Jacob Boehme.pdf

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC TRADE

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Supplementary Monograph P R I N T E D IN U . S . A.

The subject matter of this monograph must be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,,AMORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplementary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student bv presenting him with tne writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplementary monographs statements made which are inconsistent with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that tne Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them merely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.

R O S IC R U C IA N P A R K , S A N JO S E , C A L IF O R N IA

"C o n se cra ted to truth and d e d ic a te d to every Rosicrucian"

SPECIAL SUBJECT BOEHME RAD-10

LE CT UR E NUMBER

RAD - 10 Lecture One

Rosicrucian Order, AMORC ANALYTICAL DISCUSSIONS (Supplementary Lecture)

-BPage One

JACOB BOEHME

This series of lectures presents the philosophy of a mystic in a way that will make it understandable to present-day mystics, and at the same time to retain as much as possible the language and style of the original works. To this end, Boehme's works have been edited and to some extent reworded. Except where explanation seems obvious, com ments added by the lecturer have been put in parentheses to distin guish them from the original.

More important than dates themselves is the relationship in time between events, and it is in this way the dates can be most use ful. It may help us to place Jacob Boehme in his own era if we know that he was born in 1575, 14 years after the birth of Francis Bacon in England. Even though he is considered a medieval philosopher, and Bacon modern, Boehme is the younger of the two, but contemporary with Bacon. Boehme was also contemporary with the astronomers Kepler and Galileo, with William Harvey, the English physician. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake for his philosophical views in 1600, in the middle of Boehme1s life. When Boehme was born, Luther had been dead for almost 30 years (1546) , and already his church was orthodox. The time was one of religious tension and strife leading up to the Thirty Years War which began with the Protestant revolt against the Catholic faction in Bohemia and Germany in 1618. It was in that year that Boehme ended his five years of enforced silence. We will summarize some of his ideas and give his life and his own account of his illumination and work. Then his philosophy will be discussed, especially its basis in alchemy and the Kabala. In this series the seventeenth century translations of his works have been used to present Boehme1s ideas, but they have been modern ized, edited, and abridged. Occasionally a new translation has been used. Abridgements have not been indicated in the interest of easier reading; the original editions may be consulted. Comments by the lecturer have been put in parentheses except when such remarks seem obvious. Boehme used the German word Grund to mean ground, basis, founda tion. It is translated in several ways in Boehme's works, and in order to understand the connection, that there is an essential basic unity in the meanings of the word, the German word has been used rather than translating it. The word Ungrund means lack of foundation or basis. It is the chaos or abyss out of which the Grund is created. is

In defining deity Boehme says: The creation of the whole a manifestation of God, who is all being and without Grund.

cosmos All



-BPage Two

that he is in his eternal beginningless generation and government, of this also is the cosmos, not in the omnipotence and power, but like an apple growing in a tree which is not the tree itself; rather it grows from the power of the tree. God has not brought forth the creation that he should be there by perfect, but for his own manifestation as the great joy and glory. This joy did not begin with the creation; it was from eternity in the great mystery, but only as a spiritual play in itself. The creation is the play out of himself as a model or instru ment of the eternal spirit with which he plays; and it is even as a great harmony of many instruments which are all tuned to one harmony. Thus in the eternity there is only one spirit in the whole work of divine manifestation, which is the manifestor in the expressed voice as well as in the speaking voice of God. This is the life of the great mystery and of all that is generated from it. It is the mani festor of all the works of God. (Signature, 210) (When Boehme says the world is not God, he means neither the cosmos nor a part of it is God as the One Absolute. But the world has God in it and is created by the power of God. God is, thus, in the world, but the world is not God. It is a divine emanation of God.) I do not say that nature is God, much less the fruit proceeding from the earth. But I say God gives power to every life, good or bad, to each thing according to its desire, for he himself is All. Yet he is not called God according to every being, but according to the light wherewith he dwells in himself and shines with his power through all his beings. He gives his power to all his beings and works, and each receives his power according to its property. (Signature, 87) We understand not a beginning of the deity, but we show you the manifestation of the deity through nature. For God is without begin ning; he has an eternal beginning and an eternal end, which he is him self. The nature of the inward world is in the like essence from eternity. Without nature, God is a mystery in the nothing. In the mystery without nature in the first will are two forms, one to nature, the second is produced out of the first and is a desire after power. The soul comprehends the inward eternal nature. The spirit of the soul, the image according to God, comprehends thebirth of the light world. The sidereal and elemental spirit comprehends the birth and property of the stars and elements. Every eye sees into its mother from whence it was brought forth. Man is a likeness according to and in God, an image of the Being of all beings. Yet it does not stand in the power of the creature, but in the might of God, for the sight and science of all essences consist alone in the clearest light. (Signature, 22-23)



-BPage Three

(The clockwork analogy used in the following passages might seem to make Boehme a mechanist. But it is an analogy, as if we would com pare the universe or a city to an organism. We might elaborate the analogy by imagining a fine German clock with human figures which come out when the hour strikes. The analogy does not mean the cosmos is an inanimate, mechanical creation, nor does it take from the cosmos its divine nature. This is particularly interesting in relation to later uses of such analogies, including Newton's.) When God had created the earth and the starry firmament, and had arranged in the middle the planetary wheel of the seven properties of nature with their regent the sun, then the spiritus mundi was enclosed from all the properties of the powers, from the stars and elements, for in the speaking Word every power is immanent according to the right of the Eternal Nature. This eternal Word had here shut itself up in a time, as in a figure of the spiritual Mysterium Magnum, like a great clockwork, where the spiritual Word is understood in a work. The whole work is the formed Word of God or the natural Word, for the living Word of God, which is God himself, is understood within. (Election, 69) (Besides the clockwork metaphor, Boehme has here outlined the concept of the three Words: eternal, speaking, and natural.) The spiritus mu n d i , from which by their spirit all external crea tures have arisen, is shut up in a time, limit, and measure, as long as such existence shall continue, and is like a clockwork composed of the stars and elements wherein dwells the supreme God, who uses this clockwork as his instrument and has enclosed his making in it. This clockwork goes spontaneously of itself, and produces according to its minutes. Everything is contained in it, whatever has been done in this world and whatever shall yet be done. It is God's purpose with refer ence to the creature as well as in the creature, and in it he rules over all things by means of this government of nature. In God himself, in so far as he is and is called God, there is no purpose with a view to evil or with a view to anything; for he is the one united Good, and has in himself no other comprehension than just himself. And in his Word, which he has spoken forth from himself out of the Great Mystery of the Eternal Nature, he has grasped his purpose and comprised it in the free clockwork, in the spiritus m u n d i . This clockwork produces and breaks up everything according to its instant course, and brings fruitfulness and unfruitfulness. But God in his being pours his love-power into it; that is, he pours himself into it, as the sun does into the scientia of the ele ments and fruits. When the human scientia breaks itself off from God's love, the fierce wrath in nature is introduced into it, devouring the sins and



-BPage Four

infamy. The fierce wrath fattens itself until the clockwork is intro duced into a fiery attraction where all beings live under proof or trial. Here then the fierce wrath becomes inflamed, according as the turba is enkindled in the wheel of the clockwork, so that a quality is manifested therein. From this great clockwork, as from the higher and lower, where all things are united together, man was created in the image of God. (Election, 72) The external mysterium of the formed Word is shut up with its generating life in a wheel like a clockwork, where the properties are in process of wrestling for the primacy. Now one is atop, at another time the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, and seventh. Thus is to be understood the issuings of the seven properties. (Election, 130) God says: Whom I harden, I harden. Accordingly, the external man is hardened, and devout as well as sensual men are drawn to humil ity and pride. That is God's purpose according to his wrath, which man has awakened in himself. For it is the external generating Word of God, and through it God deals with the external creature as he lays hold of the latter in his clockwork. And by means of this clockwork he also reveals his glory, both according to fire and light, according to understanding and folly, that the one may be manifested in the other, and that it may be known what is good. But this clockwork of the expressed Word is not God himself; it is only an image of him, as the external essential Word in which he has enclosed the creation, and from which he has produced it. For no creature can arise from purely divine quality, for such quality has no Grund nor beginning. And it cannot be formed into any beginning save by the Word of power, or by and through the separation of the speaking, as the speaking must pass into the condition of nature, else the Word would not be manifest. (Election, 137) (Boehme's three principles or three realms are reproduced in the cosmos and man. This is an expression of the correspondence between macrocosm and microcosm, the archetype and type. It can be put in terms of the hermetic axiom, as above, so below, which is also to be found in the Zohar of Kabalistic philosophy.) If we meditate on the original (source) of the four elements, we shall clearly find, see, and feel the original in ourselves. For the original is as well known in man as in the deep of this world. The unenlightened man supposes it is impossible to know the original of the air, fire, water, and earth, as also of the starry heaven. You must look for this root in the matrix; it is wholly manifest there, and you may know it in all things, for the matrix of this world stands in the eternal matrix, from which paradise and the kingdom of heaven have their original.



-BPage Five

As the eternal matrix is a birth that goes forth where, in the original, there is harshness, darkness, hardness, and anguish (i.e. the forms of nature), so you may see that when the spirit of God has kindled the inward matrix, then it becomes stirring, working, and active. (Three Principles, 73-4) Man in his own essence and substance is a twofold man. His soul is out of the first principle which has no Grund or beginning. The created spirit of man is out of the matrix of this world and by the power of the second principle of light. This principle rules in the power of the spirit of the stars and elements as in that which is proper own. We move thus weakly in all three births (principles). The eternal birth stands hidden in the center of man, and does nothing new. It knows, works, and does the same that it always did from eternity. When the heaven and the birth of the elements are spoken of, it is not a thing far off, but we speak of things that are done in our body and soul. There is nothing nearer us than this birth, for we live and move therein, as in the house of our mother. The soul of man moves between the power of the stars and ele ments; so too the created heaven moves between paradise and the king dom of hell (th light and dark principles) in the eternal matrix. (Three Principles, 87ff) God created all things out of nothing, but only out of himself. The source of the darkness is the first principle, and the power of light is the second principle, and the out-birth out of thedarkness by the power of the light is the third principle. You have a likeness of this in yourself. Your soul gives reason to you by which you think; that represents the God the Father. The light which shines in your soul represents the Son. The mind in which is the power of the light represents the Spirit. The darkness in you which longs for the light is the first principle. The power of the light in you by which you see in your mind without bodily eyes, that is the second principle. The longing power that proceeds from the mind, from which the material body grows, that is the third principle. God is the beginning and first power in all things. (This may be diagramed:) 1

2.

In man darkness

In man soul; Father

Principle source of darkness

power of light: psychic mind

light in soul: son

power of light


3.


In man power in virtue: body

In man mind: spirit

-BPage Six

Principle power of virtue:

(Three Principles, 98-99) (Boehme in his Six Theosophic Points and Six Mystical Points gives the three realms or principles but not in the same order.) We are to understand a threefold Being, or three worlds in one. The first is the fire-world which arises from the center of nature, and nature from the will, which has its origin in the Ungrund. The second is the light world which dwells in freedom in the Ungrund out of nature, but proceeds from the fire-world. It dwells in fire, and the fire does not apprehend it. This is the middle world. Fire in the center of nature before its enkindling gives the dark-world. In its enkindling, it is the light-world. The third world is the outer in which we dwell by the outer body (Six Theosophic Points, 31) God is from eternity all. His essence is divided into three distinctions. One is the fire-world, the second is the dark-world, the third is the light-world. Yet they are but one essence one in another. However, one is not the other. (Six Theosophic Points, 119. (This means: First order 1. Fire-world 2. Light-world 3. Outer-world

Second order 1. Fire-world 2. Dark-world 3. Light-world

It may be that the outer and dark worlds are the same, and only the order given is different. However, the difference could be explained by the following diagram: Firejrworld DarkWorld

LightWorld

Outer world This is why Boehme in the first account says, "Fire in the center of nature before its enkindling gives the dark-world.")



-15-

Page Seven

(In the Aurora Boehme explains the macrocosm and microcosm.) As the being or essence in God is, so also is the being in man and in angels. As the divine body is, so also is the angelical and human body. There is this difference, that an angel and a man is a creature and not the whole being, but a son of the whole being whom the whole being has generated. In man the power in the whole has all the qualities as it is in God. As all the powers in God rise up from eternity to eternity, so all the powers rise up in a man into the head. In the head is the divine council seat, and the five senses are the counsellors. (page 120) The sun stands in the center of the deep and is the light or heart which proceeds out of all stars. The sun is the heart of all powers in this world and is com pacted, framed, or composed out of all the powers of the stars. Understand it magically: eternal world. (page 142-3)

For it is a mirror or likeness of the

When you behold this world, you have a type of heaven. I. The stars signify the angels. As the stars continue unaltered till the end of this time, so the angels remain unaltered in the eternal time of heaven. II. The elements signify the proportion, variety, change, and alteration of the form and posture of heaven. III. The earth signifies the heavenly nature or the seven spirits of nature, in which the ideas or images, forms, andcolors rise up. IV. The birds, fish, and beasts signify the several forms or shapes of figures in heaven. (Aurora, 306) Adam (the symbolic Cosmic Man) was the heart of everything in this world, created out of the originality of all things. His soul was out of the first principle, thoroughly enlightened with second principle, and his body was out of the birth, out of the divine power before God. Therefore, he had the tincture of everything in him, by which he reached into all essences and searched all things in heaven, earth, fire, air, and water, and all that is generated therefrom. (Aurora, 560-1) Now behold yourself and consider what you are, view what the outward world is, and you will find that you, with your outward spirit and being, are the outward world. You are a little world out of the great world? your outward light is a chaos of the sun and stars, or else you could not see by the light of the sun. The body is fire, air, water, and earth. What the superior is, that also is the inferior, and all the creatures of this world are the same.

I



-BPage Eight

When I take up a stone or clod of earth, I see that which is above and that which is below; the whole world is therein, except that in each thing one property happens to be the chief and most manifest. All the other properties are jointly in it, but in various degrees and centers. Yet all degrees and centers are but one center. We cannot say that the outward world is God, nor the speaking Word, nor the outward man. These are the expressed Word which has so coagulated itself in its re-conception to its own expression. It continually coagulates itself with the four elements through the spirit of desire. It brings itself into such a motion and life, in the manner as the eternal Word makes a spiritual mystery in itself. The eternal Word brings itself into a generation in the center of Eternal Nature and makes itself such a spiritual world as we have materially in the expressed Word. The inward world is the heaven wherein God dwells. The outward world is expressed out of the inward, and only has another beginning than the inward, but yet out of the inward. It is expressed from the inward through the motion of the eternal speaking Word. There is nothing near or afar off from God; one world is in the other, and all are only one. But one is spiritual, the other corporeal, as soul and body are in each other. The spiritual world has an eternal beginning, but the outward a temporal beginning. But the eternal speaking Word rules through and over all, yet it can be neither appre hended nor conceived by the spiritual or the external world, for that is the formed Word. (Mysterium Magnum, 5ff) 0 0 0 O 0 0 0 - - - -

b

ROSICRU Cl A N ORDER AMORC TR A D E MARK

Supplementary Monograph PK IM TK D IN U .

A.

The subject m atter of this monograph must be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,.AM ORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplem entary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student by presenting him with tne writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made which are inconsistent with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them m erely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.



SPECIAL SU BJEC T BOEHME RAD-10 1

■-2 •»»

L E C T U R E NUMBER

RAD - 10 Lecture Two


-BPage One

JACOB BOEHME

Boehme was born at Alt Seidenberg near Gorlitz, just north of what was the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia. His parents, Jacob and Ursula, were Lutheran peasants. His tendency to be introspective was affected by his early life tending cattle in the country. Once while at this task he saw a hole in the sandstone which was overgrown with bushes. He went in and found money in a container. He tried with some other boys to find it again but failed. Boehme's first biographer, Franckenberg, says Boehme felt the event was a symbolic presage of his spiritual attainment of a treasury of wisdom. At fourteen he was apprenticed to a shoemaker. Once a stranger came into the shop while Boehme was alone; Boehme did not think he was capable of handling the sale, so he set a very high price on them, thinking the man would not pay it. His client, however, did buy the shoes, and on leaving he paused to tell the boy that, although he was small, he would become great, but he must endure misery and poverty and suffer persecution. For a time Boehme traveled through Germany as a journeyman shoe maker. About 1599 he went back to Gorlitz, became a master of his trade, and married Katherine Kientzchmann, daughter of a tradesman. They were happily married for thirty years, having four sons and perhaps two daughters. He had a shop in Gorlitz, and in 1610 bought himself and his family a home. One time before 1600, he felt himself enveloped in Divine Light. His second such experience was in 1600. He happened to gaze at a pewter dish on which the sun shone. He seemed again to be enveloped in light, and he felt admitted to the inner Grund or center of the universe. When he went outside, he could see into the heart of nature and know the inner most attributes of things. Boehme wrote that he had been experiencing a travail of soul, and he finally decided to "put my life to the utmost hazard" to achieve his purpose. Suddenly a "gate was opened." He described such an illumination in his Twelfth Epistle. Then I saw and knew the Being of all beings, the Grund and Ungrund, the birth of the holy Trinity, the derivation and source (Herkommen & Urstand) of this world and of all creatures, through the Divine Wisdom. I knew and saw in myself all three worlds as (1) the divine angelic or paradisal; and (2) the dark-world as the source of nature in the fire; and (3) into this outer, visible world, as a creation and birth, or as spoken Being out of both inner spiritual worlds. I saw and knew the whole Being in evil and good, how one originates from the other, and how the mother was the bringing forth, so that I was not only astonished but was also overjoyed.



