Jakob Böhme

“ It has a two-fold Fire, one cold, another hot; the cold arises from the Astringency, from the sharp Attraction, and is a dark black Fire; and the hot arises from the driving forth the Compunction in the Anguish in the Desire after the Liberty, and the Liberty is its Enkindler, and the raging Compunction is the Cold's Fire's Awakener. ”

“ But seeing the Desire, viz. the Astringency becomes only the more strong thereby, (for from the Stirring arises the Wrath and Nature, viz. the Motion) the first Will to the Desire is made wholly austere and a Hunger, for it is in a hard compunctive dry Essence, and also cannot get rid and quit of it, for itself makes the Essence, and likewise possesses it, for thus it finds itself now out of Nothing in the Something, and the Something is yet its contrary Will, for it is an Unquietness, and the Free-Will is a Stillness. ”

“ The Anguish has in it two Wills, from the Original of the first Will out of the Liberty to the Manifestation of itself, viz. the first Will is to Nature, and the other reconceived Will is the Son of the first, which goes out of the Manifestation again into itself into the Liberty; for it is become an eternal Life in Nature, and yet possesses not Nature essentially, but dwells in itself, and pene-trates Nature as a transparent Shining, and the first Will goes outwards, for it is the Desire of Manifestation; it seeks itself out of itself, and yet amasses the Desire in itself ”

“ And we are to understand, that it is no divided Essence, but one holds the other hidden or closed up in it, and the one is the Beginning and Cause of the other, also its Healing and Cure; that which is awaked and stirred up, that gets Dominion, and manifests itself externally with its Character, and makes a Form and Signature according to its Will in the External after itself. A Similitude whereof we see in an enraged Man or Beast; though the outward Man and Beast are not in the inward World, yet the outward Nature has even the same Forms ”

“ And then we find that the Essence cannot be better remedied than with the Assimulate; for the Essence is a Being, and its Desire is after Being: Now every Taste desires only its like, and if it obtains it, then its Hunger is satisfied, appeased and eased, and it ceases to Hunger, and rejoices in itself, whereby the Sickness falls into a Rest in itself; for the Hunger of the Contrariety ceases to Work. ”

“ SEEING then there are so many and divers Forms, that the one always produces and affords out of its Property a Will different in one from another, we herein understand the Contrariety and Combat in the Being of all Beings, how that one does oppose, Poison, and kill another, that is, overcome its Essence, and the Spirit of the Essence, and introduces it into another Form, whence Sickness and Pains arise, when one Essence destroys another. ”

“ The second Form in Nature, in Eternity is the Orb with the conjunctive bitter Essences: for there arises the Essence, understand with the Perturbation; for the Nothing is still without Motion, but the Perturbation makes the Nothing active: but in the third Principle, viz. ”

“ Thus we see this Ground very exactly and properly in Thunder and Lightning; for the Flash, or Lightening, or ethereal Blaze, goes always before, for it is the enkindled Salniter; thereupon follows the Stroke in the Flagrat of the Coldness; as you see, as soon as the Stroke is given the astringent Chamber is opened, and a cool Wind follows, and oftentimes Whirling and Wheeling, for the Forms or Nature are awakened, and are as a turning Wheel, and So they carry their Spirit the Wind. ”