Minister's Notebook

The crux of the notebook is most likely the instructions for the box and what it does.
The silver box essentially steals essence, stores it, then when triggered dissipates the essence.
The notes go on to say that this dissipated essence is then absorbed by the sacred symbols.
This then unlocks the sacred symbols and allows "the devils" to manifest and be seen.

The minister spends a lot of time in the notebook ranting and raving about the "youth of today" and losing the war against sin. He lays out a plan early on in the notebook based on believing that if he could only show his congregation what awaits them they would surely turn.
This "plan" later in the notebook morphs to something more sinister.
It seems he began experimenting with the box and sacred symbols. He describes being enveloped in a etherial mist which allowed one to see all manor of "devils" moving around among us "waiting to penetrate our souls."  
In one entry he describes "an angel" emerging and devouring the devils with only his faith sparing him.
His "plan" morphs at this point and he describes an idea of taking the kids to the "brink of satan" then having them renounce the devils and the angel emerging and saving them.
According to his notes the angel however was not so predictable.
He then notes that he is going to begin "diving deeper" and that if the sacred symbols allow angels to come then he may reach god himself.
Appearing to then rapidly go down hill he began deciding which of the children really need saving. He would have them denounce and judge each other and then separate the "bad' ones out during the final room and take them to the basement to allow "true judgement" to be placed on them.

He does seem to recognize momentarily his own madness, and suspects it is brought on by the box. He then goes on to write, "they can not become as I have or they may not truly realize their damnation. They must know what is happening to them and understand why. We will take little of their spirits so they may find no sanctuary in their insanity."

It is unclear how exactly he learned about the box. One entry suggests he dreamed of it after agonizing over the souls of his congregation. (This part would be accompanied by early rough sketches of it and notes of creating a device to call forth the satanic forces at work among us.)
Note: The device he dreamed of is only vaguely similar with his sketches being more cubical. It doesn't seem he dreamed of the actual box itself, but a similar device.

He left the church under the guise of missionary work to seek it out. Though his notes don't say exactly how he acquired it they do suggest that after a monetary amount was rejected he may have killed the person in possession of it.  
He also mentions "others" and "they" seeking it out.
He also apparently experimented with the box while oversea shortly after taking possession of it.
The "sacred symbols" he seems to have pieced together mostly from a notebook he acquired from whom he got the box from.


Late Entries: In these entries he mentions several times seeing his reflection in hallways and rooms.
One page he writes "crossing over" on the entire page and he begins substituting crosses for the word crossing.
He mentions submitting himself to the inevitable.

---Out Of Game---At where you are at now you would realize many of his "technical" notes are bunk. The "sacred symbols" are ruins. In his notebook he has written them out with notes beside them but Percival would realize his "notes" and "labels" are most likely incorrect as all are centered around christianity religious concepts. I don't mean "bunk" as in everything is wrong, but the minister obviously misinterpreted what was happening.---

I guess what Percival wants to know is if this has any concrete information about the operation beyond turn knob, put hand on depression, flip switch.

Like is turning the knob to the right and flipping the switch forward activating an expenditure towards something like the runes, or a summoning?  

does turning the knob to the left have any other effect?

Does flipping the switch down activate and send the stored energy to a secondary person putting their hand on the box.

Is their any information like that?

Essentially what you'd get is the box stores essence, then when the switch is turned it releases it which is then absorbed by the closest runes which in turns empowers them.
Though the knob turns freely, according to arrows on the diagram it only "winds up" the discs inside.
The switch positions seem to be, Release, Neutral, Gather.
There are no formulas listed for revolutions. The minister's plan seemed to involve having the kids turn make 3-5 rotations.
The minister seemed to think the more you gave the closer to god/devil you might get.
He never tracked how many rotations he did though you might infer he was doing up to 12 at a time.

Keep in mind, though it doesn't seem immediately useful, Percival is also past a point in knowledge now that the minister was at which may cause the notebook to seem lacking at this point.

Lol I deleted my request for you to post this which you had already posted lol and I had forgotten about