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Page Two

It was strong in my heart to write the same for a day book for myself; although I took it into myself and could put it in writing in my outer self only with difficulty; I had to begin to work in this very great mystery as a child in school. I saw it well in the inner as in a great depth, for I saw through as in a chaos, since all lies within, but the untangling of it was impossible for me. It opened itself in me from time to time as a growing thing although it revolved around me, and I was pregnant with it for twelve years. I experienced a strong impetus before I could bring it into the outer, until it attacked me like a downpour; what it affects, that it affects. So it went with me; what I could seize to bring into the outer, that I wrote down. In Chapter 19 of the Aurora, he said: But when this had given me many a hard blow and repulse, doubtless from the spirit, which had a great longing yearning towards me, at last I fell into a very deep melancholy and heavy sadness, when I beheld and contemplated the great deep of this world, also the sun and stars, the clouds, rain and snow, and considered in my spirit the whole creation of this world. I found in all things evil and good, love and anger, in the inanimate creatures, viz., in wood, stones, earth and the elements, as also in men and beasts. Moreover, I considered the little spark of light, man, what he should be esteemed for with God, in comparison with this great work and fabric of heaven and earth. But finding that in all things there was evil and good, as well in the elements as in the creatures, and that it went as well in this world with the wicked as with the virtuous, honest, and godly; also that the barbarous people had the best countries in their possession, and that they had more prosperity in their ways than the virtuous, honest, and godly had. I was thereupon very melancholy, perplexed, and exceedingly troubled; no Scripture could comfort or satisfy me, though I was very well acquainted with it, and versed therein; at which time the devil would by no means stand idle, but was often beating into me many hea thenish thoughts, which I will here be silent in. But when in this affliction and trouble I elevated my spirit, for I then understood very little or not at all what it was, I earnestly raised it up to God, as with a great storm or onset, wrapping up my whole heart and mind, as also all my thoughts and whole will and resolution, incessantly to wrestle with the love and mercy of God, and not to give up, until he blessed me, that is, until he enlightened me with his holy spirit, whereby I might understand his will, and be rid of my sadness. And then the spirit did break through.



-BPage Three

In my resolved zeal, I gave so hard an assault, storm and onset upon God, and upon all the gates of hell, as if I had more reserves of virtue and power ready, with a resolution to hazard my life upon it, which assuredly were not in my ability without the assistance of the spirit of God, that suddenly, after some violent storms, my spirit did break through the gates of hell, even into the innermost birth or geniture of the deity, and here I was embraced with love, as a bride groom embraces his dearly beloved bride. But the greatness of the triumphing that was in the spirit I cannot express, either in speaking or writing; neither can it be com pared to anything, but to that wherein the life is generated in the midst of death, and it is like the resurrection from the dead. In this light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in an by all creatures, even in herbs and grass; it knew God, who he is, and how he is, and what his will is. And suddenly in that light my will was set on by a mighty impulse, to describe the being of God. But because I could not at once apprehend the deepest births of God in their being and comprehend them in my reason, there passed almost twelve years before the exact understanding thereof was given me. It was with me as with a young tree that is planted in the ground, and at first is young and tender and flourishing to the eye, especially if it comes on lustily in its growing. But it does not bear fruit at once, and though it blossoms, the blossoms fall off; also many a cold wind, frost, and snow pass over it before it comes to any growth and bearing of fruit. So also it went with this spirit. The first fire was but a seed, and not a constant lasting light. Since that time many a cold wind blew upon it, but the will never extinguished. This tree was also often tempted to try whether it would bear fruit and show itself with blossoms, but the blossoms were struck off till this very time, wherein it stands in its first fruit, in the growth or vegetation. From this light it is that I have my knowledge, as also my will, impulse and driving, and therefore I will set down this knowledge in writing according to my gift, and let God work his will; and though I should irritate or enrage the whole world, the devil, and all the gates of hell, I will look on and wait what the LORD intends with it. For I am much too weak to know his purpose; and though the spirit affords some things which are to come to be known in the light, yet according to the outward man I am too weak to comprehend the same. But the animated or soulish spirit, (soul-personality) which qualifies or unites with God, that comprehends it well; but the bestial body attains only a glimpse thereof, just as if in the lightning; for



-13Page Four

thus presents itself the innermost birth of the soul, when it tears through the outermost birth in the elevation of the Holy Ghost, and so breaks through the gates of hell; but the outermost birth presently shuts again, for the wrath of God bolts up the firmament, and holds it captive in its power. In Aurora, Chapter 22, he wrote: The spirit will instruct you meekly and friendly, as a father does his children, for the work is not from my fleshly reason, but the Holy Spirit's dear revelation, or breaking through in the flesh. In my own faculties I am as blind a man as ever was, and am able to do nothing; but in the spirit of God my innate spirit sees through all, though not always with long stay or continuance. Am I alone so? No, but all men are so, be they Christians, Jews, Turks, or Heathen. In whomsoever love and meekness is, in them is also the light of God. Karl von Endern, a nobleman, saw the manuscript of the Aurora, and Boehme loaned it to him. He had a number of copies made and circulated them. A manuscript of the Aurora came to the attention of the pastor, Gregorius Richter. He condemned it in no uncertain terms, attacking its author in a sermon. Boehme listened quietly, and afterwards requested that Richter tell him what was wrong with it. The pastor replied that he would have Boehme arrested if he did not leave town at once. On the following day, Boehme was summoned before the magistrates, and he was ordered to leave town without even seeing his family or putting his affairs in order. Boehme answered, "Yes, dear sirs, it shall be done; since it cannot be otherwise, I am content." On the day immediately following their first order, the magistrates met $gain and countermanded it. They informed Boehme that he could live in Gorlitz and work at his trade, provided he would not write any more on theological subjects. For five years Boehme gave up his writing (16131618), hoping, as he said, that the evil reports would stop, but they only became worse. Boehme has been called a "harmless prophet," implying that the pastor and magistrates were to blame. This is not quite correct. Boehme was humble, but he did not spare criticism of the church and religion. It could hardly be expected that the churchmen think him harmless. Boehme1s teachings spread in spite of his compliance with the order not to write. His circle of friends included a number of well known and educated men: Dr. Cornelius Weissner, Dr. Balthazar Walther, Dr. Tobias Kober, who was interested in Paracelsus, and Abraham von Franckenberg, who called Boehme "God-taught."

.



-BPage Five

Boehme was dissatisfied and unhappy in his enforced silence. His friends encouraged him to begin writing again. He later compared him self at this time to a seed hidden in the earth which grows up in storm and rough weather against all reason. From 1618 on for six years he wrote book after book. He apparently sold his shoe shop just before the trouble with Richter and traveled selling woolens. In 1622, he said he set aside his trade "to serve God and his brothers." He felt that his earlier illumination developed as time went on, and he compared his first work to that of a child. Each book he wrote marked, as he said, the growth of the "spiritual lily" in him. In 162 3 a friend, Sigismund von Schweinitz, had three of Boehme1s short manuscripts printed with the title The Way to Christ. This was the first publication of any of his works, and it was done without his knowledge. Richter ridiculed Boehme and told the town council that Boehme was a "rabid enthusiast." He was ordered to leave town. He prayed for those who condemned him, but he wrote an Apology in answer to the charges against him. The Elector of Saxony asked Boehme to come to a conference of well known men. They talked with him at length and decided he should be given time to explain his ideas. In 1624, while he was with Schweinitz, he became ill and went home. One night he said he heard some beautiful music and asked that the door be opened so he could hear it better. He passed through transition the next day. Richter had died, and the pastor who took his place would not preach the sermon at B oehme 1s funeral. When the governor of Lausitz ordered the second pastor to do it, he began: "I would rather walk a hundred and twenty miles, than preach this sermon!" However, some of Boeh m e 1s tradesmen carried the body, and the people came to the service. The symbolic cross erected by friends was taken down by a m o b . Manuscript copies of Boehme's works circulated among interested people. Abraham Willemsoon von Beyerlandt collected copies of them, including the Aurora which had been in Gorlitz twenty-seven years. Johann George Gichtel and his organization edited and published the first complete edition of the works in 16 82, as well as the editions of 1715 and 1730. Many have been influenced by Boehme: the Pietist Philip Jacob Spener, William Law, Hegel, William Blake, Goethe, Leibnitz, SaintMartin, Kelpius, Beissel, and other Germans in Pennsylvania. - - - - o o o O o o o - - - -

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC TR A D E MARK


The subject matter of this monograph must be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian O rder,.AM O nC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplem entary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student by presenting him with the writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made which are inconsistent with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning tnem, one must take them merely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.


"C o n se cra ted to truth and d e d ic a te d to every Rosfcrucian"

SPECIAL SUBJECT BOEHME R A D -1 0

B-2 «s»

LE CTURE NUMBER


RAD - 10 Lecture Three

-CPage One

JACOB BOEHME

Boehme used some terms which he acquired from alchemy and other sources, but he often gave them meanings of his own. Some of these are explained either in B o e h m e 1s own way or by his translators. Grund means ground, foundation, or basis. Ungrund means literally lack of ground. The two terms, however, show the influence of kabalistic thought on Boehme, since they are translations of Ain or Nothingness and Ain Soph or the Infinite. Archaeus; Reason does not know the Creator which creates without ceasing, that is, the true Archaeus or separator, which is an effluence out of the invisible world, namely, the outflown Word of God, which I mean by the word fiery Mercury. The four elements flow from the Archaeus of the inward Grund, the four properties of the eternal nature. (Clavis p. 39) The astrum is an external water spirit, namely, the powers of the outward water; and the material water is the body wherein the waters work. The fiery, airy, and earthly source is in the astrum. The like is also in the material water. The superior is the life and dominion of the inferior. It enkindles the inferior. The inferior is the body of the superior. (Mysterium Magnum I, 66) (The astrum, then, is the upper and lower waters and the firma ment of Genesis. It is, therefore, the cosmos with its attributes and powers.) (The terms Byss and Abyss are the German terms Grund and Ungrund.) B y the word center of the Eternal Nature we understand the first beginning to nature, the most inward Grund, wherein the own arisen will brings itself into somethingness, namely, into a natural working. For nature is but an instrument of God, yet it has its own motion from the outflown will of God. The center is the point or Grund of the own receivingness to somethingness, by which something comes to be. From thence the seven properties proceed. E n s : Paracelsus used the Latin word E n s , a thing, in the sense of a principle. Boehme used it in the same sense. Essence

(Essentz)

is a substantial power and virtue.

Boehme uses Ichheit in The Clavis, meaning I-ness or ego, self hood. This has sometimes been confused with his use of Ichts as opposed to Nichts; this is an opposition or duality of Something-Nothing.



-CPage Two

Boehme also uses the common Etwas, something. The Mysterium Magnum (Great Mystery) is a subject of the wisdom where the breathing Word or working, willing power of the divine understanding flows forth through the wisdom, wherein also the Unity of God together flows out to its manifestation. In the Mysterium Magnum the Eternal Nature arises. The two essences and wills are always understood to be in the Mysterium Magnum. The first essence is the Unity of God, the divine power and virtue, the outflowing Wisdom. The second is the separable will which arises through the breathing and outspeaking Word. The Mysterium Magnum is that chaos out of which light and darkness is flown from eternity and made manifest. God has manifested the Mysterium Magnum out of the power of his Word, in which Mysterium Magnum the whole creation has lain essentially without forming, in the temperament. Such a Mysterium Magnum lies also in man, namely, in the image of God, and is the essential Word of the power of God according to time and eternity. Clavis, 9, 48-50 The three principles may be outlined in this way: First is God's anger in the darkness. This is the basis of the dark-world. Second is God's love in the light. This is the basis of the light-world. Third is the outbreathed from the first two and is the basis of the visible world. The first and second principles are derived from the fire which is both light and dark or manifest and hidden. This is the fourth form or the Sun. The first principle is manifest in the first three forms, the second in the last three. Boehme's Qual may come from Latin qualis which can mean having a particular quality. The German Qual (feminine) means torment, agony, pain. (masculine) means spring, source, or fountain-head.

Quelle

Boehme uses quality (qualifizieren) which also means mark, denote. However, its meaning is usually to mix. Qualitat can mean quality but also grade, brand, sort. A quality is the mobility, boiling, springing, and driving of a thing. All qualities in nature are one in another as one quality, as God is all, and as all things descend and come forth from him.



-CPage Three

Heat reigns in all powers in nature and warms all and is one source in all. Cold is a quality as well as heat. It qualifies or operates in all creatures that come forth in nature and in all that move therein. (Aurora, 40) Salitter Boehme says is the corporeal drying. Therein is the seed of the whole deity, and it receives the seed and generates the fruit according to the qualities of the seed. In another place he says: I call the Salitter of God, or the comprehensibility, wherein the heavenly figures or shapes arise. The seven qualifying or fountain spirits have their compacted or incorporated body out of nature, that is, out of the seventh naturespirit in the divine power. Probably Boehme associated the words Salitter and sal or salt. (Aurora, 253,395) By scientz, scientia, or science, Boehme does not understand the Latin meaning but "the true Grund according to sense." Science is the root to the understanding, as to the sensibility; it is the root to the center of the impression of nothing into some thing. It is the root to the fiery mind, and it is in short the root of all spiritual beginnings; it is the true root of souls, and pro ceeds through every life, for it is the Grund from whence life comes. Scientia is often translated desire or attraction.

(Clavis, 50)

The tincture is the power and virtue of fire and light. The motion of this power is called the pure element. (Clavis, 4 7) The Wisdom is the outflown Word of the divine power, knowledge, and holiness; a reflection (Gegenwurf) of the infinite and unsearchable Unity; a substance wherein the Holy Spirit works, forms, and models. Wisdom is the passive, and the spirit of God is the active. Wisdom is the Great Mystery of the divine nature, for in her the powers, colors and virtues are manifest; in her is the variation of the power, namely, the understanding. She is the divine understanding, the divine contemplation, wherein the Unity is manifest. Word: The first manifestation of the triune Unity is the eternal W o r d , the outspeaking of the divine power and virtue. The first outspoken substance is the divine Wisdom, the cause of separability and forming. (Clavis, 46-7) Stone: If we will speak of the Noble Stone and bring it into the light to be known, we must first show the darkness and deformity of the



-CPage Four

Stone which hinder its being known. The Noble Stone lies hidden in this world and may be had everywhere yet is not known; therefore, we should seek the reason why it is so hidden. The Stone lies in eternity; that which is eternal does not break, but that which has a beginning breaks. This Stone is Christ, the Son of the living God, which is dis covered in all those that seek and find it. 0 how eagerly have the rational wise men of the schools of this world persecuted it at all times, and at this very day. They have a glittering stone with a pleasant outside or sound, and they think it is the right one. They boast of it and would be honored for it as gods. But their stone is only a stone belonging to the wall of the great building of this world. If they see a man who carries the Noble Stone in him, he must be a fool with them because they have the wit and subtlety of the serpent. They who have the Stone are simple and without cunning. It is good to see with our own e y e s , for he who sees with the eyes of another is always in doubt whether the spirit is true or false. Therefore, it is good to have the Noble Stone which gives assurance and points at the false Magi. In this Stone there lies hidden whatever God and eternity, also heaven, the stars, and the elements contain and are able to do. There never was from eternity anything better or more precious than this, and it is offered by God and bestowed on man. Everyone may have it who desires it; it is in a simple form and has the power of the whole Deity in it. (Threefold Li f e , 200ff) (That Boehme knew either Paracelsus' works or a follower is evident by his use of the term archaeus in this text from the Clavis, pages 38 through 46.) Of the Spiritus Mundi, and of the

Four Elements

We may very well observe and consider the hidden spiritual world by the visible world. We see that fire, light, and air are continually generated in the deep of this world. (Boehme is using world in the sense of universe.) There is no cessation from this generation, and it has been so from the beginning of the world.Yet man can find no cause of it in the outer world or tell what the Grund of it should be. Reason says, God has so created it, and therefore it continues thus. But reason does not know the Creator, which creates without ceasing. That is the true Archaeus, or separator, which is an effluence out of the invisible world, as the outflown Word of God, which I mean by the word fiery Mercury.



-CPage Five

What the invisible world is in a spiritual working, that the visible world is in a substantial working. Whatever powers in the outflown Word are to be conceived in the inner spiritual world, the same we understand also in the visible world, yet in a principle of a more holy quality. The four elements flow from the Archaeus of the inner Grund, that is, from the four attributes of the Eternal Nature. They were in the beginning of time outbreathed from the inner Grund and compressed into a working substance and life. Therefore, the outer world is called a principle (the third) and is a subject of the inner world. It is an instrument of the inner master, which is the word and power of God. As the inner divine world has in it an understanding life from the effluence of the divine knowledge, so too the outer world has a rational life in it consisting of the outflown powers of the inner world. The outer life has no higher understanding and can teach no further than that wherein it dwells, the stars and four elements. The spiritus mundi (spirit of the world) is hidden in the four elements as the soul is in the body. It is an effluence and working power proceeding from the Sun and stars. The spiritual house is first a sharp magnetic power from the effluence of the inner world from the first attribute of the Eternal Nature. This is the Grund of all Salt, and of all forming and sub stantiality . Second is the effluence of the inner motion from the second form of nature. It consists in a fiery nature which is the Grund of all metal and stones. I call it the fiery Mercury in the spirit of the world, for it is the mover of all things, and the separator of the powers, a Grund of the outer life as the motion and sensibility. Third is the perception in the motion and sharpness (that is, in the second and first). This is the spiritual source of Sulpher. From it the spirit with five senses arises, namely, seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. It is the true essential life whereby the fire, the fourth form, is made manifest. The spirit of the world coagulates into the four elements by production of the three attributes in them. The four elements lie in this Grund and are not different from it. They are the manifestation of this spiritual Grund, and are as a dwelling place of the spirit in which the spirit works. The earth is the grossest effluence from this subtle spirit. After the earth is the water, the air is third, and the fire is fourth. All these proceed from one united Grund, the spirit of the world, which has its roots in the inner world. (Clavis, 38-46) - - - - 0 0 0 O 0 0 0 - - - -

k t

m~ = >4

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC T K A D E MARK

Supplementary Monograph P R I N T E D IN U . « . A.

