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The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme

By Franz Hartmann

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Contents

I.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                     PAGE

THE LIFE OF JACOB BOEHME.

Account of His Life and Labours, and of the Influence of his Writings upon the Outside World                                                  1

II.

THE DOCTRINES OF JACOB BOEHME.

 

CHAPTER I.

INTRODUCTION.

The only reality—External reasoning is inadequate to comprehend internal truth—Historical aspect of the                                 33    

Bible—Man created in the image of God—The universal and the perverted self-will of man—Atonement—The

Yoga practice—Illuminated seers—Jacob Boehme's spiritual knowledge and his terrestrial conditions—How

his writings can be understood

 

 

CHAPTER II.

UNITY.

God in his aspect as the Father—The unity of the All—Eternity and time—The will—Eternal                                                       58

wisdom—The Son and the Holy Spirit—Trinity—The will the positive energy—Wisdom is

merely passive—Three-personality of God—God revealed in being—The magic principle—

The antithesis or duality—Fire and light

 

 

CHAPTER III.

THE SEVEN QUALITIES.

 

 

Seven states of eternal nature referring to the Trinity—Each quality existing within the others—                                            71 

Seven in one—Matter, darkness, corporification, motion, consciousness, salt, sulphur, and

mercury—The lightning flash, illumination, light, substantiality, the water-spirit, sound—The

seventh form—Essential wisdom, the body of God, transcendental magnificence, the eternal virgin, glorification

 

 

CHAPTER IV.

CREATION.

God the All and nevertheless not the All—Pantheism and Theism—Personality of God—                                                      89  

Perfection—The subjective becoming objective—Divine love—The world not divine—Eternal

nature, wisdom—Differentiation of divine powers—Necessity of the dark fire—Eternal chaos—

Beginning, unfolding—The seven divine spirits—Co-operation of Spirit

 

CHAPTER V.

THE ANGELS.

Three types of God relatively to the Trinity—Sub-divisions of divine intelligences—Harmony—T                                      101

he seven accords in each body—The celestial world objective to the angels—Its products corresponding

to their terrestrial types—Realms of Lucifer—Michael and Uriel, dominions, guardian angels, fidelity,

freedom of will—Lucifer, his pride and fall—Hell produced by the ignition of the lower principles—Hell

not yet complete—Evil spirits—Lucifer's knowledge merely scientific, but not divine—An end of hell

inconceivable, unless creation were destroyed

 

CHAPTER VI.

THE RESTORATION OF NATURE.

Mosaic account of the restoration of Nature—The outcast spirits—The allegory of the Flood—                                          122

The appearance of the light—The seventh day—The separation of the material from the immaterial

element of water—Their separation not referring to locality—The conjunction of the fiery and watery

essence life—Generation of gold and precious stones—Relative good and-evil—The light that shines

into the darkness—The sun and the planets—Manifestation of divine wisdom—The sun the life of the

stars—The objective planets—Sidereal life—The spirit of the stars—The superiority—The third principle—

Man a compendium of Nature and all terrestrial qualities—The soul

 

CHAPTER VII.

MAN.

 

Man an image of God—His celestial body—His powers—Eden—The paradise—Man not                                                140

the equal of God—His free will—Object of the third principle—Object of man's existence—

The heart of God and its antithesis the devil and the terrestrial world—Adam's fall—The tree of

temptation—The protection offered by the terrestrial form against the powers of evil—The weakening

of the divine image—How Adam fell asleep—The terrestrial woman the saviour of man—Creation of

Eve—Eating the forbidden fruit—The serpent—Adam caused Eve to sin and Eve seduced him—The

rise of the desire for the knowledge of good and evil

 

CHAPTER VIII.

NATURE, OR THE THIRD PRINCIPLE.

 

The origin of Nature—Duality—The powers of light and darkness—Lucifer's influence in the world—                                   164 

The power of God in the inner world—The external sun au image of the divine heart of love—The

sun omnipresent—Ruling of the planets—Their good and evil influences—Their living power—Individual

life of the earth—Why the earth turns around her axis and around the sun—The four elements and the

fifth—Origin of the terrestrial elements—Their attractions and repulsions—Latent qualities in the products

of the earth—The vegetable and animal kingdoms—Their relation to paradise—The imperishable inner

principle The spiritual quality—The external form

 

CHAPTER IX.

GENERATION.

