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SIX THEOSOPBIC POINTS
AND OTHER WRITINGS
AND OTHER WRITINGS

»v

JACOB B011MK

NKWl.V T

JOHN ROLLKSTON KAULK

H llV

, M,A.

LON DON
CONSTABLE AND COMPANY LTD
I tt i i>
Printed in Great Britain
CONTENTS
SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE READER
THE FITIST POINT. Of the springing of the three
ciples, etc. ......
Chapter I. Of the first growth and life fro
first Principle, etc. .
Chapter II. Of the proprium of the priricip
THE SECOND POINT. Of the mixed tree of evi
good, etc. .......
Chapter III. ......
THE THIRD POINT. Of the origin of eontrari
growth, etc. .....
Chapter IV......
THE FOURTH POINT. How the holy and good i
eternal life grows through and out of all the g:
of the three principles,, etc. .
Chapter V......
Chapter VI......
THE FIFTH POINT. How a life may perish in the
devils dwell, etc....... 89

Chapter IX........ 89

Chapter X. Of the four elements of the devil and

of the dark world, etc..... 102

SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
PREFACE ........
THE FIRST POINT. On the blood and water of the soul
THE SECOND POINT. On the election of grace, etc.
THE THIRD POINT. On sin, etc. ....
THE FOURTH POINT. How Christ will deliver up the
kingdom to his Father . . . . 129
THE FIFTH POINT. On Magic. What Magic is, etc. . 181
THE SIXTH POINT. On Mystery. What it is . . 136
ON THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY
MYSTERY
THE FIRST TEXT....... 141
THE SECOND TEXT . . ... . . .142
THE THIRD TEXT...... . 148
THE FOURTH TEXT....... 144
THE FIFTH TEXT....... 147
THE SIXTH TEXT........ 150
THE SEVENTH TEXT . . . . . . . 158
THE EIGHTH TEXT....... 157
THE NINTH TEXT . . , . . , 161
CONTENTS vii
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
PAGE
CHAPTER I. What God is, etc...... 165
CHAPTER II. Of the mind, will, and thoughts of human
life, etc. . ...... 179
CHAPTER III. Of the natural ground, etc. . . . 190
CHAPTER IV. Of the In and Out, etc..... 207
SEX PUNCTA THEOSOPHICA

OR

HIGH AND DEEP GROUNDING OF

SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS

B\r

JACOB BOHME

AN OPEN GATE OF ALL THE SECRETS OF LIFE

WHEREIN THE CAUSES OF ALL BEINGS

BECOME KNOWN

Written in the year 1620
AUTHOR'S PREFACE TO THE READER
WE have written this work, not for the irrational
animals who, in their exterior, have the form of
man, bat in their image, in spirit, are evil and wild
beasts, which is disclosed and exhibited by their
properties; but for the image of man, for those
who are budding forth out of the animal image
with a human image that belongs to God's kingdom,
and who would fain live and grow in the human
image, in the right man. Those who are often
and much hindered by the contrarious life, and thus
are involved in the mixed life, and travail in desire
for the birth of the holy life : for them are these
writings written. And we bid them not regard it
as impossible to discern and to know such mystery ;
and we give them this to consider of in a similitude.
Let them imagine a life which is the outcome and
growth of all lives, and is mixed. But let them also
imagine another life to grow in it from all the lives,
which, though it had grown from all the lives, was
free from all the other lives, and yet possessed all the
essential properties of those lives. This other new
life (let them imagine) is illuminated with the light,
Q-nrl rvnlxr in ife^lf • QA t-Vmt. it. r»rmlrl V^VinlH all
4 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
in and of God. This new image, born in the life
of God, beholds all the natural lives, and nothing
is strange or difficult to it; for it beholds only its
root from which it grew. As a fair flower grows
out of the rough earth, which is not like the earth;
but declares by its beauty the power of the earth,
and how it is mixed of good and evil; so also is
every man, who, out of the animal, wild, earthly
nature and quality, is born again so as to become
the right image of God.
For those who are a growth of such a kind, and
are shooting forth into the fair lily in the kingdom
of God, and are in process of birth, have we written
this book; that they should strengthen their essences
therein, bud in the life of God, and grow and bear
fruit in the tree of paradise. And seeing all the
children of God grow in this tree, and each is a
twig of this same tree, we have wished to impart
to our twigs and fellow-branches in our tree, in
which we all are, and from which we all grow, our
sap, savour and essence, that our tree of paradise
may become great, and that we may rejoice one
with another. And we would urge all children, who
are thus growing in this tree, friendly to ponder
that each branch and twig helps to shelter /the
other from the storm, and we commend ourselves
unto their love and growth.
THE FIRST POINT
4
Or THE SPRINGING OF THE THREE PRINCIPLES.
WHAT SORT OF TREE OR LIFE EACH GENERATES
IN ITSELF AND FROM ITSELF. HOW WE ARE
TO INVESTIGATE AND KNOW THE GROUND OF
NATURE.
CHAPTER I
Of the first growth and life from the first Principle.
That we are so to ponder and consider it, as if it
stood alone and were not mixed with the other,—
what its power might be. That, therefore, we
are not to think of it as being such that it is one
and united in a single figure or creation ; but
[we are to think of it so] that we learn to explore
and fathom the centrum naturae, and to distin-
guish the divine Essence from Nature.
1. We see and find that every life is essential,
and find moreover that it is based on will; for will
is the driving of the essences.
2. It is thus, as if a hidden fire lay in the will,
and the will continually uplifting itself towards the
fiY»A \xnelip>rl fir* Q.wa.lrAn flnrl IrinrllA if".
6 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
only.a shadow without substance; for it has no
conductor, but sinks down and suffers itself to be
driven and led like a dead thing,—such as is to be
compared to a shadow, which is led along without
essence.
4. Thus an unessential will is a dumb existence
without comprehension or life; and yet is a figure
in the unfathomable eternal nothing, for it is
attached to the corporeal things.
5. Now, as the will without essence is dumb and
without being, so in the essence it is a being and
image according to the essences, which is fashioned
after the essences; for the life of the will is generated
from the essences.
6. Thus life is the essences5 son, and the will,
wherein life's figure stands, is the essences' father;
for no essence can arise without will. For in the
will is originated desire, in which the essences take
their rise.
7. Seeing then the first will is an ungrounded-
ness, to be regarded as an eternal nothing, we
recognize it to be like a mirror, wherein one sees
his own image; like a life, and yet it is no life,
but a figure of life and of the image belonging to life.
8. Thus we recognize the eternal Unground out
of Nature to be like a mirror. For it is like an eye
which sees, and yet conducts nothing in the seeing
wherewith it seesr; for seeing is without essence,
a spirit, but a form of spirit, like the reflection in
the mirror. For all the form of a spirit is seen in
the reflection or in the mirror, and yet there is
nothing which the eye or mirror sees; but its seeing
is in itself, for there is nothing before it that were
deeper there. It is like a mirror which is a con-
tainer of the aspect of Nature, and yet comprehends
not Nature, as Nature comprehends not the form
of the image in the mirror.
10. And thus one is free from the other, and yet
the mirror is truly the container of the image. It
embraces the image, and yet is powerless in respect
of the form, for it cannot retain it. For if the
image depart from the mirror, the mirror is a clear
brightness, and its brightness is a nothing; and
yet all the form of Nature is hidden therein as a
nothing ; and yet veritably is, but not in essence.
11. And so it is to be understood concerning the
hidden eternal wisdom of God, which resembles
an eternal eye without essence. It is the unground,
and yet sees all; all has been hidden in it from
eternity, and therefrom it has its seeing. But it is
not essential, as in the mirror the brightness is
not essential, which yet embraces all that appears
before it.
12. Secondly, this is to be understood also of the
eternal will, which likewise is without essence, as
also of the Spirit of God. For no seeing is without
spirit, neither is any spirit without seeing. And
we understand thus, that seeing shines forth from
the spirit, and is its eye or mirror, wherein the
will is revealed. For seeing makes a will, as the
no ground nor limit; hence its mirror goeth into
itself, and makes a ground in itself, that is a will.
13. Thus the mirror of the eternal eye shines
forth in the will, and generates to itself another
eternal ground within itself. This is its centre or
heart, from which the seeing continually takes its
rise from eternity, and through which the will be-
comes moving and directive, namely of that which
the centre brings forth.
14. For all is comprised in the will, and is an
essence, which, in the eternal Unground, eternally
takes its rise in itself, enters into itself, grasps
itself in itself, and makes the centre in itself; but
with that which is grasped passes out of itself,
manifests itself in the brightness of the eye, and
thus shines forth out of the essence in itself and
from itself. It is its own, and yet also in com-
parison to Nature is as a nothing (understand,
in comparison to palpable being, so to speak);
though it is all, and all arises from thence.
15. And herein we understand the eternal Es-
sence of the triad of the Deity, with the un-
fathomable wisdom. For the eternal will, which
comprehends the eye or the mirror, wherein lies
the eternal seeing as its wisdom, is Father. And
that which is eternally grasped in wisdom, the
grasp comprehending a basis or centre in itself,
passing out of the ungroundedness into a ground,
is Son or Heart; for it is the Word of life, or its
essentiality, in which the will shines forth with
lustre.
16. And the going within itself to the centre of
eternity continually finds where there is nothing.
It goes forth again from the centre of the ground,
and seeks in the wilL And then the mirror of the
eye, viz. the Father's and Son's wisdom, becomes
manifest; and wisdom stands accordingly before
the Spirit of God, who in it manifests the unground.
For its virtue, wherein the colours of the wonders
shine forth, is revealed from the Father of the
eternal will through the centre of his Heart or
Ground by the forthgoing Spirit.
17. For it (wisdom) is that which is uttered,
which the Father utters out of the centre of the
Heart by the Holy Spirit, and stands in divine
forms and images, in the ocular view of the
Holy Tri-unity of God; but as a virgin without
bringing forth. It generates not the colours and
figures which shine forth in it, and are revealed in
the ground and essence; but all is together an
eternal Magia, and dwells with the centre of the
heart in itself, and by the spirit goes forth from the
centre out of itself, and manifests itself in the eye
of virgin wisdom endlessly.
18. For as the essence of the Deity has no ground
from which it arises or proceeds, so also the Will-
spirit has no ground where it might rest, where
there were a place or limit, but it is called Wonder-
ful. And its word or heart, from which it goes
forth, is called the eternal Power of the Deity ; and
the will which generates the heart and the power
in itself is called eternal Counsel.
19. Thus the essence of the Deity is everywhere
in the deep of the unground, like as a wheel pr eye,
is no place found for it, for it is itself th
of all beings and the fulness of all things,
is apprehended or seen by nothing. For :
eye in itself, as Ezekiel the prophet saw tl
figure at the introduction of the spirit of his A
God, when his spiritual figure was introduc
the wisdom of God by the Spirit of God ; 1
attained the vision, and in no other way can
The Second Text.
20. We understand, then, that the divine
in threefoldness in the unground dwells i]
but generates to itself a ground within its
the eternal word or heart, which is the ce
goal of rest in the Deity; though this is
be understood as to being, b\it as to a ti
spirit, where each is the cause of the birtl
other. .
21. And this threefold spirit is not mea
divisible or fathomable ; for there is no plac
for it, and it is at the same time the ungr
eternity, which gives birth to itself within
a ground. And no place or position can
ceived or found where the spirit of the tri-
not present, and in every being; but hidde:
being, dwelling in itself, as an essence that
fills all and yet dwells not in being, but itsc
being in itself; as we are to reflect concen
ground and unground, how the two are to b<
stood in reference to each other.
22. Thus, we understand eternity : (1)
THE FIRST POINT 11
was before the times of the creation of this world.
(2) What the divine Essence is in itself without a
principle. (3) What the eternal beginning in the
unground is, and the eternal end in its own ground
generated in itself, viz. the centre to the word,
which word is the centre itself. (4) And yet the
eternal birth of the Word in the will, in the mirror
of the eternal wisdom, in the virgin, continually
takes place from eternity to eternity without a
genetrix or without bringing forth.
23. And in this virgin of the wisdom of God
the eternal principle is as a hidden fire, which is
recognized as in a mirror by its colours. It has
been known from eternity to eternity in figure, and
is known also thus to all eternity in the eternal
origin, in wisdom.
24. And in this mirror, where the principle is
disclosed from the eternal Unground, the essence
of the three principles, according to the likeness of
the holy triad, has been seen with their wonders as
in an unfathomable deep, and that from eternity.
25. We are now to understand that the first
Principle is magical in origin ; for it is generated in
desire, in the will. Hence its craving and contra-
will to bring forth is also magical, namely to bring
forth the second Principle.
26. And whereas in the first and second principle
only a spirit without comprehensible [corporeal]
is
centre is fire, which cannot subsist without sub-
stance ; therefore its hunger and desire is after
substance.
28. And in regard to the first principle, if we
speak only of one (though it is not single and soli-
tary), we are to understand that the unfathomable
will in the centre of the unground, in which the
eternal Word is continually generated from eternity,
is desirous ; for the will desires the centre, viz. the
word or heart.
29. Secondly, it desires that the heart should be
manifest. For in the unground there is no mani-
festation, but an eternal nothingness ; a stillness
without being or colours, neither any virtue—
(but in Desire colours, power and virtue ceme to
be)—and is thus hidden in itself, and were eternally
not manifest; for there would be no light, splendour
or majesty, but a threefold spirit in itself9 which
were without source (Qual) of any being.
30. And thus we are to understand the essence of
the deepest Deity, without and beyond Nature.
31. Further, we are to understand that the
eternal will of the Deity desires to manifest itself
from its own ground in the light of Majesty, where-
by we apprehend the first will of the Father to the
Son and to the light of Majesty to be desirous.
And that in two ways : The first way to the centre
of the Word; the second to Light or manifestation
of the Word. And we find that every desire is
attrahent, though in the unground there is nothing
that can be drawn; hence the desire draws itself,
and impregnates the other will of the Father,
centre of his word or heart.
32. Now is the heart pregnant with Light, and
the first will pregnant with Nature; and yet were
none of this manifest, if the principle were not
generated.
33. The Father generates from the first will the
first Principle, as the nature which in fire attains
to the highest perfection ; and then he generates
the second Principle in and from the other will tc
the \Vord, in that he desires the manifestation of the
Word in the light of Majesty. Thus the fire of the
second principle in the light of Majesty is a satis-
fying or appeasing of the first will: namely gentle-
ness, which is opposed to the fire of the first prin-
ciple, and quenches its fierce wrath, and brings it
into an essential substance as into an eternal life.
But the fire is hidden in the light, and gives to the
light its power, strength and might, so that to-
gether there is an eternal union, and one without
the other would not be.
Of the first Principle in itself ; what it is
(singly) in itself.
34. We are to consider Desire; lor every desire
attracts what is in the desiring will.
35. God, however, desires only light, viz. the
lustre from his heart, that he may shine forth in
wisdom, and the whole God thus be manifest in
himself, and by the forth-going Spirit out of him-
self, in the virgin of his wisdom; and that there be
an eternal perfect joy, delight and satisfaction in him.
way than through fire, where the will is brot
the deepest sharpness of omnipotence, as it
consuming in fire. Contrariwise, light is ;
ness of the genetrix of the onrni-substanl
37. But fire must have a genetrix to i
and life, and here it appears in two lives and
And they are rightly called two principles., ;
there is only one ; but it is a twofold sour<
being, and is in respect of the source rcg;
two beings, as is to be seen in fire and light
38. We now consider Desire, and find t
a stern attraction, like an eternal elev
motion. For it draws itself into itself, an
itself pregnant, so that from the thin
where there is nothing a darkness is p
For the desiring will becomes by the dr
thick and full, although there is noth
darkness.
39. The first will would now be free f
darkness, for it desires light, and yet can]
attain it. For the greater the desire is for 1
the greater becomes the attraction and t
of the essences, which take their rise in the
or desire.
40. Thus the will draws the more stron
itself, and its pregnancy becomes the grea
yet the darkness cannot comprehend the <
the word or heart of the ternary; for thi
is a degree deeper in itself, and yet is a bane
41. But the first will, in which the gest
Nature takes place, is deeper still than th
of the word, for it arises from the eternal U
shut up in the midst, the first will of the Father
labouring to the birth of fire.
42. Now, we are to understand that in the stern
attraction a very unyielding substance and being is
produced. And so then substance from eternity
has its origin; for the drawing gives sting, and the
drawn gives hardness, matter from nothing, a
substance and essentiality. The sting of the draw-
ing dwells now in this essentiality, pierces and
breaks; and all this from the desiring will which
draws.
43. And here we are to recognize two forms ol
Nature, viz. sour (astringent), that is, Desire, and
then the sting, which makes in the desire a breaking
and piercing, whence feeling arises, that is, bitter,
and is the second form of Nature, a cause and
origin of the essences in Nature.
44. Now the first will is not satisfied with this,
nor set at rest, but is brought thereby into a very
great anguish; for it desires freedom in light, and
yet, however, there is no brightness in freedom,
Then it Mis into terrible anguish, and so uplifts
the desii*e for freedom, that the anguish, as a dying
or sinking down through death, introduces its wil
into freedom out of the breaking, piercing, anc
powerful attracting.
45. Here, then, we understand the will in twc
ways : One, which rises in fierceness to generatior
of the wrath-fire; the other, which imaginates aftei
the centre of the word, and, passing out of th«
anguish, as through a dying, sinks into the free life ;
and thus brings with it a life out of the tormenl
sod as a life, and from the Nothing an
5 springs.
ing then the first movement of the will
ie birth of fire, we recognize it as the first
;z. the Father's nature in .fierce \yrath ;
)ther entrance of the will into freedom,
centre of the heart, we recognize as the
iturc, as the life in light, in the power of
is now clear what the firsb will to fire
ind effects, viz. stern, hard, bitter, and
Liish, which is the third form of Nature ;
>h is as the centre where life and will
take their rise. For the will would be
the great anguish, and yet cannot. It
', and yet is held by the sourness (astrin-
ind the greater the will for flight becomes,
sr becomes the bitter sting of the essences
lity.
being unable then to flee or ascend, it
a wheel. And here the essences become
id the plurality of essences enters into a
L, which is rightly called the eternal mind,
rality in numberless essences is comprised
I, where always from an essence a will
f arise according to the property of that
,'hence the eternal wonders spring,
ing then the great and strong mind of the
nguish goes thus in itself as a wheel, and
y breaks the stern attraction, and by
brings into plurality of essences; but in
n the wheel disposes again into a one, as
ire, where there is a moving, driving,
(ding, as also a feeling, tasting and
yet it is not a right life, but only
without a principle. For it has no
i like a frenzy or madness, where
i whirling in itself as a wheel, where
; a bond of life, but without undcr-
owledge ; for it knows not itself.
\vc are to inquire concerning the
the eternal Father which is called
the centre of its heart desires light
station of the triad in wisdom. This
ircctcd towards the centrum naturae,
iturc must; the splendour of Majesty
is other will in the Word of life has
elf; and the angnishful will in the
'aturc desires freedom, that freedom
2aled in the anguish of the fierce
then also anguish arises, that the
:s to be free from the dark .sourness
and freedom desires manifestation;
ind itself in itself without sharpness
the will of freedom, which is called
to manifest itself, mul that it cannot
pcrties.
:rcforc desirous of properties, which
n anguish, in essences, in Ore, thereby
. wonders, power and colours, which
i cannot be.
ic first will (which is called Father,
B
with great longing desires freedom, that it may
be released from the torment of anguish. And it
receives freedom in its sharp fierceness in the
imagination, at which it is terrified as a flash; for
it is a terror of joy that it is released from the
torment of anguish.
55. And in the terror arise two beings, a mortal
one and a living one, to be understood thus :
56. The will which is called Father, which has
freedom in itself, so generates itself in Nature,
that it is susceptible of Nature, and that it is the
universal power of Nature.
57. The terror of its Nature is a kindler of fire.
For when the dark anguish, as the very fervent,
stern being, receives freedom in itself, it is trans-
formed in the terror, in freedom, into a flash, and
the flash embraces freedom or gentleness. Then
the sting of death is broken; and there rises in
Nature the other will of the Father, which he drew
prior to Nature in the mirror of wisdom, viz. his
heart of love, the desire of love, the kingdom of joy.
58. For in the Father's will fire is thus generated,
to which the other will gives the power of gentleness
and love. The fire takes the love-quality into its
essence, and that is now its food, so that it burns,
and gives from the consumption, from the terror,
the joyous spirit.
59. That is, here, the Holy Spirit, who originally
prior to Nature is the Father's Will-spirit, becomes
manifest, and receives here the power of wonders;
and proceeds thus from the Father (viz. from the
first will to Nature), from the other will in Nature,
love, into the substantiality of gentleness
60. For gentleness is also become desi]
fire's property, and the desire draws the
of the kingdom of joy into itself. That
water of eternal life, which the fire drinks
therefrom the light of Majesty.
61. And in the light dwells the will of
and of the Son, and the Holy Spirit is the ]
He reveals now the power of the gentle (
in the light, and that is colours, wo
virtues.
62. And this is called virgin Wisdom
not a genetrix, neither itself reveals
but the Holy Spirit is the revealer of it
It is his vesture and fair adornment, j
it the wonders, colours and virtues of
world ; it is the house of the Holy Trinil
ornament of the divine and angelic worL
63. In its colours and virtues the I
has revealed the choirs of angels, as wel
marvels of created things, all which
beheld from eternity in wisdom; witl
indeed, but in wisdom as in the mirror
to their figures; which figures have in
of the Father advanced into essence i
creaturely existence, all according to tl
of wisdom.
64. Now, understand us also concernir
being, where in the terror Nature divid
beings, as mentioned above: viz. one t!
Father's will into fire or into the fire-^
one through the Father's other will tha
world.
65. And the other being, viz. the house of terror
in itself, in death, in the darkness of the hostile
source (Qual), which must stand thus in order that
there may be an eternal longing in this anguish to
be freed from the source. For this longing makes
the first will to Nature eternally desirous to come
to the aid of its being. Whence then in the
Father's will mercy arises, which enters with free-
dom into the anguish, but cannot remain in the
anguish, but goes forth in fire into the source of
love.
66. That is, his other will, or his heart, issues in
him as a fountain of love and mercy, from whence
compassion has its origin, so that there is a pity
on distress and misery, and a sympathy ; viz. here,
the Father's will, which is free, reveals itself in the
fierceness of Nature, so that the fierce wrathfulness
is mitigated.
67. But nevertheless on one part the terrible
wheel of fierceness continues independently. For
in the terror a mortification is brought about, not
indeed a still death, but a mortal life; and re-
sembles the worst thing, as is an aqua fortis or a
poison in itself. For such a thing must be, if the
centrum naturae is to subsist eternally.
68. And on the other part life proceeds out of
death, and death must therefore be a cause of life.
Else, if there were no such poisonous, fierce, fervent
source, fire could not be generated, and there could
be no essence nor fiery sharpness ; hence also there
would be no light, and also no finding of life.
itself thus in wonders ; and the other will, which is
called Son. finds itself thus in power. Moreover,
thus also the kingdom of joy arises ; for if there were
no pain, there were also no joy. But this is the
kingdom of joy, that life is delivered from anguish,
although life has its origin thus.
70. And therefore the creatures have poison, viz.
a gall, for their life. The gall is the cause that there
is a mobility by which life rises; for it occasions
fire in the heart, and the right life is fire, but it is
not the figure of life.
71. From the fire-life springs the right spirit,
which goes forth from fire in the light; it is free
from fire as air, which nevertheless arises from
fire, is free from fire.
72. For the right spirit, or in man the spirit which
is generated from the soul's fire, has its property
in the Light of life, which burns from fire. For it
arises from death, it proceeds out of death, the
hostile source has remained away from it in fire,
and below fire, in the cause of fire, viz. in fierce
wrathful death.
73. Fierce wrathful death is thus a root of life.
And here, ye men, consider your death and also
Christ's death, who has begotten us again out of
death, through the fire of God ; for out of death is
the free life born. Whatever can go out from
death is released from death and the source of
wrath. That is now its kingdom of joy, that there
is no longer any fierce source in it; it has remained
away from it in death (in the dark world). And
thus out of death life attains eternal freedom,
22 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
where there is no more any fear or terror; for in
life the terror is broken.
74. The right life is a power of joy, a perpetual
well-being and pleasing delight; for there is no
pain in it, save only a desire, which has all the
property of pain, and yet the pain cannot uplift
itself in it so as to kindle its property therein, for
light and freedom hinder that.
CHAPTER II
Of the proprium of the principle. What the principle
is, or what they all three are.
1. When life and movement appears, which pre-
viously existed not, a principle is present. Fire is
a principle with its property, and light is also a
principle with its property, for it is generated from
fire, and yet is not the fire's property. It has also
its own life in itself, but fire is cause thereof, and
the terrible anguish is a cause of both.
2. But the will to anguish, which gives birth to
the anguishful nature, and which is called Father,
that it is impossible to search out. We inquire
only how it brings itself into the highest perfec-
tion, into the being of the Holy Trinity; and how
it manifests itself in three principles, and how the
essence of each source arises; what essence is,
whence life with the senses has its origin, and the
wonder of all beings.
3. Thus, we recognize the third principle, or the
source of this world, with the stars and elements,
to be a creation from the marvels of the eternal
wisdom.
4. The third principle manifests the first two,
though each is manifest in itself. But the eternal
Being has willed in his wonders, which have been
beheld in wisdom, to manifest himself in such a
property, viz. according to the ground of eternity,
has created all into a creaturely and figurative
being, evil and good according to the eternal origin.
As we plainly see that in this world there is evil and
good; of which, however, the devils are a great
cause, who in their creation have at the fall moved
more vehemently the fierce matrix in the wrath,
God having moved himself more exceedingly
according to the property of wrath, to cast them
forth out of light into the death of fierce wrath-
fulness ; whereby also the heavenly Essence was
moved, so that very much which stood in freedom
has become shut up in the earthly essence.
5. As we see in gold and its tincture, which is
free from the earthly essence. For it resists fire
and every quality, no quality can hold it in check,
but only God's will; and that must come to pass
repeatedly by reason of the unworthiness of the
world.
6. And if we rightly consider the creation of this
world and the spirit of the third principle, viz. the
spirit of the great world with the stars and elements,
we find therein the property of the eternal world
as it were mixed, like unto a great marvel, whereby
God, the highest good, has willed to manifest and
bring into being the eternal wonders which existed
in mystery.
7. We find good and evil, and we find in all
things the centrum naturae, or the torture-chamber.
But we find especially the spirit of the great
world in two sources, viz. in heat and cold.
Here, by cold we understand the centre of the
sour sharp fierceness, and by heat the principle
another.
8. Fire arises from the fierceness of the cold, and
cold from the centrum naturae, viz. from the sour
sharp anguish, wher6 the sourness (astringency)
contracts so strongly into itself and makes sub-
stance. As we are to know that in the motion
of the Father at creation it has made earth and
stones, although there was no matter for this,
but only His own being, which is generated in two
principles, viz. in the light-world and world of
death, in two desires.
9. That which the fierceness attained in the
motion became shaped into the terrestrial globe.
And we find therein a diversity of things, evil and
good; and it often happens that from the worst
may be made the best, because the centrum naturae
is therein. If it be brought into fire, the pure child
of the eternal Essence may be extracted from it;
when it is liberated from death, as is to be seen in
gold.
10. In this world, however, we cannot attain
the eternal fire, and therefore also can develop
nothing from this principle. That is want of the
eternal fire, which we do not reach but in imagina-
tion only, by which a man has power to lead life
out of death and bring it into the divine sub-
stantiality. This can be done only in man; but
what is outside of man belongs to God, and remains
unto the renovation, to the end of this time.
11. And thus we give you to understand the
nature and property of the principles. The first
Principle lies in the fire of the will, and is a cause
and is an upholding of Nature, as well as of all the
properties of the Father.
12. The second Principle lies in light, as in the
fire of desire. This desire makes substance from
the property of the first principle.
18. The first and second principle are Father and
Son in eternity. One dwells in the other, and yet
each retains its property. There is no mixing in
the essence; but one receives the other in desire,
and the light dwells in the fire's desire, so that the
fire's property gives its desire to the light, and the
light to the fire.
14. Thus there is one being and not two, but
two properties, whereof one is not tH other, nor
eternally can become so., As the spiiit's property
cannot be fire and light, and yet proceeds from
fire out of light, and could not subsist either from
fire or from light alone. Fire alone could not give
it, neither could light, but the two give it. It is
the life of both, and is one being only, but three
properties, whereof one is not the other, as is to
be seen in fire, light and air.
15. The third Principle has just these properties.
It has also fire, light and spirit, that is, air; and
is in all particulars like to the eternal Being. But
it has a beginning, and proceeds from the Eternal;
it is a manifestation of the Eternal, an awakening,
image and similitude of the Eternal. It is not the
Eternal; but an essence has arisen in the eternal
Desire, which has manifested itself therein and
brought itself into a being like the Eternal.
16. Reason says : God has made this world out
no substance or matter that were outwardly pal-
pable ; but there was such a form in the eternal
power in the will.
17. The creation of this world was brought about
by an awakening of the Will-spirit. The inner
will, which exists within in itself, has stirred up its
own nature, as the centre, which, passing out of
itself, is desirous of the light which is pressing forth
from the centre. Thus the centre has seized out
of itself a being in desire; that is, it has seized
or made for itself being in its own imagination
in desire, and has also laid hold of the light's
nature.
18. It has with the beginning laid hold of the
Eternal; and therefore the beings of this world
must enter by figure again into the Eternal, for
they have been apprehended in the Eternal. But
whatever was made or seized from the beginning
in desire, that returns into its aether as into the
nothing, merely into the mirror of imagination again.
That is not of the Eternal, but is and belongs to
the eternal Magic in desire. Like as a fire swallows
up and consumes a substance whereof nothing
remains, but becomes again as it was when as yet
it was no substance.
19. And thus we give you to understand what
this world's existence is. Nothing else than a
coagulated smoke from the eternal aether, which
thus has a fulfilment like the Eternal. It shuts
itself in a centrum of a substance, and finally con-
sumes itself again; and returns again into the
eternal Magic, and is but for a while a wonder as a
which is manifest in itself, manifests itself also out
of itself, and pours out its imagination; and thus
renews that which was seized or made by the
motion in desire, that the end may again enter
into the beginning.
20. For nothing can enter into the freedom of the
Eternal, except it be like the Eternal, subsist in the
fire of the will, and be as subtle as the light's sub-
stantiality, that is, as a water which can dwell in
a being wherein the light can dwell, and convey
its lustre through. This is not laid hold of by the
centrum naturae, and though it be the property of
Nature, yet it is something eternal.
21. Thus we give you to understand that all
that is born in this world, which has substance,
which proceeds not from the eternal Essence,
inherits not the Eternal; but its figure persists
magically in the eternal Mystery, for it went origin-
ally at creation out of the Eternal. But its body
and the entire substance of the source passes away,
as a smoke is consumed; for it is from the begin-
ning, and goeth into the end.
22. But whatever arises from the eternal Essence,
from the essentiality of the eternal Light, cannot
pass away. That only in it perishes, which, pro-
ceeding from the temporal, has entered into the
Eternal; as the outer flesh, which through imagina-
tion was in man introduced into the Eternal; that
must be consumed like smoke.
28. But whatever originating from the eternal
Imagination is re-introduced into the Eternal,
persists eternally; and that which is born from the
is in man the soul, remains eternally, for it has
arisen from the EternaL
24. But if something be born from the eternal
centre of wrath, that may enter into its renova-
tion, if it will. As the Eternal Nature of the
essence of external Nature renews itself, and aban-
dons that which it made in the beginning, and
retains only the magical image which it brought
out of the eternal will into the outward by the
Verbum Fiat at creation ; so may man also renew
that which he makes. If he abandon the earthly,
then he may renew that which he has progenerated
from the Eternal; but if it be not renewed, it
remains in the source.
25. For all that becomes not or is not as fire,
light and water, cannot subsist in freedom, but
remains in the source of that which it has awakened
or made in itself,—understand, from the centrum
naturae. Whatever it has. introduced into the
will of freedom will thus be for it a torment and
'gnawing, or contrary opposite will, which it has
generated from its own nature, by which it has
made freedom dark for itself, so that the light
cannot shine through. That will be its darkness.
26. For where the will is dark, there also the being
of the will, or its body, is dark; and where the will
is in torment, there also the body is in torment.
For which cause the children of the light of free-
dom will be separated in the source of anguish from
the children of darkness, each into its principle.
27. Further, we give you to understand that each
principle generates its own life according to its
30 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
property. But fire is the bound of separation
which satisfies the two eternal principles, darkness
and light. To the darkness it gives its sting and
the pang, and to the light its sensibility and life.
28. So also the third Principle has two properties,
viz. heat and cold. Heat is the principle, and gives
its sting and pang to the cold; and to the light
it gives life and sensibility. The light in its turn
gives its substantiality to the fire, so that it is
united amicably with it. The cold gives also its
property and substantiality to the fire, and the
fire breaks this, and makes from its substantiality
death and a dying. There is always, therefore, an
enmity between heat and cold, and they are never
at one.
29. But this they attain in their enmity, that
life buds through death; for from heat and cold
arises the growth of the third principle (in which
we live outwardly). From cold there comes fruit
out of the earth, as well as the body of all creatures,
and, in the elements, substance. From heat there
comes in its contention life into the body of all
creatures and plants; as also in the deep of the
elements it gives the spirit of the great world in
diversity of figures. That is to say, where cold
makes substance, there heat makes a spirit.
30. Thus is the Essence all in wrestling combat,
that the wonders of the eternal world may become
manifest in fragility, and that the eternal exemplar
in the wisdom of God may be brought into figures.
And that these models in the eternal Magic, in
Mystery, may stand eternally to God's glory, and
for the joy of angels and men; not indeed in
being, that it may be eternally known what God
has wrought, and what he can and is able to do.
31. For, after the dissolution of this world, there
remains in existence only what is eternal, as eternal
spirits with the eternal substantiality of their bodies,
together with the wonders wrought here, which
stand in figure magically, by which the spirits will
recognize the might and marvels of God.
32. We are now to consider the principles with
their wonders. These are all three none else than
the one God in his wonderful works, who has
manifested himself by this world according to the
property of his nature. And we are thus to under-
stand a threefold Being, or three worlds in one
another.
83. The first is the fire-world, which takes its
rise from the centrum naturae, and Nature from the
desiring will, which in eternal freedom has its
origin in the unground, whereof we have not nor
support any knowledge.
34. And the second is the light-world, which
dwells in freedom in the unground, out of Nature,
but proceeds from the fire-world. It receives its
life and sensibility from fire. It dwells in fire, and
the fire apprehends it not. And this is the middle
world.
35. Fire in the centrum naturae before its en-
kindling gives the dark world ; but is in its enkind-
ling in itself the world of light, when it separates
into light and leaves the centre in darkness, for it
is only a source in itself, and a cause of life.
36. It has creatures, but they are of the same
light were a pam. I5ut to tne taiien aevi
the principle were created in the world
to them the darkness is a pain, and fire *
or might, for it is their right life, although
to many properties, by virtue of the ccntrw
in accordance with that essence*
37. The third world is the outer, in
dwell by the outer body with the exteri
and beings. It was created from the ch
and also from the light-world, and there
evil and good, terrible and lovely. Of this
Adam was not to eat, nor imaginate i
but the three worlds Were to stand in hiir
that one might not comprehend the other,
himself. For Adam was created from all
worlds, an entire image and similitude of
38. But seeing he has eaten of evil and
introduced the outer into the middle,
must now break off from the middle ; and
tion takes place, in which the outer tni
into its aether, and the middle remains.
39. Thus, if one see a right man, he ;
I see here three worlds standing, but no*
For the outer world moves by the outer
the outer body has no power to move
world ; it has only introduced itself into
of light, whereby the light-world is beco
guished in man. He has, however, rei
be the dark world in himself; and the 1
stands in him immoveable, it is in him
hidden.
40. But if he be a right man by the i
water, and makes the essence mobile and desireful,
so that the essence buds. Thus it is with the new
man in the Light. And as we cannot move the light
of the sun, so neither can we move the eternal
Light or the light-world. It stands still and shines
through everything that is susceptible of it, what-
soever is thin like a nothing, as indeed fire and
water are ; though all is substantial, but in reference
to the external as a nothing.
41. Thus each principle has its growth from itself;
and that must be, else all were a nothing.
42. The principle of fire is the root, and it grows
in its root. It has in its proprium sour, bitter, fierce-
ness and anguish; and these grow in its proprium
in poison and death into the anguishful stern life,
which in itself gives darkness, owing to the drawing-
in of the harshness. Its properties make sulphur,
mercury and salt; though the fire's property
makes not Sul in sulphur, but the will of free-
dom makes Sul in Phur, whilst the principle goes
forward.
43. But what advances into its properties is
only Phur, viz. sternness, with the other forms in
the centre. This is the chief cause of life and of the
being of all things. Though it is bad in itself, yet
it is the most useful of all to life and the manifesta-
tion of life. For there could be no life without this
property, and this principle is grounded in the
internal and external world; in the internal as
imperceptible, in the external perceptible by its
fierceness.
44. The second Principle has also its growth from
perties. But the Light transforms the fierce wrath-
ful properties into a desire of love and joy. And
therefore the fire's essence and property is wholly
transformed in the Light, so that out of anguish
and pain comes a love-desire, out of the stinging
and raging a friendly sensible understanding.
45. For the Light kindles the essences with the
quality of love, so that they give from themselves
a growth in the property of the spirit: viz. a
friendly will, morality, virtue, piety, patience in
suffering, hope to be delivered from evil; con-
tinually speaking of God's wonderful works in
desire and joy, ringing forth, singing and rejoicing
in the works and wonders of God ; always desiring
to do right, to hinder evil and wickedness ; always
wishing to draw one's neighbour by love into the
world of light; fleeing from evil; always subduing
the evil affections with patience, in hope of being
released therefrom ; rejoicing in the hope of that
which the eyes see not and external Reason knows
not; continually pressing forth out of evil, and in-
troducing the desire into the divine Being; always
wishing to eat of God's bread.
46. These properties hath the new man who is
born again from the light-world. These are his
fruits, which the light-world continually brings forth
in him quite hiddenly to the old Adam, and continu-
ally mortifies the old Adam of this world, and is
always in combat with him. Which old Adam
must therefore follow the new man; in sooth like
a lazy ass wtyich is obliged to carry the sack, his
master continually lashing him on. Thus doth the
must do what he would fain not do. What pertains
to the joy of this world were more acceptable to the
old ass ; but he must thus be the servant.
47. Secondly, the principle has its growth,, and
gives its fruit to the third principle generally, viz,
to the spirit of the great world, so that the external
and internal turbo, are held in check. It presses
through and gives fruitfulness; it stays the fierce-
ness of the stars, and breaks the constellation of
the spirits and also of the firmamental heaven.
It resists the wrath of the devil and the devices
of wicked men, so far however as there are found
saints who are worthy of it.
48. The third Principle has also its growth ; and
therein were generated and created from what is
inward the stars and elements, which in this place
together with the sun are called the third principle.
For the two inward worlds, viz. the fire-world and
light-world, have manifested themselves by the
third principle; and all is mixed together, good
and evil, love and enmity, life and death. In every
life there is death and fire; also, contrariwise, a
desire of love, all according to the property of the
internal world. And two kinds of fruit grow there-
from, evil and good; and each fruit has both pro-
perties. They show themselves moreover in every
life in this world, so that wrath and the evil quality
are always fighting against love, each property
seeking and bearing fruit. What the good makes,
that the evil destroys; and what the evil makes,
that the good destroys. It is a perpetual war and
contention, for the properties of both the inward
36 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
principles are active externally; each bears and
produces fruit to the internal kingdom, each will
be lord.
49. Cold, as the issue from the inward centre,
from the fierceness of death, will be lord, and be
continually shutting up in death ; it always awakens
the sting of death. And heat, as the issue from the
right fire, will also be lord; it would subdue and
consume all, and will be always crude or unfashioned,
without a body. It is a spirit, and desires only a
spirit-life. It gives sting to the cold, for oftentimes
it kills it, so that it must forego its right and sur-
render itself to the heat.
50. In the same way the sun, or the light, will
also have reason and be lord. It overcomes heat
and cold, for it makes in its lucid gentleness water,
and introduces in the light's spirit a friendly spirit,
viz. the air; although fire gives the force of the
wind, and the sun the gentle spirit which is properly
called air. It is indeed one, but has two properties,
one according to the fire, as a terrible uplifting, and
one according to the light, as a gentle life.
51. The external principle is thus a perpetual
war and contention, a building and breaking ; what
the sun or the light builds, that the cold destroys,
and the fire consumes it entirely.
52. In, this struggle its growth rises in mere
combat and disunion; the one draws out of the
THE FIRST POINT 87
possesses only the life of the third principle, both
its spirit and body are only this. And all that
moves in this world, and man by his spirit and
visible body in flesh and blood, is also only the fruit
of this same essence, and nothing else at all.
54. But seeing he has in himself also the two
inward worlds (which give him the right under-
standing, discernment and disposition ; which also
during this time of the earthly and elemental body
are in conflict with one another), let him therefore
take heed; the world that he makes lord in him,
the same will eternally be lord in him. During
this time he can break, and no farther. When
the outward breaks, then all stands in its aether.
The soul is free, and is the punctum, and has the
understanding; it may incline whither it will, and
may support which principle it pleases; the aether
into which it enters, there it is eternally.
55. And thus we understand the foundation of
the three principles (like as the tongue of the beam
of a balance); what God and eternity is and is able
to do, and what growth each principle gives from
itself, from its property, and how we are to investi-
gate the ground of Nature.
Thus the first part or point is completed.
THE SECOND POINT

