Jakob Böhme

“ Then the Artist supposes that he has the treasure, but the hungry Mercury devours Venus, and the Child turns to a black Raven; then Mars afflicts Mercury in himself, till he grows faint, and yields himself to Death: Then the four Elements depart from him, and the Sun receives the Child into its Property, and lets it forth in a Virgin-like Body in the pure Element; for in the Property of Mars the Light is enkindled, and the right Life is born, and stands in the pure Element; no Anger nor Death can destroy it. ”

“ The Desart is the earthly outward Body, where Mercury is tempted; when the Devil appears to Mercury, and Plagues him, and assaults him in his fiery Essence, then must the Virgin come to help him, and give him her Love: Now if the Mercury eats of the Virgin-like Love, that is, of God's Bread, then he may stand before the Devil; and at last the Angels come to him, and serve him; the illuminated Magus will well understand what is meant by the Devil. ”

“ But there is yet a wonderful Process behind; when the Soul's Life is born, then the new Soul casts away the vegetable Life of the Parents, (which is propagated and inherited to the Body from the Parents’ Vegitta; wherein the Body of the Child congealed and grew till the Time of the Soul,) and the Life of the four Elements dies, and the Life in the one Element arises; the Child is hidden in the dark Death, and the Artist supposes it to be dead, but he must have Patience till the Child be born. ”

“ God must be manifest in him, understand in the internal Man, that he may have the magical Sight: He must deal with his Purpose as the World did with Christ, and then he may find Paradise, wherein is no Death. ”

“ When the poisonful Mercury, which resembles God's Anger, is tinctured with Love, then the Death's Anguish m Mercury is changed into the highest Joyfulness and Desire of Love, which does again make a Love- Essence in itself, viz. an heavenly Body out of the earthly: When Mercury is changed into an heavenly Source, it desires no longer [or more] the earthly mortal Life; [it desires] not the four Elements, but only the one, wherein the four are contained, as it were swallowed up; as the Light holds the Darkness swallowed up in itself, and yet the Darkness is in it, but not manifest in the Light ”

“ As soon as he espies the Forms of Angels, let him bring Christ out of the Desart, and let the Bridegroom eat again his own Food, and dismiss the Devil, that he may no longer Plague him, and then Christ will do many Wonders and Signs, at which the Artist will Wonder and rejoice: Then he has nothing to do, the Bride is in the Bridegroom; they are already married, he need only make their Bed ready, they will warm it well enough themselves; the Bridegroom embraces the Bride, and the Bride the Bridegroom, and this is their Food and Pastime till they beget a Child. ”

“ Every Hunger is a Desire after its Property, now if thou givest again the Property of Death to the Hunger of Death, then Death increases, but if thou givest him heavenly Property, then Death receives it not, for Hell is against Heaven; therefore thou must give Death and the Anger of God to Death, and in this Anger give him heavenly Essence, viz. the Baptism, and so the Baptism will swallow up the Death into itself, and then the Anger dies in the Death through the Baptism, but not presently ”

“ For when God's Love-Desire dwelt in the outward World's-Source, and penetrated it, as the Sun the Water, or the Fire an Iron, then the outward World was a Paradise, and the divine Essence sprang forth and budded through the earthly, the eternal Life through the mortal; but when God Cursed it for Man's sake, the mortal [Life] was manifest in Man, and also in the Fruit of which Man should eat, which Property before was only manifest in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, on which Adam and his Wife were tempted, whether their Desire would enter into the Eternity, viz. ”

“ In the meantime let the Mother take heed she bear no Love to any other besides her Consort, and also not imagine after strange Things, else she will imprint a Spot or Mark on the Child; she must continue simply in one Love, till the Child be perfect as to its Body, which comes to pass in the fourth Month; yet according as the Parents are of one or other Property, so Strife and Contrariety will arise in the Essence in the Child, when the Child is to receive its Soul's Life. ”

“ After the Moon Jupiter takes it, who makes an Understanding in Mercury, viz. a pleasant Habitation, and gives him its good Will, and in Jupiter his enclosed Life, viz. Mercury is quickened, who takes it with its Orb, and forces it into the highest Anguish: And then Mars apprehends it, and gives the Fire-Soul to Mercury, and in the Flagrat of Mars the highest Life enkindles itself, and separates itself into two Essences, viz. out of the Love into a Body, and out of the Fire into a Spirit ”

“ He has continually two Wills, viz. an earthly Hunger after God's Anger, and an Hunger after his Bride; therefore he must always have his own earthly Food given him, but not into his Belly, but magically, that so he may satisfy only his own Will's-Hunger; his Food is his Mother that begets him, as it is before mentioned.
68. In brief, the whole Work which Men speak so much and wonderfully of consists in two Things, in an heavenly and in an earthly; the heavenly must make the earthly in it to an heavenly: The Eternity must make Time in it to Eternity: The Artist seeks Paradise ”

“ The Eternal Word manifested itself in Adam with divine living Essentiality, with the heavenly Mercury, but when the Soul's-Fire in Adam, by the Infection of the Devil, Poisoned the Will's Spirit in Adam, and introduced it through the Property of the Serpent into earthly deadly Lust, then the heavenly Mercury of the heavenly Essence withdrew, that is, the Soul's Will departed from it with its Desire, and introduced its Hunger into the earthly mortal Essence, viz. ”

