Jakob Böhme

“ Thus we declare with a true Ground, that there is nothing so bad, but there lies a Good therein, but the Badness is not capable of the Good; also there lies in the most poisonful Mercury, the greatest Pearl and Jewel; if his poisonful Will may be introduced into the same, then he himself manifests the Pearl; for he changes himself; as is to be seen in the Earth, where Mercury seeks its Pearl, and turns it in the Ore to Gold, and to other Metals, according as the Sulphur is in each Place. ”

“ Now when Mercury tastes the heavenly Being in itself, it grows exceeding desirous after the Power of Love, and draws the same into its Desire, whereupon it changes itself, and its Salt, so also its Mother, the Sulphur, into a pleasant Source; and now if the Liberty be so introduced into a moving Life with Mercury, then it is very full of Joy, and springs up in its Joy, as a Light from the Fire, and puts forth through the Sulphur-Spirit in the Salt: Thus is the growing of the Root, and from thence the Root gets fuel a pleasant Smell and Taste ”

“ But if the Form of Life, wherein Mercury is inflamed in the Loathing in the Anguish and Poison-Source, may obtain that Property into its Hunger, of which the Spirit and Body is chief, then he obtains his own natural Food, of which he lives, and does again rejoice, and puts away the Nauseate, and then the Nauseate dissipates [or dissolves] and is spewed out; but the Physician must have a Care, whether or no that Thing which he will administer to his Patient be in its Property strong also in the same Essence, from whence the Nauseate is risen in the Body. ”

“ Now when that is done, that Jupiter and Venus have given themselves to the Power of the Sun, then Jupiter forces no more upwards, but Mars and Mercury do continually more and more wind up the Stalk from the Earth on high; Jupiter stays still above in the inward and outward Sun's Power, and there is the pleasant Conjunction with Time and Eternity, there the Eternity beholds itself in an Image in the Time. ”

“ He gives in his Power to all his Beings and Works, and each Thing receives his Power according to its Property; one takes Darkness, the other Light; each Hunger desires its Property, and yet the whole Essence [or Being] is all God's, be it Evil or Good, for from him and through him are all Things, what is not of his Love, that is of his Anger. Paradise is yet in the World, but Man is not therein, unless he be born again of God; then as to that new Regeneration he is therein, and not with the Adam of the four Elements. ”

“ He makes him a Body out of the Water of Venus, which he devours, and Saturn makes it corporeal to him; therefore he does so defile his Iron with rust, and that is his Property, viz. to be a Devourer of his Body; but Venus is pleasant, and makes a Growing in him, he devours again whatever Venus's Property makes in him; for Venus is the Food of Mars in the Saturnine Property; therefore the Artist is to consider what lies in Mars, if he has only the Solar Tincture, he needs nothing else thereto, that he may but deprive Mars of his Force, for Mars has his Toughness from Venus. ”

“ But now the oily Property could not be a Life, if it were not in the Anguish of Death; the Anguish makes it to pullulate or move, in that its Will is to fly from, and press out of the Anguish, and forces itself eagerly forwards, from whence the Growth arises: Thus must Death be a Cause of the Life, that the Life may be stirring [or active,] and therefore Mercury is the true moving Life.
7. In the mortal Property he is Evil, and is called the Life of Death, of Hell, and the Anger of God; and in the oily Property he is good, from the Efficacy of the Meekness and Liberty of God ”

“ We have an excellent Resemblance of this in the blooming Earth on the Herbs; for in the Earth Mercury is earthly and venomous ; but when the Sun tinctures him, then he reaches after the Sun's Power, after its Light, and brings it into his hungry fiery Mars-Desire, into his Salt, viz. into his corporeal Essence, viz. into Sulphur, which is his Mother, and Wheels it about with its Rotation in the Essence, as if he also boiled, and then the Liberty, viz. the highest Power, reaches after its Property, viz. after the Solar Property, and apprehends Mercury also along with it. ”

“ Venus makes a white Colour, Mars red, and bitter in the Taste; Mars makes Venus's Colour Light, Mercury gives a mixt Colour, and opens the green in Mars; Jupiter inclines to blue, Saturn to black, almost Gray; the Sun makes the yellow Colour, and gives the right Sweetness in the Salt, and calls forth the pleasant Smell, which takes its Rise from Sulphur ”

