Also, my son, I beseech you not to exercise your mind upon such reveries and vanities as drain

the body and incur the soul's perdition, and which trouble our feeble frames. Above all avoid the

vanity of that most execrable magic formerly reproved by the Holy Scriptures - only excepting

the use of official astrology.

For by the latter, with the help of inspiration and divine revelation, and continual calculations, I

have set down my prophecies in writing. Fearing lest this occult philosophy be condemned, I did

not therefore wish to make known its dire import; also fearful that several books which had lain

hidden for long centuries might be discovered, and of what might become of them, after reading

them I presented them to Vulcan. [i.e. burned them]. And while he devoured them, the flame

licking the air gave out such an unexpected light, clearer than that of an ordinary flame and

resembling fire from some flashing cataclysm, and suddenly illumined the house as if it were

caught in a furnace. Which is why I reduced them to ashes then, so that none might be tempted to

use occult labours in searching for the perfect transmutation, whether lunar or solar, of

incorruptible metals (3).

Nostradamus