THE MIXED TREE OlfEVIL AND GOOD, OR THE LIFE
OF THE THREE PRINCIPLES IN ONE ANOTHER ;
HOW THEY UNITE AND AGREE.

CHAPTER III
1. In God's kingdom, viz. in the light-world, no
more than one principle is truly known. For the
Light rules, and the other sources and properties
all exist hiddenly as a mystery ; for they must
all serve the Light, and give their will to the Light.
And therefore the wrath-essence is transformed in
the Light into a desire of light and of love, into
gentleness.
2. Although the properties, viz. sour, bitter,
anguish and the sharp pang in fire remain eternally.,
even in the light- world, yet none of them is mani-
fest in its property ; but they are all of them
together only causes of life, mobility and joy.
3. That which in the dark world is a pang, is in
the light- world a pleasing delight ; and what in the
dark is a stinging and enmity, is in the light an
n\r Anrl -fliQf- txrihiirkVii im •Ho/"* rloi*!?- TO o
origin of the light-world ; and the terrible evil1 must
be a cause of the good, and all is God's.
5. But the light-world is only called God; and
the principle between the light-world and dark
world is called God's anger and fierce wrath. If
this be awakened, as by the devil and all wicked
men, these are then abandoned of the Light and
fall into the dark world.
6. The dark world is called death and hell, the
abyss, a sting of death, despair, self-enmity and
sorrowfulness; a life of malice and falsehood, in
which the truth and the light is not seen and is not
known. Therein dwell the devils and the damned
souls; also the hellish worms, which the Fiat of
death has figured in the motion of the omnipresent
Lord.
7. For hell hath in the darkness the greatest
constellation of the fervent, austere power. With
them all is audible as a loud noise. What rings in
the Light, knocks and thumps in the Dark, as is
to be? seen in the thing men use to strike upon,
that it gives a ringing sound. For the sound is not
the thing; as a bell that is rung is itself not a
sound, but only a hardness and a cause of the sound.
The bell receives the stroke as a knocking, and from
the hard knocking proceeds the ringing sound. The
reason is this, that in the matter of the bell there is
an (element, which, at creation, in the motion of the
omnipresent God, was shut up in the hardness;
as is to be seen in the metalline tincture, if mer
would not be so mad and blind.
8. We recognize, then, that in hell, in the abyss
but many hellish worms according to th
of their constellation, and void of und<
As in this world there are irrational
worms, toads and serpents—so has also
such in the fierce wrathful world. For
to be creaturely, and is gone into a beii
the wrath-mirror also exhibited its wo
manifested itself.
9. There is indeed no feeling of p£
hellish worms, for they are of the same e
property. It is their life, and is a nati
hidden to the outer world ; but the Spi
who in all three principles is himself
in accordance with each property, he kn
reveals it to whom he will.
10. If now we would say how the three
are united together, we must place £
middle as the highest force, which briiij
principle a satisfying life and a spirit that
There is, therefore, in the principles no
fire is the life of all the principles,—unde:
cause of life, not the life itself. To th
gives its pang, viz. the sting, so that <3
itself in a life; else the abyss were a st
gives it its fierceness, which is the life
and original condition of the abyss ;
were a still eternity and a nothing.
11. And to the light-world fire give
essence, else there were no feeling nor lig
and all were only one. And yet bey«
Nothing, as an eye of wonders that
itself, in which were no understanding
possible.
12. And to the third principle, viz. to the king-
dom of this world, fire gives also its essence and
quality, whereby all life and growth rises. All
sense, and whatever is to come to anything, must
have fire. There springs nothing out of the earth
without the essence of fire. It is a cause of all
the three principles, and of all that can be named.
13. Thus fire makes a union of all the three
principles, and is for each the cause of being. One
^principle fights not against another, but the essence
of each desires only its own, and is always in
combat; and if that were not, then all were a
still nothingness. Each principle gives to the
other its power and form, and there is a perpetual
peace between them.
14. The dark world has the great pain and
anguish which gives birth to fire, so that the will
longs after freedom, and freedom longs after mani-
festation, viz. after essences, and gives itself to
fierceness that it may thus manifest itself. And it
is brought thus into fire, so that from fierceness and
freedom a fire arises. It gives itself to fierceness
to swallow up in death; but passes out of death
with the received essences into a sphere of its own,
as into a special world or source; and dwells in
itself unapprehended by death and the dark world,
and is a light in itself.
15. Thus are death and fierceness a mother of
fire, also a cause of the light-world; a cause,
moreover, of all the essence of the third principle,
a cause of all the essences in all lives. How then
vehemently desires the other?
16. For the angelic light-world, and also this our
visible world, must have the essence of dark death
for their life and source; there is a continual
hunger after it.
17. But each principle makes the source accord-
ing to its property. It gives to the evil its good,
and unites itself with it, and of three makes one,
so that there is no strife between the three principles.
But in the essence there is strife; and that must
be, or all were a nothing.
18. But we are to consider whence enmity has
its origin. God has in each principle created
creatures from the nature and proprium of the
principle, therein to remain. And if they remain
not therein, but introduce another thing by their
imagination into themselves, into their property,
that is an enmity and torment to them, as to the
devil and fallen man. Both these are gone out
from the light-world; the devil into the abyss of
the strong wrath-power through pride, and man
into this world, into the mystery of multiscience,
as into the wonders.
19. And now man has a difficulty and struggle
to come out again; and this world, into which
he has entered, holds him, for it will have him;
and if he go out from it by force, it becomes hostile
to him, assails him, and will not suffer him in itself.
20. Hence it is that the children of this world
do hate, vex, strike, kill and drive from them the
children of light, for the spirit of this world impels
them thereto. To which also the devil helps, for
that he will receive the 'children of this world at
the dissolution of this Mystery into his kingdom.
Therefore he drives the children of God from this
world, lest they introduce his children of this world
along with them into the world of light.
21. But if man had been created for this world,
he would certainly let him alone ; but he continu-
ally desires to recapture his royal seat which he
had, and from which he was cast out; and if he
may in no wise obtain it, he would deny it to the
children who are to possess it.
22. Now this is for man highly to consider, and
not to be so blind. Every man has entered into
the mystery of this world; but he should not there-
fore as a prisoner enter also into the earthly
craving of the confining of death, but should be
a discerner and knower of the Mystery, and not
the devil's butt and fool. He should by the
imagination continually go out again into the light-
world for which he was created, in order that
the light may give him lustre, that he may know
himself and see the outer Mystery. Then he is a
man. But if not, he is the deviPs fool and the ape
of the light-world. Just as an ape will be know-
ing and play with everything, and imitate every-
thing, so it is with the earthly man, who is but an
ape. His juggling tricks with the light-world,
when he presses not thereinto with earnestness,
but only plays therewith,—this the devil derides,
and accounts him a fool. And so he is; he is an
animal-man. So long as he is attached with his
will to the external, and regards this world's good
44 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
as his treasure, he is only a man with t
essence, and not with the essence of G
world; and he gives his body to thi<
to the earth, and his soul to the abyss <
world.
23. Thus we give you to understar
the tree of the three principles, these
well together, but not the creatures
creatures of each principle desire not 1
And there is a strong bar and closure befr
so that we know not, nor shall we see
24. But the devil's envy wars against
race, for they have possessed his seat,
it is said : Man, seek thyself, and see
art, and beware of the devil. So mu
second point, how the three principles
unitedly together.
THE THIRD POINT
OF THE OBIGIN OF CONTRARIETY IN GROWTH, IN
THAT LIFE BECOMES STRIFEFUL IN ITSELF.
K
CHAPTER IV
1. A thing that is one, that has only one will,
contends not against itself. But where there are
many wills in a thing, they become contending,
for each would go its own conceived way. But if
one be lord of the other, and has entirely full
power over all the others, so that it can break
them if they obey it not; then the thing's multi-
plicity has its existence in one reality, for the
multitude of wills all give themselves to obedience
of their lord.
2. And thus we give you to understand life's
contrariety, for life consists of many wills. Every
essence may carry with it a will, and indeed does so.
For sour, bitter, anguish and acid is a contrarious
source, each having its own property, and wholly
adverse one to the other. So is fire the enemy of
all the others, for it puts each source into great
anguish, so that there is a great opposition between
46 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
itself. Each form is hostile to the other, and not
only in man, but in all creatures; unless the forms
of life obtain a gentle, gracious lord, under whose
control they must be, who can break their might
and will. That is found in the Light of life, which
is lord of all the forms, and can subdue them all;
they must all give their will to the Light. And
they do it also gladly, for the Light gives them
gentleness and power, so that their harsh, stern,
bitter, anguishful forms are all transformed into
loveliness. They all give their will to the Light
of life, and the Light gives them gentleness.
4. Plurality is thus transformed into unity, into
one will which is called the mind, and is the foun-
tain from which the one will is able to draw evil
and good. This is done by imagination, or by
representation of a thing that is evil or good ; and
hence the thing's property is susceptible of the
same property in the life. The life's property
seizes the property of the thing represented, be it
either a word or a work, and enkindles itself there-
with in itself. It kindles also the other forms of
life therewith, so that they begin to qualify, and
every property burns in its source, either in love
or wrath, all according to the nature represented.
Whatever the imagination has seized, that it intro-
duces into the mind.
5. We give you therefore to understand that
when the mind thus enkindles itself in «.
which reach after the spirit of the soul's will,
wherein is the noble image in which God reveals
himself, and introduce their enkindled fire there-
into. As you have a similitude of this in fire :
According to the matter in which it burns, such
a light does it give ; as is to be seen in sulphur
compared with wood, and in many things besides.
6. We understand then by this, that whatever
nature and property the fire hath, such a property
getteth also the light and the power of the light.
7. Seeing tljen our noble image of God stands in
the Light of life, in the soul's fire, it is highly recog-
nizable by us how the spirit of the soul's will or the
noble image is corrupted, and becomes enkindled
in the source of wrath, often also in the source of
love. And we see here our great danger and misery,
and do rightly understand why Christ has taught
us patience, love and meekness, viz. that the soul's
fire kindle not itself in wrath, also that we give
not occasion to others to kindle their souls' fire
in wrath, in order that God's kingdom be not
hindered.
8. Herein we recognize our heavy fall, that Adam
has introduced into our souls' fire earthly matter,
which burns as often as a source is awakened in
the centre of the property of wrath. We see thus
how we lie captive in God's wrath between anger
and love, in great danger.
9. And we give you this highly to recognize.
You know, as we have set forth above and in all
our books, how from fire light proceeds as another
principle, and yet has the fire's property and power,
And how the light is also desirous, and has a matrix
of longing desire, which makes itself pregnant in
desire with the power of the light, viz. with the
gentleness of the light; and in this pregnancy
lies the substance of the light, that is, in the pure
love of the Divine Nature.
10. And then we have informed you how the
fire draws this substance into itself, uses it for its
light's essence, and swallows it up in itself, but gives
from the essence another spirit, which is not fire.
As indeed you see that fire gives two spirits :
One that is furious and consuming, consisting of
fierceness as property of the first matter; and
secondly, an air-spirit, which is the property of the
light's gentleness.
11. We are now to consider in what matter fire
burns in the first essence. In whatever it has
kindled itself, in love or anger, that is, in earthly
or divine desire, such a fire it is, and gives also such
a fire of light, and such a spirit from the fire of
light.
12. Now, if the matter of the first fire, wherein
the fire burns, be good, then has the other fire of
light also a good property, savour and source, and
gives also a good, powerful, lovely light, and from
the light's centre also a good and powerful spirit;
and this spirit is the similitude of God, the noble
image.
13. But if the first fire be evil in its essence, and
has an evil matter in which it burns, then is also
the life's light a false source and a dim shining, as
is to be seen in a sulphurous light;, and the centre
such a matter into its fire, and the fire gives such
a, spirit from itself.
14. It is now evident what spirit can or cannot
attain the freedom of God. For the soul's spirit
or the image which has in itself the dim, dark
property, cannot be capable of the clear light of
God. Further, if it has in itself fierce wrathful.
essences and qualities, it cannot unite with the
gentleness of God and inqualify with it; for wrath
is enmity against love and gentleness, and love
suffers not wrath within it. Here they are sepa-
rated : love thrusts wrath from it, and neither
does wrath desire any more the property of love.
15. For as soon as lire gives spirit from itself,
it is perfect, and separates into its propmim, be it
a spirit of light, or a dark wrathful sulphurous
spirit. And into the* same* essence from which it is
gone? out does it desire to return again ; for it is
its property, be it in love or enmity to love.
10. Accordingly we understand what spirits or
souls live in the source of enmity, and how enmity
originally arises, so that a life is at enmity with
itself from the first matter .unto the life's light.
The cause lies in the wheel of Nature, in the seven
spirits or forms, each of* which has its own pro-
perty ; and in whichever property the mind be-
comes enkindled, such u property getteth its soul's
lire together with the will's spirit, which straight-
way aspires after substance and being, how it may
reali'/e that with which the spirit of the will is
pregnant.
17. Now it is necessary to break the earthly
his will-spirit by compulsion and force
wickedness. For here, in this time, thai
sible; because the third principle by tl
which gives gentleness is attached to the <
the inward nature, and holds it captive a
in its quality.
18. But if the spirit of the soul's will
inward centre of light, breaks off from the
and remains alone, then the soul's spirit
in its property. For there is little remcci
the spirit of the will have in the time of the
life turned round to God's love, and atta
as a sparkle in the inward centre. The
thing may be done. But in what agony an
that is done, experiences full well the sj
love, which has to break down dark fierc
It is purgatory enough to it. In what
life stands, in terror and anguish, till it
into the sparkle, into the freedom of Go<
deed experiences who departs from this
nakedly with little light. This, the prose
too wise world regards as a jesting matt
what kind of knowledge it has, it show
doing.
19. And thus we understand also th
fall, who was an angel; how he imagina
into the centre of the first property, an<
great strength and might (as the presei
seeks great might and honour), and dcsj
light of love. Albeit he supposed the ligi
burn for him thus (and the world also b
supposes the light of God shall burn in it
mently, to see if he could dominate over all thrones,
and over the essence of the Deity in gentleness;
which proved to be his fall, as will happen also to
the present world.
20. Therefore let every man learn hereby to
beware of pride and covetousness ; for the devil's
fall came through pride and covetousness, in that
he kindled in himself the centre of the dark world.
Hence he was cast out of the light-world into the
dark world. And thus it fares with all men, who,
abandoning meekness and humility, enter into
wrath, pride, covetousness and envy. All these
imaginate into the centre of the dark Nature, as
into the origin of Nature, and withdraw into the
dark fire of the source of anguish, where the noble
image is introduced into another quality; so that
it must be in fear and enmity, each form of life
being hostile to the other.
21. And we see also very exactly hercfrom, how
God's kingdom is found only in the bright clear light
in freedom, in love and gentleness ; for that is the
property of the white clear light. As is to be seen
in outer nature, that where there is a pleasant,
mild and sweet matter for the outer fire (which
is but the fierceness of the inner fire), that also
a pleasant light and odour arise from it. Much
more is this so in the spirit-fire, to which no com-
prehensible or external being belongs; but where
the seven spirits of Nature make in themselves a
fire, which is only a property and a source of fire,
as indeed the dark world and light-world stand in
such a spiritual property.
Eternal and who goeth into the Eternal; he has
only the two worlds in him. The property to which
he turns himself, into that world is he introduced,
and of that world's property will he eternally be,
and enjoy the same; either a source of love from
the light-world of gentleness, or a hostile source
from the dark world.
23. Here he buds and grows in the middle world
between the light-world and dark world; he may
give himself up to which he pleases. The essence
which obtains the dominion in him, whether fierce-
ness or gentleness, the same he embraces, and it
hangs unto him and leads him; it gives him
morals and will, and unites itself wholly with him ;
and thereinto man brings the spiritual man, viz.
the image which God created from His being, from
all the three principles.
24. Therefore it is said : Take the cross upon
thee ; enter into patience, into a meek life. Do not
what the dark centre of wrath incites thee to, nor
what the falsehood and pleasure of this world
entice thee to; but break both their wills. Neither
provoke any to anger. For if thou deal falsely,
thou dost incense thy brother and hinder the
kingdom of God.
25. Thou shouldst be a leader into the kingdom
of God, and enkindle thy brother with thy love and
meekness, that he may see in thee God's essence
as in a mirror, and thus in thee take hold also with
his imagination. Doest thou this, then bringest
thou thy soul, thy work, likewise thy neighbour
or brother into God's kingdom, and enlargest the
Christ taught us, saying : If any smite
one cheek, offer him the other also; if a
away thy cloak, withhold not from him 1
also (Matt. v. 39, 40); that he may have i
mirror and retreat into himself, see thy ir
acknowledge thou art God's child, and th;
Spirit leads thee ; that he may learn of t
scend into himself and seek himself. Else
oppose him with defiance and spite, his spite
kindled still more, and at last he thinks he
right to thee. But thus he must certainly r
he doth thee wrong.
26. And as God's love resists all wick
and the conscience often dissuades from
also thy meekness and patience go to his 1
science, and arraign the conscience in itse"
God's light in the wrath. In this way
wicked man goes out from his wickedness, <
into himself and seeks himself. Then God
puts him in mind of thy patience, and sets
his eyes, and so he is drawn thereby into rej
and abstinence.
27. Not that one should not defend
against a murderer or thief, who would
and steal. But where one sees that any
upon unrighteousness, one should set h
openly with a good light before his eyes, ar
and of good will offer him the Christian
loving heart; that he may find actually
fact, that it is done out of love-zeal to G
that love and God's will are more to that m
the earthly nature, and that he purposely
54 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
consent to anything passionate or evil being done ;
that he may see that the children of God do love
more the love of God and do cleave more to it than
to any temporal good; and that God's children
are not at home in this world, but only pilgrims,
who gladly relinquish everything of this world,
so that they may but inherit the kingdom of
heaven.
28. All this the Spirit of God puts before the
evil-doer in the life's light, and exhorts him there-
by to conversion. But if he will not, then the
wrath of God makes hellish fire from it, and finally
gnaws him, to see if even yet he would know him-
self and repent. Persisteth he in wickedness, then
is he a wholly evil tree, grown in the wrath of God,
and belongs to the abyss, to the dark world of
anguish, to the dark God Lucifer; there he must
devour his own abominations. So much on- the
third point.
THE FOURTH POINT
HOW THE HOLY AND GOOD TREE OF ETERNAL
LIFE GROWS THROUGH AND OUT OF ALL THE
GROWTHS OF THE THREE PRINCIPLES, AND IS
LAID HOLD OF BY NONE.
CHAPTER V
1. A thing that dwells in itself can be grasped by
nothing, for it dwells in nothing ; there is nothing
before it that can hold it in check, and it is free also
from the thing without it.
2. And thus we give you to understand concern-
ing the divine power and light, which dwells in
itself and is comprehended in nothing; nothing
touches it, unless it be of the property thereof.
It is everywhere in Nature, yet Nature touches it
not (understand, the outer Nature of the world).
It shines therein as the sun in the elements. The
sun shines in water, also in fire and through the
air, and yet is not seized or held by any of them.
It gives to all beings power, and makes the essential
spirits lovely and joyous. It draws by its power
essence out of the earth, and not only essence, but
rvf t'.ViP* pQCAnr»PG whi^lm o»i\r^s mil", rv?
Eternal Nature.
4. It shines in them and also from them; that
is, it kindles the forms of Nature, so that they all
obtain the Light's will, and unite themselves and
give themselves up wholly to the Light; that is,
they sink down from their own essence and become
as if they had no might in themselves, and desire
only the Light's power and might. The Light
accordingly takes their power and might into itself,
and shines from this same power. And thus all the
forms of Nature attain to the Light, and the Light
together with Nature is but one will, and the Light
remains lord.
5. Else, if the wills in the stern forms of Nature
will be lord, there is a separation and an eternal
enmity. For one form is always at enmity with the
other ; each elevates itself. And therefrom comes
contrariety, that a creature is so evil, wrathful and
hostile, that often life is at strife in itself.
6. And as we know that the Light comes to the
aid of the stern life of Nature, of the properties of
the essences, so that a joyous life arises, and
is thus changed in the Light; so also we know
that the life of dark wrathfulness is the enemy of
the Light, for it cannot catch the Light. The
eternal Light shines through the darkness, and the
darkness cannot comprehend it; for the plurality
of wills in the dark Nature are all shut up in death ;
the Light shines not in them, but through them ;
they seize not, nor do they see the Light. Never-
theless, the Light is in the dark world, but it fills
not the darkness; and therefore the essences of
THE FOURTH POINT 57
the dark world remain a hostile poison and death,
the essences being at enmity with themselves.
7. Thus there are three principles in one another,
and one comprehends not the other; and the eternal
Light cannot be laid hold of by anything, unless
that thing fall into death, and give its essence
voluntarily to the fire of Nature, and pass with its
essential will out of itself into the Light, and aban-
don itself wholly to the Light; and desire to will
or to do nothing, but commit its will to the Light,
that the Light may be its will.
8. Thus the Light seizes it, and it also the Light.
And thus the evil will is given up to the Light, and
the Light gives its power to the malignity, and
makes of the malignity a friendly good will, which
is only a love-desire; for the gentleness of the
Light has wholly embodied itself in the hostile
will.
9. So then God's will is done, and the evil is
transformed into good, and God's love shines from
his anger and fierce wrath ; and no wrath is known
in God's Eternal Nature. Thus we are to under-
stand how the eternal Light, or the eternal Power-
tree, shines through all the three principles, un-
apprehended by any of them; for so long as an
essence is out of God's will (viz. the gentle light-
will), so long is it solitary and dwells in itself, and
comprehends nothing of God. But if it unite itself
fr* dr\r\ ar\r\ HvAalr emrl cnnlr if"C r\\xrr\ Thrill Hhlipn it1.
to God, it will itself be lord. It remains aec
without God, only in itself, and God rems
in himself; and so one dwells in the otl
knows nothing of the other, for one turns its
the other, and sees not the face of the othe
11. And thus the world of light knows
of the devils, and the devils know nothin
world of light, save only this, that they w
in it. They represent it to themselves as <
sees in imagination; although the light-v
longer yields itself up to their imagination
do they imaginate after it, for it terrific:
also they are ashamed about it.
12. So likewise we are to understand
ing the outer world. God's light shines
and through, but is apprehended only
which unites itself thereunto. Seeing tl
outer world is as it were dumb and withou
standing in respect of God, therefore it re
its own will, and carries its own spirit :
although God has given it a Nature-god,
sun, into which every being should cast
and desire; whatever is in this world s
not do so, that remains in itself a great n
and is its own enmity.
13. And this world is recognized as e<
principle because it has a Nature-god of
namely the sun; and yet truly the ligh
Deity shines through all, through and
The light of the sun takes essence froi
fire, and God's fire from God's light. And
light of the sun gives this power to the elem
THE FOURTH POINT 59
they give it to the creatures, also to the plants of the
earth; and all that is of a good property receives
thus God's power as a lustre through the mirror of
wisdom, from whence it has its growth and life.
14. For God is present to every being, but not
every being receives him into its essence ; but as in
the mirror of the aspect in the sun's virtue ; for the
sun proceeds from the eighth number. Its root from
which it receives its brightness is the eternal fire,
but its body is in this world. Its desire is directed
wholly into this world, in which it shines; but its
first root is in the first world, in the fire of
God. This world gives being to its desire, and it
gives its power to being, and fills every being in
this world, as God's light does the divine light-
world. And if God's fire should burn no more, the
sun would be extinguished, and also the divine
light-world; for God's fire gives essence to both,
and is a principle of both. And if the dark world
were not, neither would these two be ; for the dark
world gives occasion for God's fire.
15. The three worlds must accordingly be in
one another, for nothing can subsist without a
ground. For the dark world is the ground of
Nature ; and the eternal unfathomable will, which
is called Father, is the ground of the dark world,
as above set forth. And the light-world is hidden
in the dark world, and also the dark world in the
1 "t /vT"»tf'_'TT7V"VT'»l /•!
60 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
17. Thus this world receives only a r<
of God through the sun's power. The sui
God's light, for it shines not wholly in
essence, but shines in elemental essence.
God's fire as its root, but is filled with this
essence. For it is desirous as a magical <
and receives in its imagination and crav
power of the stars and elements; and fr
it shines also.
18. Though God's fire is its root, yet it
not to God's kingdom. And here we ujic
how the devil is the poorest creature ; for he
move a leaf except wrath be therein, and
moves it according to the property of wrat
the light and the power of this world is re]
to him ; he enters not with his will into the f
of the light, neither is he able to do so. H<
backward to the light of the sun in his fig
property, and therefore the sun's light pro
nothing. And all that grows in the sun's
that unites itself to the sun, that he is ene
his will enters not readily thereinto.
CHAPTER VI
1. If we consider all this, and pass
inward world into this outward visible
find that the essence of the external worl<
ceeded from the internal, viz. from the in
or desire of the internal world. And we
in the external world the property of
inward worlds ; also how the wills of
perties are moving and manifest in the
world. And then how the good, or ti
which has proceeded from the light-worl
up in wrath and death; and how the div
activates all, so that all grows through a
the fierceness of death.
2. For the earthly tincture has no c<
or fellowship with the heavenly in the lij
We find, however, in the earth anothe
which has fellowship with the heavenly,
precious metals, but is hidden in them.
8. And we understand thus the motio:
Fiat 6f the two eternal worlds, viz. the d
and the light-world : Each has longed af
and as God put himself in motion once f
world could not be moved without the o
4. For the dark world contains the fi
of Nature, and the light-world the oth
viz. the heart of God, or the Word of po
Deity; and one world is not separated
other.
we stand, and think where we would plunge with
our will. For if we plunge into the earthly craving,
it captures us; and then the qualification of the
abyss is our lord, and the sun our temporal god.
6. But if we plunge with our will into the world
out of this world, then the light-world captures our
will, and God becomes our lord; and we abandon
the earthly life of this world, and take with us
whatever has come from the light-world into us,—
understand, into Adam; the same is carried out
of this world with the will which becomes one spirit
with God.
7. Reason says: Where are then the three
worlds ? It would have absolutely a separation, in
which one were beyond or above the other. That,
however, cannot possibly be, else the eternal un-
fathomable Essence were bound to sever itself.
But how can that sever itself which is a nothing,
which has no place, which is itself all? That
cannot enter into particular existence which has
no ground, which cannot be comprehended, which
dwells in itself and possesses itself; but it pro-
ceeds out of itself, and manifests itself out of
itself.
8. It makes a thing out of itself, which in itself
is but a will. In itself it is a spirit, but makes out
of itself a form of spirit, and the form makes a
being according to the property of the spirit. As
indeed this world is a being, and the inward spirit
possesses it. He is in every place, yet the place
comprehends him not, but he comprehends the
place. The place knows nothing of him, but it
THE FOURTH POINT
feels him; for he is the power and the *
the place. His will goes through being, an
has no eyes to see him, but he is the seeini
place; and is himself no place or positi
makes for himself an unfathomable positioi
there is no measurement. He is all, and
like to a nothing in comparison with the e
What he gives out of himself, that he posses
he passes not into it, but he is there befoi
occupies the place. The place contains but
tion of his will, as one sees one's form in a
and yet cannot take hold upon it; or as t
shine is not laid hold of in water, yet th
feels it and receives the lustre; or as th
receives power from the sun, so that it
forth fruit. In this way God dwells in all
and permeates and pervades all, yet is laid
by nothing.
9. And as we understand that the eart]
great hunger and desire after the sun's po^
light, in which it draws to itself and 1
susceptible of the sun's power and light,
without desire could not be; in like mann<
nature hungers after the inner, for the <
form arises from the inner. Thus outer
receives in itself the form of the inner as
or power; for it cannot seize the inwarc
inasmuch as he dwells not in the outer, I
sesses himself ir» himself in the inner.
the sun is far from the water, for the water has the
sun's essence and property, else it would not catch
the sun's lustre. Although the sun is a corpus,
yet the sun is also in the water, but not manifest;
the corpus makes the sun manifest in the water.
And we are to know that the whole world would
be nothing but sun, and the locus of the sun would
be everywhere, if God was to kindle and manifest
it; for every being in this world catches the sun's
lustre. There is in all a mirror, that the power
and form of the sun may be received in all that is
animate and inanimate, in all the four elements
and their essence and substance.
11. And so it is also with the inner light-world.
It dwells in the outer world, and this receives
power from it. It grows up in the outward power,
and this knows nothing of it; it only feels the
power, and the inward light it cannot behold;
only in its life's mirror it receives the reflection
thereof, for the inward power makes in the outward
form a likeness of itself.
12. And thus then we are to recognize man. He
is the inner and outer world (the cause, moreover,
of the inner world in himself), and, so far as belongs
to him, also the dark world. He is all three worlds ;
and if he remain standing in co-ordination, so that
he introduce not one world into the other, then he
is God's likeness.
13. He should introduce the form or the mirror
of the light-world into the outer world, and also
into the inmost dark world, and bring the power
of the middle or light-world into the mirror, and
essence seizes not the light, but the power of the
light. But the mirror of power catches the light,
as water does the sun ; for water is as a clear mirror
in comparison with earth.
14. Now if water be mixed with earth, it no
longer catches the sun's light; so likewise the human
spirit or soul catches not God's light, unless it
remain pure and set its desire upon that which is
pure, viz. upon the light; for what life imaginates
after, that it receives. The life of man is the
form of the two inward worlds. If life desire sul-
phur in itself, then is Phur out of Sul its darkening;
but if it desire only Sul, then it receives the power
of the light, and in the power the light with its
property. For in Phur, viz. in fierce wrathful
Nature, life cannot remain clear as a mirror, but
in Sul it can ; for the life of man is a true mirror
of the Deity, wherein God beholds himself. He
gives his lustre and power to the human mirror,
and finds himself in man, as also in angels and in
the forms of heaven.
15. The light-world's essence is his finding or
revelation, and the dark world's essence is his
loss. He sees not himself in the dark world,
for it has no mirror that were susceptible of the
light. All that imaginates after the dark world's
essence and property, that receives the dark world's
property, and loses the mirror of God. It becomes
filled with dark wrath ; like as one mixes water
with earth, and then the sun cannot shine therein.
This water loses the mirror of the sun, and must
withdraw again from the earth ; else it is never-
66 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
more any mirror of the sun, but is imprisoned in
the wrathful dark earth.
16. So it is also with human life. As long as
it imaginates after God's Spirit, it receives God's
power and light, and knows God. But when it
imaginates after earthliness or after the dark
world's property, it receives the essence of earthli-
ness and of the dark world, and becomes filled
with the same. Then is life's mirror shut up in
darkness, and loses the mirror of God, and must
be born anew.
17. As we know that Adam thus made the pure
mirror earthly, and lost God's power and light,
which Christ, God's Son, restored again, and broke
open the earthly darkness, and forcibly introduced
the mirror of God.
18. Thus we recognize how the holy tree grows
through all things, and out of all beings ; but is
apprehended by no being, save only in the mirror
of purity, as in the pure life of man ; which life
desires that tree, and it can be apprehended in
no dark life. This then is the fourth point.
THE FIFTH POINT
HOW A LIFE MAY PERISH IN THE THEE '
HOW IT PASSES OUT OF THE SOURCE
AND JOY INTO A SOURCE OF MISERY
IS CONTRARY TO ALL OTHER LIVES.
CHAPTER VII
1. Every life is a clear gleam and mil
appears like a flash of a terrible aspect,
this flash catch the light, it is transforr
gentleness and drops the terror, for then t
unites itself to the light. And thus the lig
from the terrible flash ; for the flash is tl
essence, it is its fire.
2. The flash contains the centrum natur^
the fourth form of Nature where life rises,
the steady fire, as in the principle, attain
fection, but in the light is brought int<
quality.
8. Now, the origin of the imagination
attraction] is in the first form of Nature, v
desiring sourness, which carries its form
the dark world unto fire ; for the first de
through all the forms, makes also all the fo
68 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
sink down through the anguish of fire into death,
and bud forth in the light. That depends on its
choice. Where it yields up itself, there it must
be; for its fire must have substance, that it may
have something to feed upon.
4. Will the spirit eat of its first mother the sour-
ness, that is, will it give to its fire for food the fierce
essentiality in the centre, or the light's essentiality
in the light-world, that is all in its own power ;
whatever its fire receives, in the property thereof
does it burn.
5. In the dark property it burns in the dark,
harsh, stern source, and sees in itself as a flash; it
has only the mirror of darkness, and sees in the
darkness. In the light's property it catches the
gentleness of the light, in which the light-fire
burns, and sees in the light-world. All is nigh
unto spirit, and yet it can see in no other world or
property save in that wherein its fire burns ; * of
that world is the spirit only susceptible, it sees
nothing in the other world ; it has no eyes for that.
It remains to it an eternal hiddenness, unless it has
been in another world and gone out from thence,
and given itself to another fire, as the devils did,
who have indeed a knowledge of the light-world,
but no feeling or seeing thereof; the light-world
is nigh to them, but they know it not.
6. And now we are to recognize life's perdition,
which comes about in the first Principle. Them
THE FIFTH POINT 69
ness, in the dark world. But if it desire to plunge
into the nothing, into freedom, it must abandon
itself to fire; and then it sinks down in the
death of the first principle, and buds forth out
of the anguish of fire in the light. For wken it
abandons itself, the eternal will to Nature (which
is God the Father) leads it out through fire into
himself. For with the abandoning it falls unto
the first will to Nature, who brings it by the
other will, which is his Son or Heart, out of the
anguishful Nature, and places it with the Son's
will in freedom beyond the torment of fire. There
it obtains, instead of plurality, all; not for its
own glory or power, but for God's glory or power;
God is in it both its will and its doing.
7. But whatever will itself be lord in fire, that
goeth into its own number, into its essence which
itself is; and whatever surrenders its power, sur-
renders also its fire-burning, and falls unto that
which is a cause of fire, viz. unto the eternal will of
God.
8. Thus it has fallen into freedom out of its fire
of torment, and freedom kindles its fire. Its fire
is now become a light and a clear mirror, for it has
yielded itself up to Freedom, viz. to God. And thus
its fire is a semblance and reflection of the Majesty
of God.
9. But that which will not, but will itself be lord,
70 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
clear brightness is able to arise; but the freedom
out of Nature is a cause of such shining. Whatever
yields itself up to Nature,, yet desires not Nature's
property but freedom,, that becomes enkindled in
its flash of life by freedom, in the way the second
Principle has enkindled itself.
10. Thus we understand how a life perishes, that
is, how it introduces itself in anguish and torment
into darkness; namely, when it will be its own lord
and desires plurality. If it will not give itself up
to death, then it cannot attain any other world.
11. For every life arises in the torment of anguish,
in Nature, and has no light in itself, except it enter
into that which gives birth to Nature; there it
receives light.
12. For all that is in Nature is dark and in
anguish, as is to be recognized by this world. Were
the sun to be taken away, there would be nothing
but anguish and darkness. And therefore God put
himself in motion, so as to give a light to this world,
that the external life might be in light.
13. But as regards the inner life of the soul, it
has another form. This inner life can the external
not attain. Hath the soul's fire not God's light,
neither can the soul's will enter into God's light;
it must remain in the darkness of the Eternal
Nature.
14. External Reason thinks, if the outward eye
THE FIFTH POINT 71
the terrible fire-flash in the horror, in the darkness ;
it can see nowhere else.
15. Therefore it often happens when the poor
captive soul beholds itself in the inward root, and
thinks what will follow when for it the external
mirror breaks, that it is terrified, and plunges the
body in fear and doubt.
16. For it can look nowhere where its eternal rest
might be, but it finds that it is in itself in utter
unrest, moreover in a darkness; it has the external
mirror only by way of loan.
17. As long as the soul is in this body, it may
indeed make shift with the sun-mirror, for the sun
has in its root the inner fire as the principle of the
Father. From this fire the soul receives a lustre or
mirror in the essence of the body, so that it is able
thus in this earthly, transitory life to be in joy.
But when the external mirror breaks, that is at an
end ; and the soul's fire goes into the eternal house
of mourning, into the centre of darkness.
18. The soul has in the time of the outer body
three mirrors or eyes of all the three worlds. The
mirror to which it turns itself, by that does it see.
But it has no more than one as a natural right,
namely the fire-flash, the fourth form of the dark
world, where the two inward worlds separate (one
into the darkness, the other into the light), and
where its eternal origin is. The world into which
the soul introrliio.es it.s will in tin A eaw^ i-f- w/»Aitr»o
Y2 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
into flesh and blood, tliat it might not so easily
become susceptible of the wrath-essence. Thus it
has its delight meanwhile in the mirror of the sun,
and rejoices in the sidereal essence. Presented to
it is (1) the light-world in its true fire, (2) the dark
world in the fire-root, (3) the outer elemental world
in the astral source. Among them hovers the great
mystery of the soul's fire.
20. The world to which the soul unites and
abandons itself, from that it receives substance
in its imagination. But because it has in Adam
turned.itself to the spirit of this world, and carried
its imagination into the same, its highest desire is
now in the essence of the sun and stars, and by this
desire it draws the spirit of the outer world with its
substance of four elements continually into itself,
and has its greatest joy therein; in which it is in
a strange lodging as guest, for the abyss is beneath
it, and there is great danger.
21. Here external Reason says: God has created
the soul in flesh and blood in the outer world, what
harm can that do it ? This Reason knows no more
of the soul's origin than a cow does of a new stable
door. She looks at it, and it seems to her to be
strange; so also to external Reason the inner world
seems to be something strange.
22. It finds itself in the outer world, and aspires
after that which the outer world has ; and yet finds
in itself the inner world!, whio.h ^rmtirnmllv
THE FIFTH POINT 73
it up; so that the desire after God's world cannot
kindle fire in itself. If that were done, then would
the light-world be manifest in the first principle,
and the noble image of God would be revealed.
23. This is also hindered by the devil, who
possesses the root of this world in the soul's fire.
He is always holding up to the soul evil earthly
things, or moving the root in the centre of Nature
in the fierce wrath; so that the poor soul enkindles
itself either in the wrath-fire in the evil poiso&-
source, or else in fear and doubt of God's love.
He has then carried the day, and sets before the
soul external power, authority and honour, also the
splendour and pomp of the outer world. Then
the soul bites at this, and tickles itself therein
with imagination ; and yet cannot truly enjoy the
same, for it is only a borrowed mirror.
24. The poor soul is thus drawn away from God's
light, and is sinking always into perdition, viz. into
the dark house of misery, into the dark world.
That did Adam prepare for us when he introduced
his desire into earthliness. And thus the poor soul
swims now in earthly flesh and blood, and is always
eating of the tree of temptation of evil and good,
and is drawn strongly by both ; and the serpent's
monstrous shape is in the midst, in the source oi
wrath, and continually blows up the anger and
fierce wrath.
OK TT___ il^« ^___4-K~___Ul,v Id-,, "U.^^^'U ^^,,rU^.*.^
74 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
Deity not turned towards it, in which the spirit
of the will of the poor captive soul may recover
itself, and regenerate itself therein.
26. For in the mirror of the light-world the in-
carnation of Christ is presented to the soul's spirit;
and the Word that became man stands in sound,
and is in action. Therein may the soul's spirit
Recover itself and generate itself anew ; else it were
often past help with the poor soul, when it is
immersed in wrath and in the poison of the dark
world.
27. And thus we understand at bottom what
the destruction of the noble tree, or of the image of
God, is, namely this :
28. The entire man is in his being the three
worlds. The soul's centre, viz. the root of the soul's
fire, contains the dark world; and the soul's fire
contains the first Principle as the true fire-world.
And the noble image, or the tree of divine growth,
which is generated from the soul's fire and buds
forth through fierce wrathful death in freedom or
in the world of light, contains the light-world or the
second Principle. And the body, which in the
beginning was created out of the mixed substance
which at creation arose from the light-world, the
dark world and the fire-world, contains the outer
world or the third mixed Principle.
29. The right soul is the spirit of these three
THE FIFTH POINT 75
In the outer world it is the spirit of air, as also of
fire and water, and may be used as man pleases,
all unto the great wonders.
30. Thus is man according to the particular person
the great mystery in the three worlds. The world
to which he turns himself, in which he produces
fruit, the same is lord in him, and this world
becomes manifest in him; the other two remain
hidden. As fire is hidden in wood, so light or the
light-world remains hidden in the wrathful dark
world; as also in malignity, in the. distemper of
the inner world in the outer world.
31. But if the light-world cannot become mani-
fest in man so as to be lord, then the soul at the
breaking of the outer world remains only in the
dark world; for there it is no longer possible for
the light-world to be kindled. There is for the light
no longer any mirror that were turned towards the
soul. The heart of God is not manifest therein,
nor eternally can be (for the dark world must be,
else the light would not be manifest); but here in
this world that may be.
32. And though a soul be plunged in the deepest
abyss, and lies in the wrath of God, yet in the
external light of the sun it has before it the light-
mirror wherein the divine power reveals itself, as
also the mirror of the incarnation of Christ, which
in the inner dark world never is known.
76 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
body light (Matt. vi. 22, 23). He means the soul's
eye. And if the wrath of the dark world be kindled,,
then are body and soul dark, and have only a
lustre from the sun. If the divine light be kindled,
it burns in love and meekness ; and if the wrath
of the dark world be kindled, it burns in stinging
envy and hate, in fierce rage, and flees away in the
external mirror of the sun's light into pride, and
will always be mounting above the source of love,
whereupon follows scorn and contempt of meekness
and of all that is lowly.
84. And here man should prove or try himself,
and recognize which world is lord in him. If he
find that anger, wrath, envy, falsehood, lying and
deceit is his desire; also pride, avarice, and con-
tinual greed of honour and earthly pleasure, that
he is but a perpetual itch for wantonness and lewd-
ness ; then he may know with certainty that lie
burns with anger, wrath, envy, falsehood, lying
and deceit in the dark, viz. in the dark world's
fire. For this fire gives such essence, desire and
will.
35. And the other desire, viz. earthly pleasure,
pride, thirst for honour, avarice, and the perpetual
wanton bestial itch of concupiscence, is the fruit
which grows out of the dark world in the outer
world.
36. As love buds out of death (where the spirit of
THE FIFTH POINT
buds forth with its twig in this corrupt
outer nature, and bears such fruit.
37. By this should every one learn to kt
self, he need only search for his distinctive j
To whatever his will constantly drives hin
kingdom does he stand; and he is not £
he accounts himself and pretends to b
creature of the dark world, viz. a greedy
proud bird, a lustful animal, a fierce sei
envious toad full of poison. All these f
spring in him, and are his wood from whic
burns. When the outer wood, or the sub
four elements, abandons him at his de*
the inner poisonous evil quality alone ren
38. What figure now must stand in such a
None else but what was strongest arnon
properties ; this is figured by the hellisl
his form, as a venomous serpent, a dog
beast. The property to which the spirit c
has given itself up, that same property is ;
the soul's image. And this is one part.
39. Further, man should prove or tr
in his desire (for every man has these evil ]
in him), to see whether he find in himself s
longing to kill this poison and malignity;
he be enemy to this poison ; or whether h
delight in continually putting the false p<
operation, viz. in pride, covetousness, en
But he bears not God's but the serpent's image;
and is only in the external kingdom a likeness to an
image of man, so long as he remains in this property,
so that this property is supreme lord.
41. But if he find strife and combat within him,
that his inner will always, yea hourly, fights against
these evil properties, suppresses them, and suffers
them not to attain to evil being; that he would fain
always do well, and yet finds thslt these evil pro-
perties hinder him, so that he cannot accomplish
what he would; and finds the desire for abstinence
and repentance, that a perpetual desire after God's
mercy springs in him, so that he would gladly
do well if he could:
42. This man may think and assuredly know
that God's fire glimmers in him, and continually
labours towards the light. It would fain burn, and
is always giving essence for flame; but is quenched
by the evil humidity of this world, which Adam
has introduced into us.
43. But when the outer evil body with its
vapours perishes, so that it can no longer obstruct
the glimmering wick, then the divine fire becomes
enkindled in its essence, and the divine image is
figured according to the strongest quality which
tht man has here carried in his desire. If, however,
he continue not in the above-mentioned warfare,
but drops the struggle, he may again deteriorate
most dangerously.
44. The third proof and trial is this, that a man
recognize in what being or figure he stands. If
he find that he hath a constant desire after God,
THE FIFTH POINT 79
and in his desire is so strong that'he can again
break and transform into gentleness the evil
essences, as often as for him a quality becomes
enkindled ; that he is able to let all go that shines
and glitters in this world ; that he can do good for
evil; that he hath full mastery over all his worldly
substance, be it money or goods, ^to give, thereof
to the needy and for God's truth to abandon it all;
and freely and willingly for God's sake resign him-
self to misery in assured hope of that which is
eternal: for him the divine power flows, so that he
may kindle the light of the kingdom of joy therein;
he tastes what God is. He is the most undoubted
man, and carries the divine image with heavenly
essence in himself even in the time of the outer
body.
45. There Jesus is born of the Virgin, and that
man never dies. He lets pass from him only the
earthly kingdom, which was to him in this time
an opposition and hindrance, with which God has
concealed him. For God will not cast pearls before
swine; they are hidden in Him.
46. This same new man dwells not in this world ;
neither doth the devil know him, only he is hostile
to his essence, which contains the inward centre;
for it impedes him that his will is not done. And
therefore he incites the evil animal-men against
him, to vex and persecute him, so that the true
humanity remains concealed.
80 - SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS

