148 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
in one substance, or as yellow, white, red and blue
mingled in a dark water; where it is as blue in
green, yet each has its lustre, and shines. And the
water checks the fire, so that there is no consuming
there, but an eternal essence or substance in
two mysteries united in one another, and yet the
distinction of two principles as two kinds of life.
5. And thus we understand here the essence of
ail beings, and that it is a magical essence, as a
will can create itself in the essential life, and so enter
into a birth, and in the great Mystery, in the origin
of fire, awaken a source which before was not mani-
fest, but lay hidden in mystery like a, gleam in the
multiplicity of colours; as we have a mirror of
this in the devils and in all malignity. And we
recognize also from whence all things, evil and
good, take their origin, namely from the Imagina-
tion in the great Mystery, where a wonderful
essential life generates itself.
6. As we have a sufficient knowledge thereof
by the creatures of this world, as where the divine
Life awakened once for all the Nature-life, when it
brought forth such wonderful creatures from the
essential mystery; whereby we understand that
every essence is come to be a mysterium or a life,
and also that in the great Mystery there is a
magical craving, so that the craving of every
essence makes in its turn a mirror, to see and to
know itself in the mirror.
7. And then the craving seizes this (namely
the mirror), brings it into its imagination, and
finds that it is not of its life. Hence opposition
arises and loathing, so that the craving would