The subject matter of this monograph m ust be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,,AM ORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplementary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student bypresenting him with tne writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplementary monographs statements made which are inconsistent with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them m erely for their prima facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.



SPECIAL SUBJECT

L E CT URE NUMBER

BOEHME R A D -1 0

mum

EPS H

RAD - 10 Lecture Four


-BPage One

JACOB BOEHME

(Boehme is often considered to be an uneducated, practically illiterate man. An understanding of his writings explains his reading as well as the intuitive foundation of his works. The idea that he was "God taught" is old; it does not mean that he did not use ordinary methods of learning. His education was not a formal one, but he did study, and he learned from his friends. The following passages are taken from Boehme's works and will help the reader better understand what he is saying.) The simple imagine that God dwells only above the azure heaven and rules with some spirit that goes forth from him into this world and that his body is not present here on earth nor in the earth. Such opinions I have read in the books and writings of doctors, and there are also many opinions, disputations, and controversies.arisen about this among the learned. But God in his love opens to me the gate of his being and remembers the Covenant he has with man. Therefore I will, according to my gifts, faithfully and earnestly unlock and set wide all the gates of God so far as God will give me leave. It is not to be understood that I am sufficient enough in these things, but only so far as I am able to comprehend. What I do not enough describe in one place concerning the Great Mystery, that you will find in another place. What I cannot describe in this book, in regard of the largeness of the mystery and my incapacity, that you will find in others following. For this book is the first sprouting of this twig, which springs or grows green in its mother, and is a child that is learning to walk, and is not able to run apace at the first. (Aurora, 561-3) I do not write this for my own praise, but to the end that the Reader may know wherein my knowledge stands, that he might not seek that from me which I have not, or think me to be what I am not. But what I am, that are all men who wrestle in Jesus Christ for the crown of eternal joy and live in the hope of perfection. (Aurora, 265-6) I know very well that many will be offended at the simplicity and meanness of the author for offering to write of such high things. Many will think to themselves, he has no authority to do it; he does very sinfully in it, and runs contrary to God and his will in presuming, being but a man, to speak and say what God is.



-BPage Two

Consider this well, dear Reader, and let not your simplicity deceive you. The author is not greater than others; he knows no more, neither has he any greater authority than other children of God. Look upon yourself. Why have you earthly thoughts of yourself? Why will you be fooled by the world to think you are but a kind of figurelike God, and not generated or begotten of God? (Three Principles, 29ff) 0 that I but had the pen of man and were able with it to write down the spirit of knowledge. I can but stammer of the great mysteries like a child beginning to speak, so little can the earthly tongue express what the spirit comprehends and understands. Yet I will venture to try whether I may procure some to go about to seek the Pearl, whereby also I might labor in the works of God, in my paradisical garden of roses. For the longing of the eternal matrix drives me on to write and exercise myself in this my knowledge. (Three Principles, 96) Since through the divine grace this great mystery has been some what revealed to me in my spirit, according to the inward man which unites with the deity, therefore, I cannot forbear to describe it ac cording to my gifts. And I would have the Reader faithfully admonished not to be offended at the simplicity of the author. 1 do it not out of a desire of boasting, but in a humble informa tion to the Reader that the works of God might be better known. I do it to try whether I may, with the entrusted talent, happily get gain of usury and not return it to my Creator singly and empty with out improvement. (Aurora, 4 52) (Boehme read books not know how to figure a

on astrology, but he says in effect he does horoscope, and does not care to know.)

Dear Reader, I understand the astrologers' meanings and saying full well, and I have perused their writings also, and taken notice how they describe the course of the sun and stars. I do not despise it for the most part, but hold it to be good and right. But in some things I write otherwise than they do, not out of self-will or conceit and supposition, doubting it to be so or not. I dare not make any doubt herein, neither can any man instruct me herein. I have not my knowledge by study. I have read the order and posi tion of the seven planets in the books of astrologers, and find them to be right. But the root, how the planets came to be, and from what they are proceeded, I cannot learn from any man. They know it not, neither was I present when God created the planets. Since the doors of the deep are, through the love of God, set open in my spirit, therefore the spirit must needs look through them. (Aurora, 669-70)



-BPage Three

Before this looking-glass I will now invite all lovers of the holy and esteemed arts of philosophy, astrology, and theology, wherein I will lay open the root and ground of them. Though I have not studied nor learned their arts, neither do I know how to go about to measure their circles; I take no great care about that. I have no use for their tables, formulas, or schemes, rules, and ways, for I have not learned from them. I have another teacher or schoolmaster, which is the total nature. From that whole nature, together with its innate, instant birth, I have studied and learned my philosophy, astrology, and theology, and not from men. Since men are gods and have the knowledge of God, I despise not their canons, rules, and formulas. For I find that, for the most part, the philosophers stand on the right ground, and I will endeavor to go according to their rules. Their scheme of formulation is my master. From it I have the first elements of my knowledge. It is not my purpose to controvert or amend their formulas, for I cannot, neither have I learned them, but rather leave them where they are. I will not, however, build on their ground, but as a careful servant I will dig away the earth from the root, that thereby men may see the whole tree. They may also see that my writing is no new thing, but that their philosophy and my philosophy are one body, one tree, bearing one and the same fruit. Neither have I any command to bring any complaint except for their wickedness against which the spirit of not I. To them is entrusted the weighty talent and the have buried their talent in the earth and have lost the

against them nature complains, key, and they key.

Since they will not awake from sleep and open the door, I will therefore do it myself. What could I, a poor simple layman, write of their high art if it were not given to me by the spirit of nature in whom I live and am? (Au r o r a , 584) The divine Being (Son) consists in power, which can neither be written nor spoken. Therefore, if we intend to speak of God, we must use similitudes. For we live in this world as men who know but in part, and are made of that which is but in part. Therefore I cite the Reader into the life to come, where and when Ishall speak more properly and more clearly of this high article.



-BPage Four

In the meanwhile, the loving Reader is to attend to the sense and meaning of the spirit, and then, if he has but any hunger in him, he will not fail to get a little refreshing. (Aurora, 70) I have perused many masterpieces of writing, hoping to find the Pearl of the Grund of Man; but I could find nothing of that which my soul desired. I have also found very many contrary opinions. And partly I have found some who forbid me to search, but I cannot know with what Grund or understanding, except it be that the blind grudge at the eyes of them that see. With all this my soul is become very disquieted within, and has been as full of anguish as a woman in her travail, and yet nothing was found in it, till I followed the words of Christ, when he said: You must be born anew, if you will see the King dom of Go d . And then my soul first was in anguish to the b irth, and would very willingly have tasted the Pearl; and gave itself up in this way more vehemently to the birth, till at last it obtained a jewel. According to which I will write, for a memorial (day book) to myself, and for a light to them that seek. (Three Principles, 151) If you climb up this ladder on which I climb up into the deep of God, as I have done, then you have climbed well. I have not come to this meaning, or to this work and knowledge, through my own reason or my own will and purpose. Neither have I sought this knowledge, nor knew anything concerning it. I sought only for the Heart of God, therein to hide myself from the tempestuous storms of the devil. When I go there, then this weighty and hard labor was laid on me, which is to manifest and reveal to the world, and to make known great day of the Lord. Since men seek so eagerly after the root of tree, to reveal to them what the whole tree is, thereby to intimate it (the present time) is the dawning which God has long ago decreed his council. (Aurora, 633-4)

the the that in

Since you so earnestly desire to know these things, you even become the finder in your seeking, and I am but the instrument. Although it is given and opened to me, yet it is not a thing that consists in my understanding or knowledge. But the knowledge stands in the spirit of Christ, according to which this hand calls itself twofold, for it speaks from two persons, and two persons say, not I, but we, and speaks of two, as a lord who speaks of his person, and of his dominion. Thus the servants of God ought not to say, the knowledge is mine, but give God the glory. In their manifestation of the wonders of God, they should speak of two, the giver and the receiver. Neither should any understand our manner of writing so, as if the hand gloried or boasted of its human authority and worthiness; rather he should do it so that the outward man will have no honor or renown, for the renown is God's. (Forty Questions, 232-3)



-BPage Five

All the seven spirits of God are generated alike at once; none of them is first, and none last. But we must have an eye to the kernal, and consider how the divine birth rises up; otherwise, man does not understand it. The creature cannot comprehend at once all the seven spirits; but when one spirit is stirred, then that stirs all the others. Then the birth stands in full power. Therefore, it has a beginning in man but not in God. Therefore I must also write in a creaturely manner, or else you can not understand it. (Aurora, 237) Because a divine light belongs to the knowledge and apprehension of this, and that without the divine light there is no comprehensibility at all of the divine essence, therefore I will a little represent the high hidden secret in a creaturely manner, that thereby the Reader may come into the depth. For the divine essence cannot be wholly expressed by the tongue. Only the breath of life, that is, the spirit of the soul which looks into the light, comprehends it. Every creature sees and understands no further nor deeper than its mother is, but of which it is come originally. The soul of man, which is into the light of God, into the with which the soul is clothed, the source, they see no further and in which they live.

enlightened with the Holy Spirit, sees heavenly essence. The astral spirit and the elementary spirit which rules than into their mother, whence they are,

If I should speak and write that which is purely heavenly, and altogether of the deity, Ishould be as dumb tothe Reader who has not the knowledge and the gift (to understand it ) . I will so write in a divine and creaturely way that I might stir up anyone to desire and long after the consideration of thehigh things. Since my knowledge hasbeen received by seeking andknocking, I therefore write it down for a day book, that I might occasion a desire in any to seek after them, and thereby my talent might be improved and not be hidden in the earth. I have not written for those who know all things yet know and comprehend nothing, for they are satisfied already. I have written for the simple, as I am, that I may be refreshed with those that are like myself. (Three Principles, 10-2) He who will not seek in my writings a new man born in God and apply himself diligently thereto, let him not meddle with my writings. I have not written anything for such a seeker, and also he shall not be able to apprehend our meaning fundamentally, though he strives never so much about it, unless he enters into the resignation in Christ; there he may apprehend the spirit of the Universal, otherwise all is to no purpose. We faithfully warn the curious critic not to amuse



-13Page Six

himself, for he will not effect anything in this way, unless he himself enters into it, and then it will be shown without much seeking. For the way is childlike. (Signature, 160-1) It is written, the natural man perceives not the things of the spirit, nor the mystery of the Kingdom of God; they are foolishness unto him, neither can he know them. Therefore, I admonish and exhort the lover of mysteries, if he will study these high writings, and read, search, and understand them, that he do not read them outwardly only, with sharp speculation and meditation. For in so doing, he shall remain in the outward imaginary ground only, and obtain no more than a counter feit color of them. A m a n ’s own reason, without the light of God, cannot come into the ground; it is impossible. Let his wit be never so high and subtle, it apprehends but the shadow of it in a glass. If anyone would search the divine Grund, he must first consider for what end he desires to know such things, whether he desires to bestow it to the glory of God and the welfare of his neighbor, and whether he desires to die to earthliness and his own will, and to live in that which he seeks and desires and to be one spirit with it. If he has not such a purpose, he is not yet fit for such knowledge and understanding. He must begin with repentence and prayer that his understanding be opened from within. For then the inward will bring itself into the outward. When he reads such writings and yet cannot understand them, he must not throw them away and think it is impossible to understand them. No, he must turn his mind to God, beseeching him for understanding, and read again. Then he shall see more and more in them, till he is drawn by the power of God into the very depth itself, and so come into the supernatural and supersensual ground, namely, into the eternal unity of God. (Clavis, iii)

- - - - 0 0 0 O 0 0 0 - - - -

ROSICRU Cl A N ORDER AMORC TR A D E MARK


The subject matter of this monograph must be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,.AM ORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplementary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student by presenting him with the writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplementary monographs statements made which are inconsistent writh the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them merely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.


"C o n secrated to truth and d e d ic a te d to every Rosicrucian"

SPECIAL SU BJEC T BOEHME R A D -1 0

H-2 «9»

LECTURE NUMBER

RAD - 10 Lecture Five


-BPage One

JACOB BOEHME (Boehme was influenced by Paracelsus and his followers. He was also influenced by such spiritual reformers as Schwenckfeld, Sebastian Franck, and Valentin Weigal. Much of his thought and symbolism goes back to the Jewish Kabala and its Christian advocates. These ingredients he transformed into a mystical philosophy which was peculiarly his own and which affected many mystics and philosophers of later times. However, the Kabalistic and alchemical elements in Boehme's work are some times overlooked.) (Boehme1s philosophy has also taken over concepts and terminology from Pythagorean number symbolism and probably gnostic symbolism. These systems are sometimes combined as in Boehme's language of nature and sound symbolism, which is based on Jewish Kabalistic letter and sound sys tem, gnostic vowel symbolism, and probably traditional Rosicrucian mantras, although the latter are not used in his books as such.) (Transcendental alchemy influenced Boehme strongly. This is illus trated by a passage from the Mysterium Magnum and his theory of likenesses and transmutation.) All things are possible in nature. By the strong desire, which is the magical Grund, all things may be effected, if man uses nature in its order in an undertaking. All essences consist in the seven properties. He who knows the es sence is able, by the spirit of that essence, to change it into another form, and likewise to introduce it into another essence. So it makes of a good thing an evil, and of an evil thing a good. The transmutation of all things must be effected by likeness, namely, by that which is of its own nature, for the strange is its enemy. So a man must be regenerated by the divine essentiality in the likeness, by the likeness in his holiness of the divine essentiality which he lost. (Cure of disease, or transmutation must be by likeness.) As the false Magus wounds man through enchantment with the likeness, and through the desire introduces evil into his evil, namely, into the like ness, so all things consist in the likeness; everything may be introduced into its likeness. (Mysterium Magnum, 70-1) (Boehme, like the alchemists, believed there was one substance, one nature, in which the proportions and relationship of attributes and principles differed.) The metals have the same substance, condition, and birth or geniture as the vegetables upon the earth. But silver and gold in the dead tangi bility are but as a dark stone in comparison with the root of the heaven ly generating. (Aurora, 604)



-BPage Two

(Boehme understands the alchemical tincture to be what we would call psychic, as is shown clearly in this passage from the Forty Ques tions, 122.) When God created the soul, then the Holy Spirit clothed it with the tincture, for one part of the soul consisted in the tincture. It was naked of itself, as the glowing fire is naked, and is clothed when it has the tincture. But you understand that the growing proceeds from the warmth; that is the driver forth of the tincture, it drives the twig out of its root, namely, out of its own fire, be it cold or hot fire. The tincture is the true body of the soul, for the soul is fire, and the tincture arises from the fire. (The Word is the creative agent which compacts or makes the subtle gross. This is the alchemical process of forming the four elements from the more subtle quintessence. First is the quintessence, then the three principles, or Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. Finally the four elements are formed of which all material things consist. Limus--or limbus— is an alchemical term meaning matter. The three principles correspond to Boehme's light, dark, and astral realms, but the duality of light and dark, sometimes represented by Christ and Satan, is basic.) At the word fiat the Great Mystery became compacted into being, that i s , emerging out of the inward spiritual being into a palpable tangible being. In the compaction lay the attraction belonging to life, and that in two propria (a proprium is an attribute), a mental one and an essential one. The first is a truly living proprium springing from the Grund of eternity and rooted in the Wisdom of the Word. The second is a proprium budding forth from the being's own desire as generated in itself, and which forms the growth wherein the vegetative life stands. Through this mysterium, the quintessence, namely, the essence (Ens) of the Word originally became manifest and essential, and to it all the three principles were suspended. And here the Ens separated, what is spiritual passing into spiritual beings, and what is inert into senseless beings, as are earth, stones, metals, and the material water. (Election of Grace, 51) When God has comprehended in a being all the powers of all the three principles contained in the attraction, and had drawn them into a mass which is called earth, as into a fixed condition of the generating spirit ual powers, then he separated the elements in the constitution of the one Element into four elements, to make a moving life. Further, he formed the spiritual powers of nature into stars. For of whatever being the earth is corporeally, of that being the stars are spiritually, yet not as living spirits but a spiritual being or a quintessence, that is, the subtle power from which the earth, namely, the coarseness, has been separated, and which



-13Page Three

God in the scientia of his speaking has formed into distinction of pow ers. (Election of Grace, 69) Moses says: God formed man of the dust of the earth. This is the body which is a limus (matter) of the earth. The earth is an Ens con sisting of all the three principles, an ex-spired, formed, coagulated power derived from the Word of all the three principles from the Mys terium Magnum, from the seven forms of nature which in the enkindled de sire have impressed themselves and brought themselves into being. The body of man has come from the limus of the earth, yet not from the coarseness of the compacted being of separation in the properties, where every property has compacted itself into a particular being of earth, stones, or metals. The body has come from the quintessence, where the four elements are in the temperament, and where neither heat nor cold was manifest, but all things stood in equilibrium. The human body is a limus of the being of all beings, else it could not be called a likeness or image of God. God also breathed into man the living breath as the true rational life in the Word of the divine power. (1) He breathed into him from within the magical fire-world or the center of nature, being the true creaturely fire-soul. (2) He breathed into him the light-world, or the kingdom of power of God. (3) He breathed into him from without the spiritus mundi (spirit of the world) and the air-soul. Thus the entire speaking Word breathed itself into the whole human nature according to time and eternity. Adam (the Cosmic Man) was not a man nor a woman but both of these with the two tinctures in temperamental equipoise, namely, the heavenly matrix in the generating love-fire, and the limbus from the nature of the essential fire. (Election of Grace, 75,76) The earth, stones, and metals are all, as it were, dead weight. They are dark and yet have in them the light, namely the noble tincture, which is their light and life, wherein the ore grows in which the tincture is strong. Thus you see how the fire is the overcomer of nature in which the tincture exists, and so through the death of nature springs up in stones and metals, and in nature brings forth the substantiality of the shining or brightness as may be seen in gold, silver, and all glistering metals. Also we can see how the tincture can bring that which is lowest in the death to its highest ornament or glory, namely, an inferior metal into gold. All that is in respect of the great power of eternity. Therefore also the tincture is hidden from the alchemists, because it is originally out of the eternity, and they seek only that which is earthly. If they did rightly seek, they should well find it, as we have found in the spirit. God created all for the light, and not the darkness. He has awakened the tincture to the death in the center or corporeal substance of earth, and that is its luster and light wherein its life consists.



