The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 156 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 14 (part 9)
The faith of the living caught that of the saints, and the faith performed the miracle.
Faith can overthrow mountains.
It could destroy the world, if God were so to direct it." 1 ( Forty Questions , xxvi.) In the above we have considered two different classes of human spirits or souls; namely, those in whom the principle of darkness and evil has become manifest, and who ultimately become identified with that principle which is called "the devil," and we have also investigated the fate that awaits those in whom the principle of light, or good, becomes manifest; but there is to be met a vast number of souls in whom the division of good and evil, within the fourth form of eternal nature has not yet taken place, and who are in that state which is called Kama loca in the East and Purgatory in the West, although the meaning commonly attached to these terms is not quite identical.
"The souls in which doubt and faith are mixed have p.
306 their basis neither in heaven nor in hell, but they stand in the middle of the portal, where fire and light become separated from each other.
They are held by the Turba.
Many a soul is held there for a considerable time; the wrath, however, cannot devour the little spark of faith which the soul possesses, and has ultimately to release her.
What (suffering) this implies, I leave those to experience who remain wilfully in sin to the end, and then wish to be saved." ( Forty Questions , xxiv.
5.) "It is not possible to describe what kind of a purgatory such a soul will have to pass through before, by means of her little spark (of love), she can enter (into eternal life).
The world would not believe such a description; the world is too clever, and likewise too blind, to understand it.
People cling for ever to the letter.
I wish to God that no one would have to pass through that experience; I would then gladly keep still and say nothing about it." ( Forty Questions , xviii.) A soul from which the higher principles have entirely departed will, of course, suffer nothing, because she has no (spiritual) intelligence.
Such an entity is merely an astral corpse, which is no more affected by the destructive influence of the astral elements than the unconscious physical body by its own decomposition; but if there is still any spiritual intelligence left in that astral form, it will then have to pass through a painful and forcible separation.
"Many a soul will, after taking leave of this world, have to remain for a considerable time in purgatory, if she has stained herself with gross sins, and if she has never truly entered into regeneration, but merely tasted of it to a certain extent, as is sometimes the case with persons that are here loaded with temporal honours and power, in which case personal claims being substituted for justice, malice, but not wisdom, is the judge.
p.
307 [paragraph continues] When the hour of death approaches and the conscience awakens, such a soul trembles in great fear of hell, and would like to be saved; but there is only very little of the saving power of faith within her, while before her is nothing but injustice and falsehood, earthly lust, and the tears and sighs of the down-trodden.
Her desire turns to a certain extent towards God, but the sins she committed are in her way, and there arises in her a great doubt and unrest.
Many a soul then clings to the saving power as it were by a thin thread.
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 'Turba' and the separation of fire and light reflect alchemical imagery applied to spiritual purification.
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 text describes the fear of hell and judgment by 'malice' or 'justice' upon death.
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.
Souls in purgatory are described as standing 'in the middle of the portal' with basis neither in heaven nor hell.
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 text discusses 'regeneration' and entering eternal life as a transformation of the soul's state.