Jakob Böhme

“ The fine and subtil Part is to be taken into the Body and is expulsive; the more subtil it is, the nigher it is to the Life in the Body, which the Physician may very well know by its Salt; for no rough wild Property is to be taken into the Body, unless the Body be inflamed with a sudden Poison, where the Life also is fresh and strong, then a vehement Resistance must be used; yet Mercury and Mars must not be administered in the Wrath, but in their strongest Power, Mars in the greatest Heat, but before changed into Joy ”

“ The Soul of the poor Sinner is Poisoned in the Anger of God, and the Mercury (understand the eternal Mercury in die eternal Nature) is inflamed in the Soul's Property in the fiery Mars of God's Anger, which does now burn in the eternal Saturn, viz. in the horrible Impression of Darkness, and feels the Sting of the poisonful angry Mars; his Venus is imprisoned in the House of Misery, his Water is dried up, his Jupiter of Understanding is brought into the greatest Folly, his Sun is quenched, and his Moon turned to dark Night. ”

“ For if my Will is a Nothing, then he is in me what he pleases, and then I know not myself any more, but him; and if he will that I shall be something, then let him effect it; but if he wills it not, then I am dead in him, and he lives in me as he pleases, and so then if I be a Nothing, then I am at the End, in the Essence out of which my Father Adam was created; for out of Nothing God has created all Things. ”

“ For Mars makes it rugged, and Mercury is poisonful therein, which gives a streaked Colour, and Mars the red, and Saturn the dark, which is a Pestilence in the Lunar Menstruum; but to the Artist it is an Herb against the Pestilence, if he takes the Poison from Mercury, and gives him Venus and Jupiter for Food, then Mars brings forth the vegetable Soul in Sol, and turns his wrathful Fire into a Love-Fire, which the Artist must know, if he will be called a Doctor. ”

“ The seventh Form is called Luna, the amassed Essence: What Mercury has comprized in Sulphur, that is a corporeal or substantial Hunger of all Forms, the Property of all the six Forms lies therein, and it is as a corporeal Being of all the rest; this Property is as a Wife of all the other Forms; for the other Forms do all cast their Desire through Sol into Luna; for in Sol they are Spiritual, and in Luna corporeal: Therefore the Moon assumes to it the Sunshine, and shines from the Sun; whatever the Sun is, and makes in the Spirit-Life in itself, the same Luna is, and makes corporeal in itself. ”

“ THE whole outward visible World with all its Being is a Signature, or Figure of the inward Spiritual World; whatever is internally, and however its Operation is, likewise it has its Character externally; like as Spirit of each Creature sets forth and manifests the internal Form of its Birth, by its Body, so does the Eternal Being also. ”

“ It is indeed there, but not in the outward enkindled Abominations, but it dwells in itself, like as the Light dwells in the Darkness, and the Darkness comprehends it not, also knows nothing of it; but when the Light is manifest in the Darkness, then is the Night changed into Day. ”

“ But if Venus be next to Saturn in any Place in the Sude or Seething of the Earth, then the Sude in the Sulphur of Saturn causes a tall strong Body, for it gives its Sweetness into Saturn's Impression, whereby Saturn becomes strong and lusty, and if Venus be not hindered by Mars, it grows a great, tall, slender Tree, Herb, Beast, or Man, or whatever it be. ”

“ An honest Man falls into great Debts, Care, Trouble and Distress, which does even afflict him nigh to Death, but if a good Friend comes and pays his Debt for him, then is the Cure soon effected with its Likeness: Even thus it is in all Things; from whence the Disease is risen, even such a like Cure is requisite for the restoring its Health, and thus it is likewise in the mental Soul. ”

“ It is the Divine Sound in the Power, or the Kingdom of Joy, wherein all the other Forms are manifest; for it is the Formed World, or divine Corporality, by which all Things are generated and come forth to a Being. ”

“ Venus and Jupiter are opposite to Mars and Mercury, that so they Might temper them both, and without the Power of Mars and Mercury there would be no Life in Jupiter, Venus, and Sol, but only a Stillness; therefore the worst is as profitable as the best, and the one is the Cause of the other. ”

“ Sickness had taken Possession of them, and the Poison of Death had gotten the upper Hand in Mercury, but now the Form of Life in the Center did set its Hunger as a famished and mean Property after the Liberty to be freed from the Abomination, but seeing the Mercury was revived in Christ the divine Property, therefore the weak Hunger entered into Christ’s strong Hunger after the Salvation of Man, and so the weak Hunger received the Strong in the Power ”

“ But if the Artist takes it in Hand with the true Mercury, then he may turn the weakest Form to be uppermost, and the strongest undermost, and then the Spirit obtains another Will, according to the most superior Form ”