-BPage Four

This world has become corporeal out of the Father's nature, out of the wrath, out of the seventh form, where the tincture of the sun makes it lovely and pleasant again. (Threefold L i f e , 97) (Many passages in Bo e h m e 's work explain his concept of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. Those given here are typical. Often such explana tions also have Kabalistic elements. Boehme's Wisdom is probably a mix ture of the Kabalistic idea of wisdom and gnostic symbolism, plus Biblical passages. The two wills are also a composite of Kabalism and gnostic and hermetic elements.) The writings of the children of God tell us that God created the world by his Wisdom and by the spirit of his mouth. But this world is not his Wisdom; it has not the Wisdom of God palpably, but the wonders of the Wisdom. This world is only a likeness of the deity, according to love and anger, in nature and outside nature. Behold the wheel of the stars and the seven planets and the four ele ments, and you shall find the Grund, that it is really an out-birth out of the Eternal Nature where the Deity has revealed itself comprehensibly. The spirit of God has discovered the image of God in his wisdom, and the Verbum (Word) Fiat has created it. The form of this world was from eternity in the nature of God, but invisible and immaterial. Man is the likeness of God, for his soul is out of the center upon the cross, where the eternal Word is generated, comprehended by the spirit of God. There the spirit has comprehended all the three principles and brought them into a body. The spirit lives from the inward and from the outward, namely, from the spirit of the center. As the spirit of eternity has formed all things, soalso the spirit of man forms them in his word, for all arises from his center. For the human spirit is a form, figure, and likeness of the Number Three of the Deity. Whatever God is in his nature, that the spirit of man is in it self. Therefore, he gives everything its name, according to the spirit and form of everything, for the inward speaks forth the outward. The world was from eternity hidden in the nature of God and stood in the Wisdom, and it has a beginning and end from the Word of the center. So also the name and likeness of God, namely, this world, is in the spirit of man. It speaks them forth with its Word in the same manner as they were spoken in the nature of God, from the spirit of God in the Wis dom, where they were seen in the light of God. The human spirit in its threefold form has all the three principles in it, the kingdom of God, the kingdom of hell, and the kingdom of the world. It speaks forth from itself, from the source of every being, whether it is heavenly, earthly, or hellish, as it has been spoken forth by the spirit of God from eternity.



-BPage Five

The center was Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, and the center was but a spirit, but in the stern fiat it came to be such hard stones, metals, and earth, all according to the forms of the essences. Here arises the distinction of the three principles, which before was not known, for they were in one only being, and were only known in the wisdom with their distinction. (Threefold L i f e , 143ff) Man's life consists in three principles, or in a threefold essence, and has a threefold spirit out of the property of each essence. The first is according to the Eternal Nature, according to the fire's property The second is according to the property of the eternal light and divine essentiality. The third is according to the property of the outward world. Without nature there is an eternal stillness and rest, the Nothing. Then an eternal will arises in the nothing to introduce the nothing into something, that the will might find, feel, and behold itself. In the nothing the will would not be manifest to itself. Therefore, the will seeks itself and finds itself in itself. Its seeking is a desire, and its finding is the essence of the desire wherein the will finds it self. In the center of nature we understand three forms, namely, in the first principle it is spirit, in the second love, in the third essence. These three forms are called in the third principle Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt. (Signature, 14ff) (Boehme explains the duality of Sulphur by using the two syllables as symbols.) Sul is the freewill in the nothing to something. It is the liberty without nature. Phur is the desire and makes in itself, in the desire, an essence. The Phur, the desire, is not divided from Sul; it is one word, one original, one essence. It severs itself into two properties, into joy and sorrow, light and darkness, for it makes two worlds, a dark fireworld in austereness and a light fire-world in the liberty. The essence of this world consists in three things, Sulphur, Merc ury, and Salt. Sulphur in the eternal beginning consists in two forms, and so also in the outward beginning, in the first form, eternal liberty. Mercury is generated in Sulphur. It is the severing of light and darkness from one another, the breaking wheel and cause of the division or multiplicity. In the beginning of its birth it has three properties; trembling, anguish, and expulsion of the multiplicity. Mercury is the wheel of motion, and a stirring up of the cold and heat.



-BPage Six

Sal is the Salt-spirit because the ancient wisemen saw how nature is divided into many parts, and every form of nature has a particular matter in this world, as may be seen in the earth. The Salt-spirit especially is the greatest in corporeal things, for it preserves the body that it does not decay. Therefore, they have rightly set down this gate only, which is the mother of nature. For out of this form in the creation earth, stones, water, and all minerals were made, yet with the mixture of the other forms. (Signature , 14 ff) Chapter Thirteen of the Threefold Life is "OJE Christ's most precious Testaments, that Fair Garland of Pearls of the Noble~Highly Precious Stone of The Great Mystery, and Philosopher's Stone, which the Antichristian Church danceth about, and is ever seeking it, but not in the Right Ground and Pl a c e .fl In this Stone there lies hidden whatever God and the eternity, also heaven, the stars, and elements contain and are able to do. There never was from eternity anything better or more precious than this, and it is of fered by God and bestowed upon man. Everyone may have it that desires it; it is in a simple form and has the power of the whole Deity in it. (Threefold L i f e , 391) The whole creation of the inner and outer world in the holy pure ele ment and in the four elements is a fashioning and shaping of the divine powers, but according to the two central fires, as in Yes and No. One emanation has advanced out of another down to the coarsest matter or com paction of earth and stones. For the visible world is only the emenated Word with the two central fires, which fires have made for themselves a basis with the eternal ele mental fires wherein the outer creatures live. The more inwardly anyone can enter into the power of a thing, the nearer he comes to the deity. The four elements are what is outermost; next is the astral body; the third is the quintessence as the principle of the emenated holy element; the fourth is the tincture, namely the highest power of the emanated Word, in which the two inner central fires lie in one Grund. After this the pure clear deity is understood. (Theosophical Questions, 299) (There is, according to alchemical theory, one creation, one world, which is dual in nature. The above is as the below, the subtle is as the gross. Boehme puts it in terms of inner and outer.) (Boehme's interest in the Kabala is shown forms of nature, or properties, are ten and not given in a later lecture. Seven forms might be but ten makes the concept peculiarly Kabalistic Sephiroth.)

in four ways. First, his seven. These will be derived from other sources conforming to the ten



-BPage Seven

(Second, the polarities or syzygies which Boehme uses are at least partly based on the Kabalistic dualities which the English Rosicrucian Robert Fludd calls Volunty, or the outgoing will, and Nolunty, or the withdrawal of God's will in himself. Kabalists called these the light and dark aleph, the basic polarity being the origin of all other polari ties. It should be noted that the polarities may have been influenced by gnostic and hermetic ideas.) (Boehme's use of the cross in the equal armed form expresses the dual will and symbolizes this polarity. But the cross is associated with the number three because out of polarity arises the third, the product of the dual. Boehme's three principles, in whatever form they are given, cor respond to the Rosicrucian Law of the Triangle also used by Fludd.) (Third, some of B o ehme's symbolism is partly Kabalistic. This is true especially of the symbol in the Threefold Life which we will discuss later. This symbol is based on the ten forms of nature.) (Fourth, Boehme1s language of nature and his letter and sound symbbolism are, as Sparrow, one of his translators, points out, Kabalistic. This, too, will be explained more fully in a later discourse.) The wise men of all nations wrote darkly of their mysteries, not to be understood but by such as were lovers of those things. And so the scriptures, which contain all things in them, cannot be understood but by such as love to follow, practise, and endeavor to do those things which in them they find ought to be done. Those that led their lives in such a way came to understand those mysteries from which they were written. In several nations their wisdom has had several names, which has caused our age to take all the names of the several parts of wisdom and sort them into art. Among these the Magia and Cabala are accounted the most mysti cal. The Magia consists in the knowing how things have come to be, and the Cabala m knowing how the words and forms of things express the realit of the inward Mystery. He who knows the mystery knows both these, and all the branches of the tree of wisdom in all real arts and sciences, and the true signification of every idea in every thought, and thing, and sound, and letter in every language. Therefore, this author, having the true knowledge, could well expound the letters of the names of God, and other words and syllables, the signification of which he says is well understood in the language of nature. As one jot or tittle of the word of God shall not pass away till all be fulfilled, so there is no tittle of any letter, that is proceeded from that eternal essential Word, as all things are, but has its weighty signification, in the deep understanding, in that word from whence it came, even in the voices of all men, and sounds of all other creatures; also the letters and syllables of a word, of some lan guage, do express something of the mystery more exquisitely than of anothe and therefore I conceive the author uses sometimes to expound words bor rowed from the Hebrew and Greek, and some Latin words, and not always word of his own native language only, according to their signification in the



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language of nature. For that language shows, in everyone's mother tongue, the greatest mysteries that have ever been in the nature of any thing, in the letters of that word by which it is expressed; therefore, let every one esteem those expositions of his according to their high worth, for the knowledge of that language is only taught by the spirit of the letter.

— 000O 000—

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC T R A D E MARK

Supplementary Monograph P R I N T E D IN U . • . A.

T he subject matter of this monograph must be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,.AM ORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplem entary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student by presenting him with tne writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of hum an enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made which are inconsistent with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are mere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them merely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.



SPECIAL SU BJEC T BOEHME _________ R A D -1 0

■-2 059

L E C T U R E NUMBER

RAD-10 Lecture 6


-CPage One

JACOB BOEHME

(Boehme's ten forms, understood symbolically. the mundane, and this can sent the cosmic— which is

properties, attributes, or qualities must be He is explaining something Cosmic in terms of only be done by using the mundane to repre essentially unrepresentable.)

(The first seven forms are given in most of his books. lowing is abridged from the Aurora.)

The fol

In the divine power there is hidden in secret the astringent quality, which is a quality of the Kernal or hidden being, a sharp com paction, harsh and astringent. It is the imaging of a thing, beginning of all likenesses. The second quality in the divine power is the sweet quality which works in the astringent and mitigates it so that it is pleasant and mild. It is the overcoming of the astringent quality and is the very source or fountain of the mercy of God. The third quality is the bitter quality which is a penetrating or forcing of the sweet and the astringent qualities and which is pene trating and rising up. The astringent or harsh quality is the kernal or stock. The sweet is the light, mollifying and softening. The bitter is penetrating or triumphing. In these three species stands the corporeal being or the crea turely being. Whatever images itself stands in the power and authority of these three head qualities, and is formed by them, and is formed out of their own power. The fourth quality in the divine power is the heat which is the true beginning of life and the true spirit of life. In the body the qualities are mixed as if theywere but quality, yet each moves in its own power.

one

The heat kindles all the qualities out of which the light rises up and expands itself aloft in all the qualities so that they see one another. From this the senses and thoughts exist. The fifth quality is the gracious, amiable, blessed, joyful love. The love goes along in the sweet quality and rises up into the bitter and astringent qualities. Thus it kindles them, feeding it with the sweet love, making them living. When the sweet, light, love power comes to them so that they taste thereof and get its life, there is a friendly meeting.

RAD-10 Lecture 6


-CPage Two

The love is the hidden source or quality which the corporeal being cannot comprehend, but only when it rises in the body. Then the body triumphs therein and behaves courteously. The sixth quality is the sound, tone, or noise, wherein are all sounds, and whence ensued speech, language, and the distinction of everything. The seventh spirit in the divine power is the body which is gener ated out of the other six spirits, wherein all things image and form themselves, and wherein all beauty and joy rise up. This is the very spirit of nature wherein comprehensibility con sists and all creatures are formed. All naturality in the whole God consists in this spirit. The light which subsists in all the seven spirits, and wherein stands the life of all the seven spirits, whereby all seven become triumphing and joyful is the light all seven spirits generate. All seven spirits together are God. No one of them is alone or without the others. They all generate one another, for if one were wanting, the others could not be. Man is made out of all the powers of God, out of all the seven spirits. Since man is corrupted, the divine birth does notalways operate in him, the light springs in him, yet it doesnot shine in all men. The seven spirits comprehend heaven and this world, the breadth and depth beyond the heavens, and above and beneath the world. They contain all the creatures, and all the creatures in heaven and this world are imaged and framed out of these spirits, and live in them as in their own propriety. All the seven spirits are generated one in another, the one con tinually generates the other, not one is first, nor is any one of them the last. All are equally eternal, and none has either beginning or end. Every spirit in the seven spirits is impregnated with all the seven. They are all one in another as one spirit. (The eighth, ninth, and tenth forms are not given as often by Boehme. The account here is from the Forty Questions. Turba means turmoil.) The eighth form of fire is the turba which seeksthe image. If it finds the limit of it, it destroys it and enters intothe limit, and seeks further in itself, and finds at last the abominations of that which the soul has wrought in this life.

RAD-10 Lecture 6


-CPage Three

There are two fires; therefore, the turba is known in a twofold manner. One is in an incorruptible body, in the fire of light. The other is in a corruptible body, in the fire of wrath. The first is in the earthly body, the second in the divine body. The turba destroys the earthly body, for it finds the limit of it. The outward life falls into the turba which destroys it. We are now, therefore, to consider wherein the inward eternal life consists and what upholds it. The ninth form of fire is the great earnestness. All things proceed from the beginning, and one thing proceeds out of another. The eternal life consists in meekness; therefore, it has no death or turba in it. The spirit and soul are not in the turba. The true life in the light of the Majesty in the ninth number is the tincture of Wisdom. It is a fire, yet not a fire. It burns but does not consume. It is the love, the meekness, the humility. It is the life of God, an incorruptible life.It is in the Ungrund in it self; it is in the center of it. Thus the ninth number is the life in the fire of God. The tenth number and form of fire is the gate in the sacred ternary. In this number on the cross, the souls are awakened and incorporated into the heavenly essentiality, though the tenth number belongs to a place between the fifth and sixth as in a globe, and the Heart is in the midst in the center, which is the Heart of God, the Word of God. The tenth number is a cross and the original of the Essence of all essences. It divides itself into three beginnings each of which has its essence. They are all in one another and have one spirit. (As has been said, Boehme1s concept of ten nature forms or pro perties is basically Kabalistic. The first seven correspond to the seven lower sephiroth, while the eighth, ninth, and tenth correspond to the three higher sephiroth. The seven were also influenced by gnosti cism and astrology.) (Before proceeding with the Kabalistic symbol in the Threefold L i f e , the ten forms may be outlined for reference: 10.

Gate in The Holy Trinity, Eternal Fire

9.

Earnestness, tincture

8.

Turba, turmoil,

7.

fire

Body, spirit of Nature

(Moon)


RAD-10 Lecture 6 6.

T

Sound

5.

?

Love

4.

o

Heat, beginning

3.

cT

Bitter, penetrating

2.

2J.

Sweet

1.

T?

Astringent

-CPage Four

(Mercury) (Venus) (Sun) (Mars

(Jupiter) (Saturn)

(One through seven constitute the visible world, the others the cosmic realm. The first three represent the dark world and principle, four the fire or astral realm and principle, five, six, and seven the light world and principle.) (The symbol given at the end of this discourse is unusual in that it is spiral instead of circular as many Kabalistic symbols are. Also Boehme uses it as the basis of a mystical exercise in turning the con sciousness inward to attain mystical union. It tacitly uses the cor respondence between man and the cosmos, or the As above, so below axiom.) (The symbol in the Threefold Life by Boehme consists of the zodia cal circle within which is a spiral going counterclockwise and ending at the center of the circle in a triangle with the Yod He Vau He of the name of God. The innermost spiral is the number three with the cross. Next is the Majesty, and after that the Heavenly Tincture. The seven planets come next, the Sun first with Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars above and Venus, Mercury, and the Moon below.) Boehme says, The wheel of nature winds itself from without inwards into itself, for the deity dwells innermost in itself. Not that it can be delineated; it is only a natural likeness, even as God portrays him self in the figure of this world. For God is everywhere total and perfect, and dwells thus in himself. The desiring goes inwards into itself towards the Heart, which is God, as you may conceive by such a figure. For the regeneration also goes into itself to the Heart of God. In the eighth circumference after the zodiac is the globe of the Earth, after that Saturn, then the Moon, again Jupiter, then Mercury, and then Mars, then Venus, and the Sun in the midst. After the Sun the fire which the Sun affords, and after the fire the other world, namely, the Heavenly Tincture, and after that the number three, the eternal Heart, and that is the eternal center of nature. In the eternal center is the whole power of the Majesty of God throughout, held or shut up by nothing, and is of no substance or nature, even as the shining of the Sun.

