who philosophize: some lying now on the ground because of the proclaimed Uncertainty of such great Mysteries, others fearing, on account of the Rarity of the Matters, the Proud judgments of the Unskilled, who are wont to condemn Good studies together with Bad (rashly and promiscuously, from the mere Similarity of a name), with the (at times) most lamentable destruction of the best books. It can be most clearly established that both of these have, at various times, brought very great harm to the Christian Commonwealth: when a Mind apt for handling and undertaking such great matters is either terrified by the former reason, or, having already made no mean Progress, sees the whole so noble and so divine study of the Mysteries condemned, rudely and arrogantly, by Unskilled Judges. But it belongs to another place to provide each honest Science with its own rivals: false ones indeed, Shadowy, Odious, Troublesome, and Useless to the Society of Men. These Alone, and in the way that common men pursue and practise them, we admit are to be hissed off and condemned, not only by the Common judgment but by that of every wisest man; and we too advise that this be done most diligently. But those who do not know whether those BODIES exist, or where, or of what kind they are, OF WHICH these are the most tenuous Shadows: in what way do they, of men not common, dare, or at least by Right can, condemn Studies not common? LET JUSTICE BE DONE. To each his Own, thus, be rendered in these matters. To the Vulgar Smatterers, who not only pursue the Shadows of the Great Arts, but most wickedly counterfeit and adulterate them, let us ascribe Trifles, Error, and every Impiety; but as for the more advanced in Good and Solid studies, and in honest morals both confirmed and most distinguished by their integrity, either to Inflict Violence upon them (on account of the light Calumny of the Vulgar), or to call their Name and studies into Hatred, or their Life into peril: that seems to me, O King, not only inhuman, but Unjust and as it were Impious. For just as the Shadows of all Bodies whatsoever, everywhere, have COMMON BOUNDS with the Bodies themselves (which is well known to Mathematicians), in the same way the Sages also permit these Phrases of Speaking and Writing to be Common to the Shadows and to the true Bodies themselves. Here the Unskilled, Rash, and Presumptuous Apes catch at SHADOWS alone, bare and Empty, while the wiser Philosophers themselves enjoy the Solid doctrine of BODIES and its most pleasing fruit. And so we see that this truly comes about: that from the former, what they thought they had (the shadowy), as not Solid and Sincere, is most justly snatched out of their hands; and to those who handle the Bodies, all honest and lawful Comprehension and Knowledge of the Shadows is granted. It is therefore necessary, O King, ΟΡΘΟΤΟΜΕΙΝ (to cut straight) between SHADOW and BODY, and to distinguish the bounds, powers, and uses of each. That is the Sword of JUSTICE, Royal and Imperial, whose office it is, as of many others, so also this, to discharge a Divine Function. And by a certain Art, indeed, at times the Sages themselves gladly admit SHADOWY figures within the Sinuous windings of the Bodies themselves, lest, when Asses rush rudely into the Gardens of the Hesperides, the choicest Lettuces be offered them, since Thistles suffice for them. You will pardon me, O King, for reproving the World concerning Injustice (by the authority of Christ); nor do I wish these things, in this place, at these Times, and especially in the presence of your celebrated Wisdom, to be reckoned in any way Parerga: nay, not even Superfluous. And so much for this. This my Offspring, then, the HIEROGLYPHIC MONAD (in Conception indeed of London, but in Birth of Antwerp), I most humbly Offer to Your Most Serene Majesty, earnestly entreating of you that you not disdain to become its Godfather now with me; and afterwards, when it shall be both greater in age and more commendable in its fidelity, that it may always be able to serve you in your presence. I wish it henceforth to be held yours, O Most Clement KING, who, as you seemed to me throughout the whole time of the birth to stand before my eyes with a most gracious Aspect, so in that way made easy and unhindered for me the Labour of bringing it forth into the Light. For what I had carried in my mind for seven continuous yearsᵃ, that same, by your incredible Magnetic Virtue across so great an Interval, in the space of only twelve Days I have most peacefully brought forth into this common Air. May that Sacrosanct TRINITY grant that this be Happy and Auspicious, both for Your August Highness and for my most ardent studies of sincerest truth; that Trinity which (founded in the Omnipotence of the Ineffable MONAD before all Ages) lives and reigns Eternal; to Whom Alone all Praise, Honour, Virtue and Glory be always rendered and sung by every Creature. AMEN.