 

The Logos—The soul in the light of God—Self-will destructive to the perception of the divine                                            180

idea—The growth of the manifestation of the evil principle—Man creates his own hell—His natural

protection by means of external life—The rise of his natural qualities—Primordial man—How he

became dense and material—Death—Man's animal nature—His senses—Will and mind—

Temperaments—Origin of his terrestrial desires—Present method of reproduction caused by man's

degradation—The male and the female in one individuality—Primitive generation—Division of sex—

Sexual attraction—Its necessity—Generation of soul—Sexual intercourse and its delight—Interaction

of divine elements during the same—The nature of the child dependent on the qualities of the parents—

Each soul an individual being

 

CHAPTER X.

THE CHRIST.

 

Necessity of divine aid—Mercy—The entering of the spiritual light into the body of humanity—Preparation                           198

for redemption was made before the world was created—The Redeemer in man not perceptible until

after the fall—The power of the Redeemer preeminently manifested in womanhood—The celestial

virgin—Her influence over humanity—When redemption became possible—Cain and Abel—Genesis—

The descendants of Seth—The three primordial races—The name of Abraham has no terrestrial

meaning—It is the antitype of Christ—The sons of Isaac representing the first and the second Adam and

the final conquest of the first by the second—The false gods of the sons of Japhet—Their oracles,

symbols of celestial things—The power of the Redeemer present in all mankind—Sacrifices—External

ceremonies and internal faith—The sacrificial fire not of a terrestrial but of a celestial wood—The light of

the Christ represented within the fire—The children of light receiving the substance of Christ

 

CHAPTER XI.

INCARNATION.

 

The configuration of the person of the Redeemer—The Son of God; the celestial and the terrestrial man—                           224

Christ's terrestrial nature—The necessity of his suffering in the flesh—The terrestrial virgin overshadowed

by the virgin of wisdom—The immaculate conception—The restoration of the divine image in man by the power

of the Holy Spirit—The glorification of the virgin—the three principles uniting but not commingling in the body of

Christ—The eternal Word not mingling with the body and not even with the soul—The soul being penetrated and

illuminated by the Word, Christ not a limited human being—This celestial corporeity likened to the sun—The Godhead

 

CHAPTER XII.

REDEMPTION.

 

Means of redemption—The absolute will becoming relative—Necessity, of incarnation; the conquest                                   242

of death—The three temptations—The victory—Christ's corporeal death—Sacrifice of the self-will and

also of the holy love-will—Its entering into the divine will—The transmutation of the body—The resurrection

and glorification—The approaching destruction of the whole terrestrial world—The paradisical body—The heaven

of the Redeemer

CHAPTER XIII.

REGENERATION.

 

Spirituality—The living Christ—Christ in man—How to effect regeneration—The nature of true prayer—                              263

What is faith?—Spiritual substantiality—The new body—Dangers—The new life—The terrestrial man

realising the celestial ideal—The three temptations—Battle between the high and the low—Relation between the

outer and inner man—Self-sacrifice—Conquest of evil—Uselessness of external desires—Changes in the physical

body of man—Inner perception of Christ—Its realisation after the death of the body—Trials, trouble, and suffering—The

mystical death—External and eternal possessions—The finding of salvation

 

CHAPTER XIV.

DEATH AND ETERNAL LIFE.

Man's existence in three worlds—Death of the physical body—The soul in her twofold aspect after the                                289

death of the body—The law of spiritual gravitation—The power of self-control lost through death—Heaven

and hell—Animal elementaries—Tortured souls—Objectivity and corporeity of mental images after

death—Conscience and remorse—No salvation for devils—Suffering, fear, and despair—The redeemed souls

in the light of God—Intercourse between spirits and mortals—Sanctified souls—Orthodox superstitions—Miracles

—The "Thread-souls" (Sutratma)—Kama loca (Purgatory)—Dead souls—Astral forms of the dead—Prayers and

ceremonies for the dead

 

CHAPTER XV.

CONCLUSION.

 

What to believe—Babel—Christ—The true light—The unknown Church—Humanity—"Practical                                        311

occultism"—Divinity in Humanity

 

APPENDIX.

Apparitions—Asceticism—Astral spirit—Atonement—The Cross—Death—Doubt—God—Humility—Jesus                         321

Christ—Man—Nature—Path—Planets—Principle—Sex—Sophia—Substantiality—Sulphur, salt, and

mercury—Word