The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 25 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 3 (part 5)
The first of these three states, being a beginning of all power and strength, originates from the quality of the Father; the second, being the source of all activity and differentiation, comes from the quality of the Son; and the third, being the root of all life, originates in the quality of the Holy Spirit." ( Grace , vi.
9.) "The ancients said that in sulphur, mercury, and salt are contained all things.
This refers not so much to the material as to the spiritual aspect of things, namely, to the spirit of the qualities wherefrom material things grow.
By the term 'salt' they understood the sharp metallic desire in nature; 'mercury' symbolised to them the motion and differentiation of the former, by means of which each thing becomes objective and enters into formation.
'Sulphur,' the third quality, signified the anguish of nature." ( Clavis , 46.) The true divine life wherein the substantiality of divine Trinity is revealed is rendered possible only by means of the Fourth Quality , called the lightning-flash, whose ignition is caused by the desire of eternal nature and by the longing of eternal freedom.
"The fire is originally darkness, hardness, eternal coldness and dryness, and there is nothing in it except an eternal hunger.
How then does it become actual fire?
The Spirit of God, in its aspect as the eternal light, comes to the aid of the fire-hunger.
The hunger itself originates from the light, because when the divine power mirrors itself in the darkness, the latter becomes full of desire after the light, and this desire is the will (of p.
80 eternal nature).
But the will or the desire in the dryness cannot reach the light, and therein consists the anguish and the craving for light.
This anguish and craving continues until the Spirit of God enters like a flash of lightning." ( Three Principles , xi.
45.) This ever-turning "wheel of Ixion" is represented by the Cross, the "Tree of Life." Free is the spirit of man before he enters this valley of suffering, but after he enters he is nailed to the cross of his own personal desires.
Man himself is the "Cross," and he creates a cross for himself, from which there is no liberation until he discovers the true spiritual Cross by entering into the realm of light through the power of the fire, which means that his spirit breaks through the bonds of matter and becomes again free.
"Freedom by means of the eternal will grasps the darkness, and the latter reaches out for the light of freedom but cannot attain it.
It imprisons itself by means of its own desire within itself, and causes itself to be darkness.
From these two—namely, the dark impression and the desire for light or freedom which is directed towards the former, there results then in the former darkness the lightning-flash, the primitive condition of the fire.
But freedom being a nothing, and therefore inapprehensible, it cannot retain the impression.
Therefore the impression surrenders to freedom, and the latter devours the dark nature of the former.
Thus freedom governs within the darkness, and is not comprehended by it." ( Signature , xiv.
22.) "Eternal unity or freedom, per se , is of infinite loveliness and mildness, but the three qualities are sharp, painful, and even terrible.
The will of the three qualities longs for the mild unity, and the unity longs for the fiery foundation and sensibility.
Thus one enters into the other, and when this takes place the lightning-flash appears, comparable to a spark produced by the friction of flint and p.
81 steel.
Thereby the unity attains sensibility, and the will of nature receives the mild unity.
Thus the unity becomes a fountain of fire, and the fire penetrated by desire, like a fountain of love." ( Clavis , ix.
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 interprets sulphur, mercury, and salt as spiritual qualities governing material growth and transformation, central to Boehme's alchemical theology.
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.
Material alchemical principles (salt, mercury, sulphur) are interpreted as reflections of spiritual qualities wherefrom material things grow.
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The fire is described as originally 'darkness, hardness, eternal coldness' with an 'anguish and craving for light'.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
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.
Darkness is characterized by 'hunger' and a lack of light, which is fulfilled only when the Spirit enters.
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.
Man is identified as the 'Cross' and reflects the divine qualities, mirroring the cosmic struggle between darkness and light.
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.
[auto] The spirit is 'free' before entering the 'valley of suffering' and is 'nailed to the cross' of personal desires until liberation.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The 'true divine life' is revealed in the human spirit as it breaks through matter and becomes free.