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 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 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.