The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 71 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 7 (part 13)
154:1 This is the difference between life in the terrestrial and life in the celestial states of nature, that the former is differentiated into forms, each of which loves to live in the consciousness of its own illusive self— i.e.
, in a state of isolation and separatedness, and enjoying its own qualities; while in the celestial state the individual powers intermingle, each living, so to say, in the consciousness and enjoying itself in the life of the other.
while all strive towards unity and rest in it, like a tree, whose many branches and leaves receive their life all from one common trunk.
154:2 This "tree of temptation" is still growing in every human being, as is represented in the allegorical "Adam." The lower qualities in man still strive for outward manifestation, and can be overcome in no other way than by his rising above them into the higher ones.
155:1 It is self-evident that man can attain knowledge of a thing only by giving attention to it.
In doing so, he directs his consciousness to it.
Man's consciousness became centred within the lower principles constituting the sensual world, and thereby it lost its seat and centre of gravity in the Supreme.
If it had not been for this attraction which the material world exercised upon man, he might have sunk still lower, and approached absolute evil, the kingdom of Lucifer.
155:2 "Adam would have fallen into the unfathomable abyss of hell, if, p.
156 besides the celestial state, which in consequence of his sin became perverted into a hellish one, there had not been still another, namely, the terrestrial region " ( Hamberger ).
156:1 God (divine self-consciousness) never sleeps; it is only nature in man that causes him to sleep and wake alternatively.
No man is fully awake and self-conscious as long as he has not found his own god.
157:1 The "history of Adam" is nothing else but the history of mankind as a whole.
Its truth may be recognised by every one capable of self-examination.
157:2 Adam having lost the power to recognise the true woman, the eternal virgin within himself, it was necessary that he should have an external objective substitute to whom he might be attracted, so as to stimulate his power to love; which would have entirely died out without such an object, or would have degraded him still lower by turning into desire for still lower beings in the scale of evolution.
157:3 From such a degradation may have resulted the tribe of the monkeys descended from aboriginal man.
(See Secret Doctrine , by H.
P.
Blavatsky.) 157:4 The " Sal-nitre " means the fiery material element in man, wherein reside his sensual attractions; in other words, his Kama-rupa .
158:1 The woman is made out of the more refined and spiritual essences of man; for this reason woman even to-day is more refined and intuitional than man; while the organisation of the body and also the mind of the male is on the whole more gross and material; and he reasons where woman perceives.
There were not all the female elements removed from man in the creation of the woman.
If man had no such elements in him he would be a brute.
Neither could any woman be visible and tangible and man's associate if she had none of the male and grossly material elements of Adam in her organisation.
158:2 It was a part of the higher and more celestial elements which left "Adam" at the time of the creation of "Eve." 158:3 It may be well to remember that at the time of Jacob Boehme it was considered a crime to disbelieve even in the literal and external interpretation of the Bible allegories, and that his explanations would have been incomprehensible and unacceptable if his expressions had not been such as to correspond with those of the Bible.
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.
The text references Sal-nitre and the transformation of sensual attractions into higher spiritual essences.
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 equates the history of Adam with the history of mankind as a whole, reflecting inner states in outer narratives.
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 the kingdom of Lucifer resulting from losing the center of gravity in the Supreme.
Gurdjieff and Ouspensky's claim that ordinary human beings live in a state of waking sleep, reacting mechanically without unified will or consciousness, and that the spiritual path begins with recognising this condition.
The passage states that nature causes man to sleep and wake alternatively, and no man is fully awake without finding his own god.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The practice of directing consciousness and giving attention is described as the method for attaining knowledge.
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.
Human nature is described as containing celestial and terrestrial states that mirror the broader cosmic structure.
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.
Man's consciousness lost its seat and center of gravity in the Supreme due to attraction to the material world.
Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.
[auto] A clear opposition is drawn between the terrestrial/isolated state and the celestial/intermingled state, as well as lower versus higher principles.
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] The passage distinguishes between terrestrial and celestial states and describes lower principles versus higher ones flowing from a Supreme source.