The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 50 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 6 (part 3)
123.) "The day's works refer to the seven qualities, six of them belonging to the actual regiment, but the seventh, or the essentiality, is that wherein the others are resting; for these qualities have been spoken out by God and rendered visible." ( Mysterium , xii.
2.) 1 On the second day a separation took place in the power of the light, of the external material from the inner immaterial water, and the firmament (that which is firm) was put in the middle between these two.
"The water of life became separated from the water of death; but in such a way that in the time of this world they are linked together like body and soul.
But the heaven, having been made from the middle-part of the water, is like an abyss between the two, so that the conceivable water is a death, but the inconceivable one is the life." ( Aurora , xxi.
7.) "The water upon the earth is a degenerated and deadly being, like the earth herself.
This material water, contained within the most external generation, has been separated from the inconceivable one." ( Aurora , xx.
27.) "The water above the firmament is in heaven, and p.
127 the water below the firmament is the material water." ( Mysterium , xii.
2 4.) "The firmament is the connecting link between time and eternity.
God calls it 'heaven,' and makes a distinction between the waters; which is to indicate that heaven is in the world, but not the world in heaven." ( Mysterium , xii.
23.) Thus the mind of man is the connecting link between the celestial and terrestrial state.
Heaven and happiness may be in his mind, but not his mind in an external heaven.
The spiritual and the material water are not separated from each other in an external manner, or according to locality, but wherever there is the material water, there is also the spiritual one, and it comes to aid the former.
"When I behold the external water, I am forced to say, 'Here in the water below the firmament is also contained water from above the firmament.' But the firmament is the middle, and the link (dividing line) between time and eternity, so that neither one of them is the other.
By means of the external eyes, or the eyes of this world, I see only the water below the firmament; but the water above the firmament is that which God in Christ has instituted for the baptism of regeneration." ( Mysterium , xii.
26.) "All the water in this world is degenerated, and therefore the upper water must come to the aid of the earth, and extinguish her fire and pacify her, so that the true water may be born." ( Aurora , xx.
33.) Divine inspiration must come to the aid of the material thought, so that heavenly thoughts may be born.
On the third day the fiery and the watery essence, the firmament of heaven and the earth, entered again in Conjunction, and from this there were born grasses and p.
128 herbs and trees, and at the same time there were also formed gold and silver and ores of various kinds.
1 "On the second day God separated the watery and the fiery mercury from each other, and called the fiery one the firmament of heaven.
Themes
◆Alchemical Workpraxis
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.
References to gold, silver, ores, and the birth of true water through regeneration align with alchemical transformation metaphors.
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.
The text outlines a structure where seven qualities flow from an essentiality, with levels of water above and below the firmament.
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.
The human mind is described as the connecting link between celestial and terrestrial states, mirroring cosmic structure.
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 the mind of man is the connecting link between celestial and terrestrial states, reflecting the 'as above, so below' principle.