The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 149 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 14 (part 2)
2.) During his terrestrial existence man can remain consciously in the three worlds, and by the power of the will with which he is endowed penetrate into either one or the other; but after the separation of the soul from the body has taken place, he can continue to exist as an individuality only in one of these worlds, either within the realm of divine light or within the power of the fire; because together with his physical body he loses the power of self-government.
He can then no longer follow his own will, but has to go where he gravitates.
"There are three principles in the constitution of man, either of which he may unfold during his terrestrial existence; but after the body is disorganised, he then lives only in one principle and cannot evolve the other.
In eternity he must remain in that state of consciousness which he has acquired here." ( Three Principles , Supplement , x.) "There are not three separate souls in man, but only one.
This soul stands in three principles; namely, the realm of the wrath, the realm of the love of God and the kingdom of this world.
When the air of the external kingdom of this world deserts the soul, then will she become manifest in either the dark realm of fire or in the holy kingdom of light, which is the kingdom of the love-fire, the power of God.
To whatever plane she has p.
292 surrendered herself during her earthly existence, therein she remains after the external kingdom has departed from her." ( Mysterium , xv.
24.) During his terrestrial life man may live either in heaven or hell, or come out of one of these states and enter the other, because he can then govern his will by means of his intellect; but after the death of the body the function of the brain necessary for that purpose exists no longer, and then the soul is not able to change her will.
She therefore becomes absorbed entirely into that principle which has obtained ruling power within her own nature.
For this reason, it is of paramount importance for man to seek to unfold during his terrestrial life the love of God; i.e.
, the appreciation of the ideal and the will to realise all that is noble and good within his soul, so that it will act as his guiding star in eternity.
"Man is in this world already in heaven or hell, wherever he corporeally may be.
If his spirit is in harmony with God, he is then spiritually in heaven and his soul is in God.
If he spiritually dwells in the wrath, he is then already in hell and in company of all the devils." ( Aurora , xx.
86.) "Here in the life of the soul is the balance.
If she is evil, she can be reborn in love; but when the balance breaks and the angle has turned, then will she be in that principle which is prevailing in her." ( Forty Questions , xxiii.
10.) "During her terrestrial life the soul can change her will, but after the death of the body there remains nothing within her power by which she can change her will." ( Tilk .
i.
267.) "Whatever the soul during her terrestrial life receives within her will, and wherewith she becomes entangled, that she will take in her will with her after the death of the body, and she can no more rid herself of it, because she has then nothing but that wherein she has entered, p.
293 and which now constitutes her very self.
But during terrestrial life she may destroy that wherein she has become entangled in her will." ( Threefold Life , xii.
25.) If during terrestrial life the will of the soul has become anti-Christian—that means to say, perverted into an evil spirituality—then will the evil nature of the soul likewise be perverted and anti-Christian, and this perverted essence will manifest itself in the other life as a shape and a power for evil.
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 describes a process of unfolding and destroying entanglements within the will to achieve spiritual perfection.
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 internal spiritual state of the soul corresponds directly to its eternal destination (heaven or hell) regardless of corporeal location.
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 soul must 'destroy that wherein she has become entangled in her will' to prepare for eternity.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The soul's eternal state is fixed after death based on the consciousness acquired during life, functioning as a final judgment.
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 constitution mirrors the cosmic structure, containing the same three worlds or principles found in the universe.
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 soul is transformed to serve God in Paradise and become 'in God,' implying participation in the divine nature.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
[auto] The passage explicitly defines the human constitution as having three principles while clarifying there is only one soul standing in three powers.