CHAPTER VIII
Of the right human essence from God's
essence.
1. The right true human essence is not earthly,
nor from the dark world; it is generated only in
the light-world; it has no communion or fellowship
with the dark world, nor with the outer world ;
there is a great bar, viz. death, between them.
2. Not that there is nothing of the true essence
in the external man. It is there ; for it was given
to Adam in his image. But it is shut up and lies
in death, and cannot qualify ; neither has it any
motion in itself, unless it become quick in the power
of the Deity. As it became quick in the Virgin
Mary by God's motion and entrance ; there the
right human essence came again to life.
3. So also in us the right human essence is not
stirring, except we be born of God in Christ.
4. In the baptism of infants the Word of God
enters into union and connection with them in
the covenant, and is the first stirring in this world ;
as a smouldering in wood that begins to glimmer,
but the wicklet is often after darkened and extin-
guished. Moreover, in many a child that is begotten
THE FIFTH POINT 81
many a child is baptized in the wrath of God, for
which the parents are to blame. An evil tree bears
evil fruit, says Christ.
6. And though He is come into this world to
save what was lost, yet it depends also on the
essence of that which will let itself be helped. For
an animal-man may attain the image [of God], if
he turn round and suffer the Word that became
man to draw him. If not, then he remains in his
animal essence an evil beast.
7. But we are not to suppose that baptism lays
the first foundation of the human essence, and is
wholly the first enkindling cause of the divine fire.
No, that is not so; for a child becomes through
the parents' essence a spirit, as also flesh and
blood, with espousal of the constellation of the spirit
majoris mundi.
8. At the time when a child in the womb has
attained to life, then immediately divine or hellish
essence glimmers from the primal fount and origin.
9. And if but a small spark of the divine essence
be active, the child is susceptible of baptism. And
though it should die unbaptized, yet the spark is
in God's Mystery, and glimmers in God's king-
dom, and is kindled in the fire of God. For it
dies in the Mysterium of the Father, and glimmers
up in the Mysterium of the Son who became man.
10. The parents9 baptism and covenant is its
bantism and covenant. The reconciliation has
introduced, which is earth; but to the part which
was given to Adam from the angelic world, which
he corrupted and poisoned with the earthly crav-
ing, for in the craving earthly, coarse, animal flesh
was produced.
11. This part has the right human essence, and
in this part God became man. And this same
part has the ground of the angelic world, for it
takes its origin from the angelic world.
12. But if most frequently godless parents are
immersed wholly in the wrath of God, and so beget
children in the wrath ; then is their seed shut
up in death, and has in it nothing of the right
human essence, which is moving, save only what
the constellation in the spirit majoris mundi has
in itself. There certainly the divine power has
some movement; but the wrath's power exists
as opposite, and is heavy. Nevertheless, there is
no impossibility; for the incarnation of God, his
becoming man, is presented to all souls in the
life's light.
13. But baptism contains something else. God's
essence (as the water of eternal life born of God's
gentleness) must move the right human essence
(with Adam shut up in death), and yield itself up
there as a new life or a living essence. God's water
must baptize; the Holy Spirit must be the operant.
14. But I say, according to my knowledge, that
the water of eternal life, upon which the Holy
Spirit broods, will hardly yield itself up to the
poison of wrath and death, where there is not an
essence of desire [toward God].
TMJfi FIFTH POINT
15. I say, then, that a child (as soon as :
in the womb) is, so far as the divine e
moving in the heavenly part, already ba]
the Holy Spirit, and attains the incari
Christ. For baptism depends not on th
power, that the Holy Spirit should wait u
The incarnation of Christ waited not up
power, but upon the goal that God s<
covenant. This goal was blessed. Ther
angel said to Mary: Blessed art thoi
women. The goal lay in her, and was
and blessed her also when God's heart t
the goal.
16. This goal reached back to Adam,
ward to the last man. When God beca
the goal was awakened in the heavenly p
only in Mary, but also in Adam and Ev<
their children who had given themselves uj
these were all blessed in the goal.
17. For that is the covenant of grace vt
established with Adam and Eve. This
is in all human essence, but not in devilis]
18. But baptism is the seal that God ;
the covenant, as in the old testament circ
In baptism God gives divine water to tt
race as a pledge and seal; but the co
already there before baptism; it was
paradise, yea before the foundation of t]
A« snrm a.R a. amil is ftt.irrincy in t.hf^ wr>ml
84 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
19. This result waits not upon any external ordi-
nance, upon the delusion of the outer man; but
as soon as a soul is born from the principle, it is
in the result of the testament, so far as the divine
life is moving in it. But not in godless souls;
in/them the divine life must first be born. God's
wrath swallows up many a soul still in essence,
before it attains the principle ; because it is from
false essence, from evil seed of the parents.
20. Reason says: What can a child do to this,
that the parents are wicked ? Nay, what can even
God do ? It is in the parents5 power to get a child.
What can God do to this, that whores and profli-
' gates creep together ? Though the false tree springs
not thus from this line only, but also in marriage.
Man is free; if he awaken no life, his seed remains
an essence. Shall God, because of the child's
innocency, cast pearls before swine ? The king-
dom of heaven confronts it; let it enter, God closes
the kingdom of heaven to none.
21. But a bad man is shut up in body and soul,
why not also in the seed ? The seed is truly the
fruit of his body. If we would reap good wheat,
we of right sow wheat; but if thistle seed be sown,
a thistle grows from it. Must God then change
that into wheat ? Has not the sower power to
sow in his field what he pleases ? Or wilt thou
say: What can the thistle do to this, that it is
^'v o v* rt v\t»i/"*lro r % iHh VwAi/^r^/n'O fi/1^" r» vv\/-vv*/•*» -f-K/^
THE FIFTH POINT
heart of man. Why does man suffer this
stroy himself, so that his essence becomes
seed, and yields weeds to the fire in the
God ? It is not all attributable to the g
depends on the field. Many a noble grain
in the evil field's essence. The heavens
sun give life and power to all growth,
makes no weeds, neither desires any;
essence in the field makes oftentimes
thing, and destroys the good.
23. So also in man. Many a curse stic
one wishes the other, when the other has ]
it, and is apt for it; as indeed is commo
godless married people, one wishing the c
devil and hell-fire. If then they both be
should not then their godless will be re
them, by their begetting godless children
is not anything that is good in them, w!
thing then shall come out of them ? V
God do to this? He sets his word and
before them, and announces to them their
tion. If they will not regard it, let 1
whither they please. So too is their seed ;
many a child is born a thistle and evil b<
is baptized in the wrath of God.
24. For, of what essence the soul's spi
such an essence it receives also the divin
in the covenant: one in the power of
If\\Tf* • Qinf\i~r\or» in 4"!*•»£* TrvrvrTTiavi j~vP T*rw»r»4'V» ZY\ t
86 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
Often the father and mother, as also the 1
are godless, and only evil beasts, and
no real earnestness. The outward pomp
money is the main point with them; they
the mystery. Here the child is wholly
property of wrath. Who then shall I
None other than the wrath of God in his c<
for that men do but make a mock of it.
26. Thus the source of wrath seizes 1
spirit, works powerfully in it, and brings fo
to perdition. As St. Paul says of the oth<
ment, that the wicked man receives it un
ment, not discerning the Lord's body (1 Cor
That is, he distinguishes not in himself the 1
part of his essence from the earthly, to put
into the heavenly and offer this up to Gc
deems all common, as an ox cats the foddt
27. Therefore the wrath of God springs ir:
that he doth not break off his will from the
and repent of his wickedness. His heavei
cannot become partaker of God's body,
he cannot awaken the essence of the ,1
part. Thus it has no mouth to reeeiv
body, the mouth being shut up in deal
earthly part, however, receives Christ's be
according to the property of wrath, aoco
the property of the dark world ; for the tc
perdition. God's covenant is never moved without
fruit. God works in his covenant according to his
word.
29. As is the soul which moves the covenant, so
is the medicament in the covenant., and in such a
power the Spirit of God works in love and wrath ;
for he is the spirit of every life, and assimilates
himself to every life. He is in every thing as
the thing's will and property is, for one property
seizes the other. What the soul wills, that he wills
also, and thereinto the soul enters.
30. It is all magical; what the will of a thing
wills, that it receives. A toad takes only poison
into itself, though it sit in the best apothecary's
shop ; the like also does a serpent. Every thing
takes only its own property into itself; and though
it eat the substance of a good property, yet it
converts all in itself into its own property. Though
a toad should eat honey, yet this becomes poison
in it. As indeed the devil was an angel; but
when he willed nothing good, his heavenly essence
became to him hellish poison, and his evil will
remained evil one time as another.
31. We are therefore highly to consider our life,
what we would do and be at. We have evil and
good in us. The one wherein we draw our will,
its essence becomes active in us; and such a pro-
perty we draw also from without into us. We
have the two Mysteries, the divine and the devilish
in us, of the two eternal worlds, and also of the
outer world. What we make of ourselves, that we
are; what we awaken in ourselves, that is moving
88 SIX THEOSOPHIC POINTS
in us. If we lead ourselves to good, then God's
Spirit helps us; but if we lead ourselves to evil,
then God's wrath and anger helps us. Whatever
we will, of that property we obtain a leader, and
thereinto we lead ourselves. It is not God's will
that we perish, but his wrath's and our own will.
And thus we understand the fifth point. How
a life perishes, and how out of good an evil comes,
and out of evil a good, when the will turns round.
THE SIXTH POINT
OF THE LIFE OF DARKNESS, WHEREIN THE DEVILS
DWELL; WHAT BIRTH AND QUALITY IT HATH.
CHAPTER IX
1. The life of darkness is repugnant to all life
of light; for the darkness gives fierce and hostile
essence, and the life of light gives love-essence.
2. In the darkness there is in the essence only
a perpetual stinging and breaking, each form
being enemy to the other—a contrarious essence.
Each form is a liar to itself, and one says to the
other, that it is evil and adverse to it, that it is a
cause of its restlessness and fierceness. Each thinks
in itself: If only the other form were not, thou
wouldst have rest; and yet each of them is evil
and false. Hence it is, that all that is born of the
dark property of wrath is lying, and is always lying
against the other forms, saying they are evil; and
yet it is itself a cause thereof, it makes them evil
lw its nnisnnrviiR in for/hi on.
and yet there Is no killing ; but the gre
strife is, the greater becomes their mi
life.
4. And therefore it is called an etenu
and enmity, where nothing but contrariet
For there is nothing that could abolish tl
nothing that could hold in check a sing
The more it were resisted, the greater M
the fierceness; like a fire that is stirred,
it burns but the more.
5. Thus the fierce wrathful kingdom
extinguished by nothing, save only by Go<
by which it becomes wholly gentle, lovely
of joy. And neither can that be ; for it-
kingdom were to be kindled with the light,
would have no root to its nature and pro]
lire could be generated, neither were tl]
light, nor any power, but all were a nothii
0. Hence the kingdom of wrath must I
is a cause of the fire-world and light-world
is God's. But all is not acknowledged as
God, as the dark world has another propc
the light-world is a cause of the fierceness ai
of the dark property ; for the darkness is
at the light, and stands in eternal terror
the light-world dwells in it. It trembles <
before the light, and yet cannot apprehend
is only a cause of life and of movement. J
all must be subservient to the glory of God
7. The life of darkness has many form
not one and the same property. As w<
recognize by the creatures of this world, w
sistence in a different source from the other; who
nevertheless all live in the sun's power and light,
by which they are meekened.
8. But if the sun were to be extinguished, then
would the deep be wrathful and stinging. Then
we should soon see the property of the dark world,
how all creatures would become poisonous and
evil.
9. For every life is rooted in poison. The light
alone resists the poison, and yet is a cause that the
poison lives and faints not.
10. We are therefore to recognize that the life
of darkness is only a fainting poison, like a dying
source; and yet there is no dying there. For
the light-world stands opposed to the mirror of
darkness, whereby the darkness is eternally in
terror.
11. The dark life is like a terror, where the flash
and terror is always mounting upwards, as if it
would quit the life and fly out above it. And hence
arises pride, so that the devil is always wishing
to be above God; it is his proprium, his life's figure
is so, and he cannot do otherwise. Just as a poison
rages and pierces, as if it would break loose from
the member;
12. So is the life of darkness in itself. The
poisonful essences make such an inward disposi-
tion, and from the disposition proceeds such a
will-spirit. There is such a property therein, and
consists of seven forms, according to the centre of
Nature with its principle. As the life of joy con-
sists of seven forms by right of Nature, so also
the light gives joy, in the darkness gives sorrow-
fulness.
13. And yet it is not to be thought that the life
of darkness therefore sinks down into misery, that
it would forget itself as if it were sorrowful. There
is no sorrowing; but what with us on earth is
sorrowing according to this property, is in the
darkness power and joy according to the property
of the darkness. For sorrowfulness is a thing that
is swallowed up in death. But death and dying
is the life of the darkness, just as anguish is the
life of the poison. The greater the anguish becomes
in the poison, the stronger becomes the poison-
life, as is to be seen in the external poison.
14. We cannot, then, say of the devil that he
sits in dejection, as if he were faint-hearted. There
is no faint-heartedness in him, but a constant will
to kindle the poison-source more, that his fierce-
ness may become greater. For this fierceness is
his strength, wherein he draws his will to mount
above the thrones and inflame them. He would
be a mighty lord in the poison-source, for it is the
strong and great life. But the light is his misery
and dread; that checks his bravery. He is terri-
fied at the light; for it is his true poison, which
torments him. Because he abandoned it, it now
resists him. Of which he is ashamed, that he is
thus a deformed angel in a strange image. He
would be content with the source of wrath, if only
the light were not so near him. Shame is therefore
so great in him that he grows furious, and kindles
his poisonous source more and more, so that his
image is not recognized in him. He aims only at
how he may storm and rage against God, as if he
were a foreign thing, or a foreign power, as if he
had a foreign kingdom; whereas he is poor, and
the dark kingdom is not his, but he is only a
prisoner in it. It is God's abyss; he is only a crea-
ture therein. He would be lord therein, and yet
is but a juggler with the fierceness; although he
must act according to the property. And this is
also a wonder before the stern might of eternity.
It is as a sport wherewith the stern might hath
its dissipation, by which it is distinguished what
evil or good, joy or sorrow, is; and that the
creatures in the light-world have cause to humble
themselves. And yet God created no devil, nor
destined Lucifer for the dark world. But this is
enmity in Lucifer, that he was an angel, and
that the light is so near him that he became an
apostate.
15. There is no pain in the creatures which have
been created in the dark world ;x for they are of the
fierce wrathful property, and know nothing of the
light. Fierceness is their strength and might, and
enmity their will and life. The more evil and
hostile a creature is in the dark world, the greater
is its might. As the powerful tyrants of this world
often exhibit their power in malignity, so that men
must fear them, or as tame animals are afraid of
ferocious ones; so has this likewise a property in
the dark world.
16. If we will rightly consider the property of
the dark world, let us look upon the malice and
all malice, falsehood, pride and covetousness has
its root from the dark world ; it is the property of
the dark world, whether it be recognized in men or
beasts.
17. For this world rests upon the foundation of
the dark world. The dark world gives to this world
essence, will and quality. And had not the good
been introduced also at creation, there would be
no other doing or will in this world than in the dark
world. But the divine power and the sun's light
hinder that. As is to be seen among men and
beasts, how there is a biting, hating and striking,
and an arrogant self-will, each wishing to rule
over the other, to kill and devour the other, and
elevate itself alone ; also to trample upon every-
thing with guile, wrath, malice and falsehood, and
make itself lord.
13. In like manner the dark world has such a
property. What all wicked men in this world do
in their malice and falsehood, that also the devils
do in the dark world ; and what the poisonous evil
worms and beasts in their malignity do, that also
the other creatures do in the dark world. Though
they are without such a body, yet they have such
a property in their spiritual body; and though
they have a body, yet it is after the fashion of
spirit, as the devils have one.
19. The birth, being, essence and dominion of
the dark world lies principally in the first four
brms of Nature, viz. in the source of anguish, in
tn exceedingly strong and powerful dominion,
vsrhere all in the essence is divulged. For gentleness
against the other.
20. Else, if they should be one, there would
necessarily be but one quality; and if there were
also only one will, the eternal wonders could not
become manifest. But the manifold quality makes
the eternal wonders manifest. For eternity could
not otherwise become manifest, nor attain to being,
save through the enkindling, viz. in the stern harsh
attraction in which the dark world stands, and in
which the fire-world and also the light-world take
their rise. All is only a single essence or substance,
but it separates itself into three properties. One
property is not separated from the other, but each
gives the other; as is to be seen in fire and light,
as also in the matter from which the fire burns.
21. And man need not search deeper, for he
is himself the essence of all beings. But because
he has in his creation turned aside from his original
order, and introduced and awakened another quality
in himself, it is necessary for him to inquire how
he may re-enter into his eternal order and quality,
and generate himself anew. And then, how he
may extinguish the fierce wrathful quality which
is moving in him, for all is active in him and draws
him, both evil and good. Therefore he should learn
how to resist wrath, and walk in meekness, in the
quality of light and of love.
22. Man, moreover, has no law except he enkindle
himself in the dark world's property, and walk
according to this property. Independently of that,
all is free to him. Whatsoever he doth in meekness
and love is without restriction for him, and is his
presumption.
23. All that is grown from one root is and belongs
to one tree, it is but one manner of fruit; un-
less it corrupt itself, so that the very essence
changes.
24. As long as a thing remains in the essence
from which it arose, it has no law; but if it with-
draw therefrom into another quality, the first
quality hangs unto it, and is in conflict with the
other. And then law ensues, that it should return
again into that which it originally was, and be
one, not two; for one thing should exercise only
one dominion, not two. Man was created in the
dominion of love and gentleness, as in God's Being,
and therein he was to remain.
25. But because he has awakened another do-
minion, viz. fierce wrath, he is now in combat
and strife, and has laws, that he may mortify and
abandon the fierceness, and be in one dominion
again. Since then both dominions are become
powerful in him, and the dominion of wrath has
overpowered love, he must wholly break to pieces
in substance, and be re-born again from the first
root. And therefore he has in this twofold being
laws, how he should conduct himself and generate
a will-spirit unto the eternal dominion.
26. All this lies in his power. He may bring
forth the spirit of wrath or the spirit of love, and in
accordance with the same he is separated whither
and into which world he belongs ; for he separates
himself.
27. But the law continues over him as long as he
rates from this field of the body, it is in one dominion
again, where it shall remain eternally; for after
that there is nothing more to give it law, inasmuch
as it is wholly one in its will, either to do evil
or good.
28. But in this external life man is in combat and
strife. Two dominions, qualities and laws repose in
him. The divine unto love and righteousness; and
the wrathful in the rising of pride in the power of
fire, in the stern, harsh, hellish covetousness, envy,
aijger and malice. The one to which the spirit
unites itself, of that dominion it is. The other
hangs unto it, and reproaches it to its face as a
perjured wretch and an apostate; but neverthe-
less draws it, and will have it. Thus life is in a
desperate strait between the two, and is at odds
with itself.
29. But if it resolve rashly, and abandon itself
wholly to the wrath, then the fierce wrath destroys
the first image according to God. And if it can-
not entirely, because the divine power hinders that,
then it would cast the whole man headlong; and
many a one is plunged into despair in this anguish,
so that he lays violent hands on himself.
30. Thus the soul with the image falls unto the
wrathful, dark world; and the image is brought
into a hellish figure, into a form of its property
which it had here. So it fared also with the devils,
who have lost their first image.
31. Every devil has an image according to his
property, according to the figure of the wrath,
in accordance with its quality; like as there are
also the lost soul to expect.
32. External Reason supposes that hell is far
from us. But it is near us. Every one carries
it in himself, unless he kill the hellish poison with
God's power, and bud forth therefrom as a new
twig, which the hellish quality cannot seize or
touch (riigeri).
33. Though indeed the fierceness of hell is recog-
nized more in one place than in another, all
according to the hellish dominion, where the upper
dominion is powerful in various places in the locus
of this world; all according to the first enkindling
of King Lucifer, as in many places of the earth,
as also in the deep between the stars and the
earth, is the hellish quality to be discerned above
other places, where the inner fierceness extends
to the external principle. Here then are distinct
dominions of devils, also of the other hellish
properties; here the fierce wrath of God has strongly
inflamed itself, and now burns until the judgment
of God.
34. Every man carries heaven and hell within
him in this world. The property which he awakens,
the same burns in him, and of that fire is the soul
susceptible. And when the body dies, the soul
needs to go nowhither, but it is committed to the
hellish dominion of which it is the property. Those
devils who are of its property await it, and receive
it into their dominion until the judgment of God.
And though they are confined to no place, yet
they belong to the same dominion, and the same
quality they have everywhere. Wherever they
for the abyss has no place, neither time nor space.
As it was before the times of the world, when there
was no place; so it is and remains so eternally
in the abyss.
35, And though the place of this world was
given to Lucifer for a kingdom (for he was created
therein), yet he has been cast out from place and
position, and dwells in the abyss, where he can
never reach any place of the angelic kingdom ; but
is shut up in his own realm in the abyss, where he
must bear eternal reproach as a prisoner. As is
done to a malefactor, who is put into a dark dungeon
away from all the beings of this world, where he
must do without any mundane joy or pleasure,
and bear the reproach of his crime.
86. So it fares also with the devils, and with
all damned souls, who lie captive in the dark prison.
Nor do they desire to come out, because of the
great reproach of their horrible form and image.
And wherever they go, yet they never enjoy any
good ; there is among them no refreshment. But
they lie in hell as the dead, or as eternally hungry,
fainting and thirsty; and are only an evil poison-
source. All is to them adverse and contrary.
They have only a thirst after anguish and malice ;
these they devour eternally, and bring forth
blasphemies upon themselves. The more horrible
they can make their figure, the more pleasing
that is to them. Like buffoons, who on earth
would fain be always the greatest fools, give them-
selves a hideous appearance, and have their deligl '
therein; so they do also eternally in hell, an
the tyrant delights when he can torment men,
and spend their sweat in show and luxury, in foolish
strange attire and behaviour, and ape the fool; so
do also the devils in hell. And the luxury of this
world in its strange garb is a true type of the
hellish world.
37. All the curious tassels and tufts which the
proud man devises, and clothes his foolish man
therewith, whereby he would be distinguished
from the true children of God, are types of the
hellish world. All his bedizenment, glittering show
and ostentation, by which he withdraws himself
from humility, is a hellish mirror; for the devil's
pride will be like to none, it keeps itself distinct
in this world. And the blind man understands
not this, how the devil fools and deceives him, and
thus only to mock God prefigures his own proud
mask; so that the poor man does as he does, and
thinks he is thereby fine, and better than other
men, whereas we all arise and proceed from one
body and spirit. But before God and his angels he
is recognized only as a devil's mask, and is in the
sight of heaven an abomination. As a fool in com-
parison with wisdom is but an abomination, so is
also hypocritical pride an abomination before God
and his angels, in presence of the noble image. The
world still cleaves to this abomination, and there-
with marks out the corrupt image of earthliness.
38. He who sees a proud man sees the heavy fall
of Adam, and a type of the hellish world; a half
devil and half man, to whom the devil has con-
tinual access. For he is the deviPs servant in this
THE SIXTH POINT 101
world; the devil does his work through him, and
the poor man knows it not, and so enters the devil's
service to his eternal reproach. He thinks he is
thereby fine and important, and is thereby in the
sight of God only as a fool, who puts on strange
clothing and takes to himself animal form.
CHAPTER X
Of ttie four elements of the devil and of the dark
world; how we shall know them in this outer
world.
1. The first element of the dark world and of the
devil is pride, the second covetousness, the third
envy, the fourth anger. These four elements are
everlastingly hatching a young son, who is called
Falsehood. This son is also a true son of the
corrupt Adam, whom he left behind him to be a
lord of the world. He has become king in the
world, and has possessed the whole world, and
rules everywhere in the third principle. Whoever
rightly knows this king, knows the four elements
of the devil; for in the dark world these four
elements have entire dominion in spirit and body,
and in all that is called being.
2. And we see hereby clearly that this world
rests upon the foundation of these four elements,
and receives from them tendency, quality and will.
For the son of these four elements rules on earth ;
he will have all obedient under him, and has four
different races of his subjects. (1) The race of
pride, which will be above all other, and will put
itself on a level with none. (2) The race of
covetousness, which will alone possess all, subdue all
under it, and will have all. This second race is the
son of the first, for pride will also have all, that
it alone may be all. (3) The third race is envy,
it cannot alone have all, it stings like a poison, and
begrudges anything to any one. Its will in all
things is either to draw to itself and possess alone,
or to rage therein with an evil wilL (4) The fourth
race is anger, which is the son of envy. What it
cannot attain with evil will, that it enkindles in the
fire of wrath, and breaks it by force. It brings
about war and slaughter, and would destroy every-
thing. This race would subdue all by violence.
3. These, then, are the four elements of the
devil, all which four are in one another as one.
One proceeds from the other, and one gives birth
to the other. They take their origin from the dark
Nature, viz. from sour, bitter, anguish and fire.
4. But seeing God's power is for them an opposi-
tion, so that in this world they have not full
dominion, they have generated a crafty son, by
whom they rule, who is called Falsehood. He takes
the coat of divine colours upon him, that he may
not be known; and wishes to be called a son of
truth and virtue, but is an impostor. He speaks
in one way, and thinks and acts in another. He
carries the lustre of God on his tongue, and the
devil's power and poison in his heart.
5. This is king on earth, and manages two king-
doms. The first is called perdition; the second
Babel, a confusion. The kingdom of perdition
this king has clothed with strength and might; it
is the garment of that kingdom. On the other
kingdom, Babel, he has put a white shining gar-
ment. That must be to it in place of God, and with
that the king rules on earth as if he were God. And
is the man of falsehood and deceit, and hath in him"
his mother the four elements, viz. pride, covetous-
ness, envy and anger.
6. Thus the four elements of the devil rule under
a hypocritical coat, and men strive eagerly for this
coat. Every one will put it on; but he who puts it on,
puts on hell and God's wrath. This coat is honoured
in God's stead, and is the coat which the wrath
of God did put on Adam and Eve, when the devil
deceived them, so that they fell from obedience to
God. And it is the very same coat of which God
from the beginning of the world has warned us,
that we should not put it on; for the devil has
his lodging in it. When we put it on, we take up
our abode with the devil, and must do what he
pleases; for he is host in that house, and rests in
that coat.
7. Because he is a prisoner of God, he puts his
coat on us, and sends us therewith to Babel into
his service, where we cannot but mock God; for
we have on God's coat, and the devil lodged under
it as guest. Thus the tongue gives God good words,
and the heart has the spirit of the four elements
of wrath; and God is therefore mocked by the
devil, that God shall see that he, the devil, is lord
and king over men, and esteems God's dominion
in man only as a shining coat, in which he, the devil,
is man, and has man captive in his arms. He covers
him indeed with the coat, and allows man to call
himself God's child; but in this coat man does only
his will for him, so that all that the devil cannot or
not do in the external kingdom, that man does
any one, and man does it readily to please him.
Neither can the devil use God's creatures, and
man misuses them willingly to please him, thereby
to mock God. With this he practises pride and
covetousness, also falsehood and malice, and accom-
plishes by them all that the devil would have; he
shines also therewith as if he w&ye God.
8. The external kingdom is therefore become a
perpetual murderous den of the devil. The false
and pretended man (who calls himself a man, but is
not) does the butchery, and increases God's wrath,
and kindles the dark world in this outer world, so
that God's wrath continually burns in this world.
9. Thus God's kingdom, is hindered, and the
devil's will done ; and the devil remains a prince
on earth, whereas otherwise he could accomplish
nothing on earth. The pretended man is in his
service, and does his will. Two species of men,
then, dwell together on earth. The one are real
true men, who serve God in the coat of humility
and misery, whom the devil derides and torments
them with the other species, and in their case
brings all his wonders to pass by means of those
who serve him.
10. The other species also calls itself men, walk
also in human form, but they are evil beasts. They
put on the garment of their King, that is to say,
Falsehood; and live in the power of the four
elements of their king, viz. in pride, covetousness,
envy and anger.
11. Pride is the first virtue. It snatches the
bread from the mouth of the real man, and coerces
that nothing shall be on a level with it; it will
be alone the fairest child in the house. It has put
on the coat of dissimulation, and would be called
righteous; people must honour it and bow them-
selves before it. Nothing must compare itself to
it. It will be lord, and says: I am modest in my
demeanour.
12. But its heart is covetousness. That is the
wolf, and devours the sweat and labour of the
wretched. Pride mounts up above all. It explores
daily the wonders of God, to see how it may dis-
semble and play the hypocrite. It affects to be
friendly and chaste, as if it were a virgin full of
modesty; and yet is a strumpet full of flaws, and
at heart hates all virtue, chastity and righteous-
ness. It is a perpetual enemy of love and humility.
Whatever is simple, that it despises; and yet
forces the simple under its yoke. It says to the
real true man : Thou art my dog, I will hunt thee
whither I list. Thou art foolish, and I am wise;
and it is itself the biggest fool. It forfeits God and
the kingdom of heaven for a little while's delight of
the eyes; it plunges itself into darkness, and puts
on the coat of anxiety.
IS. The second virtue of this King Falsehood
is covetousness. This draws all to itself, and
darkens the shining adornment of pride. It draws
to itself evil and good promiscuously, and continu-
ally fills pride full. And when it has filled it, it
takes its son envy and torments pride therewith,
so that it has no rest in its splendour. Envy
stings incessantly in the desiring covetousness, as
day and night, so that it never rests. Covetous-
ness is the right coarse swinish beast; it desires
more than it can eat. Its jaws are wide open
day and night. It suffers not man to rest, and
torments him continually in its sordid filthiness,
so that he has an eager longing earthward, and
toward the things the earth yields without any
one's covetousness; only labour belongs thereto,
and no covetousness.
14. Covetousness plagues itself and is its own
enemy ; for it fills itself with pain and disquietude,
and clouds man's understanding, so that he cannot
recognize that all comes from the divine hand. It
makes dark for man his life's light, consumes the
body, and robs him of the divine senses and glory.
It casts him into the pit of death, and brings
him temporal and eternal death. It attracts dark
matter into man's noble image, and makes of
an angel a fierce wrathful devil. It creates the
turba in body and soul, and is the horrible beast
in the abyss of hell, for it is the cause of suffering
and pain; without it no pain could arise. It
causes war and strife, for it is never satisfied. If
it had all the world, it would want to have also
the abyss; for there is no place made for its
rest. It builds up countries and kingdoms, and
destroys them also again. It drives man into mere
trouble and turmoil; it is simply the devil's heart
and will.
15. For pride is the brave spirit which grows
from covetousness. It is the fair child that was
to possess heaven; but covetousness has trans-
it into Babel, into the mother of the great
dom on earth. There pride continually
tutes itself to covetousness, and is but a
child in the sight of God. It cannot
heaven; it has its kingdom of heaven o:
It makes court tp King Falsehood, who t
its labour, and gives it to the four element
devil in the dark world; and thither mu
follow also with covetousness, when the
anxious avarice breaks. The same is in
very just, and yet takes its covetousness
into the abyss, that pride may have its
therein. As a fool in his fool's dress, w
and vexes himself that he may bring foi
and please his spectators, that he may
extravagant fool; so in like manner pr
covetousness is God's fool and the devil's
who hath his delight in this, that he can
God's image a fool's image.
16. The third virtue is envy, in the I
ments of the devil, in the kingdom of fa
The same is a sting, a rager and raver, like
poison. It can abide nowhere, and has no
place. Its mother covetousness allows it :
it must always rage and rave. It must er
that in which it is not generated. It is tin
of covetousness, a perpetual liar and si
It pierces into its neighbour's heart, and w<
It devours itself for very poisonful hunger,
never has enough. It causes restlessness
limit or measure. It is the greatest poison
eye of hell, whereby the devil sees in the $
fire, but the sting of fire. It brings about all
ill, and yet finds no rest; the more it pushes on,
the more frantic it is. It is a famished poison.
It needs no being, and yet rages in being. It
makes man more than mad, so that he desires
to storm and rave against God. It is the essence
of hell and of wrath, and makes of love the greatest
enmity. It grudges any one anything, and yet is
itself a starved nothing.
17. Envy is the deviFs will-spirit; and the man
who takes it as a lodging, receives the devil and
God's wrath; for it brings hellish torture and
pain. It is the eternal hostile torment and unrest,
and destroys the noble image of God; for it is the
enemy of God and of all creatures.
18. The fourth virtue, in the four elements in
the kingdom of falsehood of the devil, is anger,
rage. This is the right hell-fire; for anger is
generated between covetousness and envy. It is
the fire and life of envy. What envy cannot do,
that anger accomplishes. Anger takes body and
soul together, and runs like a raging devil. It
would destroy and shatter everything; it runs
against walls and strongholds. And though it
burst itself, still it is furious, like a mad dog that
bites and kills all; and is so venomous in its wrath,
that, what it cannot overpower, it nevertheless
poisons. This is the true podagra of the world.
When pride in its hypocritical coat cannot get the
mastery by guile and falsehood, it must then give
effect to the fourth virtue, which strikes with the
fist and brings about war. Oh/';'howj merry is Ih
thinks he is lord on earth. For though he is a
prisoner, yet the animal-men perform his office
well; and accordingly he holds men in derision,
that they are and do worse than he himself can do.
19. These are, then, the four elements of the
dark world,, in which the devil opines to be a God;
and therewith he rules on earth by his faithful son
Falsehood. This latter is the smug kitling, who
before gives good words, and yet always has the
mouse in view. Can it but catch it: Oh, how
brisk and jocund it is when it can bring the roast
meat to the devil! With these four elements man is
surrounded, and lodges in the country of the false
king. They shoot him at all hours to the heart,
and would destroy his noble image. He must always
be at war against them, for they lodge with him
and in him; they make thrusts continually at him,
and would destroy his choicest jewel.
20. If but one of these four elements obtain
in man power to qualify, this one enkindles all
the others; and they straightway rob him of his
noble image, and make of him a mask of the devil.
And no man who allows to these four elements
power to qualify can with truth say of himself,
that he is a man; for he qualifies into the devil's
property, and is an enemy of God. And though
the devil clothe him with the hypocritical coat, so
that he is able to give good words and knows how
to be elegant in his manners, that men think he is
a child of God, yet he is not a man as long as these
four elements have the upper-hand in him; but
he is a diabolized man, half devil and half man,
devil in human shape.
21. Let every one, therefore, learn to know
himself,—what kind of properties rule in him. If
he find that all these four elements, or one only,
rule in him, he has to take the field against them,
or it will turn out ill in the end. He will not be
permitted to comfort himself with the kingdom of
heaven. Only let him not suffer the devil to wrap
him round with the hypocritical cloak, as happens
when men live in these four elements, and subtly
flatter themselves with the sufferings of Christ.
That must be the covering of this impostor. The
impostor might retain his dominion, if he did not
tickle himself with Christ's satisfaction.
22. Oh, how the shining coat of Christ will be
stript off thee! Then will be seen standing in
Babel the whore with the four virtues. It is not
merely a question of taking comfort, but of keep-
ing down the impostor, lest he become master in
the house. He must not bear rule, but righteous-
ness, love, humility and chastity, and constant
cheerful well-doing. Not dissembling and giving
good words, but doing. There must be doing: viz.
striving against the devil's will, contenting oneself
with little, in patience shutting oneself up in hope
in God, resisting the four evil elements and taking
in God's four elements, which are love, meekness,
mercy, and patience in hope. These should man
awaken in himself, and therewith continually fight
against the devil's four elements.
23. Man must here be at war against himself, if
he wishes to become a heavenly citizen. He must
112 SIX/THEOSOPHIC POINTS
not be a lazy/ sleeper, and with gormandizing and
swilling fill Iciis belly, whereby the devil's elements
begin to (Qualify; but he must be temperate,
sober and/ vigilant, as a soldier that stands before
his enejmy. For God's wrath fights continually
against/ him ; he will have enough to do to defend
himself.
5^4. For the devil is his enemy, his own corrupt
flesh and blood is his enemy, God's wrath is his
enemy within him, and the whole world is his
enemy. Wherever he looks he sees enemies, who
all desire to rob him.
25. Therefore fighting must be the watchword,
not with tongue and sword, but with mind and
spirit; and not give over. Though body and soul
should break, yet God must remain the strength
of the heart, as David says (Psal. Ixxiii. 26). And
though a man should see that the whole world were
godless, if he purpose becoming a child of God,
he must nevertheless continue steadfast.
26. And though it should seem to him that he
were alone in this path, and the whole world should
say : Thou art a fool, and art mad ! yet he should
be as if he were dead in the world, and heard that
from the mouth of the devil, who is his worst
enemy. He should nowhere give ground; but
think that in his purpose he pleases God, and
that God himself in him is his purpose ; that he
would thus deliver him from the devil, and bring
him into his kingdom. Amen,
SEX PUNCTA MYSTICA

