The Magus

They therefore can only develope the mysteries of nature, who being versed in the art of Cabala, Fire, and Magic, examined the properties of things, and draw, from darkness into light, the lurking powers of Man, Animals, Vegetables, Minerals, and Stones, and, separating the crudities, dregs, poisons, heterogenities, that are the thorns implanted in virgin nature from the curse. For an observer of nature sees daily she doth distil, sublime, calcine, ferment, dissolve, coagulate, fix, therefore we who are the ministers of nature do separate, finding out the causes and effects of every phenomena she produces. The Magus is one of the primary sources for the study of ceremonial magic, and for a long time was one of the rarest and most sought after of the 19th century grimoires. Barretts' magnum opus embodies deep knowledge of Alchemy, Astrology, and the Kabbalah, and has been cited by the Golden Dawn and other occult and esoteric movements as source material. Written in 1801 in the middle of the 'Age of Reason', sandwiched between Newton and Darwin, this was possibly the last epoch that a work like this could be composed.