Chapter III. The Seven Properties or Qualities of Eternal Nature

The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme, by Franz Hartmann, [1891], at sacred-texts.com

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CHAPTER III.

THE SEVEN PROPERTIES OR QUALITIES OF ETERNAL NATURE. ¹

I. ♄ ☾ II. ☿ ♃ III. ♂ ♀

IV. ☉

V. ♀ ♂ VI. ♃ ☿ VII. ☾ ♄

When the Eternal One, in its aspect as a Trinity and with reference to divine wisdom, reveals itself on the seven planes of existence, this revelation constitutes seven different rays or states of eternal nature, comparable to the sevenfold scale of colours, tunes, chemical substances, &c., all of which are seven different forms in which the fundamental one is manifesting itself. Of these seven forms or sourcive states of eternal nature, the first and the seventh refer to the Father, the second and sixth to the Son, the third and fifth to the Holy Spirit, while the fourth represents the balance in which exists the division between spirit and matter.

"The eternal Essence, being desirous of revealing itself to itself (to attain self-consciousness), had to conceive within itself a will; but as within itself there was no object for its will or desire, except the powerful Word, which in the tranquil eternity did not exist, the seven states of eternal nature had to be born from

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within. From these, then, proceeded, from eternity to eternity, the powerful Word, the power, the heart, and the life of the tranquil eternity and its eternal wisdom." (Threefold Life, iii. 21.)

"The first and the seventh quality must be regarded as one, likewise the second and sixth, and also the third and the fifth; but the fourth is the object of division. The first then refers to the Father, the second to the Son, the third to the, Holy Spirit." (Clavis, ix. 75.)

By means of the manifestation of these seven qualities of eternal nature the infinity of divine being does not become limited; they are merely seven different forms in which the power of God is manifesting itself, and the existence of each of these seven properties depends on that of the rest.

"If I speak of the seven states of eternal nature, it is not to be understood as if there were a limitation of the Godhead in regard to object and measure. Its power and wisdom is without end, without measure and unspeakable." (Mysterium, vii. 17.)

"Do not imagine these seven spirits to be standing one by the side of the other, comparable to the stars, which are seen side by side in the sky; they are all seven like only one spirit. Likewise the body of man has many organs, but each organ partakes of the power of the rest. (Aurora, x. 40.)

In the same sense we speak of the bones and flesh, the arteries and veins and nerves of a body, all of which go to make up only one organism. Likewise a picture is made up of many different colours, of which each has a certain individuality of its own, while the sum total is necessary to form one individual picture.

"As the organs of a man's body love one another, so do the spirits in divine power. There is nothing but longing, desiring, and fulfilling, and each triumphs and rejoices in the other." (Aurora, ix. 37.)

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They are like seven living and conscious rays contained within the original colourless ray, and broken into seven different tints by their passage through "matter."

"You must know that one spirit alone cannot generate another, but the birth of one spirit results from the cooperation of all the seven. Six of them always generate the seventh, and if one of them were absent the others could not be there." (Aurora, x. 21.)

"All the seven spirits of God are born one in another. One gives birth to the other; there is neither first nor last. The last generates the first, as well as the first the second, the third the fourth, up to the last. They are all seven equally eternal." (Aurora, x. 2.)

"If I am sometimes describing only two or three as being active in the generation of another spirit, I am doing so on account of my weakness, because in my degenerate mind I cannot retain the impression of the action of all the seven in their perfection. I see all the seven; but when I begin to analyse what I see, I then cannot grasp all the seven at once, but only one after another." (Aurora, x. 22.)

These seven properties are never transformed one into another; each retains eternally its own specific essentiality. The relations into which they enter with each other serve for the purpose of their mutual glorification; so that they, when they meet each other like strains of sweet harmonies in God's eternal nature, appear like flaming lights of life and joy. Thus matter is never transformed into spirit, but illumined and glorified by the latter, while the spirit obtains its corporification from matter, and, is thus enabled to become manifest.

Likewise ignorance is never transformed into knowledge, nor death into life.; but an ignorant person may become wise if illuminated by the light of wisdom, and a body in which life is inactive may be made living if the activity of life is aroused therein.

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"Each of these principles is strongly defined in regard to its nature, nevertheless there is no antipathy between them. They are all rejoicing in God as one only spirit. Each loves the other, and there is nothing among them but joy and happiness. Their evolution is an eternal one and never any other." (Aurora, x. 51.)