OK

A SHORT EXPLANATION OF

SIX MYSTICAL POINTS

BY

JACOB BOHME

Written in the year 1620
PREFACE
THE precious knowledge is not found unless the
soul have once conquered in the assault and struck
down the devil, so that it obtains the knight's
garland, which the gracious virgin Chastity puts
upon it as a token of victory that it has overcome
in its dear champion Christ. Then the wonder-
ful knowledge rises, but with no perfection.
THE FIRST POINT
ON THE "BLOOD AND WATER OF THE SOUL.
1. All that is substantial and tangible is in this
world. Now, since the soul is not a substance or
entity in this world, neither is its blood and water
a substance or entity in this world.
2. Certainly the soul with its blood and water
is in the outer blood and water; but its substance
is magical. For the soul is also a magical fire, and
its image or form is generated in the light (in the
power of its own fire and light) from the magical
fire ; and yet is a veritable image in flesh and blood,
but in the original state thereof.
3. As God's wisdom has being, and yet it, wis-
dom, is not a being; so the soul with its image
has being, and yet it, the soul, is only a magical
fire, but its sustenance is from its substance.
4. As a fire must have substance if it is to burn,
so likewise the magical fire of the soul has flesh,
blood and water. There would be no blood if the
tincture of fire and light were not in water. This
tincture is the ens or life of wisdom (which has
in it all the forms of Nature), and is the other
118 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
light in it); and according to the property of the
fire in it, it is a sharpness of transmutation. It can
bring everything to its highest degree ; although it
is not a live spirit, but the supreme ens.
6. Hence also the tincture is such an ens in water,
and introduces thereinto the property of fire and
of light, with all the powers of Nature; whereby
it transforms the water into blood; and this it
does in the outer and inner water, as in the outer
and inner blood.
7. The inner blood of the divine substantiality
is also magical; for it is Magic which makes it
into substance. It is spiritual blood, which outer
nature cannot touch (rugen), but by imagination
only. The inner imagination introduces the outer
will into the inner blood, whereby the flesh and
blood of the divine substantiality is corrupted, and
the noble image of the likeness of God is eclipsed.
8. The soul's flesh and blood is in the highest
mystery, for it is divine substantiality. And when
the outer flesh and blood die, it falls unto the outer
mystery, and the outer mystery falls unto the
inner.
9. And every magical fire has its brightness
and darkness in itself; on account of which a final
day of separation is appointed, when all must
pass through a fire and be proved, what shall be
fit for it or not. Then everything goes into its own
magic, and thereafter is as it was from eternity.
THE SECOND POINT
ON THE ELECTION OE GRACE. ON GOOD AND EVIL.
.1. God is from eternity alone all. His essence
divides itself into three eternal distinctions. One
is the fire-world, the second the * dark world, and
the third the light-world. And yet they are but
one essence, one in another; but one is not the
other.
2. The three distinctions are alike eternal and
without bounds, and confined in no time nor place.
Each distinction shuts itself in itself in a being;
and its qualification is in accordance with its pro-
perty, and in its qualification is also its desire, as
the centrum naturae.
3. And the desire is its making, for desire makes
being where there is none, and that in the essence
of the desire, according to the property of the
desire. And all is together only a Magia, or a
hunger after being.
4. Each form makes being in its desire ; and
each form fulfils itself out of the mirror of its
brightness, and has its seeing in its own mirror.
viz. from sour, bitter and anguish; and yet in
these three there is no pain in themselves, but
fire causes pain in them, and light transforms it
into gentleness again.
6. The right life is rooted in fire; there is the
hinge of light and darkness. The hinge is desire ;
with whatever it fill itself, to the fire thereof the
desire belongs, and its light shines from that fire.
That light is the form or seeing of that life; and
the substance introduced in the desire is the fire's
wood, from which the fire burns, be it harsh or
soft; and that also is its kingdom of heaven or
of hell.
7. Human life is the hinge between light and
darkness; to whichever it give itself up, in that
same does it burn. If it give itself to the desire
of essence, it burns in anguish, in the fire of
darkness.
8. But if it give itself to a nothing, then it is
desireless, and falls unto the fire of light, and then
it cannot burn in any pain; for it brings into its
fire no substance from which a fire could burn.
Seeing then there is no pain in it, neither can the
life receive any pain, for there is none in it; it
has fallen unto the first Magia, which is God in
his triad.
9. When the life is born, it has all the three
worlds in it. The world to which it unites itself,
by that it is held, and in that fire enkindled.
10. For when the life enkindles itself, it is
attracted by all the three worlds; and they are in
motion in the essence, as in the first enkindled fire.
and receives, its fire burns.
11. If the first essence in which the life en-
kindles itself be good, then is also the fire pleasant
and good. But if it be evil and dark, consisting
of a fierce wrathful property, then is the fire also
a wrath-fire, and has a corresponding desire con-
forming to the property of the fire.
12. For every imagination desires only essence
like unto itself, wherein it originally arose.
13. The life of man in this time is like a wheel,
where the undermost is soon uppermost. It en-
kindles itself at every essence, and soils itself with
every essence. But its bath is the movement of
the heart of God, a water of gentleness; and
therefrom it is able to introduce substantiality
into its fire-life. The election of God depends
not on the first essence.
14. For the first essence is only the mysterium
for a life; and the first life with the enkindling
belongs properly to its mysterium out of which it
proceeded, be it a wholly fierce essence, or a mixed
essence, or an essence of light according to the
light-world.
15. The property from which the life first takes
its rise, from that also burns the light of its life.
This life has no election, and no judgment is, passed
upon it; for it stands in its own primitive con-
dition, and carries its judgment in itself. It
separates itself from all other source (Qual); for it
burns only in its own source, in its own magical fire.
16. Election is in respect of that which is intro-
duced, whether it belong to the light or to the
122 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
darkness. For according as it belongs to the one
property or to the other, so also is its life's will.
And here it becomes known whether it is of
the fierce wrathful essence, or of the love-essence.
So long as it burns in one fire, it is forsaken of
the other; and the election of that fire wherein it
burns passes upon the life; for it would have it,
it is of its property.
17. But if that fire's will (as the flying punctum)
plunge into another fire and enkindle itself therein,
then it may enkindle the whole life with that fire,
if it remain in that fire.
18. Then is the life new-born, either unto the
dark world or unto the world of light (in which-
ever the will has enkindled itself), and upon it
comes another election. And that is the reason
why God suffers people to teach, and so does the
devil. Each wishes the life's will to plunge into
his fire, and enkindle itself. And then one mys-
terium seizes the other.
THE THIRD POINT
ON SIN. WHAT is SIN, AND HOW IT is siN.1
1. A thing that is one has neither command-
ment nor law. But if it mix with another, then
there are two beings in one, and also two wills, one
running counter to the other. There is the origin
of enmity.
2. Thus we are to consider of enmity against
God. God is one and good, without any pain
or limiting characteristic (Qual); and though all
source or quality (Qual) be in him, yet it is not
manifest. For the good has swallowed up the evil
or contrary into itself, and keeps it in restraint in
the good, as it were a prisoner; for the evil must
be a cause of life and of light, but imrnanifest.
But the good dies to the evil, that it may dwell
in the evil, without pain or feeling, in itself.
3. Love and enmity are only one thing; but
each dwells in itself, and that makes two things.
Death is the bound of separation between them;
and yet there is no death, save that the good dies
to the evil, as the light is dead to the pain of fire,
and no longer feels the fire.
Ai TVmc f/hf=*n rrmeh WP>
of man.
5. Now, no unfathomable existence can dwell
in one that is fathomable. For, as soon as the
right life awakens pain in itself, it is not identical
with the unground, in which there is no pain;
hence immediately one separates from the other.
6. For the good or the light is as a nothing ; but
if something come into it, then this something
is another than the nothing. For the something
dwells in itself, in torment (Qual); for where
there is something, there must be a quality (Qual)
which makes and keeps the something.
7. And thus we are to consider of love and
enmity. Love has but one quality and one will, it
desires only its like, and not many. For the good
is only one, but quality is many ; and the human
will that desires many, brings into itself, into the
One (wherein God dwells), the torment of plurality.
8. For the something is dark, and darkens the
life's light; and the One is Light, for it loves
itself and is no desire after several.
9. The life's will must therefore be directed
towards the One (as towards the good), and thus
it remains in one quality. But if it imaginate into
another quality, it makes itself pregnant with the
thing after which it longs.
10. And if this thing be without an eternal
foundation, in a frail perishable root, then it seeks
a root for its preservation, that it may remain.
For every life stands in magical fire; and every
fire must have substance in which it burns.
11. This same thing must make for itself sub-
^
have food to feed upon. Now, no fire-source can
subsist in the free fire; for it attains not that,
inasmuch as it is only a self-thing.
12. All that is to subsist in God must be freed
from its own will. It must have no individual
fire burning in it; but God's fire must be its fire.
Its will must be united to God, that God and the
will and spirit of man may be but one.
13. For that which is one is not at enmity with
itself, for it has only one will. Wherever it goes,
or whatever it does, that is all one with it.
14. One will has only one imagination; and the
imagination makes or desires only that which
assimilates with it. And so in like manner we are
to understand concerning the contrary will.
15. God dwells in all things; and nothing com-
prehends him, unless it be one with him. But
if it go out from the One, it goes out of God into
itself, and is another than God, which separates
itself. And here it is that law arises, that it
should proceed again out of itself into the One,
or else remain separated from the One*
16. And thus it may be known what is sin,
or how it is sin. Namely, when the human will
separates itself from God into an existence of its
own, and awakens its own self, and burns in its
own fire, which is not capable of the divine fire.
17. For all into which the will enters, and will
have as its own, is something foreign in the one
will of God. For all is God's, and to man's own
will belongs nothing. But if it be in God, then all
is its also.
18. Thus we recognize that desire is sin. For it
is a lusting out of one into many, and introduces
many into one. It will possess, and yet should be
will-less. By desire substance is sought, and in
substance desire kindles fire.
19. Now each particular fire burns in accordance
with the character of its own being ; and here
separation and enmity are born. For Christ says :
He that is not with me is against me ; and he that
gathereth not with me scattereth (Luke xi. 23).
For he gathereth without Christ; and whatsoever
is not in Him is out of God.
20. We see, then, that covetousness is sin; for
it is a desire out of God. And we see also that
pride is sin, for it will be a thing of its own; and
separates itself from God, as from the One.
21. For whatever will be in God must walk in
him, in his will. Seeing then we are in God but
one in many members, it is against God when
one member withdraws itself "from the other, and
makes a lord of itself, as pride does. Pride will
be lord, and God alone is lord. Thus there are
two lords, and one separates from the other.
22. All, therefore, is sin and a contrary will,
that desire possesses as its own, be it meat or drink.
If the will imaginate thereinto, it fills itself there-
with and kindles the fire thereof, and then another
fire bums in the first, and there is contrary will
and error.
23. Therefore out of the contrary will must
grow a new will, which gives itself up again to the
one Unity; and the contrary will must be broken
and slain-
God that became man. If man place his desire
therein,, he goes out from pain (Qual), from his
own fire, and is new-born in the Word. And thus
the out-going will dwells in God; and the first
will in greed, earthliness and plurality.
25. Accordingly plurality with the body must
break, and it (plurality) must perish and fall away
from the out-going will, and then the out-going
will is recognized as a new birth. For in the One
it takes all again into itself; but not with its own
desire, but withx its own love—a love that is
united with God, that God may be all in all, and
his will the will of all things; for in God exists
but a single will.
26. Thus we find that evil must be subservient
unto the life of the good, provided the will again
goes out from the evil, from itself, into the good;
for fierceness must constitute life's fire.
27. But the life's will must be turned against
itself in conflict; for it must flee from fierceness,
and not will it. It must not will desire, and yet its
fire (i.e. life's fire) wills desire, and must have desire.
Therefore the thing is, to be born anew in will.
28. Every will-spirit that remains in the desire
of its life's fire (as in the ferventness of the wood
for fire), or enters thereinto and possesses the
earthly, is separated from God as long as it possesses
what is foreign, viz. the earthly,
1 Mr. H. H. Joachim writes: cBonnie's point here is very deep: the
individual's will when united with God does not lose its individuality.
It takes all into itself with a love peculiar to itself—"but since it is love,
and not desire, it (the love) can he the will's very own^ peculiar to it,
and yet not separate it from other individuals or from God/
128 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
29. Thus, we recognize how superfluity of meat
and drink produces sin. For the pure will, which
goes out from the life's fire, is drowned in desire
and imprisoned, so that it proves too powerless
in combat. For the source of fire (or of desire)
holds it captive and fills it with craving, so that
this same will carries its imagination into the
desire.
30* Accordingly the will in the desire for meat
and drink is earthly, and is separated from God.
But the will that escapes from the earthly fire,
burns in the inward fire, and is divine.
31. This will that flees from the earthly desire
arises not from the earthly fire. No ; it is the will
of the soul's fire, which is caught and concealed by
the earthly desire. It wills not to remain in the
earthly desire, but will enter into its One, into
God, out of which it originally sprang.
32. But if it be kept a prisoner in the earthly
desire, then it is shut up in death, and suffers
agony. And thus is sin to be understood.
THE FOURTH POINT
HOW CHRIST WILL DELIVER UP THE KINGDOM
TO HIS FATHER.
1. At the creation of the world and of all being,
the Father put himself in motion in accordance
with his property, viz. by the centre of Nature,
by the dark world and the fire-world. These
continued in motion and domination till the Father
moved himself in accordance with his heart (and
the light-world), and God became man. Then
the love of the light overcame the Father's fierce
wrathful property, and the Father ruled in the Son
with love.
2. Then the Son had dominion in those that did
cleave unto God; and the Holy Spirit (that pro-
ceeds from the Father and Son) drew men in the
light of love, through the Son, to God the Father.
3. But in the end the Holy Spirit moves in the
Father's and also in the Son's property, and both
properties become active at once. The spirit of
the Father reveals itself in fire and light, as also
in the wrath of the dark world. Then the king-
dom falls unto the Father. For the Holy Spirit
180 SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
Son, bears rule eternally in the two worlds, accord-
ing to each world's nature and property.
5. He alone will be the revealer of the wonders.
And thus to the Father (who is all) the eternal
dominion, which he exercises with the Spirit, is
delivered by the Son.
THE FIFTH POINT

ON MAGIC. WHAT MAGIC is. WHAT THE

MAGICAL GROUND IS.

1. Magic is the mother of eternity, of the being
of all beings ; for it creates itself, and is under-
stood in desire.

2. It is in itself nothing but a will, and this will
is the great mystery of all wonders and secrets, but
brines itself by the imagination of the desireful

O *J t-3

hunger into being.

3. It is the original state of Nature. Its desire
makes „an imagination (Einbildung), and imagina-
tion or figuration is only the will of desire. But
desire makes in the will such a being as the will
in itself is.

4. True Magic is not a being, but the desiring
spirit of the being. It is a matrix without sub-
stance, but manifests itself in the substantial being.

5. Magic is spirit, and being is its body; and yet
the two are but one, as body and soul is but one
person.

6. Magic is the greatest secrecy, for it is above
Nature, and makes Nature after the form of its
will. It is the mystery of the Ternary, viz. it is
in desire the will striving towards the heart of God.

7. It is the formative power in the eternal wisdom,
as a desire in the Ternary, in which the eternal wonder

131
tion with Nature. It is. the desire which introduces
itself into the dark Nature, and through Nature into
fire, and through fire, through death or fierceness,
into the light of Majesty.
8. It is not Majesty, but the desire in Majesty.
It is the desire of the divine power, not the power
itself, but the hunger or craving in the power. It is
not God's Almightiness, but the directrix in God's
power and might. The heart of God is the power,
and the Holy Spirit is the revelation of power.
9. It is, however, the desire not only in the power,
but also in the conducting spirit; for it has in it the
Fiat. What the Will-spirit reveals in it, that it
brings into a being by the sourness which is the
Fiat; all according to the model of the will. Ac-
cording as the will makes a model in wisdom, so
does desiring Magic receive it; for it has in its
property imagination as a longing.
10. Imagination is gentle and soft, and resembles
water. But Desire is harsh and dry, like a hunger;
it makes the soft hard, and is found in all things,
. for it is the greatest thing (Weseri) in the Deity. It
leads the bottomless to foundation, and the nothing
into something. *
11. In Magic are all forms of Being of all beings.
It is a mother in all three worlds, and makes each
thing after the model of that thing's will. It is
not the understanding, but it is a creatrix accord-
ing to the understanding, and lends itself to good
or to evil.
12. All that the will models in wisdom, if the
will of the understanding also enter thereinto, that
that love God in God's Being; for it makes in
the understanding divine substance, and takes
this from imagination, as from the gentleness of the
light.
13. It is Magic that makes divine flesh; and
the understanding is born of wisdom, for it is a dis-
cerner of colours, powers and virtues. The under-
standing guides the right true spirit with a bridle ;
for the spirit is soaring, and the understanding is
its fire.
14. The spirit is not dissentient, that it should
dissent from the understanding; but it is the
will of the understanding. But the senses in the
understanding are flying-out and dissentient.
15. For the senses are the flash from the fire-
spirit, and bring with them in the light the flames
of Majesty; and in the darkness they bring with
them the flash of terror, as a fierce flash of fire.
16. The senses are such a subtle spirit that they
enter into all beings, and take up all beings into
themselves. But the understanding tries all in
its own fire; it rejects the evil and retains the
good. Then Magic, its mother, takes this and
brings it into a being.
17. Magic is the mother from which Nature
comes, and the understanding is the mother coming
from Nature. Magic leads into a fierce fire, and
the understanding leads its own mother, Magic,
out of the fierce fire into its own fire.
18. For the understanding is the fire of power,
and Magic the burning fire; and yet it is not to
be understood as fire, but the power or mother to
called desire.
19. By Magic is everything accomplished, both
good and bad. Its own working is Nigromantia,
but it is distributed into all the properties. In
that which is good it is good, and in that which is
evil it is evil. It is of use to the children for God's
kingdom, and to the sorcerers for the devil's king-
dom ; for the understanding can make of it what
it pleases. It is without understanding, and yet
comprehends all; for it is the comprehension of
all things.
20. It is impossible to express its depth, for it
is from eternity a ground and support of all things.
It is a master of philosophy, and likewise a mother
thereof.
21. But philosophy leads Magic, its mother, as
it pleases. As the divine power, viz. the Word
(or heart of God), leads the severe Father into
gentleness; so also does philosophy (or the under-
standing) lead its mother into a gentle divine
quality.
22. Magic is the book of all scholars. All that
will learn, must first learn Magic, be it a high or a
lowly art. Even the peasant in the field must go
to the magical school, if he would cultivate his
field.
23. Magic is the best theology, for in it true faith
is both grounded and found. And he is a fool that
reviles it; for he knows it not, and blasphemes
against God and himself, and is more a juggler
than a theologian of understanding.
24. As one that fights before a mirror, and
THE FIFTH POINT 135
knows not what the quarrel is, for his fighting is
superficial; so also the unjust theologian looks
on Magic through a reflection, and understands
nothing of the power. For it is godlike, and he is
ungodlike, yea devilish, according to the property
of each principle. In sum : Magic is the activity
in the Will-spirit.
THE SIXTH POINT

ON MYSTEBY. WHAT IT is.

