The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 158 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 14 (part 11)
309 As a matter of course, no dead soul can be made alive by prayer, neither can mere lip-prayer or any empty ceremony aid the soul in freeing herself from the bonds of matter, but the living may aid the "dead," and especially the dying, by means of true prayer; i.e.
, by an exercise of the spiritual will (divine aspiration) in them.
Thus prayer may aid them to combat the powers of darkness, provided that the prayer of those persons is earnest and full of faith.
"We acknowledge that the community of Christ has great power in redeeming a soul, provided that they do their work earnestly, as it used to be done among the primitive Christians, when there were still saintly persons and saintly priests in existence.
They surely did succeed, but not those who assert that they carry the keys and could let souls out of purgatory according to their pleasure and according to the amount of money received for it.
For such persons, it would be better if they were never given any money, so that they would not cling to it with their desire." ( Forty Questions , xxiv.
12.) "The prayer of the living for the dead may be useful in so far as those who pray are truly Christians (in their hearts), and in a state of regeneration.
If the poor soul has not become entirely brutalised into a worm or au animal, but if she still enters into God with her desire, and is therefore still connected with Him by the thread of regeneration, and if the soul-spirit of those who pray, together with the poor soul herself, turns in fervent love, towards God, then will the former aid the latter to wrestle with the elements of darkness and to burst the chains of the devil.
This is especially possible at the time of the separation of the spirit from the body, and eminently so in the case of parents, children, or blood relatives; for among those who are related with each other by blood the tinctures enter easier into the necessary harmony (co-vibration), and then the spirit is more willing to enter p.
310 into the battle, and there is then more facility of conquering than if only strangers are present.
All this is, however, useless unless these persons are themselves in the state of regeneration, for one devil cannot destroy another devil.
If the soul of the dying is entirely separated from that which links her to Christ, and if she reaches not by her own efforts for the thread, then will the prayers of the others avail nothing." ( Three Principles , xix.
55.) 1 Footnotes 291:1 It will hardly be necessary to state that this is not to be taken in an external and superficial sense, as if the soul were waiting for the resurrection of that physical body which has then already been decomposed and passed into other organisms according to its constituting elements; but, like all other writings of occult nature, this has to be taken in an internal spiritual meaning, which we must seek to grasp with the spirit rather than with the sceptical brain.
It refers to the unfoldment of the third principle, which remains latent in the soul during that state.
294:1 There are not animals enough in the world to represent all the combinations of evil characters which may be formed within the soul of man; neither could such monstrous shapes exist in the physical plane, on account of anatomical and physiological laws; but in the hellish world, where the human element becomes mixed with the animal essence, all kinds of monsters, half human, half animal, may be found.
The horrors of hell are, therefore, not mere inventions of poets and visionaries, but there is no reason why they should not actually exist.
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 uses alchemical terminology like 'tinctures' to describe spiritual harmony and connection.
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.
The text mentions 'co-vibration' and harmony among blood relatives allowing tinctures to enter easier.
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.
Footnote 2 mentions the 'hellish world' and monsters, implying a post-mortem state of judgment or consequence.
Critique of outward religious observance that lacks inner transformation; form without substance.
[auto] The passage centrally critiques 'mere lip-prayer,' 'empty ceremony,' and clergy who sell access to purgatory for money rather than acting with true faith.
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 text describes the danger of the soul being 'entirely separated from that which links her to Christ'.
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 concept of 'regeneration' and entering into God implies a transformation of the human person into a divine state.