The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 137 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 13 (part 5)
First, by the severe wrath of God, the abyss and dark world, which is the centre of the created life of the soul, whose innermost root is desire.
The second chain is the fiery longing of the devil for the soul, in consequence of which he tempts the soul and incessantly seeks to throw her from her rest in divine truth down into vanity— i.e.
, into pride, avarice, envy, and anger; and these evil propensities he continually seeks to fan the fire in the soul, and thus the will of the soul is made to turn away from God and to enter p.
271 into selfishness.
But the third and most dangerous chain, to which the whole of the soul is tied, is the corruptible, vain, earthly, and mortal flesh and blood, which is full of evil desires and inclinations, together with the star region (astral plane), wherein, like in a great ocean, the soul is floating, and which causes her to become daily infected and inflamed in sin." ( Three Principles , xxv.
7.) There is a continual danger for the soul of sinking back into the acrid root of her existence, and at the same time she is continually exposed to the aggressions of the devil.
"If a person is in the anxiety of enmity, and the sting of death and anger is moving in him, so as to render him avaricious, envious, angry, and irritable, he ought then not to remain in that evil essence, but stop to consider and draw (from the eternal fountain) another will, namely, the will to go out of malice and enter into the freedom of God, wherein is perpetual rest and peace.
If then his anguish tastes the freedom, then will the torture of the anguish become terrified, and in this terror death will be broken up; for this terror is of great joy and consists in a kindling of the life of God.
Thereby the branchlet of pearls appears, and this now stands in trembling joy, but also in great danger; for death and the torture of anguish are its root; as also the anguish in external nature has the quality that out of evil, i.e.
, out of the anguish, the great life is born.
Out of a manure, for instance, a beautiful green branch grows, it having, of course, a constitution, odour, and state (life) different from that which produced it." ( Menschwerdung , xi.
8.) "The poor soul is so much blinded as not even to recognise the heavy chains wherewith she is bound.
The whole world is full of traps set by the devil for the purpose of capturing her.
If the outer man could have his eyes (spiritually) opened he would be terrified.
Whatever a p.
272 man sees or touches, therein is a devil's trap, and if the Word of the Lord, having become human, were not occupying the middle, the devil would capture and devour all souls." 1 ( Menschwerdung , xi.
6.) "As long as earthly man lives the soul will be in continual danger, for the devil is at enmity with her, and shoots his rays with a false imagination into the spirit of the stars and elements, and he therewith reaches out after the soul-fire, and desires to poison it with an earthly and devilish desire.
Then must the noble image (in the inner consciousness in man) stand up in defence; much fighting for the crownlet of the angels is then required, and there often arises doubt and unbelief within the old Adam." ( Menschwerdung , xi.
6.) "Even after the precious jewel is sown it does not immediately become a tree.
Often the devil blows over it, and wishes to exterminate the mustard-seed.
Many storms has the soul to suffer.
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 analogy of a 'beautiful green branch' growing from 'manure' illustrates the spiritual transformation of base anguish into divine life.
Malevolent planetary rulers or demiurgic powers that govern the material world and obstruct the soul's ascent.
[auto] The text describes the 'star region (astral plane)' as a realm where the soul floats and becomes infected, aligning with the concept of planetary powers obstructing spiritual ascent.
The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.
[auto] The passage explicitly identifies corruptible flesh and blood as the 'third and most dangerous chain' that infects the soul and hinders its rest in divine truth.
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 soul is infected by the 'star region,' implying a structural link between cosmic forces and inner spiritual states.
Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.
[auto] The passage establishes a strong opposition between divine truth and the dark world of desire, devil, and flesh as fundamental structures of spiritual conflict.
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The passage details the 'anxiety of enmity,' 'sting of death,' and 'anguish' as necessary purgative stages before joy.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
The instruction to 'go out of malice and enter into the freedom of God' implies a letting go of the will's attachment to evil.
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 soul is depicted as floating in the 'star region' and being infected by it, reflecting the cosmic structure within the individual.
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.
The soul is described as bound by 'heavy chains' and blinded, sinking into the 'acrid root' of existence away from 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 transformation from anguish to the 'great life' born out of evil suggests a progressive participation in divine nature.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
[auto] The text distinguishes between the soul, the corruptible flesh and blood, and the divine truth or spirit, reflecting a threefold division of human existence.