Chapter 3 (part 2)

The last generates the first, as well as the first the second, the third the fourth, up to the last. They are all seven equally eternal." ( Aurora , x. 2.) "If I am sometimes describing only two or three as being active in the generation of another spirit, I am doing so on account of my weakness, because in my degenerate mind I cannot retain the impression of the action of all the seven in their perfection. I see all the seven; but when I begin to analyse what I see, I then cannot grasp all the seven at once, but only one after another." ( Aurora , x. 22.) These seven properties are never transformed one into another; each retains eternally its own specific essentiality. The relations into which they enter with each other serve for the purpose of their mutual glorification; so that they, when they meet each other like strains of sweet harmonies in God's eternal nature, appear like flaming lights of life and joy. Thus matter is never transformed into spirit, but illumined and glorified by the latter, while the spirit obtains its corporification from matter, and, is thus enabled to become manifest. Likewise ignorance is never transformed into knowledge, nor death into life.; but an ignorant person may become wise if illuminated by the light of wisdom, and a body in which life is inactive may be made living if the activity of life is aroused therein. p. 74 "Each of these principles is strongly defined in regard to its nature, nevertheless there is no antipathy between them. They are all rejoicing in God as one only spirit. Each loves the other, and there is nothing among them but joy and happiness. Their evolution is an eternal one and never any other." ( Aurora , x. 51.) "The higher they become exalted, and the more they become ignited, the greater will be their joy in the kingdom of light." ( Mysterium , v. 6.) "Each quality of the spirit desires the other, and when it acquires its object it becomes as it were changed into that other; but its own quality is thereby not lost, it merely adapts itself to the other, and manifests another kind of anguish (consciousness), but both retain their own special qualities." ( Threefold Life , iv. 8.) Thus the darkness is illumined by the light, but it never becomes light itself, nor can the light become darkness. The light shineth eternally into darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not. "Each of these divine forms of life desires to govern; each has a will of its own. Without that there could be no sensibility nor perceptibility, but only eternal tranquillity. Neither, however, of them is pressing forward to make itself manifest more than the rest, but all are in perfect harmony with each other." ( Stiefel , ii. 348.) "When the fourth principle enters into the first, all the spirits intermingle their light, triumph, and rejoice. They then arise all one within the other, and evolve each other as if moving in circular motion; and the light in the midst of them begins to shine and renders them luminous. Their harsh quality then remains hidden like a kernel in a fruit. As a sour or bitter unripe apple by ripening in the sun becomes changed, so that it acquires an agreeable taste, but nevertheless retains the qualities that constitute it an apple, likewise the Godhead retains its own essential qualities, but they become manifest in a sweet and agreeable manner." ( Aurora , xiii. 80.) p. 75 "All the seven principles are spiritual within eternal nature, and appear there in a clear, crystalline, translucent substantiality." ( Grace , iii. 40.) "The seven candlesticks in Saint John's Revelation refer to the seven spirits in the Godhead, also the seven stars.