"The higher they become exalted, and the more they become ignited, the greater will be their joy in the kingdom of light." (Mysterium, v. 6.)

"Each quality of the spirit desires the other, and when it acquires its object it becomes as it were changed into that other; but its own quality is thereby not lost, it merely adapts itself to the other, and manifests another kind of anguish (consciousness), but both retain their own special qualities." (Threefold Life, iv. 8.)

Thus the darkness is illumined by the light, but it never becomes light itself, nor can the light become darkness. The light shineth eternally into darkness, but the darkness comprehendeth it not.

"Each of these divine forms of life desires to govern; each has a will of its own. Without that there could be no sensibility nor perceptibility, but only eternal tranquillity. Neither, however, of them is pressing forward to make itself manifest more than the rest, but all are in perfect harmony with each other." (Stiefel, ii. 348.)

"When the fourth principle enters into the first, all the spirits intermingle their light, triumph, and rejoice. They then arise all one within the other, and evolve each other as if moving in circular motion; and the light in the midst of them begins to shine and renders them luminous. Their harsh quality then remains hidden like a kernel in a fruit. As a sour or bitter unripe apple by ripening in the sun becomes changed, so that it acquires an agreeable taste, but nevertheless retains the qualities that constitute it an apple, likewise the Godhead retains its own essential qualities, but they become manifest in a sweet and agreeable manner." (Aurora, xiii. 80.)

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"All the seven principles are spiritual within eternal nature, and appear there in a clear, crystalline, translucent substantiality." (Grace, iii. 40.)

"The seven candlesticks in Saint John's Revelation refer to the seven spirits in the Godhead, also the seven stars. The seven spirits are in the centre of the Father—that is to say, in the power of the Word. The Word changes the wrathfulness into sweet joy and shapes it into a crystalline ocean; therein the seven spirits appear in a burning form, like seven luminous torches." (Threefold Life, iii. 46.)

A variety of colours is necessary to make up a picture, to represent an idea, and although the idea represented by the various colours is only one, nevertheless each colour retains its essential qualities. The various organs of the human body manifest various powers, nevertheless they all go to make up one manifestation of life. The various planets have each one its own special qualities, nevertheless they go to make up one world. Likewise each of the seven forms remains what it is, but their manifestations differ widely according to the planes and conditions under which they are manifesting themselves.

The First Quality begins when God, for the purpose of revealing His majesty, allows His eternal nature to contract within herself, whereby a state of darkness and corporeity is created.

"The first quality is the desire. It is comparable to magnetic attraction, and therefore the comprehensibility of the will. The will conceives of itself as something. By this act of impressing or contracting it overshadows itself and causes itself to become darkness." (Clavis, viii. 38.)

"In this state there is no active life or intelligence; it is merely the first principle of substantiality, or the first beginning of the becoming." (Three Principles, vii. 11.)

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"In eternity beyond nature there can be no darkness, because there is nothing that could produce it. The will by desiring contracts and becomes substantial. Thus darkness is created within the will, while without that desire there would be nothing but eternal stillness without substantiality." (Forty Questions.)

"Desire is an acrid, astringent, attracting (contracting) quality. It is an active power, and without it there would be nothing but tranquillity. It contracts and fills itself with itself; but that which it attracts constitutes nothing but darkness, a state which is more compact than the original will, the latter being thin as nothing, but it then becomes full and substantial." (Threefold Life, ii. 12.)

The fact of this contractive power of desire, by which the will is rendered substantial, corporeal, and heavy, is experienced by every one who feels the weight of sorrow caused by some unfulfilled desire weighing upon his soul, while freedom from desire, and consequently from care, renders the heart (the will) light and ethereal.

Simultaneously with the appearance of the first enters the Second Form, namely, motion. Matter and motion are co-eternal, and neither of them can exist without the other. There could be no contraction without motion, neither would there be any expansion if there were no desire to contract. With the beginning of action reaction begins. There is then a duality of manifestation of the eternal One. From this duality of action, having its source in the One, results the manifestation of relative life.

"Motion divides the attracted desire and causes differentiation, thereby awakening the true life." (Clavis, viii. 30.)

"From this results sensitiveness in nature, and herein is the cause of differentiation. Hardness (solidity) and the motion of life are opposed to each other. Motion

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breaks up the solidity (expands), and by means of attraction it also causes hardness (contracts)." (Tabulæ Princip., i. 34.)