1. Mystery is nothing else than the magical will,
which still lies caught in desire. It may fashion
itself in the mirror of wisdom how it will. And as
it fashions itself in the tincture, so it is fixed and
formed in Magic, and brought into a being.

2. For Mysterium magnum is nothing else
than the hiddenness of the Deity, together with
the Being of all beings, from which one mysterium
proceeds after another, and each mysterium is
the mirror and model of the other. And it is the
great wonder of eternity, wherein all is included,
and from eternity has been seen in the mirror
of wisdom. And nothing comes to pass that has
not from eternity been known in the mirror of
wisdom.

3. But you must understand this according to
the properties of the mirror, according to all the
forms of Nature, viz. according to light and dark-
ness, according to comprehensibility and incom-
prehensibility, according to love and wrath, or
according to fire and light, as has been set forth
elsewhere.

4. The Magician has power in this Mystery to
act according to his will, and can do what he
pleases.

136
THE SIXTH POINT 137
5. But he must be armed in that element wherein
he would create; else he will be cast out as a
stranger, and given into the power of the spirits
thereof, to deal with him according to their desire,
Of which in this place no more is to be said,
because of the turba.
MYSTERIUM PANSOPHIC
OR
A FUNDAMENTAL STATEMEN
CONCERNING THE
EARTHLY AND HEAVE]
MYSTERY
HOW THEY ARE IN ONE ANOTHER, AND H<
THE EARTHLY THE HEAVENLY IS MANIF
DRAWN UP IN NINE TEXTS
WHERE BABEL, THE GREAT CITY ON EAR!
TO BE SEEN WITH ITS POWER AND MARVELS.
BABEL IS BORN, AND FROM WHAT. WHI
ANTICHRIST SHALL STAND NAKED
A most wonderful revelation, taken out of
highest arcanum. Herein is wholly revealed v
the turba of all beings is.
Written for the children of God, who by t
warning will flee from burning Babel, and £
be bom children of God out of the turba.
All very earnestly and faithfully given fromkr
ledge of the great Mystery, the 8th May, 1<
BY
JACOB BOHME
THE FIRST TEXT
THE unground is an eternal nothing, but makes
an eternal beginning as a craving. For the nothing
is a craving after something. But as there is
nothing that can give anything, accordingly the
craving itself is the giving of it, which yet also is
a nothing, or merely a desirous seeking. And
that is the eternal origin of Magic, which makes
within itself where there is nothing; which makes
something out of nothing, and that in itself only,
though this craving is also a nothing, that is,
merely a will. It has nothing, and there is
nothing that can give it anything; neither has it
any place where it can find or repose itself.
THE FIFTH POINT
ON MAGIC. WHAT MAGIC is. WHAT THE
MAGICAL GKOUND IS.
1. Magic is the mother of eternity, of the being
of all beings; for it creates itself, and is under-
stood in desire.
2. It is in itself nothing but a will, and this will
is the great mystery of all wonders and secrets, but
brings itself by the imagination of the desireful
hunger into being.
3. It is the original state of Nature. Its desire
makes ^n imagination (Einbildung), and imagina-
tion or figuration is only the will of desire. But
desire makes in the will such a being as the will
in itself is.
4. True Magic is not a being, but the desiring
spirit of the being. It is a matrix without sub-
stance, but manifests itself in the substantial being.
5. Magic is spirit, and being is its body ; and yet
the two are but one, as body and soul is but one
person.
6. Magic is the greatest secrecy, for it is above
Nature, and makes Nature after the form of its
Tt is the mvsterv of the Ternary, viz. it is
THE SECOND TEXT
1. Seeing then there is a craving in the nothing,
it makes in itself the will to something. This
will is a spirit, as a thought, which goes out of
the craving and is the seeker of the craving, for it
finds its mother or the craving. Then is this will
a Magician in its mother; for it has found in the
nothing something, viz. its mother, and so now it
has a place for its dwelling.
2. And herein understand that the will is a spirit,
and different from the desirous craving. For the
will is an insensitive and incognitive life; but the
craving is found by the will, and is in the will
a being. Thus the craving is a Magia, and the
will a Magus; and the will is greater than its
mother which gives it, for it is lord in the mother ;
and the mother is dumb, but the will is a life with-
out origin. The craving is certainly a cause of the
will, but without knowledge or understanding. The
will is the understanding of the craving.
3. Thus we give you in brief to consider of nature
and the spirit of nature, what there has been from
eternity without origin. And we find thus that
the will, viz. the spirit, has no place for its rest;
THE THIRD TEXT
1. Seeing then the eternal will is free from the
craving, but the craving is not free from the will
(for the will rules over the craving), we recognize
the will as the eternal Omnipotence. For it has
no parallel. The craving is indeed a movement
of attraction or desire, but without understanding ;
it has a life, but without knowledge.
2. Now the will governs the life of the craving,
and doth therewith what it will. And though
it doth somewhat, yet this is not known tUl the
same reveals itself through the will, so that it
becomes an entity in the life of the will; then it is
known what the will has wrought.
8. We recognize, therefore, the eternal Will-
spirit as God, and the moving life of the craving
as Nature. For there is nothing prior, and either
is without beginning, and each is a cause of the
other, and an eternal bond.
4. Thus the Will-spirit is an eternal knowing
of the unground, and the life of the craving an
eternal being [body] of the will.
THE FOURTH TEXT
1. Seeing then the craving is a process of desire,
and this desire a life, this same desiring life goes
in the craving forward, and is always pregnant
with the craving.
2. And the desire is a stern attraction, and yet
hath nothing but itself, or the eternity without
foundation. And it draws magically, viz. its own
desiring into a substance.
3. For the will takes where there is nothing. It
is a lord and possessor. It is itself not a being, and
yet rules in being, and being makes it desirous,
namely of being. And since it becomes in itself
desirous, it is magical, and makes itself pregnant,
viz. by spirit without being; for originally it is
only spirit. Thus it makes in its imagination only
spirit,, and becomes pregnant with spirit as with
the eternal knowing of the unground, in the All-
power of the life, without being.
4. As then it is pregnant, the engenderment goes
within itself, and dwells in itself. For the essence
of the other life cannot grasp this pregnation, and
be its container. Hence the pregnation must go
V*»*.*V* JT V^V JL\^jL.JLJLfMJ.J,t,\J JULJ. CU.-l^ IkJJL iAJLAJl UJL V V-' V^V/JLJEXUL \Jl\JHM, \JJL OL7JLJ.Jt.ti.
for it hath else no seat.
6. But in this Word is a will, which desires to
go out into a being. This will is the life of the
original will, and proceeds out of the pregnation,
as out of the mouth of the will, into the life of
Magic, viz. into Nature; and reveals the non-
understanding life of Magic, so that the same is
a mysterium in which an understanding exists
essentially, and thus obtains an essential spirit.
There, every essence is an arcanum or a mysteriurn
of an entire being, and is thus a comprehension as
an unfathomable wonder of eternity; for many
lives without number are generated, and yet all
is together but one being.
7. The threefold Spirit without being is its master
and possessor; and yet it possesses not the Nature-
being, for it (the Spirit) dwells in itself.
8. The Word is its centre or seat, and is in the
midst as a heart; and the spirit of the Word, which
takes its origin in the primal eternal will, reveals
the wonders of the essential life. There are, then,
two mysteries : one in the spirit-life, and one in
the essential life. The spirit-life is acknowledged
as God, and is rightly so called; and the essential
life is acknowledged as the Nature-life, which would
have no understanding if the Spirit or the spirit-
life were not desirous. In this desire the divine
Being, as the eternal word or heart of God, is
continually and from eternity generated; from
which the desiring will as Spirit eternally goes out
into the Nature-life, and reveals therein the
mystery in essences. So that there are two lives
146 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
and also two beings, from and in a single, eternal,
unfathomable origin.
9. And thus we apprehend what God and Nature
is; how the one and the other is from eternity
without any ground or beginning. For it is an
everlasting beginning. It begins itself perpetually
and from eternity to eternity, where there is no
number; for it is the unground.
THE FIFTH TEXT
1. Seeing then there have been from eternity
two beings, we cannot say that one exists beside
the other, and is disposed so that the one compre-
hends the other; neither can it be said that one
is outside of the other, and that there is a separa-
tion. No; but thus we apprehend it, that the
spirit-life faces inwards, and the nature-life outwards
and forwards.
2. Together, then, we compare them to a spherical
orb which goeth on all sides, as the wheel in
Ezekiel indicates.
8. The spirit-life is an entire fulness of the
nature-life, and yet is not laid hold of by the nature-
life. They are two principles in a single origin,
each having its mystery and its operation. The
nature-life works unto fire, and the spirit-life unto
the light of glory. By fire we understand the
fierceness of the consuming of the essentiality of
Nature; and by light the production of water,
which deprives the fire of power, as is set forth in
the Forty Questions on the soul.
4. And thus we are able to recognize an eternal
substantiality of Nature, identical with water and
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
THE FIFTH TEXT 149
iscard the mirror, and yet cannot. And there-
>re the craving seeks the limit of the beginning,
nd passes out of the mirror. Thus the mirror
i broken, and the breaking is a turba, as a dying
f the formed or comprehended life.
8. And it is highly recognizable by us how
tie imagination of the Eternal Nature has the
irba in the craving, in the Mystery, but not
wakenable, unless the creature, as the mirror of
ternity, doth itself awaken this, viz. the fierce
rrath, which in eternity is hidden in mystery.
9. And we see here, when the Eternal Nature
tut itself in motion once for all by the creation of
he world, that the fierce wrath was awakened too,
,nd also manifested itself in creatures. As indeed
re find many evil beasts, likewise herbs and trees,
,s also worms, toads, serpents and the like,—of
phieh the Eternal Nature hath a loathing, and the
aalignity and poison is nourished only in its own
;ssence.
10. And therefore the Eternal Nature seeks the
imit of the malignity, and would abandon it.
Chen it falls into the turba, as into a dying; and
ret there is no dying, but a spewing-out in the
Mystery, where the malignity with its life must
itand apart as in a darkness. For the Eternal
sFature abandons it and casts it into shade, so that
t stands thus by itself as an evil, poisonous, fierce
nysterium, and is itself its own magic as a craving
)f the poisonful anguish.
THE SIXTH TEXT

1. When we consider and take cognizance of
ourselves, we find the opposition * of all essences,
each being the loathing of the other, and enemy to
the other.

2. For every will desires a purity without turba
in the other essence; and yet has itself the turba
in it, and is also the loathing of the other.
Then the power of the greater extends over
the lesser and holds it in subjection, unless it
escape from it; otherwise the strong rules over
the weak. Therefore the weak doth run, and
seeks the limit of the driver or oppressor, and
would be free from compulsion. And thus the
limit, which is hidden in mystery, is sought by
all creatures.

3. And hence arises all the power of this world,
that one rules over the other. And this was not
in the beginning commanded or ordained by the
highest good, but grew out of the turba. After-
ward Nature acknowledged it as her own being,
which was born from her, and gave it laws, to
generate itself further in the framed govern-
ment. Where then this birth has climbed to
regal prerogative, and has moreover sought the
abyss, as the One, till it is become monarchy or

150
THE SIXTH TEXT 151
apire. And there it is climbing still, and will be
te and not many. And though it be in many,
;t will the first source, from which all is gene-
ted, rule over all, and will alone be a lord over
I governments.
4. And as this craving was in the beginning one
>vernment, but in time divided itself into many
wording to the essences; therefore the plurality
jain seeks the One, and it is certainly born in the
sth number of the crown, in the six thousandth
;ar in the figure ; not at the end, but in the hour
' the day in which the creation of the wonders
as completed.
5. That is, when the wonders of the turba are in
te end, a Lord is born who governs the whole
orld, but by many forms of administration.
6. And then the self-grown authority and the
jpressor will be sought; for the lesser, who hath
in under, has run to the limit. Then every-
ling separates itself, for it is at the limit, and
lere is no staying or revoking.
7. Also the turba, as the fierce wrath of all
•eatures, will be sought; for it has with the
^thing of the creatures run to the limit, and now
scomes manifest, viz. in the midst, in the number
: the crown, in the six thousandth year, a little
rer, not under.
8. In the day and the hour when the creation
as accomplished in mystery, and was set as a
drror of eternity in the wonders [of this time].1
9. That took place on the sixth day, past
1 The explanatory additions within brackets [ ] are from Claassen's
ok of extracts.
152 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
noon. There [also in the end] the mystery
with the wonders is revealed and is known. Where
then purity shall drive out the turba for a time,
till the beginning pass into the end. And then
is the mystery [of creation but] a wonder in
figures.
THE SEVENTH TEXT

1. Now, seeing in the mystery of the Eternal
Nature we have such an arcanum from which
all creatures evil and good were generated and
created, we recognize it to be a magical essence
or substance, where one Magic has by desire
awakened another and brought it into being,
where everything has elevated itself and carried
itself to the highest power. For the Spirit of God
is not a maker in Nature, but a revealer and a
seeker of the good.

2. Thus hath evil as by magical craving always
sought and found itself in the Mystery, and has
been revealed apart from the divine purpose. For
fierceness is a harsh rigorousness, and rules over
the simple.

3. All has, therefore, grown from its own tree
without premeditation. For the first revealer,
viz. God, ordained not malignity to the govern-
ment, but reason or wit, which was to reveal the
wonders and be a guide of life. And here there
meets us the great secret which has from eternity
existed in mystery, viz. the Mystery with its colours,
which are four. The fifth is not proper to the
mysterium of Nature, but is of the Mysterium of
God, and shines in the mysterium of Nature as a
living light.

158
154 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
4. And these are tne colours wherein all things
lie : blue, red, green and yellow. The fifth, white,
belongs to God; and yet has also its lustre in
Nature. It is the fifth essence, a pure unblemished
child ; as is to be seen in gold and silver, and in a
white clear stone that resists fire.
5. For fire is the proof or trial of all the colours,
in which none subsists but white, the same being
a reflection of God's Majesty. The black colour
belongs not to the mystery [of the wonders of
creation], but is the veil or the darkness wherein
all things lie.
6. Further, we find here the tree of tongues or
languages, with four alphabets. One signed with
the characters of the Mystery, in which is found
the language of Nature, which in all languages is
the root. But in the birth of plurality (or of many
languages) it is not known save by its own children,
to whom the Mystery itself gives understanding;
for it is a wonder of God. This alphabet of the
language of Nature is hidden among them all in
the black colour; for the black colour belongs not
to the number of colours. The same is mystery
and not understood, save by him who possesses
the language of Nature, to whom it is revealed
by God's Spirit.
7. The second alphabet is the Hebrew, which
reveals the mystery [of the language of Nature],
and names the tree with the branches and twigs.
8. The third is the Greek, which names the tree
with the fruit and every ornament, and first
correctly expresses knowledge.
9. The fourth is the Latin (to which many nations
THE SEVENTH TEXT 155
ad tongues have recourse), which expresses the
•ee with its power and virtue.
10. The fifth is God's Spirit, which is the re-
ealer of all alphabets ; and this alphabet can no
tan learn, unless it reveal itself in man's spirit.
11. These alphabets take their origin from the
clours of the great Mystery, and distribute them-
ilves moreover into seventy-seven languages;
[though we recognize only five for chief languages,
nd seventy-two for the marvels wherein Babel is
nderstood, as a mouth of a confusedness. There
jason abandoned her guide and willed to go alone,
nd to climb aloft into the Mystery.
12. As is to be known by the children of Nimrod
fc the tower of Babel, when they had fallen from
bedience to God into their own individual reason ;
len they had lost their guide and did confound
3ason, so that they comprehended not their own
inguage.
13. Thus many languages, viz. seventy-two,
rew out of confused Babel, and each entered into
;self and sought knowledge, each in its own reason
nd iniquity; for they had forsaken God and
rere become heathens. And he suffered them to
ralk in their wonders, for they would not cleave
.nto him, but would be a special self-ful growth,
md their own reason (which was mixed of all the
olours) had to rule them.
14. Then the turba was born, so that they were
iot of one mind; for every one would live under
uidance of his own colour. And yet these were
ot the true chief colours, but only their evil
elf-hatched children, who hatched themselves out
156 ON EARTHLY AMD HEAVENLY MYSTERY
in reason. And they ran without the right guide,
who had created all in one tongue, and revealed
no more than one,—one tree with the branches and
the power together with the fruit.
15. For the four alphabets are in one tree, and
proceed from one another. But the multitude of
languages must have recourse to their characters
as members of the same family, and yet also will
be their very own. And all shoot forth in opposi-
tion to the tree.
THE EIGHTH TEXT
1. We see here the origin of two sorts of religions,
>m which Babel as an idol-god is born, and that
heathens and Jews.
2. For Babel is in both, and they are two races
one. One, under guidance of its reason (as of
e life and spirit of Nature), goes forward and
^ks to elevate itself. It makes itself a way in
being; for its will proceeds out of its own
iving and seeks its magic, as a great number for
; government, and goes simply out of itself
rward. Its will remains in its plurality, and is
e god and guide of its plurality.
3. And though the Free-will of God oppose it
d reprove it, yet the idol-god only flatters with
i lips the Free-will, viz. the Spirit of God, and
mours its own will in the number of plurality,
>r this will is generated from its treasure, from
j own magic, and comprehends not the Free-will
God. It is born therefore from flesh and blood,
mi its own nature; and is a child of this world,
.d regards its treasure as its love. Hence it is a
rpocrite and a confused Babel. The number of
urality and its own magic confuse it, in that
goes out from one number into many. This
ultiplicity is a confused Babel; and its hypo-
158 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
critical mouth, with which it gives good words and
solemnly promises much to the Spirit of Unity,
is an antichrist and a liar. For it speaks in one way
and acts in another. Its heart is a craving, and
the spirit of its heart has turned itself to the
craving.
4. Thus the Magician of multiplicity is a proud,
arrogant, covetous, malignant devourer, and a
spirit from the desiring plurality; and is a false
god. He is not attached to the Free-will of Nature,
which hath the might of wonders at its command,
and he has no understanding in the Divine Mystery,
for he cleaves not with his will to that Spirit. Else,
if his will were turned towards Freedom, the Spirit
of God would reveal his magical mystery, and
his wonders and wor^s would, with his will, stand
in God.
5. But seeing they go out from themselves, the
beginning seeks the end, and the middle is the
turba. For it is not in the Free-will of God;
but it grows from itself, and elevates itself like a
proud tree.
6. And as God is one only in will, one in
the eternal Desire or in the eternal Magic (so
that the craving of the eternal Magic yields itself
up to the eternal Will, and draws therein its
life), then the apostate will is a perjured whore,
for it is a generatress of falsehood, and hangs not
on the Free-will.
7. And here we understand a separation from
God; a cause of all this being Lucifer, who made
the Magic of Nature subject to false desire. Thus
two eternal lives are born : one in the will of God,
THE EIGHTH TEXT 159
e other in the will of the devil and of the fierce
rath; and this is Babel with Antichrist on earth.
8. All that goes out from God's will into its own
til belongs to Babel. This is seen in Jews and
>athens, and in all peoples.
9. The heathen remained in their own magic,
nt those who from the itch of corruption passed
it into the light of Nature because they did not
low God, yet have lived in purity,—-these were
lildren of the Free-will, and in them has the
writ of Freedom revealed great wonders in their
ystery, as is to be seen by the wisdom they have
iqueathed to us.
10. But the others, who have lived only in their
vn magical will from flesh and blood,—their will
as drowned in the turba. And the turba streamed
>rth in their will, and gave them a spirit accord-
ig to the essences of covetousness and fierceness,
hese have sought only the number of plurality,
s dominions and kingdoms.
11. And when the turba could not on account of
ower advance, it grew furious and began hostilities,
nd from thence war has its origin, viz. from
ride and greed of plurality, and belongs with its
timber to the Mystery of wrath.
12. Thus also were the Jews. God revealed him-
;lf to them, but they were attached also to two
ills. One part to the commandment, with their will
irected into God's will, as the patriarchs and all
le pious hopers of Israel. The others performed
ith their hands the work of the law, and adhered
ith their will to their poisoned magic, viz. to
Dvetousness, and sought only their numbers of
160 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
plurality. Their mouth was a Jew, and their
heart a Babylonish whore, a hypocrite and an anti-
christ, with fair words and a false covetous heart.
13. And in the same way in Christendom and
among all peoples the Babylonish whore with
Antichrist is established. In one people dwell at
once two kingdoms, and are not miscible in the
inward spirit so as to become one, like as clay
and iron are not miscible. They mix indeed by the
body, but their spirits are two kinds (Dan. ii. 43).
14. Whosoever will know Antichrist, let him
seek him thus; he will find him in every house.
But the worst of all is the crowned whore; and her
sponsors at the baptism of whoredom are the
brawlers who lead out of the one will of God into
many wills, that they may inherit only the number
of plurality, and fatten earthly bellies.
15. And the other part of the Free-will of God
proceeds with its magical will out of itself into
Freedom, viz. into the one ungraspable will of God.
These stand turned backward in the magical figure.
Their life seeks bread, and goes forward ; yet their
will is not in the bread, but passes out of itself, out
of the craving, into God. These live with the will
in God, in one number; these are children of the
eternal true Magic. For God's Spirit dwells in
their will, and reveals to them the eternal wonders
of God; and their life's spirit reveals the wonders
of this world.
16. These are free from Babel and Antichrist,
even though they should sit in his lap. For the
true image of God is in the spirit of the will, which
is generated from the soul's spirit.
THE NINTH TEXT
1. Seeing then there are two Magics in one another,
tere are also two Magicians who lead themj viz. two
>irits. One is God's Spirit, and the other the
eason-spirit, in which the devil ensconces him-
If. In God's Spirit is the love of unity. And
.an cannot better prove or try himself than by
ving serious attention to what his desire and
nging impel him : the same he hath for a leader,
id its child he is. Nevertheless, he now has
Dwer to break and change that will; for he is
tagical and possesses the power.
2. But there must be real earnestness; for he
rust subdue the astral spirit which rules in him.
o do this, a sober calm life is necessary, with con-
nual abandonment to God's will. For, to subdue
ic astral influence, no wisdom nor art will avail;
Lit sobriety of life, with continual withdrawal from
le influxes. The elements continually introduce the
stral craving into his will. Therefore it is not so
isy a thing to become a child of God ; it requires
ceat labour, with much travail and suffering.
3. Antichrist indeed may call himself a child of
od. But Christ says : They shall not all enter
ito the kingdom of heaven who say : Lord, Lord,
ave we not in thy name cast out devils and
one mighty works ? But he saith unto them :
L
162 ON EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY MYSTERY
Away from me, ye stinking goats, I know you
not (Matt. vii. 21-23). Ye have done this by
means of false magic, and have never become
known in my spirit and will. Ye are in your
spiritual figure goats, tyrants, covetous muckworms,
proud arrogants, voluptuaries. Ye have carried
my name on your tongue, but sacrificed your
heart to pleasure, to the itch of the flesh, and are
generated in the turba. Ye must be proved by
fire. And thus to every kingdom its fruit comes
home.
4. Therefore, thou brave world, look at thyself
in these writings, which the eternal Ground hath
set before thee, and meditate on it further and
more deeply. Else thou wilt be caught in thy
turba. There thou shalt with thy substance pass
through the fire of God ; and whatsoever is a work
out of God's will shall remain in the fire.
5. But whatsoever is done in the will of God
shall stand to the honour and glory of God, and for
the eternal joy of the image of man.
6. Now think what thou doest. For Babel is
already in flames, and begins to burn. There is
no longer possible any quenching, nor any remedy.
She has been recognized as evil; her kingdom
goeth to the end. Hallelujah.
THEOSCOPIA

OR

'HE HIGHLY PRECIOUS GATE OF THE

DIVINE INTUITION

SHOWING WHAT MY8TERIUM MAGNUM IS, AND

HOW ALL IS FROM, THROUGH AND IN GOD ;

HOW GOD IS SO NEAR ALL THINGS,

AND FILLS ALL

Written in the year 1622
BY
JACOB BOHME
CHAPTER I

What God is; and how we shall recognize his divine
nature in his manifestation.

1. Reason says : I hear much mention made of
2od, that there is a God who has created all things,

' O 7

ilso upholds and supports all things; but I have
lot yet seen any, nor heard from the lips of any,
hat hath seen God, or that could tell where God
Iwells or is, or how he is. For when Reason looks
ipon the existence of this world, and considers
;hat it fares with the righteous as with the wicked,
ind how all things are mortal and frail; also
low the righteous man sees no deliverer to release
lim from the anxietjr and adversity of the wicked
nan, and so must go down with fear in misery
;o the grave : then it thinks, all things happen
:>y chance ; there is no God who interests himself
n the sufferer, seeing he lets him that hopes in
lim be in misery, and therein go down to the
rrave; neither has any been heard of who has
•eturned from corruption, and said he has been
vith God.

2. Answer. Reason is a natural life, whose
ground lies in a temporal beginning and end,
md cannot enter into the supernatural ground
therein God is understood. For though Reason
;hus views itself in this world, and in its viewing

165
166 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
finds no other ground, yet it finds in itself a desire
after a higher ground, wherein it might rest.
3. For it understands that it has proceeded from
a supernatural ground, and that there must be a
God who has brought it into a life and will. And it
o
is terrified in itself at its willing of wickedness, it
is ashamed of its own will, and pronounces itself
wrong in the willing of evil. Even though it does
wrong, yet it accuses itself, and is afraid of a judg-
ment which it sees not. This signifies that the
hidden God, who has brought himself into Nature,
dwells in it and reproves it for its evil way ; and
that the same hidden God cannot be of the nature
of perceptibility, since Reason sees not nor compre-
hends him.
4. On the other hand, forsaken Reason, which
here wrongfully (to its thinking) is tormented in
misery, finds a desire within it, itself still more to
forsake, and willingly gives itself up to suffering.
But in its suffering wrong it enters into a hope that
that which has created it will take it from suffering
into itself; and it desires to rest in that which is
not passive, and seeks rest in that which it is not
in itself. It desires the death of its egoism, and
yet desires not to be a nothing ; but desires only
to die to suffering (Qual)'9 in order that it may rest
in itself.
5. It gives itself up therefore to suffering, that
the power of pain should kill its suffering, and that
it might in its life, through the death of the dying
of its Self, in that it is a painful life, enter into
the unpainful and unsuffering.
6. Herein we understand rightly the hidden God,
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 167
low he reveals himself in the heart of man, and
reproves wrong in the conscience, and draws that
which surfers wrong by suffering to himself. And
low the life of Reason, viz. the natural life, must
In suffering get a desire to return again into that
3ut of which it proceeded; and how it must
iesire to hate itself, and to die to the natural will,
in order that it may attain the supernatural.
7. Reason says : Why has God created a painful,
suffering life ? Might it not be in a better state
without suffering or pain, seeing he is the ground
and beginning of all things ? Why does he permit
the contrary will ? Why does he not destroy evil,
that only a good may be in all things ?
8. Answer. Nothing without contrariety can
become manifest to itself; for if it has nothing to
resist it, it goes continually of itself outwards, and
returns not again into itself. But if it return not
again into itself, as into that out of which it origi-
nally went, it knows nothing of its primal being.1
9. If the natural life had no contrariety, and .were
without a limit, it would never inquire after its
ground from which it arose; and hence the hidden
God would remain unknown to the natural life.
Moreover, were there no contrariety in life, there
would be no sensibility, nor will, nor efficacy therein,
also neither understanding nor science. For a
thing that has only one will has no divisibility. If
if find not a contrary will, which gives occasion
to it exercising motion, it stands still. A single
thing can know nothing more than a one; and
even though it is in itself good, yet it knows neither
1 Dr. Stirling's rendering of Urstand.
168 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
evil nor good, for it has nothing in itself to make
this perceptible.
10. And so then we can philosophize concerning
the will of God, and say : If the hidden God, who
is a single existence and will, had not by his will
brought himself out of himself, out of the eternal
wisdom in the temperament, into divisibility of
will, and had not,introduced this same divisibility
into an inclusiveness for a natural and creaturely
life, and had this possibility of separation in life not
found expression in strife; how could then the hidden
will of God, which in itself is one only, be revealed
to himself ? How can there be in a single will a
knowledge of itself ?,
11. But if there be a divisibility in the one
will, so that the divisibility disposes itself into
centra and self-will, so that thus in that which is
separated there is a will of its own, and thus in
a single will unfathomable and innumerable wills
arise, like branches from a tree; then we see
and understand that in such a divisibility each
separated will brings itself into a special form, and
that the conflict of the wills is about the form, so
that one form in the partibility is not as another,
and yet all have their subsistence in one ground.
12. For a single will cannot break itself asunder
in pieces, just as the soul (Gemuth) breaks not in
pieces when it separates into an evil and good
willing; but the out-going of sense only separates
into a willing of evil and of good, and the soul
remains in itself entire, and suffers an evil and
good willing to arise and dwell in it.
13. Now saith Reason : Whereto is this good or
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 169
seful, that with the good there must be an evil ?
nswer. That which is evil or of contrary will
icasions the good or the will to * press back
wards its primal existence, as towards God, and
le good, viz. the good will, to become desirous,
or a thing that in itself is only good, and has no
iffering (Qual), desires nothing; for it knows
}thmg better in itself or for itself after which it
mid long.
14. Thus then we can philosophize concerning
te one good will of God, and say, that he can
ssire nothing in himself, for he has nothing in
: for himself which could give him anything. And
lerefore he brings himself out of himself into a
[visibility, into centra, in order that a contrariety
iay arise in the emanation, viz. in that which has
nanated, that the good may in the evil become
srceptible, effectual, and capable of will; namely
> will to separate itself from the evil, and to re-will
> enter into the one will of God.
15. But seeing the emanation of the one eternal
ill of God continually proceeds from himself to
is manifestation, the good likewise, as the divine
3wer, flows from the eternal One with this emana-
on, and enters also into the divisibility and into
le centra of plurality.
16. Now, the perpetual emanation of the will
jcasions the good by its motion to long for stand-
ill again, and to become desirous to impenetrate
ito the eternal One ; and in such penetration into
self the One becomes mobile and desireful; and
L such working lies feeling, cognition and will.
17. God, so far as he is called God, can will
170 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
nothing but himself; for he has nothing before or
after him that he can will. But if he will anything,
that very same has emanated from him, and is a
counterstroke of himself, wherein the eternal will
wills in its something. Now if the something were
only a one, the will could have no exercise therein.
And therefore the unfathomable will has separated
itself into beginnings and carried itself into being,
that it might work in something, as we have a
similitude in the soul (Gemuth) of man.
18. If the soul did not itself flow from itself, it
would have no sense-perception; but if it had no
sense-perception, neither would it have any know-
ledge of itself, nor of any other thing, and were
incapable of doing or working. But the efflux
of sense from the soul (which efflux is a counter-
stroke of the soul, in which the soul feels itself)
endows the soul with will or desire, so that it
introduces the senses into a something, viz. into a
centrum of an ego-hood, wherein the soul works
through sense, and reveals and contemplates itself
in its working through the senses.
19. Now if in these centra of sense in the counter-
stroke of the soul there were no contrarium, then
all the centra of emanated sense were but a one ;
in all the centra of sense but one single will, that
did continually but one and the same thing. How
could then the wonders and powers of the divine
wisdom become known by the soul (which is an
image of divine revelation) and be brought into
figures ? '
20. But if there be, a contrarium, as light and
darkness, therein, then this contrarium is contrary
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 171
itself, and each quality occasions the other to
ng itself into desire to will to fight against the
icr, and to dominate it. In which desire, sense
1 the soul is brought into a natural and ereaturely
>und to a will of its own, viz. to a domination
its something, or by its centrum over all the
tira, as one sense of the soul over another.
21. Hence struggle and anxiety, also contrary
11, take their rise in the soul, so that the whole
il is thereby instigated to enter into a breaking:
«. o o
the senses, and of the self-will of the senses, as
the natural centra., and, passing out, of the pain
rebellion and strife, out of anxiety, to desire to
k into the eternal rest, as into God, from whence
sprang.
22. And therefrom arise faith and hope, so that
5 anxious soul hopes for a deliverance, and longs
return to its origin again, viz. to God.
23. So have we likewise to understand the divine
inifestation. For all things have their first
ginning from the emanation of the divine will,
tether evil or good, love or sorrow ; and yet the
[1 of God is not a thing, neither nature nor crea-
n, wherein is no pain, sorrow nor contrary will,
it from the efflux of the Word, as by the outgoing
the unfathomable mind (which is the wisdom of
id or the great Mystery, where the eternal under-
ending is in the temperament), has flowed under-
ending and knowledge; and this efflux is a
ginning of will, when the understanding has
)arated itself into form. Thus the forms, each
itself, became desirous to have also a eounter-
oke to its similarity. And this desire is a com-
172 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
prehendingness for selfhood : or ownness, as for a
place, for a something. And through this some-
thing the Mysterium magnum, as the unnatural
power, is become substantial and natural; and
the something has comprehended itself so as to
become an individual will.
24. For this individual will is a ground of its
selfhood, and shuts itself in as a desiring will,
whence the magnetic impression for sharpness and
hardness has taken its. origin; and is a ground of
darkness and of painful feeling, whence contrary
will, anxiety and flight (sensibility) have their
origin; and is a ground of Nature, from whence
comes the plurality of the qualities, so that in
such a contrariety each will has arisen from
the other, to separate itself from pain, like as
sense takes its rise from the soul, the soul through
the senses being in continual anxiety, working,
willing and breaking.
25. In this divine emanation, in which the
divine power breathes forth itself from itself, and
brings and has brought itself into Nature and
creation, we are to recognize two things. First,
the eternal understanding of the one good will,
which is a temperament, and thus only introduces
itself into a sensibility and activity for the
manifestation of power, colours and virtue; that
power and virtue may be realized in separability,
in form, and the eternal wisdom be revealed and
pass into knowledge. From thence also the angelic,
soulic and creaturely ground has proceeded, as well
as thrones and dominions, together with the visible
world.
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 173
26. And then, secondly, we are to understand
te original will of Nature, viz. the comprehensi-
lity of the centra., where each centrum in the
visibility shuts itself in a place to egoism and
slf-will as an individual mysterium or mind. Out
: which springs unlikeness of will, showing how
L these two a contrarium arises, for they are two
L one.
27. Namely (1) that which is inward from the
:igin of the divine power requires only a counter-
,roke to its similarity,, viz. something that is good,
herein the good, divine, emanated will may work
.id manifest itself. Then (2) the self-generated,
[dividual, natural will in the place of the self-
:>od of the dark impression of the sharpness also
quires a likeness, viz. a counterstroke through
s own comprehensibility; through which com-
rehension it makes itself material, and requires
othing but its corporality as a natural ground.
28. In these two we are to understand the good
ad evil will in all things. And it is herein rightly
nderstood how the inward, spiritual ground of
II beings arises from the divine power, and how
L all things also an individual, natural desire
rises ; and how all the bodies of visible, sentient
eings have their origin from the desire of Nature.
29. Further, we should clearly observe that
ist as the individual, natural desire, which has a
eginning, makes itself material and makes for
self a counterstroke, viz. a likeness, wherein it
rorks ; so also the divine ground and will through
le comprehensibility of its love makes for itself
counterstroke and spiritual being, wherein
174 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
the divine will works, and introduces the divine
power into forms and separability for the mani-
festation of the divine power and glory.
30. And in this world always. two natures in
one are to be understood : First, an eternal,
divine and spiritual; and secondly, one that
has a beginning, and is natural, temporal and
perishable in self-will. For two kinds of will
are found in one life : First, one that has a
beginning and is natural, in which the will is an
individual astrum, and inqualifies with all that
is external, natural, elemental and sidereal; and
secondly, an eternal spiritual will, or eternal
spiritual nature, which is a comprehension or com-
prehended existence of the divine will, with which
the divine will also makes for itself a counter-
stroke and being, wherein it works. And these
two are understood in two principles : the first
divine in a heavenly, and the second temporal in
an earthly.
31. And as the heavenly hangs on the earthly,
so also does the earthly on the heavenly, and yet
neither is the other. For the heavenly has a
spiritual nature, which is wholly an essential power,
and permeates and pervades the earthly, and yet
possesses only its principle. And it gives power
to the earthly, so that it obtains another new will,
and longs after the heavenly. Which longing is a
desire to go out from the vanity of Nature, whereof
the Scripture says : All creatures do earnestly long
with us to be freed from the vanity to which they
are subjected against their will (Rom. viii. 19-22).
32. Understand it aright. The egressed Desire
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 175
he divine power for Nature, from which Nature
. self-will has arisen, longs to be freed from
natural individual will.
3. This Desire is laden with the impression of
:ure against its will, for that God has introduced
.hereinto. It shall at the end of this time be
:ased from the loaded vanity of Nature, and
brought into a crystalline, clear Nature. Then
. be evident why God has shut it up in a time,
[ subjected it to pain [in the disposition] for
'ering : Namely, that through the natural pain
eternal power might be brought into' forms,
pe and separability for perceptibility; and
t creatures, viz. a creaturely life, might be
ealed therein in this time, and so be a play
the counterstroke to the divine wisdom. For
ough folly wisdom becomes manifest, because
y attributes power to its own self, and yet rests
>n a [another] foundation and beginning, and
r an end.
14. Thus the endless life is displayed to view
ough folly, in order that therein a praise might
>e to the honour of God, and that the eternal
1 permanent might become known in the
rtal.
J5. And thus the first question put by Reason
inswered, in that it supposes all things happen
chance, and that there is no God, seeing he
fers the righteous man to be in pain, fear
1 tribulation, and brings him at last to the
,ve, like the wicked man; so that it seems as
jod interested himself in nothing, or as if there
re no God, since Reason sees not, knows nor
176 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
feels him. Therefore it is declared to it, that it
(Reason) is in its own life only a counterstroke to
the right life ; and if it find in itself no hunger or
desire after that from which in the beginning it
arose, that it is in its own life only a foolishness
and play, wherein wisdom brings its wonders to
pass.
36. For Reason sees in the wise man also such a
folly according to the outward nature, and :ees
how God abandons this folly of the wise,
that it must stand in shame and reproach before
the self-willed, foolish subtlety, which neverthe-
less knows not its end. Therefore foolish Reason
supposes there is no deliverer, and knows not how
the wise man is delivered in himself and freed from
the inherited folly by immergence of his own will.
For his own will, through the pain and opposition
of the godless, enters into its breaking and into
its willing nothing, and sinks again into its first
origin, as into God's will, and therein is born anew.
And that God is not served by the coarse, mortal
flesh, that he should introduce deliverance into
the animal, self-willed life ; but that to him the
matter lies in this, that self-will should break,
and sink again into God. Thus is the inward
good nature comprehended in God's will; and on
the mortal body is the more pain laid, that the
individual, natural will may not enter again into
a desire of its own for selfhood, and set itself up
as a ruler over the inward ground, and destroy the
true image of God.
37. This, earthly Reason understands not; for
it knows not how God dwells in it, and what God's
through it, and is so near it; and that its life is
but a foolishness of wisdom, by means of which
life wisdom manifests itself, that it may be known
what wisdom is. Its will is gone from God into
selfhood, and boasts itself of its own power, and
sees not how its power has beginning and end,
that it is but a play, by which mirror (play) wisdom
beholds itself for a time in the folly of the wise;
and, finally, through such pain of the godless, folly
in the case of the wise breaks to pieces, in that
they begin to hate the frail, foolish life, and to die
with Reason, and to give up the will to God.
38. This, earthly Reason regards as a folly,
especially when it sees that God also in the wise
abandons their earthly folly, and lets the body
of such folly, wherein the folly beheld itself, go
down without help to the grave. Therefore it
supposes this man has received no deliverance
from God : Seeing he trusted in Him, his faith
must certainly have been false, else He had surely
delivered him in his lifetime.
39. Moreover, because it feels not its punishment
immediately, it supposes there is no longer possible
any serious earnest here; and knows not that the
longer the more it comprehends itself in folly, and
becomes in itself a strong source of eternal pain.
So that, when for it the light of outer Nature
perishes, wherein for a time it has strutted in
selfhood, it then stands by itself in darkness and
pain, so that its false, own desire is a mere rough,
stinging, hard sharpness and contrary will.
40. It hopes during this time in an external
ITS ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
help, and brings itself into pleasure of its will,
and holds that for its kingdom of heaven. But
when for it the outer light is extinguished in death,
it then stands in eternal despair, and neither sees
any deliverer about nor within it.
41. But the wise man becomes in this time to
himself a fool, and learns to hate his folly (which
folly Reason regards as prudence). Accordingly
his wisdom (which the world regards as folly)
must be a foolishness to Reason, at which it is
scandalized. And so also God in the wise man
hates the foolish mortal life, just as the wise man
hates it himself, in order that the true divine life
may rule in him with the understanding. And
therefore 'with God there is no regret for the
mortal body of the wise man ; for he comprehends
his divine Ens in him in his spirit and will, and lets
the body of folly with the foolish descend into its
grave, till the day of the separation of all beings.
42. And Reason understands not this ; there-
fore it is foolish. And a man should be a man,
not according to folly, but according to God's
Spirit; and judge what is divine, not according to
image-like [creaturely] Reason, for it is written:
He that builds on the flesh (viz. on the mortal
Reason of his own will) shall of the flesh inherit
corruption; but he that builds on the spirit (viz.
on the divine will), and places his will in the hope
of the divine promise, shall of the spirit inherit
eternal life (Gal. vi. 8).
CHAPTER II