“ But one dead Man does not raise another; the Artist must be living, if he will say to the Mountain, Arise, and cast thyself into the Sea.
69. When the Incarnation of the Child begins, then first of all Saturn takes it, and then it is dark and disesteemed, and is contemned and derided, that such a Mystery should lie hid in such a mean Form, there Christ walks in a poor simple Form upon the Earth, as a Pilgrim, and has not so much Room and Propriety in Saturn as to lay his Head: He goes as a Stranger, as if he were not there at home. ”

“ We will give an Occasion of Consideration to the earnest Searcher and Seeker, and if he apprehends our Meaning he shall indeed be able to find the noble Philosopher's Stone, but so that he be chosen thereto by God, and his Life also stands in the heavenly Mercury, otherwise we are Mystery to him ”

“ It seems strange in the Eyes of Reason, that God has kept such a Process with the Restoring of Man in Christ, that he appeared in such a poor disesteemed Form in the human Property, and was reviled, mocked, scorned, scourged, crucified and slain ”

“ He assumed the Essence of our Soul and Body unto the divine Essence, and quickened our Essence with the divine, that our Essence entered again with its Will and Desire into the divine Essence, and then the heavenly Fiat was moved again in the Humanity; for the Humanity inclined itself again into the Liberty, viz. into the free Lubet of the Deity. ”

“ Eternity and Time; and how the Eternity dwells in the Time, but yet only in itself; but yet so nigh to the Time, as Fire and Light which are in one another, and yet make two Kingdoms; or as Darkness and Light dwell in each other, and the one is not the other. The like we are to consider of the inchoative poisonful Mercury in the Devil, and in Man, and in the Serpent also; how an Oil corrupts, and yet the Essence or Being of God is not hereby at all corrupted, but enters into itself, viz. ”

“ Now the Fire gives Life, and the free Lubet gives Essence into the Life, and in the Essence is the Birth, where the Father, viz. the Eternal Ground, begets his Essence, viz. his Heart out of the Abyss in Himself, that is, out of the Abyss in Himself into a Byss; the Son is the Father's Byss: Thus the Father remains in Himself, as touching his own Property only, the Byss of the eternal Nature; and the Son remains in the Father, the Byss of the Power and Kingdom of Joy ”

“ The Deity first entered into the Humanity, but the Humanity could not presently comprehend it, till it was quickened through Baptism, and the Hunger, viz. the dead Mercury in the human Essence, was again stirred up in the heavenly Part. ”

“ You know that Christ signifies in a Parable concerning the wounded Samaritan, that he fell among Murtherers, who beat him and wounded him, and pulled off his Cloaths, and went away, and left him half dead, till the Samaritan came, and took Pity on him, dressed him, and poured Oil into his Wounds, and brought him into the Inn: This is a manifest and lively Representation of the Corruption of Man in Paradise, and also of the Corruption of the Earth in the Curse of God, when Paradise departed from it. ”

“ If he has a right divine Desire in him, then God's Will in his Baptism is the first glimmering Tinder in Mercury, so that the Life enkindles Death, viz. the Mercury shut up in Death, and begets divine Desire; even then Mercury begins to Hunger after divine Essence, and does his first Miracle, and turns the Water into Wine, as Christ did after his Baptism: This is the first Tincturation in the dead Corpus in the Power of Baptism, that the Vegitta, or Working energetical Life, obtains another Property, viz. an Hunger of Love, wherewith she embraces her Bridegroom, viz. ”

“ But if he be not in this Birth of Restoration, and walks not himself in the Way wherein Christ walked upon the Earth, if he steps not forth into the Will and Spirit of Christ, then let him give over and leave off his Seeking; he finds nothing but Death, and the Curse of God. ”

“ Now the Devil is an Enemy of this Wedlock, who soon comes with a strange Desire, and tempts these married People, but dares not lay an Hand of Violence on them, but only afflicts and Plagues them with a false strange Desire; now if they yield their Desire to his Will, and his Desire overcomes them, then they become Enemies to one another, and bring forth a false Child ”

“ The Course of Christ upon the Earth is a real Type how the new Child is nourished in the Mother's Womb after its Conception, as is before mentioned, and attains a vegetable Life, and grows up to the Time of its right Soul's and Spirit's Life; and how the Child arises from the Parents Essence, and how in the Enkindling of its right, viz. ”

“ This Figure shews the Magus, that he shall find two Wills in his Purpose, which he thinks to carry on; one will not be obedient and subject unto him, viz. the divine Will; and yet if its own peculiar external Will shall rightly apply itself thereunto, and only seek the dear Child Jesus with Mary, with Desire and earnest Sorrow, and not earthly Pleasure of the Flesh, then the divine Will will be obedient to him, and go home with him, and be used according to his good Pleasure. ”

“ Thus Adam died unto God, and lived to Death; here it was necessary that God should regenerate him; and therefore the Serpent was Cursed, because it had served, and Willingly obeyed the Devil.
21. Thus we understand what lies hid in the greatest Anguish, viz. in the strongest Mercury, viz. an Oil, which Cures and tinctures all Diseases; but the cold Poison, viz. the Death's Source must be done away, and put into a fiery [Property] which is desirous of the Light ”

“ All whatever is eternal proceeds originally from one Ground, as Angels and Souls; but the Serpent is not out of the eternal Ground, but out of the Beginning, as we have before given you to understand, how with the Enkindling of the Fire in the Salnitral Flagrat two Kingdoms separate, viz. ”