"Desire, being a strong attraction, causes the ethereal freedom, which is comparable to a nothing, to contract and enter into a state of darkness. The primitive will desires to be free of that darkness, for it desires the light. The will cannot attain this light, and the more it desires for freedom the greater will be the attraction caused by the desire." (Six Theosophical Points, i, 38.)

"There must be au opposition, for the will desires not to be dark, and this very desire causes the darkness: The will loves the excitement caused by the desire, but it does not love the contraction and darkening. The will itself does not become dark, but only the desire existing in it. The desire is in darkness, and therefore a great anguish results within the will, as its desire for freedom is strong, but by this desire it causes itself to become still more harsh and dark." (Forty Questions.)

Eliphas Levi expressed a corresponding truth by saying; "The will accomplishes that which it does not desire." A selfish desire for heaven defeats its own object.

The Third Quality, called into existence by the action and reaction of the absolute One, calls sensation into existence; or, to express it in other words, absolute consciousness, by manifesting itself, becomes relative. Nothing new is thereby created, only that which already was begins to exist. This relative consciousness is called " anguish " by Boehme.

"The third quality, the anguish, is evolved in the following manner:—The hardness is fixed, the motion is fugitive; the one is centripetal, the other centrifugal; but as they are one, and cannot separate from each other (nor from their centre) they become like a turning wheel, in which one part strives upwards and the other one in

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a downward direction. The hardness furnishes substantiality and weight, while the 'sting' (desire in motion) supplies spirit (will for freedom) and fugitive life. All this causes a turning around and within and outwardly, having nevertheless no destination where to arrive. That which the attraction of the desire causes to become fixed is again rendered volatile by the aspiring for freedom. There then results the greatest disquietude, comparable to a furious madness, from which results a terrible anguish." (Mysterium, iii. 5.)

The truth of this every one experiences within his own self, because as long as man is nailed to the cross of terrestrial life, there is a continual battle raging in him between his higher and lower impulses, or between his ideal aspirations and his material self-interests.

"The more the first principle gathers its hardness for the purpose of arresting the second principle, the stronger does the action of that principle grow, and the stronger is the raging and breaking. The sting refuses to be subdued, but the will (from which it originates) holds on to it with great strength, and it cannot follow its impulse. It strives upwards and the will strives downwards, for the acerbity indraws, rendering itself heavy. Thus the one strives to rise upwards, and the other to sink downwards, while neither of them can accomplish its object, and thus eternal nature becomes like a revolving wheel." (Menschwerdung, ii. 4.)

This macrocosmic battle leas its counterpart in the microcosm of man. There is in him also the continual fight between matter and spirit, between desire and renunciation, between the desire for existence and the will for that freedom which cannot be found before even the desire for freedom itself is at rest.

These three first forms or qualities, wherein the activity of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are

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represented, or to express it in other words, through which the quality of will and intelligence becomes revealed, are sometimes alluded to under the names of "salt," "sulphur," and "mercury."

"The first three principles are not God Himself, but only His revelation. The first of these three states, being a beginning of all power and strength, originates from the quality of the Father; the second, being the source of all activity and differentiation, comes from the quality of the Son; and the third, being the root of all life, originates in the quality of the Holy Spirit." (Grace, vi. 9.)

"The ancients said that in sulphur, mercury, and salt are contained all things. This refers not so much to the material as to the spiritual aspect of things, namely, to the spirit of the qualities wherefrom material things grow. By the term 'salt' they understood the sharp metallic desire in nature; 'mercury' symbolised to them the motion and differentiation of the former, by means of which each thing becomes objective and enters into formation. 'Sulphur,' the third quality, signified the anguish of nature." (Clavis, 46.)

The true divine life wherein the substantiality of divine Trinity is revealed is rendered possible only by means of the Fourth Quality, called the lightning-flash, whose ignition is caused by the desire of eternal nature and by the longing of eternal freedom.

"The fire is originally darkness, hardness, eternal coldness and dryness, and there is nothing in it except an eternal hunger. How then does it become actual fire? The Spirit of God, in its aspect as the eternal light, comes to the aid of the fire-hunger. The hunger itself originates from the light, because when the divine power mirrors itself in the darkness, the latter becomes full of desire after the light, and this desire is the will (of

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eternal nature). But the will or the desire in the dryness cannot reach the light, and therein consists the anguish and the craving for light. This anguish and craving continues until the Spirit of God enters like a flash of lightning." (Three Principles, xi. 45.)