f the mind, will, and thoughts of human life. Row
it has its origin from the will of God, and how
it is an object or an image of God, in which
God wills, works, and dwells.

1. Reason says : As the mind with the senses
i a natural life with a beginning, which stands
i a time and fragility; how may it then in this
ime be brought to the supersensible divine life?
>r, how is the divine indwelling in life ?

2. Answer. The life of man is a form of the
ivine will, and came from the divine inbreathing
ito the created image of man. It is the formed
Vord of the divine knowledge; but has been
ioisoned by the counter-breathing of the devil,
,nd of the fierce wrath of temporal Nature;
o that the life's will has fashioned itself with
he outward, earthly counterstroke of the mortal
tature, and has come out of its temperament into
eparation of qualities.

3. For these reasons it is found still in the earthly
mage, and is now to be considered in three prin-
iples. In the first Principle, by its true primal
xistence, it stands in the outgoing will of God,
a the divine knowledge, which originally was a
emperament, in which the divine power did work

179
180 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
by sense. And therein is rightly understood a
paradise or working of divine powers, as a per-
petual formation of divine will. And by this
budding is to be understood the outgoing of the
good senses, whereby the divine wisdom formed
itself in figure in a divine manner, and by such
formation the divine understanding manifested
itself through the outgoing of the life of sense.
Hence it was rightly called an image of God, in
which the divine will revealed itself.
4. But when this life in the first principle was
breathed upon in its image by the fierce wrathful
devil, so that the devil whispered it, that it
were good and profitable for it that the outgoing
of the senses from the life should break itself off
from the temperament, and should bring itself
into an image of its own according to the pro-
perties of plurality, to prove dissimilarity, viz. to
know and to be sensible of evil and good;
5. Then the life's own will consented, and
brought the senses as the outgoing Desire there-
into; it has introduced itself into desire , for
ownness, and impressed or comprehended itself
in selfhood.
6. And then immediately the life's understand-
ing became manifest in [separated] qualities;
Nature has taken the life captive in dissimilarity,
and set up her rule. Whence the life is become
painful, and the inward divine ground of the good
will and nature has been extinguished, that is,
has become inoperative as to the. creature. For
the life's will broke itself off therefrom, and went
into sensibility, out of unity into plurality; it
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 181
strove against the Unity, viz. the eternal one rest,
the one good.
7. When this took place, the divine ground (viz.
the second Principle or the wisdom of God, which
in divine power with the out-breathing will of God
had imprinted itself in the image-like life [of the
soul or of the first, fiery principle], as in the
counterstroke to God) was eclipsed in the false
will. For the cause of the motion of the holy
Essence had turned itself to earthliness, in which
evil and good are in strife.
8. Understand it: The eternal, unfathomable
will of life had turned itself away from the
divine Ens, and wished to rule in evil and good.
And therefore the second principle, or the kingdom
of God, is become extinguished for it; and in the
stead thereof is arisen the third Principle in its
own figurative form, as the quality of the stars
and of the four elements; whence the body be-
came coarse and animal, and the senses false and
earthly.
9. Life has thus lost the temperament, viz. the
eternal rest, and has by its own desire made
itself dark, painful, harsh, hard and rough. It has
become a mere restlessness, and runs now in earthly
power in an eternal ground, and seeks rest in that
which is frail or fragile, but finds none ; for fragil-
ity is not life's equality. Therefore the life sets
itself forcibly above the existence of this world,
and dominates the mortal power of the stars and
elements as an individual God of Nature. And it
is by such domination become silly and foolish,
so that in such earthly imagination (Bildung) and
182 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
self-assumption it cannot recognize its ground and
original state, wherein its eternal rest stood; and
is rightly called foolish. For it has brought itself
out of the divine -Ens into an earthly (animal) ens,
and placed itself in a fragile being; and will rule
in that which nevertheless perishes for it, and
passes away quickly like a smoke.
10. And when that breaks, over which it has
ruled for a while, then the life remains in its con-
trariety in the first principle, in darkness; and is
nothing else than an everlasting, unquenchable,
painful fire-source, / as the devils also are such.
11. To the aid of this captive life came again
the great love of God; and immediately after
such downfall inbreathed itself again into the in-
ward ens, viz. into the deadened nature of divine
quality; and gave itself to the life for an object,
introduced itself as a new fountain of divine unity,
love and rest into the faded divine Ens, and revealed
itself therein; from which the life is able to draw
and its pain and restlessness in the centra of ownness
to extinguish.
12. Further, this new fountain of divine love and
unity has, by its outflow in Christ, embodied itself
in the true life of all the three principles of human
quality; and has entered into the image-like
senses, viz. into life's natural, creaturely, dis-
sentient, image-like will, and assumed humanity;
and has shattered egoism and self-will by the
influence of the one love of God, as by the eternal
One; and turned life's will inwards again to
the eternal One, to the temperament, whereby
the devil's introduced will was destroyed, and
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 183
life's painfulness brought into the true rest. And
has broken open the shutting-in, viz. death, and
restored again the divine paradisaic budding with
bhe holy senses and workings; and led the holy
life through the confining of death, and made
death and the devil's will a reproach. And has
thus powerfully demonstrated how the eternal One
can predominate over plurality and particularity,
that the might of what is image-like may not be
a God, but the might of what is super- and un-
image-like rule all. For what is image-like is only
a counterstroke to the un-image-like will of God,
through which the will of God works.
13. But seeing the great love of God in Christ
is thus come to the aid of human life in earthly
form, and has made for us poor men in the life
3f the humanity of Christ an open gate of grace
bo the divine entrance; therefore the matter now
lies in this, that the life's will taken captive in its
image-like existence should abandon again the
sarthly, viz. egoism and self-will, and immerse
itself wholly and solely in this embodied grace
[which pressed from one, as from the first man,
upon all, Rom. v. 18); and take to itself this grace,
and in virtue of such acceptance and divine union
sink with the resigned life's will into the super-
sensible, superfathomable, eternal One, as into the
irst ground of life's beginning, and give itself up
again to the ground from which life sprang forth;
shen it is.again in its eternal place, in the tempera-
nent, in the true rest.
14. Reason says : How can a man do this, seeing
;he Scripture saith (1 Cor. xv. 45; Gen. i, 28):
184 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
The first man was made a natural life, to rule over
all the creatures and beings of this world. The
life must therefore introduce desire into earthly
quality. Answer. Human life is placed in a
counterstroke to the divine will, in and through
which counterstroke God wills; and the earthly
creatures are placed in a counterstroke to human
life, in and through which counterstroke man was
to will. Man's will was with God's will to will,
and rule over all natural and creaturely life. Not
in animal but in divine essence was it to stand.
Though man was placed with life in Nature, yet
his nature was a temperament, and his life a
mansion of divine will.
15. But because life must stand during this
time in earthly essence, and cannot be rid of it,
we must look at the threefold nature of the life
according to the three principles; by which prin-
ciple of the life man may plunge into the super-
sensible being of God, and how this may be done.
1 16. Christ said : Without me ye can do nothing
(John xv. 5). No man can of his own power reach
the supreme ground, unless he sink his inmost
ground of the first principle, according to the life's
image-like nature, in the embodied grace of God ;
and, in accordance with the same ground, stand
still from his own being in divine hope, and give
himself up wholly with the will to God, in such a
way that his will no longer wills to spea^k according
to this ground, save what God speaks and wills
through this ground; then he is at the highest
goal.
17. If it be possible for him to stand still an hour
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 185
r less from his own inner willing and speaking,
hen will the divine will speak into him. By which
aspeaking God's will embraces his will in Himself,
nd speaks into the image-like, natural, external
leason-life; and dissolves and illuminates the
arthly imagination of Reason's will, so that
nmediately the supersensible divine life and will
uds and incentres itself in Reason's will.
18. For as little as the life's own will can, in
slfness and will turned away from God, stand
till in Nature a moment from its working, unless
: sink down beyond all Nature; so little also can
tie divine speaking, in the life resigned to the
round, stand still from its working.
19. For if the life stand still from its own will,
; is in the abyss of Nature and creation, in the
ternal, divine utterance; and hence God speaks
herein.
20. For from God's speaking the life has pro-
eeded and come into body, and is nothing else
tian an image-like will of God. Now if its own
nagination and will stand still, the divine imagin-
tion and will arises. For whatever is will-less
; with the Nothing but one thing, and is out of
r beyond all Nature, which jingroundedness is God
imself.
21. Seeing then the Unground or God is an
ternal speaking, viz. a breathing forth of himself,
ae Unground accordingly is inspoken into the
^signed life ; for the breathing of -the Unground
peaks through the stationary ground of the life,
'or the life has arisen from the divine breathing,
nd is a likeness of the divine breathing, therefore
186 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
one likeness seizes the other. As we understand
in the case of the life's senses, which are such an
issue from the breathing of the soul, as the soul
is an issue and counterstroke from the divine soul
of the divine knowledge.
22. Now as God, by his breathing forth of his
eternal wisdom and knowledge, has revealed him-
self by Nature and creation, both by the inward
holy life, by the life of angels and men, and has
introduced his will of his knowledge into form
for re-utterance through a formed divulged mode;
as also by Nature, and its re-breathing forth of the
creatures of the visible world, and has always
made the external, uttered by Nature, subject to
the inward principle, so that the inward should
rule through the external corporeal, and be a spirit
of the external:
23. Know, then, that in like manner, the intro-
verted, new-born life of man, in divine power
and might, can and should rule over the external
Reason-life of stars and elements. And if this be
not done—viz. that the inward eternal life in man,
in divine power and light, rule over the external,
earthly, astral life of the mortal desire, and break
the will of the earthly desire (wherein lies the
serpent's image)—then there is not yet any new
birth or divine will manifest in such life and work-
ing, and such a man (as long as he stands in the
earthly will alone) is no child of heaven. For the
divine scientia is transformed into earthly, animal
quality by the individual imagination of the false
will; and is as to the body an evil beast, and as
to the soul an averse, false will, which wills not
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 187
*
bh God—after the manner of the devils, who
ewise stand in their own imagination of sensual
owledge.
24. Therefore Christ said (Matt. xii. 30) : He
it gathereth not with me scattereth. That is,
tosoever works, wills and acts not with the
tbodied divine grace, which God through Christ
3 revealed and offers, but works by natural
lividual will, he disperses not only the divine
ler of the senses, but scatters also his works
o false ground.
25. Consider a parable of the sun. If a herb
bh not sap, the sun's rays scorch it; but if it
bh sap, the sun's rays warm it, whereby it grows.
also in the life of essence in man. Hath
it life not ens from God's gentleness and love,
-.. from the eternal One, then it impresseth
elf into a fierce, fiery sharpness, so that the
nd becomes wholly rough, hungry, covetous,
vious and stinging. And such false sense and
[1 proceeds then from the life into the body,
d into all its ways and works.
26. Such a fiery, covetous, envious nature with
3 life's sharp sense scatters and destroys all that
good. There is danger in all it has to do
bh. For it carries its poisonous rays thereinto,
d will draw all to itself, and bring its poison
sreuito, viz. hungry covetousness. But if it be
it the fiery life can eat of divine love, then it is
similitude how a light presses forth from fire:
LUS the right life presses forth from the fiery
ture with a new spirit and will of divine lov<
>m within; and is no longer taking, as the fire's
188 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
nature is, but giving. For the will of love gives
itself, as light from fire, which gives itself to all
things, and produces in all something that is good.
27. If the sun did shine no more in the deep
of the world, then would the spiritus mundi in the
sharpness of the stars, in the sulphureous, mer-
curial nature in the four elements, be wholly stern,
rough, dry, harsh, thick, dark, and hard. Hence
all life in the elements would perish, and it would
soon be seen what hell and God's wrath are.
28. And thus in like manner as the outer man is
. a limus of the external elemental world, whose
life has its subsistence in the power and virtue of the
sun and stars, and the body, as also the earth, is a
coagulation of the spiritus mundi; and if that
were unable to have in its food the sun's power of
light and of love, it would become wholly evil,
fiery, and mortal, and the external life would
necessarily perish:
29. So also, in like manner, the soul is a limus
of the inward spiritual world from the Mysteriwn
magnum, viz. from the issue and counterstroke of
the divine knowledge, which must receive its
nourishment from the Mysterium magnum of the
divine power and knowledge. Now if it cannot
have the ens of divine love for its food, so that it
breaks itself off from the unground, as from re-
signation or renunciation, then it becomes sharp,
fiery, dark, rough, stinging, envious, hostile, rebel-
lious, and an entire restlessness itself; and intro-
duces itself into a mortal, dying, fierce source, which
is its damnation, wherein it goes to destruction, as
befell the devil, and likewise befalls the wicked.
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 189
0. But if such a fire-source can again attain and
jive in itself divine love, viz. the essential light
Sod, then this fire-source of the soul becomes
isformed into a kingdom of joy, into praise to
1. But without will that has turned round,
fc stands still from its own impression and
tting-in, this is not possible. For the light
the sun cannot so work in a hard stone as in
bs and trees, for the water is compacted and
gulated in the stone into a hard impression.
1. And thus it is to be understood with regard
the soul's false own will and divine gentleness,
that in such a covetous, envious fire-greed the
ine gentleness accomplishes no working. Hence
ist truly said (John vi. 53): The life of man
ich should not eat the bread that is come from
ven to give life to the world, has no life in it.
ireby he indicates the essential love which God
manifested in him (in Christ) by a new foun-
i for refreshment of the poor withered soul. The
1 that should not eat thereof cannot attain the
ine Light, and were without divine life. And
eed he calls himself (John viii. 12) the Light of
world. Item, in the Psalms: A Light that
aes in the darkness, which changes the darkness
3 light (Ps. cxii. 4).
CHAPTER III

Of the natural ground. How Nature is a counterstroke
to the divine knowledge, whereby the eternal (one)
will with the unfathomable, supernatural knpw-
ledge makes itself perceptible, visible, effectual,
and desirefuL And what Mysterium magnum
is. How all is from, through, and in God. How
God is so near all things, and fills all.

A highly precious gate, for the reader that loveth
God to well consider.

John i. 1-3 runs thus : In the beginning was
the Word, and the Word was with God, and the
Word was God. The same was in the beginning
with God. All things were made by him, and
without him was not anything made that was made.

1. The beginning of all beings was the Word as
the breath of God; and God was the eternal One
of eternity, and likewise remains so in eternity.
But the Word is the efflux of the divine will or
of the divine knowledge. As the senses flow from
the soul, and yet the soul is but a one; so it was
with the eternal One in the efflux of the will, that
is to say : In the beginning was the Word. For
the Word as the efflux of the will of God is the
eternal beginning, and remains so eternally. For
it is the revelation of the eternal One, by and

190
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 191
ough which the divine power is brought into
knowledge of somewhat. By the Word we
ierstand the revealed will of God; and by
: word God we mean the hidden God, viz. the
rnal One from which the Word eternally springs
bh.
5. Thus the Word is the efflux of the divine
e, and yet God himself as his revelation.
5. This efflux flows from God ; and what has
*t .
yed forth is wisdom, beginning and cause of all
vers, colours, virtues and qualities.
b. From such a revelation of powers, in which
: will of the eternal One contemplates itself,
vs the understanding and the knowledge of the
aething (Ichts),1 as the eternal will contemplates
>lf in the something (Ichts), and in wisdom intro-
2es itself into delight in a likeness and image.
>. This image is the Mysterium magnum, viz. the
ator of all beings and creatures ; for it is the
orator in the efflux of- the will, which makes
; will of the eternal One separable; it is the
>arability in the will, from which powers and
dities arise.
>. These powers again are an efflux of themselves,
:h power bringing itself into individual will
lording to the virtue of that same power. From
:nce arises the multiplicity of wills, and from
s also the creaturely life of eternity has taken
origin, viz. angels and souls. And yet it cannot
said that by this a Nature or creation is under-
od, but the eternal imaged existence of the
Ichts the opposite of Nichts (nothing) is <eI3" self-consciousness.—
el, Hist, of Phil., vol. iii. p. 286.
192 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
divine word and will,; as the Spirit of God has in
such a counterstroke, in the powers of wisdom,
sported with himself in such formation of simili-
tude.
7. As the mind of man in the understanding
introduces itself by the senses into a counterstroke
of an exact likeness, and by sense flows forth
and disposes into images, which images are the
thoughts of the mind, wherein the will of the mind
works, and thus by desire brings itself into a sha^p-
ness, as into a magnetic appropriation, from which
joy and sorrow arise;
8. So also, in regard to the eternal mind of
perceptibility, we are to understand that the out-
going of the one will of God has, through the Word,
introduced itself into separability, and the separa-
bility has introduced itself into receptibility, as into
desire and craving for its self-revelation, passing out
of the Unity into plurality.
9. Desire is the ground and beginning of the
nature of perceptibility of the particular will. For
therein is the separability of the Unity brought
into receptibility, whence the separabilities of
the wills are brought into perceptibility of a self-
hood, wherein the true, creaturely, perceptible,
angelic, and soulic life is understood.
10. For the will of the eternal One is imper-
ceptible, without tendency to anything; for it
has nothing to which it could tend, save only to-
wards itself. Therefore it brings itself out of itself,
and carries the efflux of its unity into plurality,
and into assumption of selfhood, as of a place of
a Nature, from which qualities take their rise.
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 193
>r every quality has its own separator and maker
ithin it, and is in itself entire, according to the
lality of the eternal Unity.
11. Thus the separator of each will develops in
> turn qualities from itself, from which the
finite plurality arises, and through which the
ernal One makes itself perceptible, not according
> the unity, but according to the efflux of the
lity. But the efflux is carried to the greatest
^rpness with magnetic receptivity, to the nature
' fire; in which fiery nature the eternal One
2comes majestic and a light. Thereby [by fire]
ie eternal power becomes desireful and effec-
lal, and [fire] is the original condition of the
msitive life, where in the Word of power, in the
flux, an eternal sensitive life has its origin. For
life had no sensitiveness, it would have no will nor
ncacy; but pain makes it effectual and capable
: will. And the light of such kindling through
re makes it joyous, for it is an anointment of
ainfulness.
12. From this eternal operation of the sensation
ad sense-element, which very working has from
:ernity introduced itself into Nature and qualities,
ie visible world with all its host sprang, and was
rought into a creaturely being. For the eternity of
ich working to fire, light and darkness has with
isible world carried itself into a counterstroke,
ad made the separator in all the powers of the
xianated being a steward of Nature, by whom
ie eternal will rules, makes, forms and shapes
11 things, *
13. We can, therefore, in no wise say that God's
N
194 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
essence is something far off, which possesses a
special abode or place; for the abyss of Nature
and creation is God himself.
14. The visible world with its host of creatures
is nothing else than the emanated Word which
has disposed itself into qualities, as in qualities the
particular will has arisen. And with the recepti-
bility of the Will the creaturely life arose; which
life has in the beginning of this world introduced
itself into a receptivity for a creaturely groupd,
which the separator has separated according to
the quality, and brought to a will of its own after
such a fashion. And with the self-will of such
desire substance or body of its likeness and quality
has arisen to each receptivity; whereby the sepa-
rator has signed itself and made itself visible, as
is to be seen in every life.
15. In this counterstroke of the divine will
we are to understand two kinds of life, viz. an
eternal and a temporal. That which is eternal
is in the Eternal, and arises from the eternal
Word. It stands at the basis of the eternal
spiritual world, in the Mysterium magnum of the
•divine counterstroke, and constitutes the intel-
lective life at the basis of the eternal fire and
light.
16. The inmost ground is a spark of the ema-
nated will of God through the eternal divine breath-
ing, and is united with God's Word to will nothing
but what the one will of God wills through such
emanation.
17. It is nothing else than a mansion of divine
will, through which the divine will reveals itself;
9N THE DIVINE INTUITION 195
and is revealed to no peculiarity of individual will,
but only to the instrument of the divine will, by
which this chooses to perform its marvellous
svorks. It is the separator of the divine will,
an instrument of God, into which the divine will
has fashioned itself so as to be a wonder-worker of
omnipotence and glory, by which he will rule all
things. Wherefore also the divine understanding
ivas given to it.
-18. The other life is a primal efflux of the
separator of all powers, and is called the soul of
:he outer world. This life became creaturely
n the emanated qualities, and is a life of all
bhe creatures of the visible world, whereby the
separator or creator of this world fashions itself
md makes a likeness of the spiritual world, in
svhich the power of the inward spiritual world
forms, shapes and beholds itself.
19. For the spiritual world of fire, light and
larkness is hidden in the visible elemental world,
ind works through the visible world, and by the
separator imprints itself with its efflux in all things,
according to each thing's kind and quality. Accord-
.ng as each several thing is of a kind and quality,
such a quality does it receive from the separator
}f the inward spiritual power. Not for a posses-
don and individual power does the visible receive
:he invisible, that the outer might thereby be
:ransformed into the inner. No; that is not so.
Fhe inward power fashions itself in the way we
inderstaiid this in the powers of herbs, trees and
netals, that their external spirit is only an instru-
nent of the inward spirit or of the inward power,
196 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
whereby the inward power imprints itself in the
external spirit.
20. We understand indeed in such powers of
growing things three kinds of spiritus in different
centra, but in one corpus. The first and external
spiritus is the coarse sulphur, salt and mercury,
which is a substance of four elements, or of ihe
stars according to the property of their roughness.
It makes the corpus, and impresses itself or com-
pacts itself into a substance, or draws that whiph
is internal out of the spiritual separator into
itself, as also the elements from without, and
coagulates itself therewith; whence immediately
the signature or sign is effected by the separator.
It forms the visible corpus according to the
property of the greatest power of the spiritus
mundi, viz. according to the constellation of the
stars or property of the planets and now enkindled
elements.
21. The second spiritus, which has a centrum
of its own, is found in the oil of sulphur, which is
called the fifth essence, viz. a root of the four
elements. This spiritus is the softening and joy
of the coarse, painful spirit of sulphur and salt;
and receives its nourishment, firstly, from within,
from the light of Nature, from the efflux of spiritual
gentleness, from the inward spiritual fire and
light. And, secondly, it receives its nourishment
from without, from the sun and from the subtle
power of the spiritus mundi, and is the true
cause of growing life, a joy of Nature, as is the
sun in the elements.
22. The third spiritus is the tincture, a counter-
197
stroke of the divine Mysterium magnum, in which
all powers are in equality, and is rightly called
paradise or divine delight. It is a mansion of
divine power, a mansion of the eternal soul, whence
all external powers spring, after the manner of
air from fire.
23. For the tincture is nothing else than a
spiritual fire and light, in which fire and light is a
single and united being. But because it has within
it its separator, as the emanated divine will to
manifestation, it is the highest reason for which
the first separation of qualities comes about in the
existence of this world, and belongs by its own
quality to eternity. For its origin is the holy
power of God. And it has a special centrum, viz.
the most inward ground of the creature, which
indeed is hidden to the mortal creature on this
account, that man brought false will against it.
Hence arose the curse of the earth at the fall of
man. Yet this high, holy principle in its own
centrum presses forth through all the beings of
this world, and flows forth into the outer powers,
as the sun into the elements. But the creature
cannot touch the centrum of this power, unless it
be done by divine permission, as comes to pass in
the new birth.
24). Such a revelation is seen in all living and
growing things. All things have their subsistence
in these three principles or beginnings. You see
an example in a herb of the earth, twhich has its
nourishment from within, and without, viz. from
the earth, and from without from the sun and
stars, whereby the spiritus of the earth together
198 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
with the external spiritus fashions itself. When
the herb sprouts forth, it is in such power that
this is realized. Thus the outward separator in
sulphur, salt and mercury signs itself externally
with the shape and form of the herb; for it is
the herb's motion and sensation, and makes itself
corporeal.
25. So that when I see a herb standing, I may
say with truth: This is an image of the Earth-
spirit, in which the upper powers rejoice, anjcl
regard it as their child; for the Earth-spirit is
but one being with the upper, outward powers.
And when the herb is grown up, it blossoms ; and
with the blossom the oleous spirit signs itself with
beautiful colours. And with the lovely smell of
the blossom, the tincture or the third principle
signs itself.
26. Here then we understand that the inward,
hidden spirit of the elements has revealed itself,
and brings itself also into the form of the fruit.
For the earth would have -no such smell, neither
colours nor such virtue, if the hidden power of
the divine efflux did not manifest itself.
27. So also with metals, which outwardly are
a coarse corpus of sulphur, mercury and salt,
wherein consists the growth; but in their inward
ground they are a beautiful clear corpus, in which
the ideal light of Nature shines from the divine
efflux. In this lustre is to be understood the
tincture and great power, how the hidden power
makes itself visible. It cannot be said of such
power or virtue that it is elemental, as neither is
the power of the blossom so. The elements are
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 199
>nly a mansion and counterstroke of the inward
>ower, a cause of the motion of the tincture.
28. For power proceeds from the tincture through
notion of the coarse elemental spirit, and is
carried thereby into sensation, viz. into taste and
mell.
29. For smell is nothing but the sensation of the
incture, through which the efflux of divine power
eveals itself, and thus assumes perceptibility. The
harpness of smell is indeed elemental, but the true
J^jrer and virtue in the sharpness of the smell is
he tincture. For the, motion of a thing is not
he highest reason of power, but that to which
;he cause of the motion is due.
30. The physician uses a fragrant herb for his
nedicaments; but the smell, that is, the sharpness
>f the smell, is not the cure which cureth the
>atient in his sickness. But that is the cure, from
vhich such balsam or smell arises, viz. the tincture,
vhich imprints itself in such balsam.
31. Christ said to the fig-tree : Be thou withered
Matt. xxi. 19). But the external, audible, human
vord, or the sound, was not the power by which it
vas done. But the power was that from whence
;he word came. Else, if the external human sound
lid it, other men could do it too.
32. The like also is to be understood concerning
'aith. Confession and assent in respect to a thing
s not true faith, much less is science so. But
:hat is faith, from which the confession proceeds,
riz. the revealed Spirit of God in the inward ground
)f the soul, which by the confession frames itself
n the pronounced word and makes this visible
200 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
outwardly, and works with the visible elements of
faith and exhibits itself outwardly. So that we
understand that God's Spirit co-operates in the
work of faith, just as it works with and through
the power of the elemental world, and makes itself
visible through the existence of this world with a
counterstroke.
33. So that, as regards everything I look upon,
be it evil or good, I can with truth say : Here, by
this thing, has the hidden spirit of the separator
of all beings shaped itself into a property, and ma*2e
for itself here an object or image according to its
efflux, either according to evil or good; all accord-
ing to the properties of Nature, according to heat
or cold, according to harsh, bitter, sweet or sour,
or however that may be. And in all such forma-
tion there is only outwardly such an elemental
nature, viz. such a sulphur and salt; but in the
Inward ground, in the tincture, it is good and
profitable, and belongs to its likeness for the
nourishment of life, which by the astral and ele-
mental nature stands in all properties according
to its external ground.
34. Every particular thing, be it herb, grass, tree,
beast, bird, fish, worm, or whatsoever it be, is of
use, and has proceeded from the separator of all
beings, viz. from the Word or separable will of God,
by which the separator of each thing's quality has
made for itself a likeness or image in which it
works.
35. For this visible world with all its host and
being is nothing but an objective representation
of the spiritual world, which spiritual world is
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 201
hidden in this material, elemental world, like as
the tincture in herbs and metals.
36. And as the tincture with its virtue fashioneth
itself in all things with its efflux and makes itself
visible, so that we may see and know by the
figure, as well as by the colours and smell, what
manner of separator or efflux of divine will has
emanated in the tincture from the Mysterium
magnum; so likewise we may recognize in the
visible world, in sun, stars, elements and all crea-
tii>s§, the inward ground from which they arose.
37. For no thing or being is come from afar to
its place, but in the place where it grows is. its
ground. The elements have their cause, from
which they arise, in themselves ; the stars also
have their chaos, wherein they stand, in them-
selves.
38. The elements are nothing but an image-like,
moving existence of what is invisible and non-
moving.
39. The stars likewise are an efflux of the quali-
ties of the spiritual world, according to the separa-
tion of the separator, whose ground is the Word
or the separable will of God.
40. The being and motion of the elements is
fire, air, water and earth, wherein is thick and
thin, moist and dry, hard and soft, and these are
united together in one substance. Not that each is
from a particular origin, but they all proceed from
a single ground, and that place where they have
arisen is everywhere. We have only to conceive how
at one place there may have been a greater enkind-
ling according to one quality than at another place,
202 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
whereby the motion has become greater, and of
material things in such form and substance more
have been produced than at another place. As is to
be understood by the material things of the earth,
as also by the water and air, how a difference
exists at each pole, or at each position above the
earth. Whence also the difference of manners and
of virtues, as well as of governments, laws and
creatures.
41. But the differences of such qualities have all
arisen from the Mysterium magnum, by the mo^fon
once for all of the powers of all beings, as when the
one will of all beings put itself in motion at once,
and brought itself out of non-perceptibility into
perceptibility and separability of powers, and
made the eternal Power effectual and desircful,
so that in each power a counterstroke as an in-
dividual desire has arisen. This same desire in the
counterstroke of the powers has developed itself in
its turn out of itself into a counterstroke, whence
the desire of such efflux is become acute, strong
and excessive, and has coagulated and brought
itself into material things.
42. And as the efflux of the inward powers has
been from light and darkness, from sharpness and
gentleness, from the nature of fire or of light, so
has been the origination of material things. The
further the efflux of a power has extended, the more
outward and coarse does the matter become; for
one counterstroke has proceeded out of another,
unto finally the coarse earth.
43. But we must deduce correctly the ground
of this philosophy, and indicate whence hard
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 203
id soft have taken their origin. This we recognize
metals. For every matter which is hard, as are
etals and stones, as also wood, herbs and the like,
is within it a very noble tincture and high spirit
• power. As also is to be recognized in the bones
• creatures, how the noblest tincture according
• the power of the Light, or the greatest sweetness,
in the marrow of the bones ; and, on the other
md, in the blood there is only a fiery tincture,
z. in sulphur, salt and mercury. This is under-
oVl thus :
44. God is the eternal One, or the greatest
intleness [stillness], so far as he exists in himself
.dependently of his motion and manifestation,
ut in his motion he is called a God in trinity,
lat is, a triune Being, where we speak of three
id yet but of one, and in accordance with which
2 is called the eternal Power and Word. This is
te precious and supreme ground, and thus to be
msidered : The divine will shuts itself in a place
> selfhood, as to power, and becomes active in
self; but also by its activity goes forth, and
takes for itself an object, viz. wisdom, through
hich the ground and origin of all beings has
risen.
45. In like manner know this : All that is soft,
mtle and thin in the existence of this world is
nanating and self-giving; and its ground and
dgin is in accordance with the Unity of eternity,
ic Unity perpetually emanating from itself. And
ideed in the very nature of thinness or rarity,
3 in water and air, we understand no sensation
r pain, so far as that nature is one in itself.
204 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
46. But whatever is hard and impressing, as
bones, wood, herbs, metals, fire, earth, stones, and
the like material things,—therein is the image of
divine power and motion, and shuts itself up with
its separator (viz. the efflux of divine desire)
against the coarseness, as a noble jewel or sparkle
of divine power. And it is hard and fiery on this
account, that it hath its own ground of divine
inclusion, as where the eternal One introduces itself
continually into a ground of threefoldness for
motion of powers, and yet shuts itself up ag^ffst
the efflux, as against the introduction of the
particular will of Nature, and with the power of
the Unity works through Nature.
47. And so it is to be understood in regard to
the noble tincture. Where it is noblest, there it is
most of all shut up with the hardness. For the
Unity is involved in it in a mobility, as in a sensa-
tion of activity, and therefore it is hidden; but
in thinness or rarity it is involved not in such
sensation, but is one with all things. As indeed
water and air are one with all things, and are in
all things. But the dry water is the true pearly
foundation, in which the subtle power of the
working of the Unity is in the centre. To ours,
who are worthy of this, it is hereby intimated,
that they should not give their attention to the
soft and yielding apart from the fiery nature,
to seek the mystery therein. Understand this
mystery thus :
48. That the soft and thin arises from the Unity,
from its emanation, from the Mysterium magnum,
and is nearest to the Unity; and, on the other
ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 205
ad, the noblest ground of divine revelation,
th in power and operation, lies in the fiery
rdness, and is a dry unity or a temperament,
lerein again is contained the separability of all
wers. For, where powers are comprised not in
3 unity of a will, there the will is divided, and
great power is to be understood in that
.ng. Which ought well to be observed by the
ysicians, that they should not look to the
=trse spiritus of strong smell, and regard that
^e true balsam; although it is present therein,
d 9o is the tincture therein very mobile and
olant.
49. The spiritus or spiritual essences of the strong
wer in smell must be brought into the tempera-
jnt, into unity, and not be flying from it, whereby
2n attempt to cure with salt, as with the sharp-
ss of fire, and give to the patient soul without
irit.
50. The soul of such balsams is separated in the
alities; each one gives itself in its great joy
parately, but in separation they are too rebellious,
icy unite not life's enmity and division, but kindle
s's division more.
51. Shut them up and make them one, so that
ey all have one will in love, and you have the
arl of the whole world. To provoke to wrath
uses pride and strife, which is to be recognized
all things.
52. A prisoner is comforted only by his release,
ttil he place his will in hope, and compose himself
th patience; and so at last his restlessness falls
to hope, into the temperament, and he learns
206 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION
in such hope to become humble. Then, if one
tells him of his release, he rejoices.
53. Therefore, ye physicians, observe it, that is
your pearl, if you can understand this, the meaning
is internal and external.
CHAPTER IV

Of the In and Out. How the eternal will of God
carries itself outwards and into perceptibility,
inwards and again into the One.

may be understood to what end the being of this
orld was created, and what purpose the creaturcly
ground serves. Further, to what end joy and sorrow
have become manifest; and how God is so near all
things.