RAD-10 Lecture 6


-CPage Five

The zodiac with the constellations belong to the mind, both in the deep of the world and in the creature; the twelve signs are the twelve parts which the cross in the center makes, from which the upper domin ion is divided into twelve parts, as also the mind is. For the six forms in the center, besides the Sun, each divide themselves into two parts, one according to the tincture that has life, the other according to the tincture of the air which has spirit, and yet makes no life. The signs are twelve which divide themselves into two governments, that is, into a heavenly according to the tincture, and into an earthly according to the spirit of the world or the air. The two kingdoms are also twofold. In the first there is an angelical kingdom and a hellish; in the second the spirit of the air is twofold. The inward is the spirit of God, and the outward is the spirit of the creatures. (Three fold Life, 26 3ff) The Word is generated out of the eternal Heart, and in the Heart is the cross of the number three, and it is the end of nature. In the end is the virtue and glance of the liberty which is generated out of the eternal center, out of the Heart on the cross, andis called the divine Majesty of the eternal substance (or essence). The outward desiring of the outward nature goes inwards into it self towards the eternal Heart which is God. So also the inward heart longs after the outward nature and would fain manifest itself outwardly in likeness. Thus the inward desires the outward for figure, and the inward catches the outward in its desiring. The likeness of the eternal center was already before the creation of the Sun and stars in the outward substantiality, but it was not figured and kindled. The three planets which are the forms of the center of nature stand above the Sun, and the three which belong to the body and to mobility beneath the Sun, and the heart or Sun in the midst. (Three fold L i f e , 272) Your seeking in the stars and elements, supposing to find the mys teries of nature, is but labor in vain. There is but one way you must go if you will find the Great Mystery. If you seek in the Moon, your desire would remain in the Moon. If you take great labor in Mercury and suppose the Stone lies therein, your alchemy would prove but dung and dross. If you take the spirit of the tincture, you go in a way in which many have found the Sun, but they have followed on the way to the heart of the Sun where the spirit of the Heavenly Tincture has laid hold on them and brought them into the liberty and Majesty. There they have known the Noble Stone, Lapis Philosophorum, the Philosopher's Stone, and have stood amazed at man's blindness and seen his laboring in vain.

RAD-10 Lecture 6


x -CPage Six

Would you find the Noble Stone? We will show it you plain enough, if you are a Magus and worthy, or else you shall remain blind. There fore, work thus; it has no more than three numbers. First, tell from one till you come to the Cross which is ten and is a cross number. But you have power only over the number nine; you must stay at the tenth, for it is the end of nature, which the creature ought not to search into. If the creature stays under the cross, it remains in the con ceived will of God. Then it has ten times ten, that is a hundred, and ten times a hundred. There lies the Stone without any great painstak ing, for it is pure and not defiled with any earthly nature. Transpose the planets that are around the wheel (in the symbol in the book), and take always one masculine and one feminine, one for the spirit of the soul and the other for the air-spirit. Begin with Saturn, the go about the wheel to the Moon. You must always take one planet for the life of the tincture and then one for the spirit of the air. The one does not subsist without the other. Go thus around the wheel to the sun, which is the seventh number, then you suppose you have the Stone, but it does not proved fixed. Go on through the Su n ’s fire which is the eighth number. When you come through it, lay hold through the tincture on the eternity which is the ninth number, and bring that upon the cross on the tenth number, which is the end of nature. Here handle the Stone and take as much of it as you will. No fire will destroy it. It is free from the wrath and out-birth. Its splendor and light stand in the power of the Majesty. Its body is out of the eternal substantiality; its number on the cross is a hundred, and in the Majesty a thousand. (Threefold Life, 281ff) Thus we show you the Great Mystery, that you might learn to under stand how far you should go, and where your number and end is. For the fire is the eighth number, and is the cause of the seven spirits. The fire has the eighth number, and the inward tincture has the ninth number. So far only ought we to go, for the tenth number is the eter nal fire of God and holds in the midst of its birth the cross which severs the center of the eternal nature into two kingdoms. Whatever creature will go back through it comes through the kingdom of God back again into the outermost, and out from this world back into the center of the fire, as into an eternal darkness where the fire is black. We show you how far you should search into such a revelation, for in the ninth number you see all things, for itis the Tincture of the heavenly life. (Threefold Life, 295-6) o o o 0 o o o

RAD-10 Lecture 6


-CPage Seven

ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC TRADE MARK

Supplementary Monograph PRINTED IN U S A

The subject matter ofthis monograph must be understood by the reader or student ofsame, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series ofsupplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order, AMORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings ofthe Order. The object ofthese supplementary monographs isto broaden the mind ofthe student by presenting him with the writings, opinions, and dissertations of authori tiesinvarious fieldsofhuman enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, itisquiteprobable that the reader will note at times in these supplementary monographs statements made which are inconsistent with the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are merely supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organi zation is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them merely for their prima facievalue. Throughout the supplementary seriesthe authors ortranslators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity. ’ -| | '

R O SIC R U C IA N P A R K , SA N JO S E , C A LIFO R N IA

“Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian’ SPECIAL SUBJECT

BOEHME RA D-1Q______

R-'

10M

LECTURE NUMBER

RAD-10 Lecture 7

Rosicrucian Order AMORC ANALYTICAL DISCUSSIONS (Supplementary Lecture)

-CPAGE 1

JA C O B BOEHME

(Boehme1s Signature of All Things is an explanation of what might be called alchemical theory as applied to cosmology, ontology, and the role of the alchemist. It uses Adam as the symbol of the Cosmic Man, similar to the Kabalistic Adam Kadmon, and similar to Boehme's use of Christ as the symbolic, archetypal master.) (When Boehme speaks of "one united thing," he is explaining or commenting on the Emerald Tablet, attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. This association has been missed by the wrong transla tion of einig as only instead of united. The one thing is the Cosmic or Divine.) (The duality of spiritual and corporeal corresponds to the subtle and gross in the Tablet. So too the fixed and unfixed are the fixed and volatile of alchemy.) (The mother in the passages below is also derived from the Hermetic Tablet: "Its father is the sun, its mother is the moon." To Boehme this symbolizes the feminine, generative, creative power.) (The purpose of the Signature of All Things is well expressed by the translator.) This book is a true mystical mirror of the highest wisdom. The best treasure that a man can attain to in this world is true knowledge, even the knowledge of himself. For man is the great mystery of God, the microcosm, or the complete abridgement of the whole universe. He is the mirandum Dei o p u s . God's masterpiece, a living emblem and hieroglyphic of eternity and time. Therefore, to know whence he is, and what his temporal and eternal being and well-being are, must needs be that ONE necessary thing to which our chief study should aim, and in comparison of which all the wealth of this world is but dross, and a loss to us.

Herein the author sets forth fundamentally the birth, sympathy, and antipathy of all beings; how all beings originally arise out of one eternal mystery; likewise, how all things may be changed into evil and again out of evil into good; with a clear demonstration how man has turned himself out of the good into evil, and how his transmutation is again out of the evil into the good. Moreover, herein is declared the outward cure of the body; how the

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 2

outward life may be freed from sickness by its likeness or assimulate, and be again introduced into its first essence; where also, by parable and similitude, the Philosopher's Stone is with great life described for the temporal cure, and with it the Corner Stone, Christ, for the regeneration and perfect restitution of all true eternal souls. His intent is to let you know the inward power and property by the outward sign. For nature has given marks and notes to everything, whereby it may be known, and this is the Language of Nature, which signifies for what everything is good and profitable. Here lies the mystery or central science of the high philosophical work in the true spagiric (alchemical) art, which consummates the cure, not only the body, but for the soul. Boehme says: For manifestation of the good, understanding must be born in reason. Reason must enter understanding so that the understanding of the work in its practical art, in which I do not deal, may be opened. I write only in the spirit of contempla tion, how the generation of good and evil is, and open the fountain. I will describe the wheel of life as it is in itself. When I speak of sulphur, mercury, and salt, I speak of one united thing, whether it is spiritual or corporeal (i.e. psychic or material) . All created things are that one thing, but the attributes in the generation of this thing make a difference. When I name a man, lion, bear, wolf, hare, or any other animal, or a root, plant, tree, or whatever may be named, it is the same united thing. All that is corporeal is the same being, but each in its difference of the first beginning. As the property in the word Fiat has imprinted itself in each thing, so is that kind in its propagation, and all things stand in the seed and procreation. There is nothing but has a fixity in it, whether hidden or manifest, for all shall stand to the glory of God. Whatever has originated in the eternal fixity, as angels and the souls of men, remains situated in its fixed being indestruc tible. But whatever originated in the unfixed as with the motion of time, this enters again into the first motion from which it has taken its origin. It is a model of its image which it has here, like an image in a mirror which is lifeless. So it was from eternity before the times of this world which the Most High has introduced into an image in the comprehensible, natural life in time, to behold the great wonders of his wisdom in a creaturely being.

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 3

Now we are to consider the united mother, how the same is in her property, from what the innumerable multiplicity originates, and how all things may be brought again into their first. Nothing which has withdrawn from its first order, as the mother brought it forth, may go back and again and enter with its assumed order into its root, for it dies again with its assumed order into its mother. Then it is again in the end and in the place from which it was created. So it stands again in the Word Fiat, as in the object of its order in the expressed word. It may again enter into that which it was in the beginning before it was corporeal. There it is good, for it stands in that from which it proceeded. We cannot say that this world was made out of something. It was only a desire out of the free pleasure, which the Ungrund as the highest good or Being, as-the eternal will observes itself in the pleasure as in a mirror. Therefore, the eternal will has conceived pleasure and brought it to a desire. This has impressed and made itself corporeal, both to a body and soul, according to the same impression's attribute, as the impression has introduced itself into likeness (Gestaltness) , through which the poten tialities have originated. This same impression is the united mother of the manifestation of the Mystery. It is called Nature and Being, for it manifests what has been in the eternal will from eternity. There was a nature in the eternal will as an eternal mind. It was only a spirit, and the essence of its power was not made manifest, but it was as if in a mirror of the will which is the eternal wisdom. In this all things in the world are known in two centers, according to fire and light, and then to the second according to the darkness and essence (the three principles or realms). All is introduced with the motion of the will and through the desire into the will in a manifest mystery. It has thus introduced itself into a manifest potentiality. This is the essence expressed or manifest out of eternity into time and stands in the forms, in sulphur, mercury, and salt, since one is not divided from the other. It is a united, eternal Being and figures itself in the attributes of the desire according to the potentiality of the manifestation. On attribute cannot be without the others; they are altogether the same united potentiality. Now we speak of their differences. We perceive seven attributes in nature by which this united mother produces all things. They are these: First is the desire which is astringent, cold, hard, and dark. Second is the bitter

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 4

which is the sting of the astringent, hard drawing in itself. This is the cause of all motion and life. Third is the anguish because of the raging in the impression where the impressed hardness because of the sting comes into a shattering, anguish, and pain. Fourth is the fire where the eternal will introduces itself into an anguish-desire in the anxious flash as into strength and consuming of the darkness. With this the hardness is again consumed, and is introduced into a corporeal, moving spirit. Fifth is the egress of the free will from the darkness and out of the fire, and into its own living.There the free will has received in itself the splendor, so that it enlightens and shines as a light out of the fire. The desire of the will draws into itself the essence (Wesen) from the fire-death. In the splendor it is a tincture from the fire and light, as a love desire or a beauty of colors. Here all colors originate. Sixth is the voice or sound which in the first form is only a knocking or noise from the hardness. In the fire it dies, yet in the fifth form it is again enclosed as a sound in the light splendor in the tincture from the death of the fire. In this all five senses originate from the fire in the tincture of the light. Seventh is the seed of these forms, which the desire impresses into a comprehending body or being in which everything lies. What the six forms are spiritually, the seventh is in being. Thus, these are the seven forms of the mother of all being, from which all that is in this world is generated. The Most High has introduced and created such attributes as this mother in her struggling forms into a wheel according to this mother. This like a mind of the mother from which she always works and creates. That is the stars with the planetary wheel, according to the model of the eternal constellation, which is only a spirit and the eternal mind in the wisdom of God, as the eternal nature, from which the eternal spirits are produced and entered into a creation. Understand us correctly, sulphur, mercury, and salt are in the eternity of all spirit. As God moves himself with the eternal nature, in which his self manifestation stands, so has he produced out of the spiritual Being a spiritual and manifest (being), and introduced into a creation according to the eternal attributes that which also stands in spirit and being according to the right of eternity. Now I will speak of the outer kingdom, the third principle or beginning, for in this world there is light and darkness in one

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 5

another as in the eternity. God has endowed this world with the sun as with a nature-god of the outer powers, but he rules therein as a Lord. The outer is only his prepared work, which he rules and makes with the likeness, just as a Master makes his work with the instrument. Sulphur is in the outer world as a mystery of the great God in his manifestation, the first mother of the creatures, for it originates from the darkness, fire, and light. It is in the first part, according to the dark impression, astringent, bitter, and anxious. In the second part, in comparison to the Deity as a likeness of the Deity, it is fire, light, and water, which separates itself in the fire into two forms, as according to the mortification into water, and according to the life into oil, in which the true life of all creatures of the outer world stands. Mercury is the wheel of motion in the sulphur. It is one part according to the dark impression the furor, stinger, and the great unrest. It separates itself in the fire in its mother, as in the sulphur, also in two attributes as in a twofold water. In the mortification in the fire, everything is evolved into water, as in a living kingdom of joy according to the light, which produces silver in the sulphur, as in the seventh attribute of nature, which the power-body, and in the fire its water is quicksilver, and in the astringency as in the anguish of the darkness it is a soot or smoke. Therefore, if its outer water-body is put into the fire, then it evaporates from it in smoke, for in the fire every attribute is separated again into the first essence, from which it originally came, since all things were only a spirit. Then, secondly, it is separated according to the water of the dark impression in a poison-source. It may not be understood to be water, but a corporeal essence of the spirit. As the spirit's attribute is, so too is its water, and so too it is in the firefright. In the fire-fright from the salniter originate various salts and powers. All attributes of the spirit have become corporeal in the great motion of the Being of Beings, and entered into a visible, comprehensible (being). The salniter is the mother of all salts in growing and living things, in plants and trees, and all being. Of everything which tastes and smells, it is the first root according to the attribute of each thing. In the good it is good, powerful, and pleasant. In the evil in the anxious source of the sulphur, it is evil. In the darkness it is the eternal fright and timidity, always wanting to fly way in the fright over the gates in the fire, from which

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 6

to fly way in the fright over the gates in the fire, from which arises the pride to ascend above the humility of the love-desire. In the fire is its being's test, as is seen how he is consumed in the flash as a sudden thought. His essence does not originate in the essence of eternity; it cannot inherit it without the enkindling of the temporal fire, but in the eternal spirit it is perceived because of the elevation of the joy, but according to the essence of mortification, according to the salt of the waters, it subsists in the fire. This attribute originates in the first desire, as in the essence of the first impression which attribute the wise call Saturn. Therefore salt is varied. The salniter in the fire-fright is the separation of the attributes, since death and life are separated, as the life which enters with the love-desire into being and order. Then the life which, according to the attribute of cold, sinks down in the mortification of the fright as an impotency and gives weight. According to the subtlety it gives water, according to grossness of the severity earth, according to sulphur and mercury sand and stones. According to the subtlety in sulphur and mercury, it makes flesh, according to the anxious darkness a smoke or soot. But according to the oily attribute, it makes a sweet, spiritual essence, and according to the spirit a pleasant smell. According to the moving of the fire and light, it makes the one element, and from the splendor in the fire-fright with the sight of the light (it makes) the tincture, which tincture all oily salts, from which the pleasant taste and smell arise. The salnitral fright is in the essence the boiling from which the growth and pressing out (Ausdringen) originate, so that there is an increase in the essence. Its impression as the salt is the preservation or contraction of the essence, so that a thing subsists in a body or comprehension. It holds the sulphur and mercury, or else they flee from each other in the fire-fright. All things consist of sulphur, mercury, and salt. In the salnitral fire-fright, the element is divided into four attributes, as in fire, air, water, and earth, which in itself is none, but only a motion and undulation, not as the air but as an undulation and willing in the body, a cause of the life in the essence. As the eternal spirit of God proceeds from the Father, who is a spirit going out from the fire and light, and is the motion and life of the eternity, so too the air-spirit goes from the salnitral fright in the fire from the anguish in the sulphur in the driving mercurial wheel from all attributes as an elevating weaving. It

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 7

is a son of all attributes and also the life of the same. The fire of all forms gives it, and takes it again to its life. The water is its body in which it makes the boiling in the salniter, and the earth is its power in which it enkindles its fright and fire-life. It is a united element, and unrolls itself in the salnitral fire-fright in four parts, as with the enkindling it gives a consuming fire of the darkness and its essence. In the fright of the dying, the cold and darkness is divided into two essences, as according to the subtlety in water, and according to the grossness in the earth, and according to the fright in the undulation in air, which most resembles the element, but still not entirely in the essence, for the element is neither hot nor cold, also not driving but undulating. (Boiling could be used instead of undulating, corresponding more to alchemical terminology.) Every attribute maintains its own desire, for an attribute is a hunger, and the hunger comprehends itself in such a being as itself is. In the salnitral boiling it gives such a spirit into the four elements, for the origin of the boiling is in the element from which the four elements proceed in the fright. Each body stands in the inner weaving in the element, and in the growth and life in the four elements. But each creature does not have the true life of the element, but only the high spirits such as angels and the souls of men, which stand in the first principle. In them the element is kept in motion. In the life of the third principle it stands still and is like a hand of God, when he comprehends and guides the four elements as a result or implement with which he works and builds. Every attribute of nature in its hunger takes its food from the four elements. As the hunger is, so too it takes an attribute out of the elements, for the four elements are the body of the attributes, so each spirit eats of its own body. First are the sulphurean attributes according to the first and second impression, as according to the dark, astringent, and anxious impression, and then according to the love impression in the light, as according to evil or good. The fire-f right is the end of the first desire, the dark nature. In the fire the dying of the first hunger and will begins, for the fire consumes all grossness of the first forms and casts them into death. Here is the separation of both wills, the one which enters again the attribute of death and is a will in the life of the dark desire.