This ever-turning "wheel of Ixion" is represented by the Cross, the "Tree of Life." Free is the spirit of man before he enters this valley of suffering, but after he enters he is nailed to the cross of his own personal desires. Man himself is the "Cross," and he creates a cross for himself, from which there is no liberation until he discovers the true spiritual Cross by entering into the realm of light through the power of the fire, which means that his spirit breaks through the bonds of matter and becomes again free.

"Freedom by means of the eternal will grasps the darkness, and the latter reaches out for the light of freedom but cannot attain it. It imprisons itself by means of its own desire within itself, and causes itself to be darkness. From these two—namely, the dark impression and the desire for light or freedom which is directed towards the former, there results then in the former darkness the lightning-flash, the primitive condition of the fire. But freedom being a nothing, and therefore inapprehensible, it cannot retain the impression. Therefore the impression surrenders to freedom, and the latter devours the dark nature of the former. Thus freedom governs within the darkness, and is not comprehended by it." (Signature, xiv. 22.)

"Eternal unity or freedom, per se, is of infinite loveliness and mildness, but the three qualities are sharp, painful, and even terrible. The will of the three qualities longs for the mild unity, and the unity longs for the fiery foundation and sensibility. Thus one enters into the other, and when this takes place the lightning-flash appears, comparable to a spark produced by the friction of flint and

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steel. Thereby the unity attains sensibility, and the will of nature receives the mild unity. Thus the unity becomes a fountain of fire, and the fire penetrated by desire, like a fountain of love." (Clavis, ix. 49.)

Thus the light conquers the darkness, but does not destroy it; it merely becomes victorious over it and consumes it in a manner comparable to that of the assimilation of food by the organism which conquers and consumes that food by means of the fire of life.

"When the spiritual fire and light has become ignited in the darkness (it having, however, burned from all eternity), the great mystery of divine power and knowledge becomes eternally revealed therein, because in the fire all the qualities of nature appear exalted into spirituality. Nature herself remains what she is, but her issue—namely, that which she produces, becomes spiritualised. In the fire the dark will is consumed, and thereby issues the pure fire-spirit, penetrated by the light-spirit." (Clavis, ix. 64.)

When this great internal revelation 'takes place, the internal senses are then opened to the direct perception of spiritual truth. There will then be no more necessity for drawing conclusions of any kind in regard to such unknown things, because the spirit perceives that which belongs to its sphere in the same sense as a seeing person sees external things.

"Behold how all life in the external world attracts its food to itself. Thus you may recognise how life originates from death. There can be no life unless that from which life is to issue is broken up in its form. Everything has to enter into the state of anguish to attain the lightning-flash, and without this there will be no ignition." (Menschwerdung, ii. 5.)

This, then, is the beginning of the manifestation of God as the principle of fire and the principle of light. The Godhead, as such, the will of the Trinity willing to

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enter from the groundlessness into Trinity, is not yet a principle, and has no beginning, but is the beginning itself of itself.

"If a thing becomes that which it has not been before, this does not constitute a principle; a principle is there where a form of life and motion begins, such as has not existed before. Thus the fire is a principle, and also the light which is born from the fire, but which, nevertheless is not a quality of the fire, but has a life of its own." (Six Theosophical Points, ii. 1.)

In the fire there is represented the division of the two aspects in which God is manifesting Himself—namely, as God and as Nature; also the division between the sweet life in love and the life in wrath.

"As the sun in the terrestrial plane transforms acerbity into concord, so acts the light of God in the forms of eternal nature; This light shines into them and out of them; it ignites them so that they obtain its will and surrender themselves to it entirely. They then give up their own will and become as if they had no power at all of themselves, and are desirous only for the power of the light." (Six Theosophical Points, v. 3.)

By the union of fire and light the third principle attains substantiality.

"If the Godhead according to the first and second principle is to be regarded only as a spirit and without any conceivable essentiality, there is in it nevertheless the desire to evolve a third principle, wherein rests the spirit of the two first principles, and wherein it will become manifest as an image." (Six Theosophical Points, i. 25.)

"The fire receiving within itself the essence of desire as its food, so that it may burn, renders a joyful spirit and opens the power of the mild essentiality in the light." (Six Theosophical Points, i. 57.)

"The fire, drawing within itself the mild essentiality

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of the light, there issues from it, by means of the wrath of death, the mild spirit that was enclosed therein, and which has within itself the quality of nature." (Tilk., i. 171.)

When the power of the light becomes revealed it manifests its activity first of all in the Fifth Quality, which is evolved by means of the preceding four as sweet love, or a luminous water-spirit.