“ Pride, and your own Honour, and the earthly Lust of the Flesh, lies in your Way, so that you are not Masters in the Mysteries, but blind Children; you will not lay your Hands upon the Coals, but you take Money from the poor and distressed, and give that to many an one, which had been far better he had never bought, for which you must give a severe and strict Account. ”

“ Jupiter is pleasant, and ascends up aloft with the Love-Desire in the sweet Source-Water, wherein Mars rages, and thinks himself to be Master in the House, seeing that he rules the Fire-Spirit in Sulphur, at which Mercury is dis-mayed, that Mars does so disquiet him, and Saturn makes the Flagrat corporeal according to his austere Impression, and these are the Knots upon the Stalk ”

“ Here the Physicians must observe, that they learn distinctly to know what kind of Property is the strongest in each Thing with which they would Cure; if they do not know it, they will oftentimes give their Patients Death: Also they must know, that they are to understand, and very exactly know the Property of the Patient, which of the Properties among the seven Forms of Nature is the Mercury in Sulphur ”

“ Thus likewise it is with Man; he lies now shut up after his Fall in a gross, deformed, bestial dead Image; he is not like an Angel, much less like unto Paradise; he is as the gross Ore in Saturn, wherein the Gold is couched and shut up ”

“ If he will make it alive, and bring it into its first Life, then that Life must be before manifest in him, and then he may say to the Mountain, Get thee hence, and be cast into the Sea; and to the Fig-Tree, No Fruit grow on thee henceforth; and it shall come to pass; for if the divine Mercury lives, and is manifest in the Spirit, then when the Spirit of the Soul's Will imagines into any Thing, Mercury also goes along with it in the Imagination, and enkindles the Mercury fast apprehended in Death, viz. ”

“ A jovial Man receives a Nauseate [or Loathing] from the Lunar Property; now if the Physician knew that he had so gotten his Nauseate, and Prepared him a jovial Cure according to the Hunger of his own Spirit or Mercury, this now would be right; but if the Moon's Property be strong in the Salt which he would administer for the Nauseate, then he gives him a Nauseate; but if the jovial Cure be free from the Moon, then the jovial Mercury receives its own Food with great Desire, and quits the Nauseate: And thus it is likewise with Diseases which arise in the Salniter, viz. ”

“ Thus the Sun draws the Power out of the Root in the Earth, and the Joyful Mercury ascends up along with, it, and continually draws the Sun's Power from above into itself, and from beneath it draws its Mother, viz. ”

“ This is now effected after the Curse in all Things which approach near the Deity, wherein Mercury is a Poison; there God bruises its Head with the inward and outward Sun, and takes away the poisonful Might in the Anger. ”

“ He is a bad thorny Bush, from whence notwithstanding fair Rose-Buds may bloom forth, and grow out of the Thorns, and manifest that which lies hidden, and shut up in the wrathful poisonful Mercury, till the Artist who has made him takes him in Hand, and brings the living Mercury into his Gold or paradisical Image disappeared and shut up in Death; so that the inclosed Image, which was created out of the divine Meekness and Love-Essentiality, may again bud and spring forth in the divine Mercury, viz. ”

“ Mars in his own peculiar Property is only Salt, and causes Hardness, as the Fire does; but Saturn is the lmpressure of all Things; Venus needs only the Tincture, and then she is perfect; but the Artist must rightly understand where the Possibility lies, viz. in Sulphur, where Saturn has the Sulphur in his Belly, and Mercury shews its Colour, there he is in the Will, but cannot, for Saturn holds him too fast imprisoned ”

“ Thus it is likewise with the Sulphurean Seething in the Earth with the Metals, the Power is stronger in Metals than in the Herbs, the Tincture is more heavenly than earthly, if the Artist affords it his Help, then it changes itself, viz. the earthly into an heavenly, which notwithstanding comes to pass in many Places without the Artist's Ingenuity ”

“ God has placed Man above the Officer, and ordained him in the Understanding to his own Dominion: He has Ability to change Nature, and to turn the Evil into Good, provided that first he has changed himself, otherwise he cannot ”