The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 24 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 3 (part 4)
The will cannot attain this light, and the more it desires for freedom the greater will be the attraction caused by the desire." ( Six Theosophical Points , i, 38.) "There must be au opposition, for the will desires not to be dark, and this very desire causes the darkness: The will loves the excitement caused by the desire, but it does not love the contraction and darkening.
The will itself does not become dark, but only the desire existing in it.
The desire is in darkness, and therefore a great anguish results within the will, as its desire for freedom is strong, but by this desire it causes itself to become still more harsh and dark." ( Forty Questions .) Eliphas Levi expressed a corresponding truth by saying; "The will accomplishes that which it does not desire." A selfish desire for heaven defeats its own object.
The Third Quality , called into existence by the action and reaction of the absolute One, calls sensation into existence; or, to express it in other words, absolute consciousness, by manifesting itself, becomes relative.
Nothing new is thereby created, only that which already was begins to exist.
This relative consciousness is called " anguish " by Boehme.
"The third quality, the anguish, is evolved in the following manner:—The hardness is fixed, the motion is fugitive; the one is centripetal, the other centrifugal; but as they are one, and cannot separate from each other (nor from their centre) they become like a turning wheel, in which one part strives upwards and the other one in p.
78 a downward direction.
The hardness furnishes substantiality and weight, while the 'sting' (desire in motion) supplies spirit (will for freedom) and fugitive life.
All this causes a turning around and within and outwardly, having nevertheless no destination where to arrive.
That which the attraction of the desire causes to become fixed is again rendered volatile by the aspiring for freedom.
There then results the greatest disquietude, comparable to a furious madness, from which results a terrible anguish." ( Mysterium , iii.
5.) The truth of this every one experiences within his own self, because as long as man is nailed to the cross of terrestrial life, there is a continual battle raging in him between his higher and lower impulses, or between his ideal aspirations and his material self-interests.
"The more the first principle gathers its hardness for the purpose of arresting the second principle, the stronger does the action of that principle grow, and the stronger is the raging and breaking.
The sting refuses to be subdued, but the will (from which it originates) holds on to it with great strength, and it cannot follow its impulse.
It strives upwards and the will strives downwards, for the acerbity indraws, rendering itself heavy.
Thus the one strives to rise upwards, and the other to sink downwards, while neither of them can accomplish its object, and thus eternal nature becomes like a revolving wheel." ( Menschwerdung , ii.
4.) This macrocosmic battle leas its counterpart in the microcosm of man.
There is in him also the continual fight between matter and spirit, between desire and renunciation, between the desire for existence and the will for that freedom which cannot be found before even the desire for freedom itself is at rest.
These three first forms or qualities, wherein the activity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are p.
79 represented, or to express it in other words, through which the quality of will and intelligence becomes revealed, are sometimes alluded to under the names of "salt," "sulphur," and "mercury." "The first three principles are not God Himself, but only His revelation.
Themes
◆Anthropomorphismtheology
Attributing human characteristics, emotions, or form to the divine; embodied divine imagery.
Divine principles are described using human attributes such as will, desire, love, and anguish.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
Freedom is described as unattainable until the desire for freedom itself is at rest, implying a letting-go of will.
Ecstatic irrational rapture — Plato's mania, Bruno's furore — by which the soul transcends ordinary reason and attains direct contact with divine reality; madness reframed as higher knowledge.
The disquietude resulting from the conflict of principles is explicitly compared to a 'furious madness.'
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
The text clarifies that the will itself does not become dark, but only the desire existing in it, suggesting darkness is a distortion rather than substance.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
The anguish within the will arises from a strong desire for freedom and light while remaining in darkness.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
[auto] The passage explicitly identifies the three first principles with the alchemical names 'salt,' 'sulphur,' and 'mercury.'
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
[auto] The passage explicitly states that the macrocosmic battle has a counterpart in the microcosm of man, reflecting the 'as above, so below' axiom.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
[auto] The text directly describes the human being as a mirror of the cosmic battle between matter and spirit.