The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 55 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 6 (part 8)
They are fire-flames, illumined by the light of God, but we attain the great fountain of meekness and love which is welling up within the holy essentiality of God." 1 ( Menschwerdung , i.
5.) Man comprises all three principles: the principle of darkness or fire, from which originates his soul; the principle of light, from which his spirit originates; and the third principle, which is the basic element of his body.
"In the life of man there are three states to be distinguished from each other—first, the innermost , that is to say, God being eternally hidden within the fire; secondly, the middle part , which from eternity has stood as an image or likeness in the wonders of God, comparable to a person seeing himself in a mirror; thirdly, has this living image received still another mirror in creation wherein to behold itself, namely, the spirit of the external world , or the third principle , which is also a form (state) of the Eternal." ( Threefold Life , xviii.
4.) "The darkness in man longing for light is the first p.
137 principle; the power of the light the second; and the longing power which attracts and becomes full (substantial), and whereof the material body grows, is the third principle." ( Three Principles , vii.
26.) "The soul , or the first principle, is founded on the fire of eternal nature; the spirit , or the second principle, roots in the light; and the body is the third principle, or the substantiality of the visible world." 1 ( Tabulæ Principiæ , 65.) Adam was to rule over all nature, and therefore his body was taken from all the powers of the external world; but the third principle, as well as the first one, appeared in him subject to the second, the light.
"If you will behold your own self and the outer world, and what is taking place therein, you will find that you, with regard to your external being, are that external world.
You are a little world formed out of the large one, and your external light is a chaos of the sun and the constellation of stars.
If this were not so, you would not be able to see by means of the light of the sun." 2 ( Mysterium , ii.
5.) "If man, as the image of God, is to rule over the fishes and fowls, the animals, and the whole of the earth, as well as over the essence of all the stars, then must he be out of all three, for each spirit can rule only in his mother, wherein he originated." ( Mysterium , xiv.
8.) "Terrestrial man had in.
his constitution the kingdom of this world, but there were not ruling in him the four elements (separately); but they were in one, and the terrestrial order of things was hidden in him.
He was p.
138 to live in celestial state, and although everything was stirring (alive) within him, nevertheless he was to rule over the terrestrial anguish (external consciousness) by means of the celestial quality (inner consciousness) of the other (second) principle, and to retain dominion over the kingdom of the stars and elements by means of the Paradisiacal quality." ( Menschwerdung , i.
2.) Man must rise, not merely in his imagination, but with his will, above all that which is earthly, sensual, or merely intellectual, if he desires to be a power in the kingdom of the Spirit.
Thus will the ideal become real to him.
"Adam's body (the ethereal body of aboriginal man) was created out of the four elements of external nature, and out of the (essences of the) stars, by means of the eternal Fiat .
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.
The transformation of the earthly into the spiritual ('ideal become real') mirrors alchemical purification.
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 asserts that 'you, with regard to your external being, are that external world,' illustrating the structural reflection between human and cosmos.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
Man is formed out of the powers of the external world and stars, implying a resonant connection.
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.
[auto] Three states are distinguished flowing from the Eternal, from hidden God to external world.
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 explicitly states 'You are a little world formed out of the large one,' defining man as a reflection of the cosmos.
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.
Man is to become a 'power in the kingdom of the Spirit' where the ideal becomes real.