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Preface flame licking the air shot forth an unusual brightness, clearer than natural fire. It was like the light of lightning thunder, suddenly illuminating the house, as if in sudden conflagration. Thus, so that you might not be led astray in the future in a search for the perfect transformation of silver, or of gold, or of incorruptible metals under the earth, or hidden in the sea, I have reduced them to ashes.

17. But what I do want to make clear to you is the judgment obtained through the calculation of the heavens. By this one has knowledge of future events while rejecting completely all fantastic things one may imagine. With divine and supernatural inspiration integrated with astronomical computations, one can name places and periods of time accurately, an occult property obtained through divine virtue, power and ability. By means of this, past, present and future become but one eternity: for all things are naked and open.

18. Thus, my son, notwithstanding your tender brain, you can easily understand that things which are to happen can be prophesied by the lights of the sky at night, which are natural, coupled with the spirit of prophecy. Not that I would assume the name or power of a prophet. It is as a mortal man, whose senses revealed inspiration places no further from Heaven than his feet from the ground. I cannot fail, err or be deceived, though I am the greatest sinner in this world, subject to all human afflictions.

19. Many times in the week I am overtaken by an ecstasy; having ren- dered my nocturnal studies agreeable through long calculation, I have composed books of prophecies, of which each contains one hundred astro- nomical quatrains of prophecies. I have sought to polish them a bit obscurely. They are perpetual prophecies, for they extend from now to the year 3797.

90. It is possible, my son, that some will raise their eyebrows at seeing such a vast extent of time and treatment of everything under the moon that will happen throughout the earth. But if you attain the natural span of human life, you will come to see, under your own native skies, the fulfillment of future events that I have foreseen.

21. Although the eternal God alone knows the eternity of the light which proceeds from himself, I say frankly to all to whom he has wished to reveal his immense magnitude, immeasurable and incomprehensible as it is, amidst long and melancholy inspiration, that it is a hidden thing, manifested divinely. It is manifested chiefly by two means, which are contained in the understanding of the inspired one who prophesies.

22. One comes by infusion, clearing the supernatural light for the person who predicts by astronomy, making it possible to predict through inspired revelation. The other is a fixed participation of the divine eternity. By means of it, the Prophet comes to judge what has been given him by his divine spirit, through God the Creator and his natural intuition.

23. So that what is predicted, and is true, has an ethereal origin. This