Itinerarium exstaticum

It is an imaginary dialogue in which an angel named Cosmiel takes the narrator, Theodidactus ('taught by God'), on a journey through the planets.

In his 1641 work Magnes sive de Arte Magnetica, Kircher had argued against the cosmological theories of both Kepler and Galileo, but had written nothing on the subject since.

[5]: 34  When published, Itinerarium Exstaticum attracted considerable criticism for its departure from the Aristotelian cosmology that the Catholic Church had essentially adhered to since the trial of Galileo.

Kircher advertised as a prelude to his Mundus Subterraneus; an extatic journey that took Theodidactus in the opposite direction, down under the earth.

The frontispiece of Iter Exstaticum depicts Kircher himself holding a compass, with the angel Cosmiel next to him gesturing towards a huge image of the universe.

This is a representation of the Tychonic system, but it is remarkable because while it is clearly marked as moving around the Earth, the Sun is represented at the centre of the universe, above all stands the name of God written in Hebrew.