Jakob Böhme

“ And thus there is Good and Evil in each Life, and yet there is no Evil in any Thing, unless the Good, viz. the Love-Oil famishes in its own Lubet, which falls out in the Forms of the Impression of the Hunger of the Desire. ”

“ But he has a Lubet-Will, and he himself is the Will, to manifest himself in the Lubet; yet in the Lubet which is free, without Affection, no Manifestation can be effected, for it is void of Desire, it is as if it were nothing in respect of Nature, and yet it is all; but not according to the Desire, viz. according to Nature, but according to the satisfying of Nature it is the satisfying of the hungry Desire, viz. of Nature; it freely and Willingly gives itself into the Hunger of Nature, for it is a Spirit without Essence and Desire, wholly free as a Nothing ”

“ Whatever grows, live, and moves in this World, consists in Sulphur, and Mercury is the Life in Sulphur, and the Salt is the corporeal Being of Mercury's Hunger, though the Body is manifold, according as the Property of the Brimstone and Salt is, according to the same Property is also the ingrafted Oil, which springs up all along in the Power ”

“ In a Toad, Viper or Adder, or the like poisonful Beasts, Worms, or Insects, the highest Tincture is to be found, if they are reduced into an oily Substance, and the Wrath of Mercury separated from them; for all Life, both external and internal, consists in Poison and Light, as we understand, that the Wrath and Anger-Fire of God is a Cause of the divine Joyfulness: The like also we are to know is externally; for all Life that is void of the poisonful Mercury is mort, and an Abominate, and accounted as dead. ”

“ The free Essence is, and gives an Oil, and the Desire's Property gives a Life of the Oil; the Oil is a Light, and the Desire's Property gives to the Light the Essence, viz. the fiery Property, so that the Light shines, as is to be seen in the Fire and Light, and the free Lubet remains yet a free Will in itself, but gives its Meekness, viz. ”

“ For the divine Essentiality, or this heavenly Mercury, changes the dead Oil again into his, and becomes its Life, for the outward Mercury, which has ruled the Life, returns not again, it has only been for a Time a Mirror of the Eternal, but he is changed into another Source, for being suffocated, he passes again into the Mystery, from whence he at first proceeded in the Creation of the World, and the Body also goes into the same Mystery. ”

“ Now Mercury is an Enkindler of the Fire, and every moving Life consists in the Fire; and though some Creatures dwell in the Water, yet Fire is their Life, viz. the Poison-Gall, wherein Mercury Manages the Life; but the Water in the Gall is a Poison, wherein an Oil is hid, in which the Life in Mercury does burn and shine; of which thou hast a Similitude: If in a Creature there be a strong poisonful Mercury, of a dry Quality, that Creature is strong, bold, courageous, and potent, which has also a clear Oil in it ”

“ The Physician is to know, that in the strongest Mercury, which is most poisonful, the highest Tincture lies, but not in Mercury's own Property, which must be broken; for his own Property, even from the Centre, is the anxious poisonful Life: But he has another Property in him, viz. an Oil from the Light, whereby he is so strong and potent, which is his Food and Preservation; if this may be separated from him, it becomes a tincturing and Mighty Enkindling of all obscured Lives, viz. of all Diseases and Sicknesses, for in this Oil lies the Joyful Life, and it is an Hunger after Life, viz. ”

“ The first Property according to the Light is sweet in all Things, and the other Property of the Oil is according to the Form, viz. the Taste of the Thing, let it be either sweet, sour, astringent, sharp, or bitter, or how it will ”