RAD-10 Lecture 7


-CPAGE 8

In the salnitral fright lies the potentiality behind and in front of itself. If the will of the desire goes behind itself, then it is according to this worldly realm earthly, and according to the eternal worldly realm in God's anger which cannot see God, it turns around again and enters into the dying in the fire. Its selfhood dies out entirely and enters into the calmness of the eternal willing in the salnitral fright in the element, as in the heavenly Being and corporeality. Thus the hunger may eat of the pure element, so that it has no other desire, for in the fire it has died out to the severe, dark hunger which is evil. From the dying in the fire originates the light, for here the freedom is enkindled, so that it also becomes a hunger and a desire, which is now a love desire. In the outer world the light is the sun in the four elements and the animal love-desire according to the sulphurean body and being. The whole heavens are a salniter in the word Fiat in the motion of the Being of all beings in the fire-fright seized in the attributes of the salts, in which all powers of the element stand as an out-birth, and introduce their attributes into the essence of the body as is seen in wood, plants, and grass, and all growing things. The sun makes the outward transmutation, and the divine light in the psychic the inner, but as everything stands in its degree, so the hunger attains an attribute, those in time from time, and those in eternity from eternity. The hunger from eternity eats from eternity, and that of time eats of time. The true life of all creatures eats of the spiritual Mercury, as of the sixth form, where all salts are in essence. The spirit eats of the five senses, for they are the spirit's cor poreality, and the body as the vegetative life eats of the essence of the Sulphur and Salt. The sixth form of nature is the expressed spiritual word, and the speaking word therein is the eternal Word. In the first impression in the darkness it is the Word of God's anger, and in the outer world the poison Mercury as a source of all life and moving, of all tone and sound. So every attribute eats of its likeness in its degree, as the hunger of time of time, and the hunger of eternity of eternity, both the spirit of Mercury and the spirit of Sulphur, since there are not two spirits, but two attributes. — —

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ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC

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T R A D E MARK


The subject matter of this monograph m ust be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplem entary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,.AM ORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplem entary m onographs is to broaden the mind of the student by presenting him with the writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made which are inconsistent writh the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them merely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.


'C onsecrated to truth and d e d ic a te d to every Rosicrucian"

SPECIAL SU BJEC T BOEHME RAD-10

■-2 «S»

L E CT URE NUMBER

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-C-

Page One

(Boehme's philosophy and its mystical foundation cannot be under stood without his concept of the Word, likeness or similitude, and their inter-relationship. Creation, both as the process and its mani fest result, is symbolized by the Word, sound, and language.) (Similitude or likeness of man to God is partly derived from the Bible, but Boehme1s ideas go further. They are more like the concept of the Hermetic writings which say the cosmos is the image of God, and man is the image of the cosmos. In any case, the cure, regeneration, and mystical development of man are based on this doctrine of likeness and the doctrine of signatures related to it.) In the Signature, Chapter One, Boehme says: All that is spoken, written or taught of God without the knowledge of the signature is dumb and void of understanding. It proceeds only from an historical conjec ture, from the mouth of another, wherein the spirit without knowledge is dumb. But if the spirit opens to him the signature, then he under stands the speech of another. Further, he understands how the speech has manifested and revealed itself, out of the essence through the principle in the sound with the voice. Though I see one speak, teach, preach, and write of God, and though I hear this, it is not sufficient for me to understand him. But if his sound and spirit out of his signature and likeness enter my own likeness and imprint his likeness in mine, then I may understand him really and fundamentally, whether it is spoken or written, if he has the hammer that can strike my bell. All human properties proceed from one. They all have only one root and mother; otherwise, one man could not understand another in the sound, for with the sound or speech the form notes or imprints itself into the likeness of another. A like tone or sound catches and moves another, and in the sound the spirit imprints its own likeness, which it has conceived in the essence, and brought to form in the principle, first that one can understand in the word that in which the spirit has conceived in evil or good. With the same sign he enters into another man's likeness and also awakens in the other such a form in the signa ture. Hence both likenesses mutually mix thereupon; there is one com prehension, one will, and one spirit, also one understanding. Secondly, we understand that the signature or likeness is no spirit but the receptacle of the spirit wherein it lies. For the sig nature stands in the essence and is as a lute that lies still and is neither heard nor understood, but if it is played upon then its like ness is understood, in what form and tune it stands, and according to what note it is set. So too is the sign of nature in its likeness a dumb being. It is a prepared instrument of music on which the willspirit plays, whichever string he touches, each sounds according to its attribute. In the human mind the signature lies most skillfully composed according to the Being of all Beings. Man lacks nothing but the

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Two

skillful master who can strike his instrument which is the true spirit of the high power of eternity. But if that is awakened in man so that it stirs in the center of the mind, then it strikes the instrument of the human likeness. Thereupon the likeness goes out from the mouth with the sound in the word. As the instrument was set in the time of his incarnation, so it sounds, and so is his knowledge. The inner manifests itself in the sound of the word, for that is the mind's natural knowledge of itself. Man has all likenesses of all three realms lying in him, for he is the complete image of God, or of the Being of all beings. Only the order is placed in him at his incarnation, for there are three workmasters in him which prepare his likeness, as the Threefold Fiat, according to the three worlds, and are in circles around the likeness, and the likeness is figured according to the circles. This master obtains the dominant rule, according to which the instrument is tuned, and the others lie hidden, and go behind with their sound, as is plainly shown. As soon as man is born into this world, his spirit strikes his instrument, so his innate likeness in good and evil is seen in the outer sound and change. As his instrument sounds, so also his senses go out from the essence of his mind, and so the outer will-spirit drives with its behavior, as is seen in men and animals, as also there may be a great difference in birth, so that a brother and sister do not act like each other. As the likeness of life is, that is, as the likeness of life in time of the Fiat is figured in the incarnation, so also in its natural spirit. It arises out of the essence of all three principles, and such a will it conducts out of its attributes. The will may be broken, for when a stronger comes over it, and arouses its inner likeness with its introduced sound-spirit and willspirit, then its dominant order loses the right and power. This we see in the power of the Sun, which qualifies by its strength a bitter and sour fruit into a sweetness and pleasantness. Similarly, a good man is corrupted among evil company, and a good plant cannot sufficiently show its true virtue in a bad field. In the good man the hidden evil instrument is awakened, and in the plant a contrary essence is received from the earth, so that often the good is changed into an evil, and the evil into a good. As it stands in the power of the quality within, so it is marked in the outer in its external form and likeness, as well the man in his speech, will, and habits, also with the form of his member, which he also has and must use to the same likeness. His inner likeness is shown in the likeness of his face, the same as an animal, a plant, and a tree, each thing as it is in itself, so it is also outwardly marked.

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Three

There is nothing that is created or born in nature but it mani fests its inner figure also outwardly, for the inner works always to manifestation. Therefore, the greatest understanding is in the signature, wherein man, as the image of the greatest virtue, not only learns to know him self, but he may also learn to know therein the Being of all Beings. The hidden spirit is known by the outward likeness of all creatures, by their inclination and desire, by their outgoing sound, voice, and speech. Nature has given to everything its speech according to its essence and likeness, for out of the essence originates the speech or sound, and the Fiat of the same essence forms the quality of the essence in the outgoing sound or power in the animating in the sound, and the essentials in the smell, power, and likeness. Each thing has its mouth for manifestation. This is its nature-language, from which each thing speaks out of its quality, and always manifests and sets forth itself for what it is good and useful, for each thing manifests its mother, which thus gives the essence and will to the likeness.

The whole outer, visible world with all its being is a sign or figure of the inward spiritual world. All that is inner, no matter how its operation is, also has itsouter character. Just as the spirit of each creature sets forth and manifests its inner birth-image with its body, so also does the eternal Being. The Being of all Beings is a contending power, as is also the outer world, and it stands especially in seven attributes and images. There each causes and makes the other; none is the first or last, but it is the eternal bond. Therefore, God has appointed six days for man to work, and the seventh day is the perfection wherein the six rest. It is the center to which the desire of the six days tend. Therefore, God calls it the Sabbath or day of rest, for therein the six forms of the working power rest. It is the divine sound in the power, or the kingdom of joy, wherein all the other forms are manifest. It is the conceived word or divine corporeality, by which all things are gener ated and come forth into being. This conceived word has manifested itself with the motion of all images, with this visible world as with a visible likeness, so that the spiritual world stands in a corporeal conceivable manifest (world). As the inner image desire has made itself outer, and the inner stands in the outer, the inner holds the outer before itself as a mirror, in which it beholds itself in the attribute of the generation of all images. The outer is its signature.

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Four

Thus everything which is born out of the inner has its signature. The superior image, as in the spirit of the working in the power, is highest, which marks the body the most. These hang on the other forms as is seen in all living creatures in the form of the body, in the cus toms and deportment, in the sound, voice, and speech, as well as in trees, plants, stones, and metals. All is according to the struggle in the power of the spirit, so too the figure of the body acts, and so also is its will, as long as it boils in the life-spirit. If the artist takes it in hand with the true Mercury, then he may turn the weakest form to the uppermost, and the strongest undermost. Then the spirit obtains another will, according to the most superior form. That which before must be servant now becomes lord and master in the seven forms. Each form hungers after the center, and the center is the voice of life, the Mercury, the former of the power. Ifthis voice gives itself into the hunger of the lowest form in the strong struggle, then it lifts up its property of that form. Thus its desire has saved it, for in the desire Mercury lifts up itself. An honest man falls into great debt, care, trouble, and distress. But if a friend pays his debt for him, then the cure is soon effected with its likeness. Even so it is in all things. As the source of the disease, so the cure is requisite for restoring health. Thus it is too in the mental soul. The sinner cannot be cured but with likeness. He must appease the mental Mercury; he must take Venus and understand the loveof God, and introduce it into his poisonous Mercury and Mars. He must tincture the Mercury in the soul again with love. Then his Sun will again shine in the soul, and his Jupiter will rejoice. If you say you cannot and that you are too strongly captivated, I say also that I cannot. It lies not in my willing but in the compas sion of God. For I cannot by my own strength and ability overcome the wrath of God enkindled in me. But his heart has freely given itself again out of love and in love into humanity and tinctures the soul. Therefore, I will cast my will into his tincture. With my corrupted will I will die with him in his death, and become a nothing to him, and then he must be my life. If my will is a nothing, then he is in me what he pleases. Then I know not myself any more, but him. If he wills that I shall be some thing, let him effect it. If he wills it not, then I am dead in him, and he lives in me as he pleases. If I am a nothing, then in the end I am in the essence out of which Adam was created, for God has created all things out of nothing. The nothing is the highest good, for there is no turba in it, and so nothing can touch my soul. I am a nothing to myself, but I am God's who knows what I am. I do not know it, neither shall I know it.

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Five

Thus is the cure of my soul's sickness. He who will adventure it with me will find by experience what God will make of him. I am not known to myself, but I am known to him what and how he pleases. I live not to myself but to him. Thus we are in Christ (as the Master) one, as a tree with many boughs. He begets and brings forth the fruit in every branch as he pleases. Thus I have brought his life into mine. For the outward man there is a cure in the outward, from the out ward will of God who has made himself external with this visible world. For the inner man there is a cure from the inner world, in which God is all in all. He is only one and not many, one in all and all in one. But if the inner penetrates the outer and conducts its sunshine through it, the outer receives the sunshine of the inner. Then it is tinctured cured, and healed by the inner, and the inner shines through it as the sun through water, or as a fire makes iron glow. It is possible for a man to live without sickness, but he must bring the divine tincturation from the inner man through the outer, which is very difficult in this world. By that light man lives, of that also comes his cure. (Signature, Ch. IX)

The Signature, Chapter Ten, discusses the work of the Magus. The divine light and love were extinguished in Adam. How did God cure him and tincture him again? Did he take a strange thing? No, he took a likeness and cured him with that which was corrupted in him, with the divine Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter. In man was the expressed word which I call the eternal Mercury in man. It is the true, ruling acting life. It was inspired or in-spoken into man's image, which God created out of his essence into an image according to God. The expressed word was inspired as into a creaturely image, which was the soul with the property of all three worlds: (1) the world of light and understanding which is God. (2) the fire-world which is the eternal nature of the Father of all beings, and (3) with the love-world which is heavenly corporeality. For in the love-desire is the essence as the corpo reality . The desire of love is spirit and the heart of God as the right divine understanding. To help and restore the image of God in Adam, God introduced the holy Mercury in the flame, in the fiery love with the desire of the divine essentiality into the expressed word. He tinctured the poison, the wrath of God, with the love-fire. He took only the same Mercury which he had breathed into Adam for an image and formed into a creature With love he introduced again the light of the eternal Sun into the human property, that he might tincture the wrath of the enkindled

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Six

Mercury in the human property and inflamed it with love, so that the human Jupiter, the divine understanding, might again appear and be manifest. It behoves the doctor, if he will be called a doctor, to study the whole process, how God restored the universal in man, which is fully clear and manifest in the person of Christ. Let him follow this entire process, and then he may find the universal, provided he be born again of God, but the selfish pleasure, worldly glory, covetousness, and pride lie in the way. When we lay sick in death, God did not cast away the created image, the outward man. Though he introduced divine property into our human ity, yet he did not therefore cast away our humanity. Rather, he brought it into the way or process to the new birth. The artist (or Magus) must not arrogate anything to himself. The Mercury itself works the wonders (of healing) before it manifests the universal. All the seven forms of nature must be crystallised and purified, if the universal shall be revealed. Each form carries a peculiar process when it is to be brought out of the property of the wrath and entered into the pure and clear life. It must transmute itself into the crystalline sea which stands before the throne of the ancient in the Revelation (the Biblical book), and change itself into paradise, for the universe is paradisical. Christ came that he might manifest the universal as the paradise again in man. The speaking word in him wrought wonders through all the seven properties or forms through the expressed word in the humanity. So it is in the philosophic work when the Mercury shut up in death receives into it the baptism of its refreshment in love. Then all the seven forms manifest themselves in this property, as it is come to pass in the process of Christ in his miracles, but as yet they are not per fect in the operation of the manifestation of their properties. The universal is not yet there, till all seven give their will into one and forsake their property in the wrath, and depart from it with their will, and take into them love’s property. The Magus must well consider his purpose, not desiring to possess the earthly kingdom, and not to flyfrom the Temple, much less to work out his intent from the stones. He must think that he isGod's min ister and servant. Then let him consider the process in Christ, how Godregenerated the universal shut up in death in the human property. God did not take man as he lay closed up in death and cast him into a furnace and melt him down as the false magus does. But he gave his love first into his human essence, and baptized the humanity.

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Seven

God must become man, and man must become God. Heaven must become one thing with the earth, and the earth must be turned into heaven. (Boehme's Magus, the singular of M a g i , is the alchemical artist or artisan, and the master in initiatic, mystical orders.) For man's bliss consists in this, that he has in himself a true desire for God. From this desire flows the love. That it, when the desire receives in itself the gentleness of God, then the desire descends into the gentleness in itself and becomes essential (or actual). That is then the heavenly or divine essentiality or corpo reality. Therein the soul-personality (Seelen Geist), which in anger lies enclosed as in death, stands up again in the love of God, for the love colors death and darkness so that it is again fit for the divine sunshine. As this takes place in man, so also is the transmutation of metals. The sulphur lies enclosed in Saturn as in death, and yet it is not death but a vegetative life, for the outer Mercury is the life in it. Thus we will now seize the process of Christ, and go with him from eternity into time, and from time into eternity, and introduce the won der of the time again into eternity, and openly describe the pearl to the honor of Christ and to the scorn of the devil. He who sleeps is blind, and he who wakes sees what Maytime brings. Christ said, "Seek and ye shall find, knock and it will be opened to you (Matth. 7:7)." You know what Christ indicated in the parable of the wounded man and the Samaritan, how he fell among murderers who beat and wounded him, took off his clothes, went off and left him lying half dead, until the Samaritan came, bound and poured oil in his wounds, and installed him in his inn (Luke 10:30-34). This is an open description of human demoralization in paradise and the decay of the earth in the curse of God, since Paradise withdrew from it. If you want to be a Magus, you must become the self-same Samaritan otherwise you cannot heal the wounded and broken. The body which you should heal is half dead and badly wounded. His real clothes have been taken off, so that you hardly know the man you should heal. Then you have the eyes and intention of the Samaritan, so that in that way you seek nothing else than to restore the injuries of the wounded. If you want to be a master, you must understand how you can trans mute night again into day, for night, the source of darkness, is the anguish-source of death, and the day as the source of light is the life and the appearance in the life. This appearance has again lighted Christ in humanity, and made man again living in himself. If you want to color (tingiren), you must transmute the closed, that which lies enclosed in the death of night, again into day, for the day is the tincture, and yet day and night lie together as one being.