1. John i. 11-13 runs thus : He (Jesus Christ)
came unto his own, and his own received him not.
But as many as received him, to them gave he
power to become children of God, even to them
that believe on his name: which were born, riot
of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God.

2. In these words we have the precious ground
of divine revelation, viz. the eternal In and Out.
For they speak of this, how the hidden divine
eternal Word of the divine power of the Unity
came forth into the emanated, natural, creaturely,
image-like Word, viz. into humanity, into his
own.

8. For the emanated, image-like, creaturely Word
is the ever-speaking Word's property. And it is
thereby clearly signified that his own, or the
averse, image-like, particular will, received him

207
208 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION

not. This individual, image-like will had arisen
from its own ground, viz. from flesh and blood of
the self-ful nature of man and woman, that is, in
the separator of the emanated will, where the
eternal will had confined itself in ownership, and
would' go forth and rule in personal power and
might.

4. This received not the eternal Word (which,
as an outflow of divine grace, again came forth
to the averse will), for it would be an individual
lord. But the will which has turned roun^ so
that it has been born anew in the divine outflow
of love, to that gave he power to become God's
child. For it is not the natural, individual will
can inherit the divine childship, but only that
which, united with the Unity, is one with all things,
in which God himself works and wills.

5. Wherein we clearly understand how the in-
ward ground has extroverted itself and made
itself visible, and is a peculiar possession of God,
as an efflux of divine power and will.

Printed by T. and A. CONSTABLB, Printers to His Majesty
at the Edinburgh University Press
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AKBAR DIRECTING THE TYING-UP OF A WILD ELEPHANT.
Tempera painting in the Akbar Namah by Abu'l Fazl. Photographed from
the original in the India Museum for The Place of Animals in Human Thought
by the Countess Evelyn Martinengo Cesaresco.
AKBAR,
EMPEROR OF INDIA

A PICTURE OF LIFE AND CUSTOMS FROM
THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY

BY

DR. RICHARD VON GARB]g_

RECTOR OF THE UNIVERSITY OF TUBINGEN

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY LYDIA G. ROBINSON, AND REPRINTED
FROM "THE MONIST" OF APRIL, 1909

CHICAGO
THE OPEN COURT PUBLISHING COMPANY
1909
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
Akbar Directing the Tying-up of a Wild Elephant.............Frontispiece.
Akbar, Emperor of India,.....................................facing p. 4
Mausoleum of Akbar's Father, Humayun, ...................... " p. 12
View of Fathpur,............................................. " p. 20
Akbar's Grave,............................................... *' p. 28
Mausoleum of Akbar at Sikandra, ............................. " p. 40
The Chakra, the Indian Emblem of Empire,.......................... p. 42
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.*
THE student of India who would at the same time be
an historian, discovers to his sorrow that the land of
his researches is lamentably poor in historical sources. And
if within the realm of historical investigation, a more se-
ductive charm lies for him in the analysis of great per-
sonalities than in ascertaining the course of historical de-
velopment, then verily may he look about in vain for such
personalities in the antiquity and middle ages of India.
Not that the princely thrones were wanting in great men in
ancient India, for we find abundant traces of them in Hindu
folk-lore and poetry, but these sources do not extend to
establishing the realistic element in details and furnishing
life-like portraits of the men themselves. That the Hindu
has ever been but little interested in historical matters is
a generally recognized fact. Religious and philosophical
speculations, dreams of other worlds, of previous and fu-
ture existences, have claimed the attention of thoughtful
minds to a much greater degree than has historical reality.
The misty myth-woven veil which hangs over persons
and events of earlier times, vanishes at the beginning of
the modern era which in India starts with the Moham-
medan conquest, for henceforth the history of India is
written by foreigners. Now we meet with men who take
a decisive part in the fate of India, and they appear as
* This essay is an enlarged form of an address delivered on the occasion
of the birthday of King Wilhelm II of Wtirttemberg, on February 25, 1909.
2 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
sharply outlined, even though generally unpleasing, per-
sonalities.
Islam has justly been characterized as the caricature
of a religion. I^gi^icism-and fatalism are two conspicu-
ously irreligious emotions, and it is exactly these two emo-
tions, which Islam understands how to arouse in savage
peoples, to which it owes the part it has played in the his-
tory of the world, and the almost unprecedented success
of its diffusion in Asia, Africa and Europe.
About 1000 A. D. India was invaded by the Sultan
Mahmud of Ghasna. "With Mahmud's expedition into
India begins one of the most horrible periods of the history
of Hindustan. One monarch dethrones another, no dy-
nasty continues in power, every accession to the throne is
accompanied by the murder of kinsmen, plundering of
cities, devastation of the lowlands and the slaughter of
thousands of men, women and children of the predecessor's
adherents; for five centuries northwest and northern India
literally reeked with the blood of multitudes/'1 Moham-
medan dynasties of Afghan, Turkish and Mongolian origin
follow that of Ghasna. This entire period is filled with an
almost boundless series of battles, intrigues, imbroglios
and political revolutions; nearly all events had the one char-
acteristic in common, that they took place amid murder,
pillage and fire.
The most frightful spectacle throughout these reeking
centuries is the terrible Mongolian prince Timur, a suc-
cessor of Genghis-Khan, who fell upon India with his band
of assassins in the year 1398 and before his entry into Delhi
the capital, in which he was proclaimed Emperor of India,
caused the hundred thousand prisoners whom he had cap-
tured in his previous battles in the Punjab, to be slaught-
ered in one single day, because it was too inconvenient to
drag them around with him. So says Timur himself with
1E. Schlagintweit, Indien in Wort und Bild, II. 26 f.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 3
shameless frankness in his account of the expedition, and
he further relates that after his entry into Delhi, all three
"districts of the city were plundered "according to the will
of God/'2 In 1526 Babu, a descendant of Timur, made
his entry into Delhi and there founded the dominion of the
Grand Moguls (i. e., of the great Mongols). The over-
throw of this dynasty was brought about by the disastrous
reign of Baber's successor Aurungzeb, a cruel, crafty and
treacherous despot, who following the example of his an-
cestor Timur, spread terror and alarm around him in the
second half of the seventeenth and the beginning of the
eighteenth centuries. Even to-day Hindus may be seen to
tremble when they meet the sinister fanatical glance of a
Mohammedan.
Princes with sympathetic qualities were not entirely
lacking in the seven centuries of Mohammedan dominion
in India, and they shine forth as points of light from the
gloomy horror of this time, but they fade out completely
before the luminous picture of the man who governed India
for half a century (1556-1605) and by a wise, gentle and
just reign brought about a season of prosperity such as
the land had never experienced in the millenniums of its
history. This man, whose memory even to-day is revered
by the Hindus, was a descendant of Baber, Abul Path
Jelaleddin Muhammed, known by the surname Akbar "the
Great," which was conferred upon the child even when he
was named, and completely supplanted the name that prop-
erly belonged to him. And truly he justified the epithet,
for great, fabulously great, was Akbar as man, general,
statesman and ruler,—all in all a prince who deserves to
be known by every one whose heart is moved by the spec-
tacle of true human greatness.3
3 A. Miiller, Der Islam im Morgen- und Alendland, II, 300!
8 From the literature on Emperor Akbar the following works deserve
special mention: J. Talboys Wheeler, The History of India from the Earliest
Ages. Vol. IV, Pt I, "Mussulman Rule," London, 18/6 (judges Akbar very
A AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
When we wish to understand a personality we are in
the habit of ascertaining the inherited characteristics, and
investigating the influences exercised upon it by religion,
family, environment, education, youthful impressions, ex-
perience, and so forth. Most men are easily comprehen-
sible as the products of these factors. The more inde-
pendent of all such influences, or the more in opposition to
them, a personality develops, the more attractive and inter-
esting will it appear to us. At the first glance it looks as
if the Emperor Akbar had developed his entire character
from himself and by his own efforts in total independence
of all influences which in other cases are thought .to deter-
mine the character and nature of a man. A Mohammedan,
a Mongol, a descendant of the monster Timur, the son of a
weak incapable father, born in exile, called when but a lad
to the government of a disintegrated and almost annihi-
lated realm in the India of the sixteenth century,—which
means in an age of perfidy, treachery, avarice, and self-
seeking,—Akbar appears before us as a noble man, suscep-
tible to all grand and beautiful impressions, conscientious,
unprejudiced, and energetic, who knew how to bring peace
and 'order out of the confusion of the times, who through-
out his reign desired the furtherance of his subjects' and
not of his own interest, who while increasing the privileges
of the Mohammedans, not only also declared equality of
rights for the Hindus but even actualized that equality,
who in every conceivable way sought to conciliate his sub-
unfairly in many places, but declares at the bottom of page 135. "The reign
of Akbar is one of the most important in the history of India; it is one of the
most important in the history of the world"); Mountstuart Elphinstone,
History of India, the Hindu and Mahometan Periods, with notes and additions
by E. B. Cowell, pth ed., London, 1905; G. B. Malleson, Akbar and the Rise of
the Mughal Empire, Oxford, 1890 (in W. W. Hunter's Rulers of India) ;
A. Muller, Der Islam im M or gen- und Abendland, Vol. II, Berlin, 1887; but
especially Count F. A. von Noer, Kaiser Akbar, ein Versuch uher die Gc-
schichte Indiens im sechsehnten Jahrhundert, Vol. I, Leyden, 1880; Vol. II,
revised from the author's manuscript by Dr. Gustav von Buchwald, Leyden,
1885. In the preface to this work the original sources are listed and described;
compare also M. Elphinstone, pp. 536, 537, note 45.
X

4:..
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'"' V

AKDAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
From Noer's Kaiser Akbar, (Frontispiece to Vol. II).
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 5
jects so widely at variance with each other in race, cus-
toms, and religion, and who finally when the narrow dog-
mas of his religion no longer satisfied him, attained to a
purified faith in God, which was independent of all formu-
lated religions.
A closer observation, however, shows that the contrast
is not quite so harsh between what according to our hypoth-
eses Akbar should have been as a result of the forces which
build up man, and what he actually became. His predilec-
tion for science and art Akbar had inherited from his
grandfather Baber and his father Humayun. His youth,
which was passed among dangers and privations, in flight
and in prison, was certainly not without a beneficial in-
fluence upon Akbar's development into a man of unusual
power and energy. And of significance for his spiritual
development was the circumstance that after his accession
to the throne his guardian put him in the charge of a most
excellent tutor, the enlightened and liberal minded Persian
Mir Abdullatif, who laid the foundation for Akbar's later
religious and ethical views. Still, however high we may
value the influence of this teacher, the main point lay in
Akbar's own endowments, his susceptibility for such teach-
ing as never before had struck root with any Mohammedan
prince./ Akbar had not his equal in the history of Islam.
"He is the only prince grown up in the Mohammedan creed
whose endeavor it was to ennoble the limitation of this most
separatistic of all religions into a true religion of human-
ity."*
Even the external appearance of Akbar appeals to us
sympathetically. We sometimes find reproduced a miniature
from Delhi which pictures Akbar as seated; in this the char-
acteristic features of the Mongolian race appear softened
and refined to a remarkable degree.* The shape of the
4A.Miiller, II,4i6.
* Noer, II as frontispiece (comp. also pp. 327, 328); X. Muller, II, 417.
6 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
head is rather round, the outlines are softened, the black
eyes large, thoughtful, almost dreamy, and only very
slightly slanting, the brows full and bushy, the lips some-
what prominent and the nose a tiny bit hooked. The lace
is beardless except for the rather thin closely cut moustache
which falls down over the curve of the mouth in soft waves.
According to the description of his son, the Emperor Je-
hangir, Akbar's complexion is said to have been the yellow
of wheat; the Portuguese Jesuits who came to his court
called it plainly white. Although not exactly beautiful,
Akbar seemed beautiful to many of his contemporaries,
including Europeans, probably because of the august and
at the same time kind and winsome expression which his
countenance bore. Akbar was rather tall broad-shoul-
dered, strongly built and had long arms and hands.
Akbar, the son of the dethroned Emperor ITumfiyun,
was born on October 14, 1542, at Amarkot in Simlh, two
years after his father had been deprived of his kingdom
by the usurper Slier Chan. After an exile of fifteen years,
or rather after an aimless wandering- and flight of that
length, the indolent pleasure- and opium-loving Humayun
was again permitted to return to his capital in 1555,—not
through his own merit but that of his energetic general
Bairam Chan, a Turk who in one decisive battle had over-
come the Afghans, at that time in possession of the domin-
ion. But Humayun was not long to enjoy his regained
throne; half a year later he fell down a stairway in his
palace and died. In January 1556 Akbar, then thirteen
years of age, ascended the throne. Because of his youthful
years Bairam Chan assumed the regency as guardian of
the realm or "prince-father" as it is expressed in Hindi,
and guided the wavering ship of state with a strong hand
He overthrew various insurgents and disposed of them
with cold cruelty. But after a few years he so aroused the
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 7
illwill of Akbar by deeds of partiality, selfishness and vio-
lence that in March 1560 Akbar, then 17 years of age, de-
cided to take the reins of government into his own hand.
Deprived of his office and influence Bairam Chan hastened
to the Punjab and took arms against his Imperial Master.
Akbar led his troops in person against the rebel and over-
came him. When barefooted, his turban thrown around
his neck, Bairam Chan appeared before Akbar and pros-
trated himself before the throne, Akbar did not do the
thing which was customary under such circumstances in
the Orient in all ages. The magnanimous youth did not
sentence the humiliated rebel to a painful death but bade
him ari^e in memory of the great services which Bairam
Chan had rendered to his father and later to himself, and
again assume his old place of honor at the right of the
throne. Before the assembled nobility he gave him the
choice whether he would take the governorship of a prov-
ince, or would enjoy the favor of his master at court as a
benefactor of the imperial family, or whether, accom-
panied by an escort befitting his rank, he would prefer to
undertake a pilgrimage to Mecca.5 Bairam Chan was
wise enough to choose the last, but on the way to Mecca
he was killed by an Afghan and the news caused Akbar
sincere grief and led him to take the four year old son of
Bairam Chan under his special protection.
Mahum Anaga, the Emperor's nurse, for whom he
felt a warm attachment and gratitude, a woman revenge-
ful and ambitious but loyal and devoted to Akbar, had con-
tributed in bringing about the fall of the regent. She had
cared for the Emperor from his birth to his accession and
amid the confusion of his youth had guarded him from
danger; but for this service she expected her reward. She
sought nothing less than in the role of an intimate con-
6 Noer, I, 131.
8 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
fidante of the youthful Emperor to be secretly the actual
ruler of India.
Mahum Anaga had a son, Adham Chan by name, to
whom at her suggestion Akbar assigned the task of re-
conquering and governing the province of Malwa. Adham
Chan was a passionate and violent man, as ambitious
and avaricious as his mother, and behaved himself in
Malwa as if he were an independent prince. As soon
as Akbar learned this he advanced by forced marches to
Malwa and surprised his disconcerted foster-brother be-
fore the latter could be warned by his mother. But Adham
Chan had no difficulty in obtaining Akbar's forgiveness
for his infringements.
On the way back to Agra, where the Emperor at that
time was holding court, a noteworthy incident happened.
Akbar had ridden alone in advance of his escort and sud-
denly found himself face to face with a powerful tigress
who with her five cubs came out from the shrubbery across
his path. His approaching attendants found the nineteen
year old Emperor standing quietly by the side of the
slaughtered beast which he had struck to the ground with
a single blow of his sword. To how much bodily strength,
intrepidity, cold-blooded courage and sure-sightedness this
blow of the sword testified which dared not come the frac-
tion of a second too late, may be judged by every one who
has any conception of the spring of a raging tigress an-
xious for the welfare of her young. And we may easily
surmise the thoughts which the sight aroused in the minds
of the Mohammedan nobles in Akbar's train. At that
moment many ambitious wishes and designs may have been
carried to their grave.6
The Emperor soon summoned his hot-headed foster-
brother Adham Chan to court in order to keep him well
in sight for he had counted often enough on Akbar's affec-
*Noer, I, 141.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 9
tion for his mother Mahum Anaga to save him from the
consequences of his sins. Now Mahum Anaga, her son and
her adherents, hated the grand vizier with a deadly hatred
because they perceived that they were being deprived of
their former influence in matters of state. This hatred finally
impelled Adham Chan to a senseless undertaking. The em-
bittered man hatched up a conspiracy against the grand
vizier and when one night in the year 1562 the latter was
attending a meeting of political dignitaries on affairs of
state in the audience hall of the Imperial palace, Adham
Chan with his conspirators suddenly broke in and stabbed
the grand vizier in the breast, whereupon his companions
slew the wounded man with their swords. Even now the
deluded Adham Chan counted still upon the Emperor's
forbearance and upon the influence of his mother. Akbar
was aroused by the noise and leaving his apartments
learned what had happened. Adham Chan rushed to the
Emperor, seized his arm and begged him to listen to his
explanations. But the Emperor was beside himself with
rage, struck the murderer with his fist so that he fell to
the floor and commanded the terrified servants to bind him
with fetters and throw him head over heels from the ter-
race of the palace to the courtyard below. The horrible
deed was done but the wretch was not dead. Then the
Emperor commanded the shattered body of the dying man
to be dragged up the stairs again by the hair and to be
flung once more to the ground.7
I have related this horrible incident in order to give
Akbar's picture with the utmost possible faithfulness and
without idealization. Akbar was a rough, strong-nerved
man, who was seldom angry but whose wrath when once
aroused was fearful. It is a blemish on his character that
in some cases he permitted himself to be carried away to
such cruel death sentences, but we must not forget that
7J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 139, 140; Noer, I, 143, 144.
IO AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
he was then dealing with the punishment of particularly
desperate criminals, and that such severe judgments had
always been considered in the Orient to be righteous and
sensible. Not only in the Orient unfortunately,—even in
Europe 200 years after Akbar's time tortures and the rack
were applied at the behest of courts of law.
Mahum Anaga came too late to save her son. Akbar
sought with tender care to console her for his dreadful
end but the heart-broken woman survived the fearful blow
of fate only about forty days. The Emperor caused her
body to be buried with that of her son in one common grave
at Delhi, and he himself accompanied the funeral proces-
sion. At his command a stately monument was erected
above this grave which still stands to-day. His generosity
and clemency were also shown in the fact that he extended
complete pardon to the accomplices in the murder of the
grand vizier and even permitted them to retain their of-
fices and dignities because he was convinced that they had
been drawn into the crime by the violent Adham Chan.
In other ways too Akbar showed himself to be ready to
grant pardon to an almost incomprehensible'extent. Again
and again when an insubordinate viceroy in the provinces
would surrender after an unsuccessful uprising Akbar
would let him off without any penalty, thus giving him the
opportunity of revolting again after a short time.
It was an eventful time in which Akbar arrived at
manhood in the midst of all sorts of personal dangers.
I will pass over with but few comments his military ex-
peditions which can have no interest for the general public.
When Akbar ascended the throne his realm comprised only
a very small portion of the possessions which had been sub-
ject to his predecessors. With the energy which was a
fundamental characteristic of his nature he once more took
possession of the provinces which had been torn from the
empire, at the same time undertaking the conquest of new
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 11
lands, and accomplished this task with such good fortune
that in the fortieth year of his reign the empire of India
covered more territory than ever before; that is to say, not
only the whole of Hindustan including the peninsula Gu-
jerat, the lands of the Indus and Kashmir but also Af-
ghanistan and a larger part of the Dekkhan than had ever
been subject to any former Padishah of Delhi. At this time
while the' Emperor had his residence at Lahore the phrase
was current in India, "As lucky as Akban"8
It was apparent often enough in the military expedi-
tions that Akbar far surpassed his contemporaries in gen-
eralship. 9 But it was not the love of war and conquest
which drove him each time anew to battle; a sincere desire
inspired by a mystical spirit impelled him to bring to an
end the ceaseless strife between the small states of India
by joining them to his realm, and thus to found a great
united empire.9
More worthy of admiration than the subjugation of
such large territories in which of course many others have
also been successful, is the fact that. Akbar succeeded in
establishing order, peace, and prosperity in the regained
and newly subjugated provinces. This he brought about
by the introduction of a model administration, an excellent
police, a regulated post service, and especially a just divi-
sion of taxes.10 Up to Akbar's time corruption had been
a matter of course in the entire official service and enormous
sums in the treasury were lost by peculation on the part of
tax collectors.
Akbar first divided the whole realm into twelve and
later into fifteen viceregencies, and these into provinces,
administrative districts and lesser subdivisions, and gov-
erned the revenues of the empire on the basis of a uni-
8J.T. Wheeler, IV, I, 180.
8 Noer, II, 8, 390, 423.
10 For the following compare Noer I, 391 ff.; M. Elphinstone, 529 ff.; G.
B. Malleson, 172 ff., 185 ff.
12 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
formly exact survey of the land. , He introduced a standard
of measurement, replacing the hitherto customary land
measure (a leather strap which was easily lengthened or
shortened according to the need of the measuring officer)
by a new instrument of measurement in the form of a
bamboo staff, which was provided with iron rings at defi-
nite intervals. For purposes of assessment land was di-
vided into four classes according to the kind of cultivation
practiced upon it. The first class comprised arable land
with a constant rotation of crops; the second, that which
had to lie fallow for from one to two ye^rs in order to be
productive; the third from fhree to four years; tjie fourth1
that land which was uncultivated for five years and longer
or was not arable at all.x The first two classes of acreage
were taxed one-third of the crop, which according to our
present ideas seems an exorbitantly high rate, and it was
left to the one assessed whether he would pay the tax in
kind or in cash. Only in the case oP luxuries or. manu-
factured articles, that is to say, where the use of a circu-
lating medium could be assumed, was -cash payment re-
quired. Whoever cultivated unreclaimed land! was assisted
by the government by the grant of a free supply of seed
and by a considerable" reduction in his taxes for the first
four years.
Akbar also introduced a new uniform standard of coin-
age, but stipulated that the older coins which were still
current should be accepted from peasants for their full face
value. From all this the Indian peasants could see that
Emperor Akbar not only desired strict justice to rule but
also wished to further their interests, and the peasants had
always comprised the greatest part of the inhabitants,
(even according to the latest census in 1903, vol. I, p. 3, 50
to 84 percent of the inhabitants of India live by agricul-
ture). But Akbar succeeded best in winning the, hearts
MAUSOLEUM OF AKBAR^S FATHER, IIUMAYUN.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 13

of the native inhabitants by lifting the hated poll tax which
still existed side by side with all other taxes.

The founder of Islam had given the philanthropical
command to exterminate from the face of the earth all fol-
lowers of other faiths who were not converted to Islam,
but he had already convinced himself that it was im-
possible to execute this law. And, indeed, if the Moham-
medans had followed out this precept, how would they have
been able to overthrow land upon land and finally even
thickly populated India where the so-called unbelievers
comprised an overwhelming majority? Therefore in place
of complete extermination the more practical arrangement
of the poll tax was instituted, and this was to be paid by all
unbelievers in order to be a constant reminder to them
of the loss of their independence. This humiliating burden
which was still executed in the strictest, most inconsiderate
manner, Akbar removed in the year 1565 without regard
to the very considerable loss to the state's treasury. Nine
years later followed the removal of the tax upon religious
assemblies and pilgrimages, the execution of which had
likewise kept the Hindus in constant bitterness towards
their Mohammedan rulers.

Sometime previous to these reforms Akbar had abol-
ished a custom so disgusting that we can hardly compre-
hend that it ever could have legally existed. At any rate
it alone is sufficient to brand Islam and its supreme con-
tempt for followers of other faiths, with one of the greatest
stains in the history of humanity. When a tax-collector
gathered the taxes of the Hindus and the payment had
been made, the Hindu was required "without the slightest
sign of fear of defilement" to open his mouth in order that