“ But if Mercury be next Saturn in the Property, and next him the Moon, and Venus and Jupiter beneath, and also weak, then let Mars stand where he will, yet all is earthly; for Mercury is held in the austere Impression in the cold Property, viz. in Death's Form, and his Sulphur is earthly, if Mars comes near to it, then it is poisonful also, but if Venus makes an Opposition therein, then the Poison is refilled, yet it is but earthly ”

“ The third Form is called Mars, which is the fiery Property in the Impression of Saturn, where the Impression introduces itself into great Anguish, viz. into a great Hunger; it is the Painfulness, or the Cause of Feeling, also the Cause of the Fire and Consuming, also of Enmity and Malignity; but in Jupiter, viz. in the free Lubet, in the Nothing, it causes the fiery Love-Desire, that the Liberty, viz. the Nothing, is desirous, and introduces itself into Sensibility, viz. into the Kingdom of Joy: In the Darkness it is a Devil, viz. ”

“ God's Wrath, and in the Light it is an Angel of Joy, understand such a Property; for when this Source became dark in Lucifer, he was called a Devil, but while he was in the Light he was an Angel; and thus also it is to be understood in Man. ”

“ Thus every Thing which is generated out of the internal has its Signature; the superior Form, which is chief in the Spirit of the Working in the Power, does most especially sign the Body, and the other Forms hang to it; as it is to be seen in all living Creatures, in the Shape and Form of the Body, and in the Behaviour and Deportment, also in the Sound, Voice, and Speech; and likewise in Trees and Herbs, in Stones and Metals ”

“ The Curse of God hides the Eye-sight of the Wicked, that it does not see, although they would stand before his Eyes: Yet in such a Conjunction of the Planets they are manifest, and may not be hidden; therefore there lies a great Secret in many an Herb and Beast, if the Artist knew it, and had the true Skill to use it ”

“ In the Creature it gives a pleasant, courteous, humble Life, with no deep Reason, [Reach, or Capacity] but if Mars comes thereunto, the Creature is small, or thin, of a white, weak, and effeminate Nature. ”

“ The Being of Beings is a wrestling Power; for the Kingdom of God consists in Power, and also the outward World, and it stands especially in seven Properties or Forms, where the one causes and makes the other, and none of them is the first or last, but it is the eternal Band; therefore God has appointed fix Days for Man to Work, and the seventh Day is the Perfection wherein the fix do rest, it is the Center to which the Desire of the six Days tend ”

“ For he is in Heaven, and does thereby accomplish and effect his Wonders in this World, which stands in the Curse: Now each labours in its own [Vineyard;] the outward Man labours in the Cursed World, which is Evil and Good in the Wonders of God, viz. in the Mirror of Glory, which yet shall be revealed in him; and the inward Man is not its own, but God's Instrument, with whom God makes what he pleases, till the outward with its Wonders in the Mirror shall also be manifest in God ”

“ In an Herb, if the Blossom be somewhat reddish, and wreathed, or streaked, and inclined to white by the red, then is the Power of Venus there, which makes Resistance therein, but if it be only reddish, and of dark Wriths or Streaks, with a rough Peel or Skin on the Stalk, Branch, and Leaf, then does the Basilisk lodge there. ”

“ Now understand it right; to the outward Man there belongs a Cure from the outward, viz. from the outward Will of God, who has made himself external with this visible World; and for the inward Man there is a Cure from the inward World, in which God is all in all ”

“ In these four Forms the Spirit's Birth consists, viz. the true Spirit both in the inward and outward Being, viz. the Spirit of Power in the Essence; and the Essence or Corporality of this, Spirit is Sulphur. ”

“ Thus one Life fights against the other, and there is a continual Contest in me; but seeing Christ is born again in me, and lives in my Nothingness, therefore Christ will, according to his Promise made in Paradise, bruise the Head of the Serpent, viz. ”

“ This let the Magus well observe, it withstands all Malignity, and false Influences and Assaults from the Spirits, whatever they be, so far as a Man himself is not false and wicked, and inclines not his Desire to the Devil, as Adam did, in whom also the Universal was wholly complete.
37. With these Herbs a Man may Cure, and heal without any Art of the Artist ”

“ The inward Mercury is the Life of the Deity, and all divine Creatures and the outward Mercury is the Life of the outward World, and all external Corporality in Men and Beasts, in Vegetables and Animals, and makes a peculiar Principle, viz. ”

“ There are especially seven Forms in Nature, both in the eternal and external Nature; for the external proceed from the eternal: The ancient Philosophers have given Names to the seven Planets according to the seven Forms of Nature ”