PART ONE

The chessboard is the world, the pieces are the phenomena of the universe, the rules of the game are what we call the laws of nature. The player on the other side is hidden from us.

—Thomas Henry Huxley, Collected Essays

One great difference between Chemical and Alchemical processes is that Alchemy only employs a gradual heat continually but carefully increased, and does not commence with violent heat.

—Israel Regardie, The Golden Dawn

My God! Think, think what you are saying. It is too incredible, too monstrous; such things can never be…. There must be some explanation, some way out of the terror. Why, man, if such a case were possible, our Earth would be a nightmare.

—Arthur Machen, The Great God Pan