"The first three principles are merely qualities conducive to life, the fourth is life itself, but the fifth is the true Spirit. Whenever this power has been evolved from the fire, it lives within all the others and changes them all into its own sweet nature, so that painfulness and enmity cannot be found therein in any shape whatever." (Tabulæ Principæ, i. 46.)

"The fifth quality is the true love-fire, which in the light separates from the painful fire, and wherein divine love appears as a substantial being. It has within itself all the powers of divine wisdom; it is the trunk or the centre of the tree of eternal life, wherein God the Father becomes revealed in His Son by means of the speaking Word." (Grace, iii. 26.)

In the Sixth Quality the divine powers, still united, and therefore undifferentiated and not manifest in the fifth, become differentiated and audible.

"The sixth form of eternal nature is intelligent life or sound. The qualities being all in a state of equilibrium in the light (the fifth), they now rejoice and acquire audibility. Thereby the desire of the unity enters into a state of (conscious) willing and acting, perceiving and feeling." (Tabulæ Principæ, i. 48.)

"To constitute audible life, or the sound of the powers, hardness and softness, compactness and thinness and motion are required. To constitute the sixth principle there are therefore required all the other qualities of

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nature. The first form furnishes hardness, the second motion; by means of the third division takes place. The fire changes the harshness of the conceived essence by consuming it into a spiritual being, representing mildness and softness, and this becomes formed into sound, according to the qualities which it contains." (Mysterium, v. 11.)

This sound of course is not to be compared to terrestrial audible sound.

"In the light of God the kingdom of heaven (the consciousness of the spirit), sound is very subtle, sweet, and lovely, so that if compared with terrestrial noise, it is like a perfect stillness. Nevertheless in the realm of glory it is indeed comprehensible sound, and there is a language which is heard by the angels—a language which is, however, only partaking of the nature of their world." (Mysterium, v. 19.)

The third principle reappears in the seventh, and therein consists the "resurrection of the flesh."

"The Seventh Principle is the corporeal comprehension of the other qualities. It is called 'Essential Wisdom' or the 'Body of God.' The third principle appears in the seven forms of nature in so far as they have been brought into comprehensibility in the seventh. This principle or state of being is holy, pure, and good. It is called the eternal untreated heaven or the kingdom of God, and it is outspoken from the first principle, of the dark fire-world and from the holy light-flaming love-world." (Grace, iv. 10.)

"The seventh form is the state of being wherein all the others manifest their activity, like the soul in the body. It is called Nature, and also the eternal essential wisdom of God." (Tabulæ Principæ, i. 49.)

"The seventh spirit of God is the body, being born from the other six spirits, and in it all the celestial figures are taking form. From it arises all beauty, all

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joy. If this spirit did not exist God would be imperceptible." (Aurora, xi. 1.)

"Wisdom is the substantiality of the spirit. The spirit wears it as a garment, and becomes revealed thereby. Without it the form of the spirit would not be knowable; it is the corporeity of the spirit. To be sure, it is not a bodily, tangible substance, like the bodies of men, but has nevertheless substantial and visible qualities which the spirit per se does not possess." (Threefold Life, v. 50.)

There is no language to describe the beauty and splendour of divine wisdom. Whatever there is of magnificence perceptible in this terrestrial world exists in the celestial world in a far superior state, in eternal spiritual perfection.

"Earthly language is entirely insufficient to describe what there is of joy, happiness, and loveliness contained in the inner wonders of God. Even if the eternal Virgin pictures them to our minds, man's constitution is too cold and dark to be able to express even a spark of it in his language." (Three Principles, xiv. 90.)

Neither are these superterrestrial pictures mere shadows or creations of fancy.

"Just as the earth continually produces plants and flowers, trees and metals, and beings of various kinds, one always more glorious, stronger, and more beautiful than the rest; and as on our terrestrial plane one form appears while others perish, there being a continual working and evolving of forms, likewise the eternal generation within the holy mystery continually takes place in great power; so that, in consequence of this perpetual wrestling of spiritual powers, one after another divine fruits appear by the side of each other, all and each of them in the radiance of beautiful colours. All that whereof the terrestrial world by which we are surrounded is merely an earthly symbol, exists in the celestial

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realm in exquisite perfection in a spiritual state. It does not exist there merely as a spirit, a will, or a thought, but in corporeal substantiality, in essence and power, and appears inconceivable merely in comparison with the external material world." (Signature, xvi. 18.)