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Eight

Now reason speaks: How may I consider it so that I can do it? Consider the process by which God began it with humanity when he wanted to color the same. Christ came into this world in the hidden human form and brought to the ending which is death the living tincture as the divinity. He came into life as a stranger in our poor form. He became ours, so that he might color us in himself. But what did he do? Did he live in joy? Did he behave like a master? No. He passed into death and died, and set aside the source of night in himself through us. But how did he do it? He received our soul and life essence into the divine essence, and seized our essence with the divine, so that our essence entered again into the divine essence with our will and desire. Thus was the divine Fiat again stirred in humanity; mankind was again adapted to freedom as the free desire in the divinity. When this happened, the man Christ was tempted forty days, as long as the first Adam was at one and alone in Paradise and was tempted. Then the earthly, ourward food was taken away from Christ, so humanity had to eat with its desire for God's being. There all that was pre sented to him with which Adam fell in love, and which he had imagined, and with which, like the death in the night, he was captivated; this the devil, as a prince of this world, now held before him in the attri bute of death, as he had held it before Adam through the serpent, with which Adam and his wife were captivated, and into which they entered in imagination. Now see what Christ did when he should be enduring the battle of the trial, when the human essence with its desire should again enter into the divinity and eat of God's bread, that is, of the divine being. He went to Jordan and had himself baptized by John. With what? With the water of the Jordan and with the water in the Word of life, as with the divine essence, which must color our mortal essence in the outer humanity of Christ, from which resulted the divine hunger in the human essence, that he desired to eat the bread of God. Therefore the Spirit of God took him and led him into the wilderness. There the attribute of the Father stood against him in the wrath through the prince in the wrath. There God's bread and the bread of God's wrath according to the desire of death was offered Him. Now it was tested whether, after this coloring of the baptism, the soul, which was born and created from the attribute of God, wanted to enter again into the love-desire, as into the nothingness outside (or beyond) all source. What is indicated to the Master in this? The Mysterium is indi cated to him. If he wants to do wonders with Christ and color the corrupt body to a new birth, he must first baptize him; thus he hungers for the bread of God, and this same hunger has in it the word Fiat as the master builder to the first birth, that is, the Mercury. I do not speak of a priestly baptism. The artist must understand magically. It is necessary that God and man previously come together before you baptize, as happened in Christ. The divinity first entered again the

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Nine

humanity, but the humanity did not know immediately how to grasp it, until through the baptism it seized it, and the hunger as the corrupt Mercury in the human essence was again stirred up in the heavenly part. Then the human eating again went on; as Mercury again received divine attribute and will, so the inner Mercury (understand human attribute) ate again in the taste of the divine Word of the God's Being, and the four elemental attributes ate of the night’s attribute until the human Mercury swirled its life upward, and transmuted the four elements into one, and life colored death which happened on the cross. Then the four elements left him as the four elements; that is, he died to time, as to night, and arose in the pure element and lived in eternity. Do you ask how the Master must also perform this process with his alchemy? I will not put it into your mouth on account of the wiched who are not worthy of it. Notice only the baptism, that you baptize with his own baptism the dead Mercury, which is enclosed in the heavenly essentiality, and lies powerless, of which being he is in One Thing. But you must have the divine water and also the earthly; for the earthly Mercury cannot receive before the divine, the divine Mercury then receives its power. Thereby it stirs and becomes hungry, then seeks the heavenly, but does not find Divine Being around it for its food. So it fixes its will through the desire for death in itself, as in the word Fiat, which made and bore it, and hungers in the same. Thus the Divine Will is adapted to it, and desires to become joyfulness in i t . There the beginning of the new body arises out of the Divine Being, which the desire draws up; and when the new life is born as the day, the four elements die. Thereupon, the new body is enclosed in the dark death, and on the third day it rises from death. Then the night was entangled in the grave, and then the morning breaks. If you understand this, you have the pearl. However, my intent is only to show you the Christ Spirit and also this pearl; therefore, none should find it but he who has Christ-like love. You say: speak to me about the baptism, and I have already told you about it. Each hunger is a desire for its attribute. If you again give the attribute of death to the hunger of death, then death increases; but if you give it the heavenly attribute, death does not receive it, for hell is contrary to heaven. Thus, you must give death to death and to the anger of God. And in this same anger give it heavenly being, as the baptism. Thus the baptism entangles the death in itself; the anger dies in the death through the baptism, but not soon. You must first observe the process of Christ, and let the bap tized preach, that is, show in his own form and color, persecute and torment him severely and leave him no peace; then the right Mercury will work. When he has shown all his wonders through the old Adam, then you must cast the old and new man into God's great anger and slay the old man and lay him into putrefaction.

RAD - 10 Lecture 8


-CPage Ten

Then Christ will arise from death and appear, but only his own know him. Dear seekers, herein lies the pearl. then you could tincture.

If you had the universal,

What Boehme has said about the Magus may be summarized: The Magus will find two wills in his purpose. The divine will is obedient to him only if his own external will shall rightly apply itself thereto. If he wants to be a Magus, he must first be capable of the divine will. Otherwise, he cannot change the inner will into the outer (which is necessary for the spiritual transmutation). The Magus need not go about to implant the right will to perfec tion from without. It is already in all things. He must introduce a divine desirous will according to the thing's attribute. The whole work consists in two things, in an heavenly and an earthly. The heavenly must take the earthly in it to an heavenly. eternity must make time in it to eternity.

The

If the Magus will seek and find paradise in earth, God must first be manifest in him, in the inner man. If he is not in this birth of restoration, then let him give up and stop seeking, for he finds nothing but death. - - - - 0 0 0 O 0 0 0 - - - -

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Consecrated to truth and dedicated to every Rosicrucian SPECIAL SUBJECT

BOEHME RAD-10

LECTURE NUMBER

RAD - 10 Lecture Nine


-BPage One

JACOB BOEHME (Boehme1s language symbolism is an important and often neglected element in his philosophy. It is, first of all, related to the doctrine of signatures, especially as signatures are represented by letters, hier oglyphs , or characters.) (This is a common part of mystical works of Boehme1s time and is derived partly from Paracelsus. It is also derived partly from Kabalis tic letter and number symbolism.) (Boehme also uses vowels as symbolism, which may go back to gnostic works. It is probably also influenced by Rosicrucian mantras and vowel sounds, although Boehme did not use these as such.) (It is evident that Boehme's language of nature is an inner, sym bolic language which he considered to be the archetype of spoken languages. Whether this is true or not, the symbolic concept of a common, psychic language as the one origin of the multiplicity of languages is a symbol of the archetypal union and typal multiplicity of creation and particularly of m a n .) (The basis of language is sound which is associated with the crea tive Word. This sound is Mercury and is one polarity, the other being what Boehme calls the Salitter, the divine power, which may be a compound of s a l , salt, and litter, letter.) Boehme says: When I write of trees, plants, and fruits, you must not understand them to be earthly like those that are in this world. It is not my meaning that there shall grow in heaven such dead, hard trees of wood, or such stones as consist of an earthly quality. My meaning is heavenly and spiritual. I mean no other thing than I set down in the letter. In the divine state two things are especially to be considered. First the salitter or the divine powers which are moving, springing powers. In that same power fruit grows up and is generated according to every quality and species, as heavenly trees and plants, which without ceasing bear fruit, blossom, and grow in divine power, so joyfully that I can neither speak it nor write it down. I stammer it like a child learning to speak. The second form in the divine state is Mercurius, or the sound, as in the salitter of the earth there is the sound, whence grows gold, silver, copper, iron, and the like. Of these, men make all kinds of musical instruments for sounding or for mirth, as bells, organ pipes, and other things that make a sound. There is like wise a sound in all the creatures on earth, or else all would be in stillness and silence. By that sound all powers are moved in heaven, so that all things grow joyfully, and generate beautifully. As the divine power is manifold and various, so also is the sound of Mercurius.



-B-

Page Two

For when the powers spring up in God, they touch and stir one another, and move one in another. So there is a constant harmony from whence go forth all manner of colors. In those colors grow all manner of fruits which rise up in the salitter, and the Mercurius or sound mingles itself therewith, and rises up in all the powers of God. Then sounding and tunes rise up in the heavenly joyfulness. If you should in this world bring many thousands of musical instru ments together, and all should be tuned in the best manner, most artful ly, and the most skilful masters of music should play on them in concert together, all would be no more than the barking of dogs in comparison with the divine music which rises up through the divine sound and tunes from eternity to eternity. If you will consider the heavenly state and glory, and conceive how it is and what manner of sprouting, branching, delight, and joy there is in it, view this world diligently and consider what manner of fruit, sprouts, and branches grow out of the salitter of the earth; all is a type of the heavenly state. Their constitution is from the divine power, from the salitter and Mercurius of the divine state. There are two things to be observed in God. The first is the salitter or the divine powers out of which is the body or corporeal nature. The second is the Mercurius, tone, tune, or sound. (Aurora, 93ff) First, there is the power, and in the power is the tone which in the spirit rises up into the head, into the mind. In the mind it opens doors or gates, but it has its seat and origin in the heart where it springs from all the powers. The fountain of all powers flows in the heart and in the head has its princely seat where it sees, smells, and feels all. When it sees and hears, the divine tone, tune, and sound rise up, which are external. Then its spirit is affected and kindled with joy and elevates itself in its princely seat, and sings joyful words con cerning God's holiness and the fruit and vegetation of the eternal life. (Aurora, 107) As all powers go forth from God, so one touches another, from whence exists the tune or Mercury, so that all the powers sound and move themselves. Otherwise, if one did not touch another, nothing would stir at all. This touching makes the Holy Spirit stir, so that he rises up in all powers, and touches all the powers in the Father, wherein then exist the heavenly joyfulness, as also tuning, sounding, generating, blossoming, and vegetation, all of which has its rising from this, that one power touches another. (Aurora, 116)



-BPage Three

The language of nature is the root or mother of all the languages in the world. Therein stands the whole perfect knowledge of all things. When Adam spoke at first, he gave names to all the creatures ac cording to their qualities and innate operations, virtues, and facul ties. It is the language of the total, universal nature, but is not known to everyone. It is a hidden, secret mystery which is imparted to me by the grace of God from the Spirit. (Aurora, 541) The whole Deity, with all its powers and operations, together with its innate being, is all understood in the spirit of the Word. In whatever proportion, harmony, or innate generating or produc tion of quality the spirit comprehends, conceives, and forms the Word and goes forth therewith, such an innate birth, penetrating, and over coming it has also in nature. When man fell, he was removed from the innermost birth and put into the outer two genitures. These embraced him, and united with and in him as in their own propriety. So man instantly received the spirit and all generatings of the astral birth and of the outermost birth. Therefore, he now expresses all words according to the innate gen erating of nature. For the spirit of man stands in the astral birth and unites with the total universal nature, and is as it were the whole nature itself that forms the Word according to the innate birth. When the spirit of man sees anything, it gives a name to that thing. But if it is to do this, then it must put itself into such a form and generate itself with its tone, sound, or articulation, just as the thing to which it will give a name generates and composes itself. Herein lies the kernel of the whole understanding of the Deity. Your animated or soulish spirit (soul-personality) must first qualify, operate, or unite with the innermost birth in God, and must stand in the light, so that it may rightly know and understand the astral birth, and so that it may have a free and open gate into all births or genitures. Otherwise, you will not be able to write a holy and true philosophy. (Aurora, 506-8) When the Dawning shall shine from the east to the west, or from the rising to the setting, then assuredly time will be no more; but the sun of the Heart of God rises and RA. RA. R.P. will be pressed in the winepress outside the city, and therewith A M 0 R.P. These are hidden, mystical words, and are understood only in the language of nature. (Aurora, 715) The sense of the mind speaks of the kingdom of heaven, and the outer spirit speaks of this world. The inner speaks of the inner world.



-BPage Four

Since we are generated out of both worlds, we speak in two languages. So we must be understood also by two languages, one of which will despise this, and the other will highly believe and love it, for every spirit takes its own. We should do well to seek the kingdom of heaven, for thereby we gain the precious crown of pearls instead of the crown of this world. God created the world by his wisdom and by the spirit of his mouth. Neither have we any other knowledge than that which God has re vealed in his wisdom. But this world is not his wisdom; it is a figure out of his wisdom. The wheel of the stars, the planets, and the four elements are the ground; it is all an out-birth of the eternal nature, where the Deity has revealed itself comprehensibly. The spirit of God has discovered the image of God in the virgin of his wisdom, and the word Fiat has created it. The form of this world was from eternity in the nature of God, but invisible and im material . The word Schuff (which means created) has God's creating in its own meaning according to the language of nature. If you would under stand that language, observe in your mind how each word from the heart is framed in the mouth, and what the mouth and the tongue do with it, before the spirit sends it forth. If you apprehend this, you should understand everything in its name, why each thing is called as it is. It would thus be understood in the language of every nation, every one in their own mother tongue. (Threefold L i f e , 128,144) What is the abyss of all things where no creature is, or the un fathomable nothing? It is a dwelling of the unity of God. For the opening of some thing (Ichts) of the nothing (Nichts) is God himself. The opening is the unity as an eternal life and willing which has nothing it can will but itself. What has gone forth from the will, love, and life is the wisdom of God, that is, the Divine intuition and joy of the unity of God, whereby the love eternally introduces itself into powers, colors, wonders, and virtues. In this opening life of the Divine Unity five manifest sensus (senses) are understood in the perceptibility of the love of the life, namely, A, E, I, 0, U, and therein lies the Divine willing and working. These bring themselves into an outbreathing to separability and to understanding of the one trinity by which the eternal life finds and understands itself. (Theosophic Questions, 276)



-BPage Five

On the sacred name JEHOVAH. The ancient Rabbis among the Jews have often understood this, for they have said this name is the highest name of God, by which is under stood the working Deity in the feeling, and this is true, for in this working feeling lies the true life of all things in time and eternity, in Grund and Ungrund. It is God himself as the divine, working sensi tiveness, finding, knowledge, and love as the true origin of the working Unity from which the five senses of the true life arise. Each letter in this name signifies a power and special working as a form in the working power. The I is the emanation of the eternal, in separable Unity as the sweet sacrecTness of the Grund of Divine Self-hood. E is a three fold I_ where the Unity is locked in a trinity, for the I_ goes into the E and is called IE as a breathing of the Unity in itself. H is the Word or breathing of tEe triune God. 0 is the circumference as the Son of God through which the IE_ expresses with the H or breathing, understand out of the resigned pleasure of the power. V is the joyful emanation from the breathing as the outgoing Spirit of God. A is the outgoing from the power as the Wisdom, a throwing out of the trinity wherein the trinity works, wherein the trinity is manifest. This name is nothing but an expression of the threefold working in the Holy Triplicity in the Unity of God. (Clavis, 5-8) (Boehme, in the Mysterium Magnum, page 349 and following, is speak ing of the five names of the children of Shem.) These five names figure out and set forth, as in a type, the five head speeches of the spiritual tongue through the formed word proceeding from the high name of God. Out of these tongues the prophetic spirit speaks. Though we could set down a form of the same, yet we should be but senseless or dumb to the reader who does not understand the language of nature. Therefore, we have given only a hint of it to our school fellows. The spirit, under the names, also points at the kingdoms and do minions, and they are God's who with his name orders, governs, guides, and leads every kingdom, according to the attribute of his name. As the at tributes of each kingdom are, such is the language, phrases, and manners of the same. It is not that there is more than one God, but we understand there in the divine manifestation, how God gives himself forth in his manifesta tion in the formed Word to all nations according to every nation's and people's attribute. Every people use the same Word according to its at tribute, the external form and division of which is Babel, for all people had only one tongue and language and dwelt together. The one tongue was the language of nature out of which they all spoke. They had it in one form and understood in the language and speech the sense, the Ens, even how the will formed the Ens, for so also was the spirit in the Ens. Of this we will give a short intimation to the il luminated mind to consider, prove, exercise, and make trial of it in



himself. Man cannot express it and is the spirit of the wisdom of God,

-BPage Six

bring it into a certain form, for his manifestation.

it

The spirits of the letters of the alphabet are the form of the one spirit in the language of nature. The five vowels bear forth the holy tongue of the five holy languages of the name Jehovah, from whence the Holy Spirit speaks. The five vowels are the holy name of God, for the name Jehovah has nothing in it but the five vowels A, E, I, 0, V (or U ) . The other letters signify and express the nature, even what the name of God in the formed word is in nature both in love and anger, in darkness and light. The five vowels signify only what he is in the light of holiness, for nature is tinctured with the five vowels, so that it be comes full of joy. The ancient wise men with great understanding, skilful in this tongue, interposed an H in the name Jeova and called it JEHOVA, for H makes the sacred name with the five vowels even manifest in the outward nature. It shows how the name of God breathes forth and manifests it self even in the creature. The five vowels are the hidden name of God, who dwells alone in himself, but the H signifies the divine wisdom, show ing how the divine desire breathes itself out of itself. The inward understanding of

the five vowels is this:

I is the name Jesus. E is the name Engel

(German for angel) .

0 is the formed Wisdom of the I, namely, of Jesus, and is the center or heart of God.

V is the Spirit, the "sus" in Jesus, which proceeds out of the lubet. A is der Anfang und das Ende (the beginning and the e n d ) , the will of the whole comprehension, and is the Father. These five fold themselves up with the comprehension or formation into three, namely, into such a Word N, that is, A, 0, V; Father, Son, Holy Spirit. The triangle denotes the trinity of the attributes of the Persons. The V on the triangle denotes the spirit in the H, or in the breathing, where the universal God manifests himself spiritually with his own proceeding forth out of himself. The other letters without the five vowels all proceed from the name TETRAGRAMMATON (Yod, He, Vau, H e ) , as out of the center of the eter nal nature, out of the principle. They denote and speak forth the differ ences of the formed wisdom, as of the formed word in the three principles wherein the whole creation lies. They are the sense of the creation, as the property of the powers, and the true revealed God in the word of nature.



-BPage Seven

When the free will of man conceives or forms itself into a desire, then it conceives the whole alphabet. The desire is the Fiat, and the attraction to the desire is the contemplation of the free will as the formed word of wisdom. The free will takes the H as the spirit of the breathing, and brings the formed thought before the counsel of the five senses which be hold the formed word. Observe how every word is formed in the mouth to expression, how the chief worker, the Fiat which is in the senses, shapes it, and how the tongue cooperates or frames itself with it when it takes it. Mark by what way it brings it forth, whether through the teeth, or above, or with open mouth, also how the tongue frames itself in the conjunction of the word, and which sense it again draws back and will not wholly cast forth, as there is many a sense which is not half put forth. As the word was formed, so also is the thing named by the word in its form and attribute, provided the free will gives it also a right name and does not impose a strange name on it out of malice or ignorance. So it is externally noted, and internally in the compaction of the senses it has such a virtue or malignant attribute. Whoever understands the senses of the spirits of the letters, so that he understands how the senses are set or compounded in the pleasure, he understands it in the framing of the word, when the same is formed or brought forth to substance. He is able to understand the sentient lan guage of the whole creation and understands whence Adam gave names to all things, and from whence the spirit of God has prophesied in the Ancient. This is the ground of the head languages. When all people spoke one language, they understood one another. But when they would not use the natural tongue, then the right understanding was put out in them. They brought the spirits of the genuine tongue of sense into an external gross form and framed the subtle spirit of the understanding into a gross form, and learned to speak out of the (outer) form only. No people now understand the language of sense, yet the birds in the air and the beasts in the fields understand it according to their at tribute . Therefore, man may well consider what he is deprived of and what he shall again obtain in the new birth, if not on earth, yet in the spiritual world, for in the language of sense all spirits speak one with another. They use no other language, for it is the Language of Nature. The sense of man's speech comes to him originally out of the divine Word which was introduced with the Word Fiat into a creation.

