The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 69 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 7 (part 11)
162 [paragraph continues] Eve, the latter was the first to be seduced to fall away from God.
1 "The lust originated in Adam, but thereupon this perverted desire began to be excited in the woman." ( Stiefel , ii.
375.) "Eve was lusting after the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, but there was the prohibition before her, and she was afraid of God, and did not want to act against the prohibition.
Then the devil entered into the substance and cunning of the snake, and turned this power and craftiness around, so that Eve could see and know that the serpent was very artful and cunning.
She clung to the forbidden tree, and it did her no harm; but she looked at the serpent and fell in love with his cunning and cleverness, also with his agility and artfulness, and she lusted to eat of the tree.
The serpent advised her to do so by the sound and voice of the devil, and pretended that he derived his cunning and artfulness from the tree." ( Mysterium , xx.
22.) "The devil told her that the fruit would do her no harm, but that the eyes of her understanding would be opened, and she would be like God.
She thought it would be a good thing to be a goddess, and she consented; and in consenting she fell from the divine harmony, from the peace in God, and from divine faith, and entered with her desire into the serpent and into the cunning, the desire, and vanity of the devil." 2 ( Mysterium , xx.
25.) While the devil was desirous directly for the fire-life, p.
163 man at first was only desirous after the terrestrial things, but thereby his lust of pride began to arise.
"The devil went with his imagination into the fiery foundation, but Adam into the watery quality." ( Signature , vii.
4.) "Unlike Lucifer, Adam did not actually desire to awaken the first principle; his desire was rather to taste good and evil—that is to say, the vanity of the earth." ( Mysterium , xviii.
31.) "In the external part of the soul originated the terrestrial lust to eat of the manifold qualities; but in the interior fiery part of it originated lust for pride, to know evil and good, and to be like God." 1 ( Mysterium , xviii.
30.) Thus the first act of the great drama ended, and a god became a man.
In the second act He rises again upward toward His former divine state, no more innocent and ignorant of evil, but taught by experience, knowing and wise, a conqueror over "matter," and a true Lord over all.
Footnotes 142:1 The term "Paradise" means a state of purity and innocence and happiness, but not necessarily knowledge.
Man had to learn to know evil so as to be able to realise good.
142:2 His thoughts and will were pure, and therefore his spirit (the union of will and thought) manifested itself in producing a pure and luminous form, not burdened with the gross material elements which form at present the bodies of human beings.
Then, as now, his body was the product of his own thoughts.
143:1 Logical proof is only useful as long as we are blind in regard to the nature of a thing After that thing has become a part of ourselves and we perceive it, no more proof of its existence will be required.
144:1 Adam was in harmony with creation and as one with all nature.
Therefore he could experience the feelings of all beings in nature within himself, and express them accordingly.
144:2 Even now man is still there where his consciousness exists; but as his physical body is too gross to follow the movements of his thoughts, the body becomes unconscious whenever his consciousness concentrates itself at another place.
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 from man to conqueror over matter mirrors the alchemical process of 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.
The text implies a reflection of cosmic qualities within the human soul and body.
Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.
[auto] The passage depicts a fundamental conflict between God's prohibition and the Devil's temptation, establishing an opposition between divine order and corrupting desire.
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.
Evil is described as perverted desire, vanity, and a fall from divine harmony rather than a positive substance.
Transgressive knowing acquired against divine prohibition — the Watchers' teaching of metallurgy, sorcery, and cosmetics in 1 Enoch, the Gnostic Eve narratives, the Promethean mytheme; explicitly contrasted with gnosis_direct_knowledge, which is salvific.
[auto] The passage explicitly details the temptation and consumption of the fruit from the tree of knowledge against divine prohibition.
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] Footnote 144:1 states Adam was one with all nature and could experience the feelings of all beings within himself.
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 text describes the fall as moving away from God, divine harmony, and peace into the desire of the devil.
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.
[auto] The text describes the desire to be like God and the eventual state of becoming a true Lord over all matter.