The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 90 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 9 (part 8)
402.) During the connubial act a divine interaction takes place; but there are also influences coming from the terrestrial and the satanic worlds.
More especially is the nature of the child dependent on the quality of its parents.
2 p.
196 "The will called into action during the connubial act is threefold.
Firstly, there arises between the parents of the child the animal desire to commingle, and during the commingling the centre of love becomes opened, even if they were otherwise dissatisfied with each other.
That love then participates in the qualities of the one element, and this element with paradise; but the paradise is before God." ( Three Principles , xv.
30.) "On the other hand, the external seed has also its own essences, and they participate in the qualities of the external elements.
These external elements participate in the qualities of the external planets, and they are connected with external wrath and malice; while the latter are connected with the abyss of hell, and that abyss belongs to the devils." ( Three Principles , xv.
31.) "If a branch grows out of a tree, its form approximates that of the tree.
Thus, if a mother produces a child, the child is formed in her own image." ( Forty Questions , v.
1.) "An evil tree cannot produce good fruits.
If both parents are bad and in the power of the devil, a soul inclined to evil will be sown.
It would be well for parents to remember this fact.
You are saving up money for your children, but if you would furnish them with a good soul, that would be more useful to them." 1 ( Forty Questions , x.
7–9.) p.
197 "To the extent in which the parents have the essentiality of God connected with their own souls will the seed not be introduced into the Turba; for Christ says, 'A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit.'" ( Forty Questions , x.
5.) Each soul, however, is an individual being, and therefore a child born from bad parents can again turn to God, or the reverse of this may take place.
1 "Although the soul is a branch from the tree, she is, nevertheless, an individual being.
Therefore a child, after being born, has a life of its own, and the centre of nature is within its own power." ( Forty Questions , vi.
2.) "Even if a child has good parents, it may afterwards enter into the Turba .
Likewise a child born of evil parents may become converted by means of its imagination, and enter into the Word of the Lord.
This rarely takes place, but it is nevertheless possible.
God throws no soul away, unless the soul throws herself away.
Each soul judges herself." 2 ( Forty Questions , x.
6–8.) Footnotes 180:1 It is the principle of light in man that causes him to seek for the light, and to desire that it should become manifest.
If man were something entirely different from God, and had consequently nothing divine in him, he would be an atheist, incapable of conceiving of justice or truth, and have neither any desire nor understanding for that which is divine.
181:1 In proportion as the will of man is not controlled by reason, that will becomes unreasonable and follows its lower impulses.
182:1 To express this in other words, we may say that the will of man ceased to act within his own higher nature, i.e.
, the celestial virgin of divine wisdom, wherein his power was united to sweetness, and became active within the lower and animal elements of his constitution, so that brute passion took the place of divine self-conscious will.
This animal will produces corresponding animal images in his soul.
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 sulphur, seed, essences, and the transformation of nature into holiness reflect alchemical terminology applied to spiritual procreation.
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 analogy that a child is formed in the mother's image as a branch approximates the tree reflects the axiom of correspondence.
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.
Qualities flow and resonate between levels—love participates in the element, the element in paradise; external seed in external elements, elements in planets, planets in wrath, wrath in the abyss—expressing hidden affinities binding all parts of the cosmos.
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 passage describes cascading chains of participation: love→element→paradise→God, and external seed→external elements→external planets→wrath/malice→abyss of hell→devils, each level flowing from and dependent on the one above.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
The entire passage centers on the connubial (masculine-feminine) generative act as a cosmic principle, with the 'celestial virgin of divine wisdom' named as the higher feminine principle and the act itself as the site where divine, terrestrial, and satanic forces interact.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The passage describes influences from 'the terrestrial and the satanic worlds,' external elements, external planets, and the abyss of hell as non-physical dimensions that affect the embodied child.
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 seed and child are described as participating in the qualities of external elements and planets, mirroring cosmic structures.
The Hermetic doctrine that apparent opposites are identical in nature but differ in degree — two extremes of the same scale (hot/cold, love/hate) — such that one pole can be shifted toward its opposite by a change of degree ('mental transmutation'). Distinct from opposites_transcended (a completion-state marking the path's end, not this doctrine's active technique) and magical_equilibrium (balance held BETWEEN two forces, not identity-by-degree of what looks like two forces).
The passage is structured around opposed pairs—divine/satanic, good tree/evil tree, love/wrath, paradise/abyss, divine will/brute passion—presenting them as two poles of the same generative act.
The rule of the stars and planetary powers over mortal destiny — the astrological governors whose spheres bind souls to birth, error, and death; in Sethian gnosis the 'error of the stars' that the savior exposes, and from which the incorruptible generation alone is free. Distinct from cosmic_sympathy (a doctrine of universal affinity) in being a bondage-to-powers claim, and from archons (the rulers as personal beings) in concerning the astral machinery itself.
The external elements of the seed participate in the qualities of the external planets, implying that planetary configurations influence the soul's nature at birth, binding it to a cosmic destiny that can be overcome only by turning to God.
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.
The quality of the seed depends on the extent to which parents have the essentiality of God connected with their souls.