This beauty the divine and essential wisdom, the eternal Virgin, does not produce by her own power; but by the power of God that acts within her. She herself is without any will of her own.

"Not wisdom, but the Spirit of God, is the centre, or the discloser. As the soul is manifesting herself in the body by means of the flesh, and as the latter would have no power if it were not inhabited by a living spirit, likewise the wisdom of God is the corporeity of the Holy Spirit, by means of which He assumes substantiality, so as to manifest Himself to Himself. Wisdom gives birth, but she would not do so if the Spirit were not acting within her. She brings forth without the power of the fire-life; she has no ardent desire, but her joy finds its perfection in the manifestation of the Godhead, and therefore she is called a virgin in chastity and purity before God." (Tilk., ii. 64.)

Divine wisdom exists only by means of the Trinity, and the latter can be revealed only by forming eternal nature within its own body.

"The light and the power of the sun disclose the mysteries of the external world by the production and growth of various beings. Likewise God, representing the eternal Sun, or the one eternal and only Good, would not reveal Himself without the presence of His eternal spiritual nature, wherein alone He can manifest His power. Only when the power of God becomes differentiated and relatively conscious, so that there are individual powers to wrestle with each other during their love-play, will be opened in Him the great and immeasurable fire of

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love by means of the forthcoming of the Holy Trinity." (Grace, ii. 28.)

The Father, ruling the first principle, the fire, generates eternally the Son, the light, by means of the seven forms of eternal nature; and the Son, revealing Himself in the second principle as the light, for ever glorifies the Father.

"The eternal will, the Father, conducts His heart, His eternal Son, by means of the fire into great triumph, into His kingdom of joy." (Grace, ii. 21.)

"When the Father speaks His Word—that is to say, when He generates His Son—which is done continually and eternally, that Word first of all takes its origin in the first or acrid quality, where it becomes conceived. In the second or the sweet quality it receives its activity; in the third it moves; in the heat it arises and ignites the sweet flow of power and the fire. Now all the qualities are made to burn by the kindled fire, and the tire is fed by them; but this fire is only one and not many. This fire is the true Son of God Himself, who is continuing to be born from eternity to eternity." (Aurora, viii. 81.)

"The Father is the first of all conceivable beings, but if the second principle were not becoming manifest in the birth of the Son, He would not be revealed. Thus the Son, being the heart, light, love, and the beautiful and sweet beneficence of the Father, but being distinct from Him in His individual aspect, renders the Father reconciled, loving, and merciful. His birth takes place in the fire, but He obtains His personality and name by the ignition of the soft, white, and clear light, which He is Himself." (Three Principles, iv. 58.)

"The Son is perpetually born from eternity to eternity, and shines perpetually into the powers of the Father while these powers are continually generating the Son." (Aurora, vii. 33.)

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The Holy Spirit, manifesting Himself in the third principle, issues eternally from the Father and the Son, and in and with Him issues the splendour of God's majesty.

"The Eternal Father becomes manifest in the fire, the Son in the light of the fire, and the Holy Spirit in the power of the life and the motion that issues front the fire and the light." (Signature, xiv. 34.)

"The Holy Spirit reveals the Godhead in nature. He extends the splendour of the majesty, so that it may be recognised in the wonders of nature. He is not that splendour itself, but its power, and He introduces the splendour of the majesty into the substantiality wherein the Godhead is revealed." (Threefold Life, iv. 82; v. 39.)

Thus the holy Trinity is everywhere, manifesting itself in and through the seven qualities of eternal nature.

"We Christians say that God is threefold, but one in essence, and this is misunderstood by the ignorant as well as by the half learned, for God is not a person except in Christ. He is an eternally generating power and the kingdom with all beings." (Myst. magn., vii. 5.)

"He is generating Himself in a threefold aspect, and in this eternal generation there is nevertheless to be understood only one essence and generation; neither Father, nor Son, nor Spirit but only the one eternal Life, or Good." (Myst. magn., vii. 11.)

Footnotes

71:1If it is asked how it is possible that Jacob Boehme knew anything about the invisible spiritual processes taking place in the universe, the answer is that the spirit of man is one and universal, and he who knows his own divine self knows the whole of the universe. Seen from the spiritual point of view, the universal cosmic processes in the body of universal nature are internal processes taking place within the organism of macrocosmic man, mirrored forth and eternally repeated in the microcosm of the individual. The history of the universe is the history of a man.