The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 87 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 9 (part 5)
189 four states, forms, or temperaments are called the choleric, the sanguine, phlegmatic, and melancholy temperament.
In the choleric one is the nature and quality of the fire manifested, in the sanguine that of the air, in the phlegmatic the nature of water, and in the melancholic the quality of the element of the earth." ( Four Complexions , i.
6.) Man's enjoyment and desire is now turned away from the divine, and directed towards that which is earthly and animal.
"The angelic image in man became entirely destroyed both as to mind and senses, as we may plainly see at present, both thoughts and senses are shaped by an animal will, and it is very difficult for them to arrive at a state in which they love God and justice." ( Grace , vii.
36.) 1 "After the fall the creatures (elementals) obtained -power in man and arose in him.
There are persons who live in the quality of a snake, and are full of cunning and poisonous malice; others live in the quality of a toad or a dog, a bear or a wolf; or one may have in him the quality of some good and tame animal.
All men are outwardly formed in the human image, but within the quality is seated an animal." 2 ( Grace , vii.
3, 4.) p.
190 Man's present animal method of reproducing himself originated in his fall, as is proved by Eve having been projected from Adam at a later period of time, and also by the inherited sense of shame in regard to the organs of generation.
"If God had created man for this earthly, corruptible, poverty-stricken, sickly, and animal life, He would not have put him into Paradise.
If He had originally intended that mankind should procreate themselves like the brutes, He would have made them into men and women already at the start." ( Mysterium , xviii.
5.) "The poor degraded soul is ashamed of the possession of animal organs of generation, and of the way in which impregnation takes place.
Does not every one feel this?
If we had been created beastlike in Adam, why should we be ashamed of our beastliness?
Why is it that the soul is ashamed of the monstrosity of her outward body, and of its animal method of procreation?" ( Tilk .
i.
608.) If there had occurred no sin, man, being the living image of God, and therefore possessing the power to create, could have produced his equals out of his own self without the existence of severed sexes.
"The sum of all mankind constitutes the one original Adam.
God created him alone, and left it to him to produce other beings.
He should have surrendered his self-will entirely to God, and with God generated other men out of himself, and in conformity with himself." ( Mysterium , lxxi.
31.) "Adam was a complete image of God, male and female, and nevertheless neither of them separately, but pure like a chaste virgin.
He had in himself the desire (power) of the fire and the light, the mother of love and wrath, and the fire in him loved the light, receiving from it calmness and beneficence; while the light in him loved the fire as being its life, in the same sense as God, in His p.
191 quality as Father, loves the Son and the Son loves the Father." ( Stiefel , ii.
351.) "Adam was man and wife in one individuality.
However, he must not be considered as having been a woman in the usual sense of this word, but as a pure, chaste, virginal power.
That is to say, he had within himself the tincture or spirit of fire, and also that of water, and he loved himself and God.
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 a 'precious jewel' and elemental qualities suggest the alchemical transformation of the human soul.
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 maps the four temperaments (choleric, sanguine, etc.) directly to the four cosmic elements (fire, air, water, earth).
Fragments of divine light or spirit trapped inside material bodies, awaiting liberation and return to their source.
[auto] The passage describes a 'precious jewel' that is imprisoned within man, aligning with the concept of divine fragments trapped in material bodies.
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 text claims thoughts and senses are shaped by an animal will, implying humans live in a reactive, non-divine state.
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 passage explicitly states that the four elements of the cosmos are within each man, making the human a reflection of the 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.
It describes man's desire as turned away from the divine towards the earthly and animal following the fall.