We are divided and brought into opinions by reason of our master builders and founders who are set as workmen to the building of the tower; that is, the schools, priests, popes, bishops, doctors, rabbis, and



-BPage Eight

masters of all nations. All these have judged from their own language and understanding, from their conceived sensient tongue, from the outer letter. They have neither known God nor the light of nature, but have been blind and dumb to both. Men are all of one united attribute as to their life; all are be gotten of one flesh and soul and have but one kind of life. The only difference is this: The spirits of the letters in the formed word sever us in the understanding. Otherwise, we live all alike in the four ele ments, eat the fruit of one mother, and remain in her when we die to this outer life. The compacted sensient tongue, which is divided in the spirits of the letters, makes us err, so that we suppose we are strange one to an other, and yet we are but one tree. Hence arise the contrarieties, differences, and images, because we have introduced the unformed word into the image. We contend and strive about these images, and everyone supposes his own to be best. When we bring all these images again into one language and speech, and mortify them, then the animating Word of God, which gives power and life to all things, is again manifest. Strife ceases, and God is all in all. Therefore, we have found that without the divine light all men's imaginations, opinions, and knowledge of God are from the compacted spirits of the letters. We have lost the five vowels in the alphabet which introduce all the spirits of the letters into one pure harmony. The vowels are, as it were, senseless and dumb in reference to the other letters. Yet they are the life of the rest, for no word can be formed without a vowel. There is no better way to bring us into union, so that we may be come one again with one another, one people, one tree, one man in soul and body, than to destroy and kill all the images of the letters in us, and suffer none of them to have its own self-life. We should desire to know of God what God wills to know in and through us, and immerse the soul's hunger, without any other knowing or willing, into the five vowels. Therein the holy name of JEOVA or JESUS is manifest. This gives life to all things. As the outer sun gives life and power to the whole world, so too this united name in its power gives life and understanding to all the letters. The letters, the attributes of the sensient tongue, have been introduced into an external form or self-will and understanding. They have been brought with the vowels into a compaction. When this was done, the JESUS, the holy name JEOVA, died in the sensient tongue in the letters with the five vowels of the one, united mental tongue, that is, the spiritual man, which was resigned in God. (Mysterium Magnum, 365ff)



-B-_ Page Nine

The desiring attracts and makes penetration, and the bitterness breaks it asunder in the turning wheel. So there arises multiplicity of essences, a confusion of the eternal mobility, a cause of the essences. The eternal will must conceive another will to fly out from this wheel, and yet it cannot leave its eternal desire, so it attracts to itself. The essences are continually generated, and yet they are nothing. Thus the whole form stands in the sound and is called M a r . Since it cannot be free, it falls in a great anguish to speak according to man's under standing, that the reader may comprehend the sense and depth of it. The R is the character of the fire-source, for every letter is a spirit, and is a form of the center, although by the transposing and turning of the word they alter, yet every letter has a meaning or under standing in the center. Man is the likeness of God, for his soul is out of the center upon the cross, where the eternal Word is generated, comprehended by the spirit of God. There the spirit has comprehended all the three principles and brought them into a body. The spirit lives from the inward and from the outward, from the spirit of the center, as also from the spirit of this world, or from the air. (Threefold L i f e , 13-14) Of the Amen

So be it.

A is the first letter and presses forth out of the heart and has no nature. We understand herein the seeking or attracting of the eternal will without nature. The will desires the heart, and the heart desires the will. As the A is generated out of the heart of the eternal will, so out of A afterwards comes the whole alphabet with four and twenty numbers. The A begins to number and comprises the whole number in the syllable -m e n . (Threefold Li f e , 511) Brot (bread) here (in the Lord's Prayer) is generated out of the center of nature, although the last letter expresses that it is a paradis ical bread. For the cross in its character (T) in the language of nature carries the severe name of God which, if man will rightly expound it, and understand it according to the language of nature, may be understood power fully and in its highest depth in word Tetragrammaton (Jehovah); for that word comprehends all the three principles. In the word Adonai God is understood as in one principle, in the angelical world. Bread is the food of the body and is to be understood concerning the fierce wrath, that it has mixed itself in it and signified the house of lamentation. (Three fold L i f e , 499)

o o o O o o o

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ROSICRUCIAN ORDER AMORC Supplementary Monograph P R I N T E D IN U . S . A.

The subject matter of this monograph must be understood by the reader or student of same, not to be the official Rosicrucian teachings. These monographs constitute a series of supplementary studies provided by the Rosicrucian Order,.AM ORC, both to members and nonmembers, because they are not the secret, private teachings of the Order. The object of these supplem entary monographs is to broaden the mind of the student by presenting him with the writings, opinions, and dissertations of authorities in various fields of human enterprise and endeavor. Therefore, it is quite probable that the reader will note at times in these supplem entary monographs statements made which are inconsistent w-ith the Rosicrucian teachings or viewpoint. But with the realization that they are m ere ly supplem entary and that the Rosicrucian Organization is not endorsing or condoning them, one must take them merely for their prim a facie value. Throughout the supple m entary series the authors or translators of the subject will be given due credit whenever we have knowledge of their identity.


C onsecrated to truth and d e d ic a te d to every Rosicrucian

SPECIAL SUBJECT BOEHME RAD-10

LE CT URE NUMBER

RAD-10 Lecture 10


-CPAGE 1

JACOB BOEHME In this final discourse on Jacob Boehme, his philosophy will be summarized by material from his Election of Grace. It is suggested that the reader compare this with ideas given in earlier discourses. It cannot be said of God that he is this or that, evil or good, or that he has distinctions in himself. For he is in himself natureless, passionless, and creatureless. He has no tendency to anything, for there is nothing before him to which he could tend, neither evil nor good. He is in himself the Ungrund, without any will towards nature and creature, as it were an eternal nothing. There is no pain or quality (Qual) in him, nor anything that could incline either to him or from him. He is the one sole existence, and there is nothing before him or after him by or in which he might draw or grasp a will for himself; neither has he anything that generates or produces him. He is the nothing and the all, and is a single will in which the world and the whole creation lies. In him all is alike eternal, without beginning, equal in weight, measure, and number. He is neither light nor darkness, neither love nor wrath, but the eternal One. This unfathomable, incomprehensible, unnatural, and uncreaturely will, which is one only and has nothing before it nor after it, which in itself is but a one, which is as nothing and yet everything, this will is called and is the one God, which seizes and finds himself and begets God from God. That is to say, the first unoriginated single will, which is neither evil nor good, generates within itself the one eternal good as an apprehensible will, which is the Son of the unfathomable will, and yet co-eternal with the unoriginated will. This second will is the first will's eternal feeling and finding, for the nothing finds itself in itself as a something. And the unfathomable will, i.e., the undiscoverable One, by its eternal discovery, goes forth and brings itself into an eternal intuition of itself. Thus the unfathomable will is called eternal Father. And the will that is found, grasped and brought forth by the Ungrund is called the Son; for it is the Ens (principle or essence) of the Ungrund, whereby the Ungrund apprehends itself in a Grund. And the outgoing of the unfathomable will through the apprehended Son or Ens is called spirit, for he leads the apprehended Ens out of itself into a movement or life of the will, as life of the Father

RAD-10 Lecture 10


-CPAGE 2

and of the Son. What has gone forth is joy, namely, the discovery of the eternal nothing, in which Father, Son, and Spirit behold and find themselves; and this is called God's wisdom or intuition. This threefold being in its birth and self-contemplation in wisdom has been from eternity, and in itself no other ground or place than just itself. single life and a single will without desire. It has neither thickness nor thinness, neither height nor depth, nor time; it is through all and in all, and yet is to unseizable nothing.

in its possesses It is a in itself nor space all as an

The lustre of the sun works in the whole world, in all things and through all things, and yet all this can take away nothing from the sun, but must suffer him and work along with the power of the sun. In the same way is God to be considered as to what he is apart from nature and creature in himself, in a self-comprehensible Chaos, independent of Grund, time, and place. In this Chaos the eternal nothing comprehends itself in an eye or eternal power of seeing, for the beholding, feeling, and finding of itself. In such case it cannot be said that God has two wills, one to evil and the other to good. For in the unnatural, uncreaturely Deity, there is nothing more than a single will, which is called also the one God. He wills in himself nothing more than to seize and find himself, go out from himself, and with the outgoing bring himself into an intuition. By this is understood the triad of the Deity together with the mirror of his wisdom or the eye of his seeing. Therein are understood all powers, colors, wonders, and beings in the eternal wisdom, in equal weight and measure without attributes, as a single Grund of the Being of all beings. And a longing is found in himself or a desire for somewhat, a longing for manifestation or discovery of attributes; this divine longing or wisdom is in itself, in the primal Grund, without attributes. If there were attributes, there would have to be something to produce or cause the attributes. But there is no cause of the divine powers and of the divine longing or wisdom save the one will, that is to say, the one God who brings himself into a threefoldness as into an apprehensibility of himself. This apprehensibility is the center, as the eternal apprehended one, and is called the heart or seat of the eternal will of God, in which the Ungrund possesses itself in a Grund. It is the one place of God, but with no partition or separation; moreover, it is im measurable, without any form or parallel, for there is nothing before it to which it might be compared.

RAD-10 Lecture 10


-CPAGE 3

This heart or center of the Ungrund is the eternal mind of the will, and yet has nothing before it that it can will, save the one will that apprehends itself in this center. The first will to the center likewise has nothing it can will save only this one place of its self-discovery. The first will is therefore the Father of its heart or the place of its discovery, and a possessor of what is found, namely, its only begotten will or Son. The unfathomable will, which is the Father and a beginning of all being, generates itself within itself into a place of apprehen sibility, or possesses the place. The place is the Grund and beginning of all beings, and possesses in its turn the unfathomable will, which is the Father of the beginning and so of the Grund. Thus, the Father and Son (as the place of selfhood) is one united God with one united will. This one will in the apprehended place of the Grund goes out from itself, from the apprehension, and with the outgoing it is called a Spirit. Thus the one will of the Ungrund through the first, eternal, unoriginated grasp divides into three kinds of working, and yet remains but one will. The fourth kind of working takes place in the outbreathed power as in divine intuition or wisdom, where the Spirit of God with the outbreathed powers as with one power entertains himself, and in the power introduces himself into forms as if he wished to bring an image of this generation of the triad into a particular will and life as a representation of the one trinity. This imprinted image is the joy of the divine intuition, though we are not to understand a comprehensible, creaturely image possessing circumscription, but rather the divine imagination as the primal Grund of magic, from which the creation has had its beginning and origin. If we wish to speak only of God's unchangeable essence, as to what he wills or has willed and ever wills, we ought not to speak of his deliberation, for there is no deliberation in him. He is the eye of all seeing and the Grund of all beings. He wills and does in himself always one and the same thing, that is, he brings forth himself so as to give birth to Father, Son, Holy Spirit, and the wisdom of his manifestation. Other than this, the one unfathomable God wills in himself nothing; neither has he in himself any deliberation about several. He is one only and nothing more. But a single thing cannot fall at variance with itself. So it is with things that proceed from the eternal, un originated Grund. Each in its selfhood is an individual will,

RAD-10 Lecture 10


-CPAGE 4

which has nothing before it that can break it, unless it brings itself into an alien form that resembles not the primal Grund from which it arose, and then there is a separation from the whole. As is to be understood in the case of the fallen man, that the creature has broken itself off the whole will and brought itself into a selfhood of a different form opposed to the one divine bringing forth. The powers which are all contained in one power are the primal being of the Word. For the one will apprehends itself in the one power, wherein lies all hiddenness, and breathes itself forth through the power into an intuition, and this wisdom or intuition is the beginning of the eternal mind as the beholding of itself. This amounts to saying, the Word was in the beginning with God, and was God himself. The being of the power is the scientia (desire) and cause of the speaking, as the essence or separation of the one power, and is the partition of the mind, which the Spirit by its outgoing from the power renders divisible. There could be no sound if the one longing in the power did not comprise itself in a desire, as in a scientia or drawing-in. The free longing comprises itself in a scientia of itself for a forming of the powers, that the powers may enter a compaction in order to a manifest sound. Therefrom arises the sensual tongue of the five senses as an inward beholding, feeling, hearing, smelling, and tasting, which must be understood, however, in a creaturely way, but only in the manner of the primal feeling and finding in a sensual way. In this connection it is said: The Word (i.e. the formed power) was in the beginning with God. Here two things are to be understood. The In is the unformed power, and the formed power is the W i t h , for it has come into something and so to motion. The In is still, but the With is formal or compacted, and from this compaction and motion arise nature and creature, together with all being. The powers for the word are God, and the scientia (desire) or the magnetic attraction is the beginning of nature. The powers could not be manifested without this desire of attraction. God brings his will into a desire for nature, that his power may be manifested in light and majesty, and that a kingdom of joy may be produced. If in the eternal One no nature were to arise, all would be still. But nature is carried into pain, sensation and perception in order that the eternal stillness may attain motion, and that the powers for the production of the Word may be manifes ted. We are not on this account to understand that the Eternal

RAD-10 Lecture 10


-CPAGE 5

comes into a state of pain any more than light comes into such a state of fire. Nature is the instrument of the still Eternity, by which it forms, makes and separates, and therein embodies itself in a kingdom of joy, for the eternal will manifests its word by means of nature. The word takes to itself nature in the scientia; however, the eternal One assumes no nature, but dwells through nature like the sun in the elements. The eternal will comprehends itself in wisdom and breathes forth this comprehension. Its will in the outbreathing of its power in the temperament forms itself into a desire for separation and for manifestation of powers, that there may shine forth in the One an infinite plurality of powers as an eternal gleam or lustre, and that the eternal One may be divisible, perceptible, sentient, and essential. In this scientia or desire, the eternal Nature begins, and in Nature being begins, that is to say, a spiritual being, namely, the Mysterium Magnum (the Great Mystery), or the revealed God, as it might be expressed, the Divine manifestation. In nature one is always set in opposition to another, yet not to the end that hostility should show itself, but that in conflict the one should excite and reveal the other, so that Mysterium Magnum should enter into divisibility. There should be in the eternal One an elevation and joyfulness, and the Nothing in and through something should have wherewith to operate and play. This is the Spirit of God, who has through wisdom introduced himself from eternity into such a spiritual mysterium for the contemplation of himself. This mysterium he likewise brought into a beginning for creation and for time, and compacted it into a being and notion of four elements, and has thus made visible with and in time what is invisible and spiritual. We will show you the true figure of this in the world, that is, in sun, stars, and elements, and in the mystery from which the four elements arise. The sun shines in the deep of the world, and its rays kindle the Ens of the earth from which everything grows. We understand also that the sun kindles the Ens in the great mystery or spiritus mundi, (spirit of the world), that is, in sulphur, mercury, and salt. By this magical fire is revealed from which air, water, and earthiness have their origin. The single element in the great mystery of the outer world thereafter divides into four elements. These exist before in the mystery, but they lie in the scientia united together in the

RAD-10 Lecture 10


magnetic impression, hidden in the great mystery, substance in one being.

-CPAGE 6

and have their

As the power and rays of the sun disclose the mystery of the outer world so that creatures and plants proceed from it, so the mystery of the outer world is a cause by which the sun's rays are disclosed and enkindled. If the great mystery in sulphur, salt, and mercury, of a spiritual nature, existed not in the spiritus mundi, namely, in the scientia of the properties of the stars which is a quintessence above the four elements, then the sun's rays could not be manifested. Because the sun is nobler and a degree deeper in nature than the mystery of the outer world, that is, than the spiritus mundi in sulphur, salt, and mercury in the quintes sence of the stars, it penetrates into the outer mystery and kindles it and itself too. As the sun introduces its desire into the mystery, i.e. into salt, sulphur, and mercury in order to manifest itself in them, so the mystery brings its desire out of the quintessence of the stars through the first three towards the sun as its nature-god, which is the soul of the great mystery in the outer elemental world, a similitude of the hidden inner God. The most High has spoken forth the sun and stars into a time out of his everspeaking Word, out of the Great Mystery, which is wholly spiritual, for a likeness of his own being, and has exhibited the Eternal in a time by means of a figure in which all creaturely life has its origin and dominion. God is the eternal Sun as eternal scientia or nature, Sun-power or Majesty, for out God in his power could become

the eternal one Good, but out of the he would not be manifest with his of Nature there was nothing in which manifest.

The eternal one Good, as the Word of the holy mental tongue, the most holy Jehovah speaks out of the temperament of his own being into the scientia for nature. This Word he speaks forth into a distinction or into an opposition only in order that his holy powers may become separable and enter into the splendor of Majesty, for they must be manifested by means of the fiery nature. For the eternal will brings his heart, namely his power, out through fire into a great triumph of joy. In fire is death. The eternal Nothing dies in the fire, and from the dying comes holy life. The Nothing or the Unity thus takes an eternal life into itself, so that it becomes sentient, but proceeds again out of the fire as a nothing. As indeed we see that

RAD-10 Lecture 10


light shines from fire, and yet as a nothing, loving, giving, working virtue. - - -

RAD-10-10

493

— o o o O o o o

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-CPAGE 7

that is, merely a

Jacob Boehme.pdf

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