This was much more tEan a disgusting humiliation. When
the tax-collector availed himself of this privilege the Hindu
"Noer, II, 6, 7; G. B. Malleson, 174 175-
I4 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
lost thereby his greatest possession, his caste, and was
shut out from any intercourse with his equals. Accord-
ingly he was compelled to pass his whole life trembling in
terror before this horrible evil which threatened him. That
a man of Akbar's nobility of character should remove such
an atrocious, yes devilish, decree seems to us a matter of
course; but for the Hindus it was an enormous beneficence.
Akbar sought also to advance trade and commerce in
every possible way. He regulated the harbor and toll
duties, removed the oppressive taxes on cattle, trees, grain
and other produce as well as the customary fees of subjects
at every possible appointment or office. In the year 1574
it was decreed that the loss which agriculture suffered by
the passage of royal troops through the fields should be
carefully calculated and scrupulously replaced.
Besides these practical regulations for the advancement
of the material welfare, Akbar's efforts for the ethical
uplift of his subjects are noteworthy. Drunkenness and
debauchery were punished and he sought to restrain pros-
titution by confining dancing girls and abandoned women
in one quarter set apart for them outside of his residence
which received the name Shaitanpura or "Devil's City."^_
The existing corruption in the finance and customs de-
partment was abolished by means of a complicated and
punctilious system of supervision (the bureaus of receipts
and expenditures were kept entirely separated from each
other in the treasury department,) and Akbar himself care-
fully examined the accounts handed in each month from
every district, just as he gave his personal attention with
tireless industry and painstaking care to every detail in
the widely ramified domain of the administration of gov-
ernment. Moreover the Emperor was fortunate in having
at the head of the finance department a prudent, energetic,
perfectly honorable and incorruptible man, the Hindu To-
12 J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 173; Noer, I, 4380.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 15
dar Mai, who without possessing the title of vizier or min-
ister of state had assumed all the functions of such an
office.
It is easily understood that many of the higher tax
officials did not grasp the sudden break of a new day but
continued to oppress and impoverish the peasants in the
traditional way, but the system established by Akbar suc-
ceeded admirably and soon brought all such transgressions
to light. Todar Mai held a firm rein, and by throwing
hundreds of these faithless officers into prison and by mak-
ing ample use of bastinado and torture, spread abroad such
a wholesome terror that Akbar's reforms were soon vic-
torious.
How essential it was to exercise the strictest control
over men occupying the highest positions may be seen by
the example of the feudal nobility whose members bore the
title "Jagirdar." Such a Jagirdar had to provide a contin-
gent of men and horses for the imperial army correspond-
ing to the size of the estate which was given him in fief.
Now it had been a universal custom for the Jagirdars to
provide themselves with fewer soldiers and horses on a
military expedition than at the regular muster. Then too
the men and horses often proved useless for severe service.
When the reserves were mustered the knights dressed up
harmless private citizens as soldiers or hired them for the
occasion and after the muster was over, let them go again.
In the same way the horses brought forward for the muster
were taken back into private service immediately after-
wards and were replaced by worthless animals for the im-
perial service. This evil too was abolished at one stroke,
by taking an exact personal description of the soldiers pre-
sented and by branding the heads of horses, elephants and
camels with certain marks. By this simple expedient it
became impossible to exchange men and animals presented
16 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
at the muster for worthless material and also to loan them
to other knights during muster.
The number of men able to bear arms in Akbar's realm
has been given as about four and a half millions but the
standing army which was held at the expense of the state
was small in proportion. It contained only about twenty-
five thousand men, one-half of whom comprised the cavalry
and the rest musketry and artillery. Since India does not
produce first class horses, Akbar at once provided for the
importation of noble steeds from other lands of the Orient
which were famed for horse breeding and was accustomed
to pay more for such animals than the price which was
demanded. In the same way no expense was too great for
him to spend on the breeding and nurture of elephants, for
they were very valuable animals for the warfare of that day.
His stables contained from five to six thousand well-trained
elephants. The breeding of camels and mules he also ad-
vanced with a practical foresight and understood how to
overcome the widespread prejudice in India against the
use of mules.
Untiringly did Akbar inspect stables, arsenals, military
armories, and shipyards, and insisted on perfect order in
all departments. He called the encouragement of seaman-
ship an act of worship13 but was not able to make India,
a maritime power.
Akbar had an especial interest in artillery, and with it
a particular gift for the technique and great skill in mech-
anical matters. "He invented a cannon which could be
taken apart to be carried more easily on the march and could
be put up quickly, apparently for use in mountain batteries.
By another invention he united seventeen cannons in such
a way that they could be shot off simultaneously by one
fuse.14 Hence it is probably a sort of mitrailleuse. Akbar
"Noer, II, 378.
14 Noer, I, 429. The second invention, however, is questioned by Buchwald
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 17
is also said to have invented a mill cart which served as a
mill as well as for carrying freight. With regard to these
inventions we must take into consideration the possibility
that the real inventor may have been some one else, but that
the flatterers at the court ascribed them to the Emperor be-
cause the initiative may have originated with him.
The details which I have given will suffice to show
what perfection the military and civil administration at-
tained through Akbar's efforts. Throughout his empire
order and justice reigned and a prosperity hitherto un-
known. Although taxes were never less oppressive in
India than under Akbar's reign, the imperial income for
one year amounted to more than $120,000,000, a sum at
which contemporary Europe marveled, and which we must
consider in the light of the much greater purchasing power
of money in the sixteenth century.15 A large part of Ak-
bar's income was used in the erection of benevolent insti-
tutions, of inns along country roads in which travelers
were entertained at the imperial expense, in the support
of the poor, in gifts for pilgrims, in granting loans whose
payment was never demanded, and many similar ways. To
his encouragement of schools, of literature, art and science
I will refer later.
Of decided significance for Akbar's success was his
patronage of the native population. He did not limit his
efforts to lightening the lot of the subjugated Hindus and
relieving them of oppressive burdens; his efforts went
deeper. He wished to educate the Mohammedans and
Hindus to a feeling of mutual good-will and confidence,
and in doing so he was obliged to contend in the one case
against haughtiness and inordinate ambition, and in the
other against hate and distrustful reserve. If with this
(II, 372) because of the so-called "organ cannons** which were in use in
Europe as early as the I5th century.
15 Noer, I, 439.
jg AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
end in view he actually favored the Hindus by keeping"
certain ones close to him and advancing them to the most
influential positions in the state, he did it because he found
characteristics in the Hindus (especially in their noblest
race, the Rajputs) which seemed to him most valuable for
the stability of the empire and for the promotion of the
general welfare. He had seen enough faithlessness in the
Mohammedan nobles and in his own relatives. Besides,
Akbar was born in the house of a small Rajput prince who
had shown hospitality to Akbar's parents on their flight
and had given them his protection.
The Rajputs are the descendants of the ancient Indian
warrior race and are a brave, chivalrous, trustworthy people
who possess a love of freedom and pride of race quite differ-
ent in character from the rest of the Hindus. Even to-day
every traveler in India thinks he has been set down in an-
other world when he treads the ground of Rajputana and
sees around him in place of the weak effeminate servile in-
habitants of other parts of the country powerful upright
men, splendid warlike figures with blazing defiant eyes and
long waving beards.
While Akbar valued the Rajputs very highly his own
personality was entirely fitted to please these proud manly
warriors. An incident which took place before the end
of the first year of Akbar's reign is characteristic of the
relations which existed on the basis of this intrinsic rela-
tionship.16
Bihari Mai was a prince of the small Rajput state Am-
bir, and possessed sufficient political comprehension to
understand after Akbar's first great successes that his
own insignificant power and the nearness of Delhi made it
advisable to voluntarily recognize the Emperor as his liege
lord. Therefore he came with son, grandson and retainers
to swear allegiance to Akbar. Upon his arrival at the im-
M Noer, I, 224-226
AKBAR,, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 19
perial camp before Delhi, a most surprising sight met his
eyes. Men were running in every direction, fleeing wildly
before a raging elephant who wrought destruction to
everything that came within his reach. Upon the neck of
this enraged brute sat a young man in perfect calmness
belaboring the animal's head with the iron prong which
is used universally in India for guiding elephants. The
Rajputs sprang from their horses and came up perfectly
unconcerned to observe the interesting spectacle, and broke
out in loud applause when the conquered elephant knelt
down in exhaustion. The young man sprang from its
back an$ cordially greeted the Rajput princes (who now
for the first time recognized Akbar in the elephant- tamer)
bidding them welcome to his red imperial tent. From this
occurrence dates the friendship of the two men. In later
years Bihari Mai's son and grandson occupied high places
in the imperial service, and Akbar married a daughter of
the Rajput chief who became the mother of his son and
successor Selim, afterwards the Emperor Jehangir. Later
on Akbar received a number of other Rajput women in his
harem.
Not all of Akbar's relations to the Rajputs however
were of such a friendly kind. As his grandfather Baber
before him, he had many bitter battles with them, for no
other Indian people had opposed him so vigorously as they.
Their domain blocked the way to the south, and from their
rugged mountains and strongly fortified cities the Rajputs
harassed the surrounding country by many invasions and
destroyed order, commerce and communication quite after
the manner of the German robber barons of the Middle
Ages. Their overthrow was accordingly a public neces-
sity.
The most powerful of these Rajput chiefs was the
Prince of Mewar who had particularly attracted the at-
tention of the Emperor by his support of the rebels. The
20 AKBAR/EMPEROR OF INDIA.
control of Mewar rested upon the possession of the fortress
Chitor which was built on a monstrous cliff one hundred
and twenty meters high, rising abruptly from the plain
and was equipped with every means of defence that could
be contrived by the military skill of that time for an incom-
parably strong bulwark. On the plain at its summit which
measured over twelve kilometers in circumference a city
well supplied with water lay within the fortification walls.
There an experienced general, Jaymal, "the Lion of Chi-
tor," was in command. I have not time to relate the partic-
ulars of the siege, the laying of ditches and mines and the
uninterrupted battles which preceded the fall of £hitor in
February, 1568. According to Akbar's usual custom he
exposed himself to showers of bullets without once being
hit (the superstition of his soldiers considered him invul-
nerable) and finally the critical shot was one in which Ak-
bar with his own hafld laid low the brave commander o£
Chitor. Then the defenders considered their cause lost,
and the next night saw a barbarous sight, peculiarly Indian
in character: the so-called Jauhar demanded his offering*
according to an old Rajput custom. Many great fires
gleamed weirdly in the fortress. To escape imprisonment
and to save their honor from the horrors of captivity, the
women mounted the solemnly arranged funeral pyres,
while all the men, clad in saffron hued garments, conse-
crated themselves to death. When the victors entered the
city on the next morning a battle began which raged
until the third evening, when there was no one left to kill.
Eight thousand warriors had fallen, besides thirty thou-
sand inhabitants of Chitor who had participated in the
fight. ^
With the conquest of Chitor which I have treated at
considerable length because it ended in a typically Indian
manner, the resistance of the Rajputs broke down. After
Akbar had attained his purpose he was on the friendliest
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 21
terms with the vanquished. It testifies to his nobility of
character as well as to his political wisdom that after this
complete success he not only did not celebrate a triumph,
but on the contrary proclaimed the renown of the van-
quished throughout all India by erecting before the gate
of the imperial palace at Delhi two immense stone ele-
phants with the statues of Jaymal, the "Lion of Chitor,"
and of the noble youth Pata who had performed the most
heroic deeds in the defense of Chitor. By thus honoring
his conquered foes in such a magnanimous manner Akbar
found the right way to the heart of the Rajputs. By con-
stant bestpwal of favors he gradually succeeded in so rec-
onciling the noble Rajputs to the loss of their independence
that they were finally glad and proud to devote themselves
to his service, and, under the leadership of their own
princes, proved themselves to be the best and truest soldiers
of the imperial army, even far from their home in the far-
thest limits of the realm.
The great masses of the Hindu people Akbar won over
by lowering the taxes as we have previously related, and by
all the other successful expedients for the prosperity of the
country, but especially by the concession of perfect liberty :
of faith and worship and by the benevolent interest with
which he regarded the religious practices of the Hindus.
A people in whom religion is the ruling motive of life, after,
enduring all the dreadful sufferings of previous centuries
for its religion's sake, must have been brought to a state
of boundless reverence by Akbar's attitude. And since the
Hindus were accustomed to look upon the great heroes and
benefactors of humanity as incarnations of deity we shall
not be surprised to read from an author of that time17
that every morning before sunrise great numbers of Hin-
* dus crowded together in front of the palace to await the
appearance of Akbar and to prostrate themselves as soon
17 Badaoni in Noer, II, 320.
22 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA,
as he was seen at a window, at the same time singing
religious hymns. This fanatical enthusiasm of the Hindus
for his person Akbar knew how to retain not only by actual
benefits but also by small, well calculated devices.
It is a familiar fact that the Hindus considered the
Ganges to be a holy river and that cows were sacred ani-
mals. Accordingly we can easily understand Akbar's pur-
pose when we learn that at every meal he drank regularly
of water from the Ganges (carefully filtered and purified
to be sure) calling it "the water of immortality/'18 and
that later he forbade the slaughtering of cattle and eating-
their flesh.19 But Akbar did not go so far in his cpnnivance
with the Hindus that he considered all their customs good
or took them under his protection. For instance he forbade
child marriages among the Hindus, that is to say the mar-
riage of boys under sixteen and of girls under fourteen
years, and he permitted the remarriage of widows. The
barbaric customs of Brahmanism were repugnant to his
very soul. He therefore most strictly forbade the slaught-
ering of animals for purposes of sacrifice, the use of ordeals
for the execution of justice, and the burning of widows
against their will, which indeed was not established accord-
ing to Brahman law but was constantly practiced according
to traditional custom.20 To be sure neither Akbar nor his
successor Jehangir were permanently successful in their
efforts to put an end to the burning of widows. Not until
the year 1829 was the horrible custom practically done
away with through the efforts of the English.
Throughout his entire life Akbar was a tirelessly in-
dustrious, restlessly active man. By means of ceaseless
activity he struggled successfully against his natural tend-
ency to melancholy and in this way kept his mind whole-
some, which is most deserving of admiration in an Oriental
MNoer, II, 317, 318. */&«., 376, 317.
*J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 173; M. Elphinstone, 526; G. B. Malleson, 176.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 23
monarch who was brought in contact day by day with im-
moderate flattery and idolatrous veneration. Well did
Akbar know that no Oriental nation can be governed with-
out a display of dazzling splendor; but in the midst of the
fabulous luxury with which Akbar's court was fitted out
and his camp on the march, in the possession of an incom-
parably rich harern which accompanied the Emperor on his
expeditions and journeys in large palatial tents, Akbar
always showed a remarkable moderation. It is true that
he abolished the prohibition of wine which Islam had in-
augurated and had a court cellar in his palace, but he him-
self drank only a little wine and only ate once a day and
then did not fully satisfy his hunger at this one meal which
he ate alone and not at any definite time.21 Though he
was not strictly a vegetarian yet he lived mainly on rice,
milk, fruits and sweets, and meat was repulsive to him.
He is said to have eaten meat hardly more than four times
a year.22
Akbar was very fond of flowers and perfumes and
especially enjoyed blooded doves whose care he well under-
stood. About twenty thousand of these peaceful birds are
said to have made their home on the battlements of his
palace. His historian23 relates: "His Majesty deigned to
improve them in a marvelous manner by crossing the races
which had not been done formerly."
Akbar was passionately fond of hunting and pursued
the noble sport in its different forms, especially the tiger
hunt and the trapping of wild elephants,24 but he also
hunted with trained falcons and leopards, owning no less
than nine hundred hunting leopards. He was not fond of
battue; he enjoyed the excitement and exertion of the
aNoer, II, 355-
22 J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 169, following the old English geographer Samuel
Purchas.
33 Abul Fazl in Noer, I, 511.
84 M. Elphinstone, 519.
24 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
actual hunt as a means for exercise and recreation, for
training the eye and quickening the blood. Akbar took pleas-
ure also in games. Besides chess, cards and other games,
fights between animals may especially be mentioned, of
which elephant fights were the most common, but there
were also contests between camels, buffaloes, cocks, and
even frogs, sparrows and spiders.
Usually, however, the whole day was filled up from the
first break of dawn for Akbar with affairs of government
and audiences, for every one who had a request or a
grievance to bring forward could have access to Akbar,
and he showed the same interest in the smallest ^incidents
as in the greatest affairs of state. He also held courts o£
justice wherever he happened to be residing. No criminal
could be punished there without his knowledge and no
sentence of death executed until Akbar had given the com-
mand three times.25
Not until after sunset did the Emperor's time of recrea-
tion begin. Since he only required three hours of sleep26
he devoted most of the night to literary, artistic and scien-
tific occupations. Especially poetry and music delighted
his heart. He collected a large library in his palace and
drew the most famous scholars and poets to his court. The
most important of these were the brothers Abul Faiz (with
the nom de plume Faizi) and Abul Fazl who have made
Akbar's fame known to the whole world through their
works. The former at Akbar's behest translated a series
of Sanskrit works into Persian, and Abul Fazl, the highly
gifted minister and historian of Akbar's court (who to
be sure can not be exonerated from the charge of flattery)
likewise composed in the Persian language a large his-
torical work written in the most flowery style which is the
main source of our knowledge of that period. This famous
28 J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 168.
*Loc. cit., 169.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 25
work is divided in two parts, the first one of which under
the title Akbarname, "Akbar Book/' contains the complete
history of Akbar's reign, whereas the second part, the Am
i Akbari, "The Institutions of Akbar," gives a presentation
of the political and religious constitution and administra-
tion of India under Akbar's reign. It is also deserving of
mention in this connection that Akbar instituted a board
for contemporary chronicles, whose duty it was to compose
the official record of all events relating to the Emperor and
the government as well as to collect all laws and decrees.27
When Akbar's recreation hours had come in the night
the poet§ of his court brought their verses. Transla-
tions of famous works in Sanskrit literature, of the New
Testament and of other interesting books were read aloud,
all of which captivated the vivacious mind of the Emperor
from which nothing was farther removed than onesided-
ness and narrow-mindedness. Akbar had also a discrimi-
nating appreciation for art and industries. He himself
designed the plans for some extremely beautiful cande-
labra, and the manufacture of tapestry reached such a state
of perfection in India under his personal supervision that
in those days fabrics were produced in the great imperial
factories which in beauty and value excelled the famous
rugs of Persia. With still more important results Akbar in-
fluenced the realm of architecture in that he discovered
how to combine two completely different styles. For in-
deed, "the union of Mohammedan and Indian motives
in the buildings of Akbar (who here as in all other de-
partments strove to perfect the complete elevation of na-
tional and religious details) to form an improved third
style/528 is entirely original.
Among other ways Akbar betrayed the scientific trend
of his mind by sending out an expedition in search of the
"Noer, 1,432,433-
28 A. Muller, II. 386.
26 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
sources of the Ganges.29 That a man of such a wonderful
degree of versatility should have recognized the value of
general education and have devoted himself to its improve-
ment, we would simply take for granted. Akbar caused
schools to be erected throughout his whole kingdom for
the children of Hindus and Mohammedans, whereas he
himself did not know how to read or write.30 This re-
markable fact would seem incredible to us after considering*
all the above mentioned facts if it was not confirmed by the
express testimony of his son, the Emperor Jehangir. At
any rate for an illiterate man Akbar certainly accomplished
an astonishing amount. The universal character of the
endowments of this man could not have been increased by
the learning of the schools.
I have now come to the point which arouses most
strongly the universal human interest in Akbar, namely,
to his religious development and his relation to the reli-
gions, or better to religion. But first I must protest against
the position maintained by a competent scholar31 that Akbar
himself was just as indifferent to religious matters as was
the house of Timur as a whole. Against this view we have
the testimony of the conscientiousness with which he daily
performed his morning and evening devotions, the value
which he placed upon fasting and prayer as a means of
self-discipline, and the regularity with which he made
yearly pilgrimages to the graves of Mohammedan saints.
A better insight into Akbar's heart than these regular ob-
servances of worship which might easily be explained by
the force of custom is given by the extraordinary manifesta-
tions of a devout disposition. When we learn that Akbar in-
variably prayed at the grave of his father in Delhi32 before
"J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 174.
80 J. T* Wheeler, loc. cit., 141; Noer, I, 193; II, 324, 326.
81 A. Muller, II, 418.
22 Noer, I, 262.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 27
starting upon any important undertaking, or that during -
the siege of Chitor he made a vow to make a pilgrimage
to a shrine in Ajmir after the fall of the fortress, and that
after Chitor was in his power he performed this journey
in the simplest pilgrim garb, tramping barefooted over the
glowing sand,33 it is impossible for us to look upon Akbar
as irreligious. On the contrary nothing moved the Em-
peror so strongly and insistently as the striving after re-
ligious truth. This effort led to a struggle against the most
destructive power in his kingdom, against the Moham-
medan priesthood. That Akbar, the conqueror in all do-
mains, should also have been victorious in the struggle
against the encroachments of the Church (the bitterest
struggle which a ruler can undertake), this alone should
insure him a place among the greatest of humanity.
The Mohammedan priesthood, the community of the
Ulemas in whose hands lay also the execution of justice
according to the dictates of Islam, had attained great pros-
perity in India by countless large bequests. Its distin-
guished membership formed an influential party at court.
This party naturally represented the Islam of the stricter
observance, the so-called Sunnitic Islam, and displayed the
greatest severity and intolerance towards the representa-
tives of every more liberal interpretation and towards un-
believers. The chief judge pf^Agira sentenced mjgji to death
because they were Shiltes, that, is tCL3ay they^belongpadUto
the other branch of Islan^and the Ulemas urged Akbar to
proceed likewise against the heretics.34 That arrogance
and vanity, selfishness and avarice, also belonged to the
character of the Ulemas is so plainly to be taken for
granted according to all analogies that it need hardly be
mentioned. The judicature was everywhere utilized by
the Ulemas as a means for illegitimate enrichment.
** Noer, I, 259.
w J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 156.
2& AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
This ecclesiastical party which in its narrow-minded
folly considered itself in possession of the whole truth,
stands opposed to the noble skeptic Akbar, whose doubt of
the divine origin of the Koran and of the truth of its
dogmas began so to torment him that he would pass entire
nights sitting out of doors on a stone lost in contemplation.
The above mentioned brothers Faizi and Abul Fazl intro-
duced to his impressionable spirit the exalted teaching of
Sufism, the Mohammedan mysticism whose spiritual pan-
theism had its origin in, or at least was strongly influenced
by, the doctrine of the All-One, held by the Brahman Ve-
danta system. The Sufi doctrine teaches religious tol-
erance and has apparently strengthened Akbar in his re-
pugnance towards the intolerant exclusiveness of Sunnitic
Islam.
The Ulemas must have been horror-stricken when they
found out that Akbar even sought religious instruction
from the hated Brahmans. We hear especially of two,
Purushottama and Debi by name, the first of whom taught
Sanskrit and Brahman philosophy to the Emperor in his
palace, whereas the second was drawn up on a platform
to the wall of the palace in the dead of the night and there,
suspended in midair, gave lessons on profound esoteric
doctrines of the Upanishads to the emperor as he sat by
the window. A characteristic bit of Indian local color!
The proud Padishah of India, one of the most powerful
rulers of his time, listening in the silence of night to the
words of the Brahman suspended there outside, who him-
self as proud as the Emperor would not set foot inside the
dwelling of one who in his eyes was unclean, but who
would not refuse his wisdom to a sincere seeker after truth.
Akbar left no means untried to broaden his religious
outlook. From Gujerat he summoned some Parsees, fol-
lowers of the religion of Zarathustra, and through them
informed himself of their faith and their highly developed
AKBAR'S GRAVE.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 29
system of ethics which places the sinful thought on the
same level with the sinful word and act.
From olden times the inhabitants of India have had a
predisposition for religious and philosophical disputations.
So Akbar, too, was convinced of the utility of free discus-
sion on religious dogmas. Based upon this idea, and perhaps
also in the hope that the Ulemas would be discomfited
Akbar founded at Fathpur Sikri, his favorite residence in
the vicinity of Agra, the famous 'Ibadat Khana, literally
the "house of worship/' but in reality the house of con-
troversy. This was a splendid structure composed of four
halls in which scholars and religious men of all sects gath-
ered together every Thursday evening and were given an
opportunity to defend their creeds in the presence and with
the cooperation of the Emperor. Akbar placed the discus-
sion in charge of the wise and liberal minded Abul Fazl.
How badly the Ulemas, the representatives of Moham-
medan orthodoxy, came off on these controversial evenings
was to be foreseen. Since they had no success with
their futile arguments they soon resorted to cries of fury,
insults for their opponents and even to personal violence,
often turning against each other and hurling curses upon
their own number. In these discussions the inferiority of
the Ulemas, who nevertheless had always put forth such
great claims, was so plainly betrayed that Akbar learned
to have a profound contempt for them.
In addition to this, the fraud and machinations by
means of which the Ulemas had unlawfully enriched them-
selves became known to the Emperor. At any rate there
was sufficient ground for the chastisement which Akbar now
visited upon the high clergy. In the year 1579 a decree was
issued which assigned to the Emperor the final decision
in matters of faith, and this was subscribed to by the chiefs
of the Ulemas,—with what personal feelings we can well
imagine. For by this act the Ulemas were deprived of
2O AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
their ecclesiastical authority which was transferred to the
Emperor. That the Orient too possesses its particular of-
ficial manner of expression in administrative matters is
very prettily shown by a decree in which Akbar "granted
the long cherished wish" of these same chiefs of the Ulemas
to undertake the pilgrimage to Mecca, which of course
really meant a banishment of several years. Other un-
worthy Ulemas were displaced from their positions or de-
prived of their sinecures; others who in their bitterness
had caused rebellion or incited or supported mutiny were
condemned for high treason. The rich property of the
churches was for the most part confiscated and appropri-
ated for the general weal. In short, the power and in-
fluence of the Ulemas was completely broken down, the
mosques stood empty and were transformed into stables
and warehouses.
Akbar had long ceased to be a faithful Moslem. Now
after the fall of the Ulemas he came forward openly with
his conviction, declared the Koran to be a human compila-
tion and its commands folly, disputed the miracles of Mo-
hammed and also the value of his prophecies, and denied
the doctrine of recompense after death. • He professed the
Brahman and Sufistic doctrine that the soul migrates
through countless existences and finally attains divinity
after complete purification.
The assertion of the Ulemas that every person came
into the world predisposed towards Islam and that the
natural language of mankind was Arabic (the Jews made
the same claim for Hebrew and the Brahmans for San-
skrit), Akbar refuted by a drastic experiment which does
not correspond with his usual benevolence, but still is
characteristic of the tendency of his mind. In this case a
convincing demonstration appeared to him so necessary
that some individuals would have to suffer for it. Accord-
ingly in the year 1579 he caused twenty infants to be
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 3!
taken from their parents in return for a compensation and
brought up under the care of silent nurses in a remote spot
in which no word should be spoken. After four years it
was proved that as many of these unhappy children as were
still alive were entirely dumb and possessed no trace of a
predisposition for Islam.35 Later the children are said to
have learned to speak with extraordinary difficulty as was
to be expected.
Akbar's repugnance to Islam developed into a complete
revulsion against every thing connected with this narrow
religion and made the great Emperor petty-souled in
this particular. The decrees were dated from the death
of Mohammed and no longer from the Hejra (the flight
from Mecca to Medina). Books written in Arabic, the
language of the Koran were given the lowest place in the
imperial library. The knowledge of Arabic was prohib-
ited, even the sounds characteristically belonging to this
language were avoided.36 Where formerly according to
ancient tradition had stood the word Bismillahi, "in the
name of God," there now appeared the old war cry Alldhu
akbar, "God is great/' which came into use the more gen-
erally—on coins, documents, etc.— the more the courtiers
came to reverse the sense of the slogan and to apply to it
the meaning, "Akbar is God/'
Before I enter into the Emperor's assumption of this
85 J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 174; Noer, I, 511, 512. A familiar classical paral-
lel to this incident is the experiment recorded by Herodotus (II, 2) which
the Egyptian king Psammetich is said to have performed with two infants.
It is related that after being shut up in a goafs stable for two years separated
from all human intercourse these children repeatedly cried out the alleged
Phrygian word jSe/efo, "bread," which in reality was probably simply an imita-
tion of the bleating of the goats. Compare Edward B. Tyler, Researches into
the Early History of Mankmd. 2d edition, (London, 1870), page 81: "It is a
very trite remark that there is nothing absolutely incredible in the story and
that Bek} bek is a good imitative word for bleating as in /3\i?x*oA«u, wKdottat,
bloken, meckern, etc." Farther on we find the account of a similar attempt
made by James IV of Scotland as well as the literature with regard to other
historical and legendary precedents of this sort in both Orient and Occident.
*8Noer, II, 324, 325. Beards which the Koran commanded to be worn
Akbar even refused to allow in his presence. M. Elphinstone, 525; G. B.
Malleson, 177.
32 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.

flattery and his conception of the imperial dignity as con-
ferred by the grace of God, I must speak of the interesting
attempts of the Jesuits to win over to Christianity the most
powerful ruler of the Orient.

As early as in the spring of 1578 a Portuguese Jesuit
who worked among the Bengals as a missionary appeared
at the imperial court and pleased Akbar especially because
he got the better of the Ulemas in controversy. Two years
later Akbar sent a very polite letter to the Provincial of
the Jesuit order in Goa, requesting him to send two Fathers
in order that Akbar himself might be instructed "in their
faith and its perfection/' It is easy to imagine how gladly
the Provincial assented to this demand and how carefully
he proceeded with the selection of the fathers who were to
be sent away with such great expectations. As gifts to
the Emperor the Jesuits brought a Bible in four languages
and pictures of Christ and the Virgin Mary, and to their
great delight when Akbar received them he laid the Bible
upon his head and kissed the two pictures as a sign of

reverence.37

In the interesting work of the French Jesuit Du Jarric,
published in 1611, we possess very detailed accounts of the
operations of these missionaries who were honorably re-
ceived at Akbar's court and who were invited to take up
their residence in the imperial palace. The evening as-
semblies in the 'Ibadat Khana in Fathpur Sikri at once
gave the shrewd Jesuits who were schooled in dialectics,
an opportunity to distinguish themselves before the Em-
peror who himself presided over this Religious Parliament
in which Christians, Jews, Mohammedans, Brahmans,
Buddhists and Parsees debated with each other. Abul Fazl
speaks with enthusiasm in the Akbarname of the wisdom
and zealous faith of Father Aquaviva, the leader of this Jes-
uit mission, and relates how he offered to walk into a fiery
87 J. T. Wheeler, IV, I, 162; Noer, I, 481.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 33

furnace with a New Testament in his hand if the Mullahs
would do the same with the Koran in their hand, but that
the Mohammedan priests withdrew in terror before this
test by fire. It is noteworthy in this connection that the
Jesuits at Akbar's court received a warning from their
superiors not to risk such rash experiments which might
be induced by the devil with the view of bringing shame
upon Christianity.38 The superiors were apparently well
informed with regard to the intentions of the devil.
In conversation with the Jesuits Akbar proved to be
favorably inclined towards many of the Christian doctrines
and met, his guests half way in every manner possible.
They had permission to erect a hospital and a chapel and
to establish Christian worship in the latter for the benefit
of the Portuguese in that vicinity. Akbar himself occa-
sionally took part in this service kneeling with bared head,
which, however, did not hinder him from joining also in
the Mohammedan ritual or even the Brahman religious
practices of the Rajput women in his harem. He had his
second son Murad instructed by the Jesuits in the Portu-
guese language and in the Christian faith.
The Jesuits on their side pushed energetically toward
their goal and did not scorn to employ flattery in so far as
to draw a parallel between the Emperor and Christ, but
no matter how slyly the fathers proceeded in the accom-
plishment of their plans Akbar was always a match for
them. In spite of all concessions with regard to the ex-
cellence and credibility of the Christian doctrines the Em-
peror never seemed to be entirely satisfied. Du Jarric
"complains bitterly of his obstinacy and remarks that the
restless intellect of this man could never be quieted by one
answer but must constantly make further inquiry."39 The
88 j T v/heeler, IV, I, 165, note, 47; M. Elphinstone, 523, note 8; G. B.
Malleson, 162.
89 In Noer, I, 485.
34 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
clever historian of Islam makes the following comment:
"Bad, very bad;—perhaps he would not even be satisfied
with the seven riddles of the universe of the latest natural
science/540
To every petition and importunity of the Jesuits to turn
to Christianity Akbar maintained a firm opposition. A
second and third embassy which the order at Goa sent out
in the nineties of the sixteenth century, also labored in vain
for Akbar's conversion in spite of the many evidences of
favor shown by the Emperor. One of the last Jesuits to
come, Jerome Xavier of Navarre, is said to have been in-
duced by the Emperor to translate the four Gospels into Per-
sian which was the language of the Mohammedan court of
India. But Akbar never thought of allowing himself to
be baptized, nor could he consider it seriously from political
motives as well as from reasons of personal conviction.
A man who ordered himself to be officially declared the
highest authority in matters of faith—to be sure not so
much in order to found an imperial papacy in his country
as to guard his empire from an impending religious war—
at any rate a man who saw how the prosperity of his reign
proceeded from his own personal initiative in every respect,
such a man could countenance no will above his own nor
subject himself to any pangs of conscience. To recognize
the Pope as highest authority and simply to recognize as
objective truth a finally determined system in the realm in
which he had spent day and night in a hot pursuit after a
clearer vision, was for Akbar an absolute impossibility.
Then too Akbar could not but see through the Jesuits
although he appreciated and admired many points about
them. Their rigid dogmatism, their intolerance and in-
ordinate ambition could leave him no doubt that i£ they
once arose to power the activity of the Ulemas, once by
good fortune overthrown, would be again resumed by them
"A. Miiller, II, 420 n.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 35
to a stronger and more dangerous degree. It is also prob-
able that Akbar, who saw and heard everything, had learned
of the horrors of the Inquisition at Goa. Moreover, the
clearness of Akbar's vision for the realities of national life
had too often put him on his guard to permit him to look upon
the introduction of Christianity, however highly esteemed
by him personally, as a blessing for India. He had broken
the power of Islam in India; to overthrow in like man-
ner the second great religion of his empire, Brahmanism,
to which the great majority of his subjects clung with
body and soul, and then in place of both existing religions
to introduce a third foreign religion inimically opposed
to them—such a procedure would have hurled India into
an irremediable confusion and destroyed at one blow the
prosperity of the land which had been brought about by
the ceaseless efforts of a lifetime. For of course it was
not the aim of the Jesuits simply to win Akbar personally
to Christianity but they wished to see their religion made
the state religion of this great empire.
As has been already suggested, submission to Chris-
tianity would also have been opposed to Akbar's inmost
conviction. He had climbed far enough up the stony path
toward truth to recognize all religions as historically devel-
oped and as the products of their time and the land of their
origin. All the nobler religions seemed to him to be radia-
tions from the one eternal truth. That he thought he had
found the truth with regard to the fate of the soul in the
Sufi-Vedantic doctrine of its migration through countless
existences and its final ascension to deity has been pre-
viously mentioned. With such views Akbar could not be-
come a Catholic Christian.
The conviction of the final reabsorption into deity, con-
ditions also the belief in the emanation of the ego from
deity. But Akbar's relation to God is not sufficiently
identified with this belief. Akbar was convinced that he
36 AKBAR,, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
stood nearer to God than other people. This is already
apparent in the title 'The Shadow of God" which he had
assumed. The reversed, or rather the double, meaning
of the sentence Allahu akbar, "Akbar is God," was not
displeasing to the Emperor as we know. And when the
Hindus declared him to be an incarnation of a divinity he
did not disclaim this homage. Such a conception was noth-
ing unusual with the Hindus and did not signify a com-
plete apotheosis. Although Akbar took great pains he
was not able to permanently prevent the people from
considering him a healer and a worker of miracles. But
Akbar had too clear a head not to know that lie was a
man,—a man subject to mistakes and frailties; for when
he permitted himself to be led into a deed of violence he had
always experienced the bitterest remorse. Not the slightest
symptom of Qaesaxomamajcan be discovered in Akbar.
Akbar felt that he was a mediator between God and
man and believed "that the deity revealed itself to him in
the mystical illumination of his soul."41 This conviction
Akbar held in common with many rulers of the Occident
who were much smaller than he. Idolatrous marks of ven-
eration he permitted only to a very limited degree. He
was not always quite consistent in this respect however,
and we must realize how infinitely hard it was to be con-
sistent in this matter at an Oriental court when the cus-
tomary servility, combined with sincere admiration and^
reverence, longed to actively manifest itself.
Akbar, as we have already seen, suffered the Hindu
custom of prostration, but on the other hand we have the
express testimony to the contrary from the author Faizi,
the trusted friend of the Emperor, who on the occasion of
an exaggerated homage literally says: "The commands of
His Majesty expressly forbid such devout reverence and as
often as the courtiers offer homage of this kind because of
"Noer, II, 314, 355.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 37
their loyal sentiments His Majesty forbids them, for such
manifestations of worship belong to God alone/'42 Finally
however Akbar felt himself moved to forbid prostration
publicly, yet to permit it in a private manner, as appears in
the following words of Abul Fazl43:
"But since obscurantists consider prostration to be a
blasphemous adoration of man, His Majesty in his prac-
tical wisdom has commanded that it be put an end to with
ignorant people of all stations and also that it shall not be
practiced even by his trusted servants on public court days.
Nevertheless if people upon whom the star of good fortune
has shone are in attendance at private assemblies and re-
ceive permission to be seated, they may perform the pros-
tration of gratitude by bowing their foreheads to the earth
and so share in the rays of good fortune. So forbidding
prostration to the people at large and granting it to the
select the Emperor fulfils the wishes of both and gives the
world an example of practical wisdom."
The desire to unite his subjects as much as possible
finally impelled Akbar to the attempt to equalize religious
differences as well. Convinced that religions did not differ
from each other in their innermost essence, he combined
what in his opinion were the essential elements and about
the year 1580 founded a new religion, the famous Din i
Ilahi, the "religion of God." This religion recognizes only
one God, a purely spiritual universally efficient being from
whom the human soul is derived and towards which it
tends. The ethics of this religion comprises the high
moral requirements of Sufism and Parsism: complete tol-
eration, equality of rights among all men, purity in
thought, word and deed. The demand of monogamy, too,
was added later. Priests, images and temples,—Akbar
would have none of these in his new religion, but from the
"In Noer, 11,409.
aInNoer, II, 347, 348.
38 AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
Parsees he took the worship of the fire and of the sun as
to him light and its heat seemed the most beautiful symbol
of the divine spirit.44 He also adopted the holy cord of the
Hindus and wore upon his forehead the colored token cus-
tomary among them. In this eclectic manner he accommo-
dated himself in a few externalities to the different reli-
gious communities existing in his kingdom.
Doubtless in the foundation of his Din i Ilahi Akbar
was not pursuing merely ideal ends but probably political
ones as well, for the adoption of the new religion signified
an increased loyalty to the Emperor. The novice had to
declare himself ready to yield to the Emperor his property,
his life, his honor, and his former faith, and in reality the
adherents of the Din i Ilahi formed a clan of the truest and
most devoted servitors of the Emperor. It may not be
without significance that soon after the establishment of the
Din i Ilahi a new computation of time was introduced
which dated from the accession of Akbar to the throne in
I556'
After the new religion had been in existence perhaps
five years the number of converts began to grow by the
thousands but we can say with certainty that the greater
portion of these changed sides not from conviction but
on account of worldly advantage, since they saw that mem-
bership in the new religion was very advantageous to a
career in the service of the state.45 By far the greatest
number of those who professed the Din i Ilahi observed
only the external forms, privately remaining alien to it.
In reality the new religion did not extend outside of
Akbar's court and died out at his death. Hence if failure
here can be charged to the account of the great Emperor,
yet this very failure redounds to his honor. Must it not
be counted as a great honor to Akbar that he considered
** M. Elphinstone, 524.
45 Noer, I, 503.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 39
it possible to win over his people to a spiritual imageless
worship of God? Had he known that the religious re-
quirements of the masses can only be satisfied by concrete
objects of worship and by miracles (the more startling the
better), that a spiritualized faith can never be the posses-
sion of any but a few chosen souls, he would not have pro-
ceeded with the founding of the Din i IlahL And still we
cannot call its establishment an absolute failure, for the
spirit of tolerance which flowed out from Akbar's religion
accomplished infinite good and certainly contributed just
as much to lessening the antagonisms in India as did Ak-
bar's social and industrial reforms.
A man who accomplished such great things and desired
to accomplish greater, deserves a better fortune than was
Akbar's towards the end of life. He had provided for his
sons the most careful education, giving them at the same
time Christian and orthodox Mohammedan instructors in
order to lead them in their early years to the attainment of
independent views by means of a comparison between con-
trasts ; but he was never to have pleasure in his sons. It
seems that he lacked the necessary severity. The two
younger boys of this exceedingly temperate Emperor,
Murad and Danial, died o£ delirium tremens in their youth
even before their father. The oldest son, Selim, later the
Emperor Jehangir, was also a drunkard and was saved
from destruction through this inherited vice of the Timur
dynasty only by the wisdom and determination of his wife.
But he remained a wild uncontrolled cruel man (as differ-
ent as possible from his father and apparently so by inten-
tion) who took sides with the party of the vanquished
Ulemas and stepped forth as the restorer of Islam. In
frequent open rebellion against his magnanimous father
wrlio was only too ready to pardon him, he brought upon
this father the bitterest sorrow; and especially by having
the trustworthy minister and friend of his father, Abul
4O AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA.
Fazl, murdered while on a journey. Very close to Akbar
also was the loss of his old mother to whom he had clung
his whole life long with a touching love and whom he out-
lived only a short time.
Akbar lost his best friends and his most faithful ser-
vants before he finally succumbed to a very painful abdom-
inal illness, which at the last changed him also mentally to
a very sad extent, and finally carried him off on the night
of the fifteenth of October, 1605. He was buried at Sikan-
dra near Agra in a splendid mausoleum of enormous pro-
portions which he himself had caused to be built and which
even to-day stands almost uninjured.
This in short is a picture of the life and activities of
the greatest ruler which the Orient has ever produced.
In order to rightly appreciate Akbar's greatness we must
bear in mind that in his empire he placed all men on an
equality without regard to race or religion, and granted
universal freedom of worship at a time when the Jews were
still outlaws in the Occident and many bloody persecutions
occurred from time to time: when in the Occident men
were imprisoned, executed or burnt at the stake for the
sake of their faith or their doubts; at a time when Europe
was polluted by the horrors of witch-persecution and the
massacre of St. Bartholemew.46 Under Akbar's rule India'
stood upon a much higher plane of civilization in the six-
teenth century than Europe at the same time.
Germany should be proud that the personality of Akbar
who according to his own words "desired to live at peace
with all humanity, with every creature of God," has so
inspired a noble German of princely blood in the last cen-
tury that he consecrated the work of his life to the biography
of Akbar. This man is the Prince Friedrich August of
Schleswig-Holstein, Count of Noer, who wandered through
the whole of Northern India on the track of Akbar's ac-
40 Noer, I, 490 n.
MAUSOLEUM OF AKTAR AT SIKANDRA.
AKBAR, EMPEROR OF INDIA. 4!

tivities, and on the basis of the most careful investigation
of sources has given us in his large two-volumed work the
best and most extensive information which has been writ-
ten in Europe about the Emperor Akbar. How much his
work has been a labor of love can be recognized at every
step in his book but especially may be seen in a touching
letter from Agra written on the 24th of April, 1868, in
which he relates that he utilized the early hours of this
day for an excursion to lay a bunch of fresh roses on Ak-
bar's grave and that no visit to any other grave had ever
moved him so much as this.47

47 Noer, 11,564, 572.

f

Ace. M o.

3

Class No.

Pock No.