Gerlandus, otherwise called Hortulanus, and Sendivogius write that the Hermetic art is an imitation and a following of the great and wondrous work of creation described in the first chapter of the First Book of Moses.

Although this is said more of practice than of theory—for, according to Master Claude Germain, doctor and physician of Paris, Hermetic philosophy consists of both theory and practice, and in the former respect is called a science, in the latter an art—my purpose is chiefly to set forth a theory, and especially the mystery of rainwater: that a universal medicine may likewise be prepared from it; and, by its means, to describe the principles of Hermetic philosophy and, above all by analogy, the subject of this art. Yet, among other passages of Holy Scripture, the aforementioned first chapter of Genesis and its account of the great and wondrous work of creation may serve my undertaking in no small measure. For there, at its very beginning, we read: