Selection from The Wisdom of Jacob Böhme

On Nature

In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God [John 1:1-3].

The beginning of all existence is the Logos, the exhalation of God. The Logos is the emanation of the divine will and knowledge. This emanation proceeds from God, and what is emanated is Wisdom, the origin of all powers, colors, virtues, and characteristics. In the revelation of these powers, the eternal One beholds itself, for the eternal will contemplates itself in creation, and in Wisdom projects itself into existence. This self-projection of itself to itself is the Great Mystery; here is the creator of all existence, for in it is the Separator of the will’s emanation, which makes the divine will differentiated. In this differentiation of will, all powers and characteristics arise.

Yearning is the origin of the individual will, for in it the separated wills come into self-consciousness, by which is to be understood the true, angelic, soul-life.

The divine will is in itself not comprehensible, and is free of any bias or yearning, for there is nothing toward which it might incline except itself. Thus it leads itself out of itself, emanating its unity into plurality, and into the assumption of self-existence, that is, into a natural state in which individualities arise.

Thus the Separator of each will brings qualities out of itself, from which the infinite plurality emerges, and by which the eternal One makes itself manifest through its emanation. In this way, eternity brings itself forth into nature through characteristics and individual life, manifesting the visible realm.

God’s essence therefore is not a differentiated thing, with any particular abode, for the abyss of nature is God himself.

The visible world and all its creatures is nothing but the emanated Logos manifested in individualities, within which self-wills emerged. There are thus two modes of life: an eternal, and a temporal.

The innermost ground of a being is a spark of the will of God, emanated through God’s exhalation. This spark, emanating from the Logos, wills only that which God’s will wants in such an emanation.

The spiritual world of fire, light, and darkness is hidden within the visible, elemental world. This spiritual world acts through the visible world, and imprints itself through the Separator upon all things, to each according to its individuality. The outward is merely an instrument of the inner spirit.

In all growing things, we see three kinds of spirits in distinct centers, yet in one body. The first is the gross sulphur, salt, and mercury, which is the substance of the four elements or the stars, and which makes the body. The second is the oil of sulphur, known as the quintessence, the root of the four elements and of the first spirit. This receives its nutriment from the light of nature, from the inner spiritual fire and light, but also from the sun and subtle vitality of the spiritus mundi. This is the essence of growing life, the joy of nature, like the sun itself. The third spirit is the tincture, also known as paradise or divine delight. From it all vitality arises, for the tincture is a spiritual fire and light. It is the highest ground out of which the differentiation of individualities arise, and it originates from the holy vitality of God. From this high and holy origin flows the vitality of all in this world.

This revelation we see in all living things.

When I see a plant, I truthfully say: this is an image of the spirit of the earth in which all the higher powers rejoice, and which they regard as their child. For the spirit of the earth is one with the higher powers. When the plant matures, it blooms, and the oil of sulphur manifests itself in beautiful colors. And in the delightful scent of the blossom, the tincture, or third principle, manifests itself.

In this we see that the inner hidden spirit of the elements manifests itself and forms fruit. The earth would not have such scents or colors if the hidden vitality of the divine emanation did not reveal itself.

So it is also with the metals, which outwardly have a gross body of sulphur, mercury, and salt, but inwardly they are a transparent, beautiful body, within which shines the light of nature from the divine emanation itself. In this light we see the tincture and how the hidden vitality makes itself manifest.

This I can truthfully say of all that I see, evil or good: here in this thing the Separator of all substances has manifested itself into individuality, representing itself according to its emanatory nature, be it evil or good. All manifests according to the individualities of nature, heat and cold, bitter, sweet, sour, or however it may be. In all such manifestation there is an elemental aspect, but in the inner ground, in its tincture, it is good and beneficial, part of the nutriment of life.

Everything, be it plant, grass, tree, animal, bird, fish, worm, or whatever else, is beneficial, and has emanated from the Separator, that is, from the Logos, or differentiating will of God.

For this visible world is nothing other than an image of the spiritual world hidden within the material realm just as tincture is hidden in herbs and metals. Just as the tincture makes itself visible in all things through colors and scent, so that humanity can know the nature of the Separator or emanation of divine will, so too one can see in the visible world, in sun, stars, elements, creatures, in all creation, that inner ground out of which they emerged.

Elements are nothing other than the imaged, moving substance of the invisible and unmoving.

The stars themselves are an emanation of the individualities of the spiritual world, whose essence is the Logos, or differentiating will of God.

Every hard matter, such as metals, stones, wood, herbs, and the like, has in it a noble tincture and high spirit of life-force, just as do bones, for the noblest tincture of vitality is in the marrow.

Everything in this world that is soft, gentle, and etheric is emanating and self-giving, and its origin is the unity of eternity, for this unity is eternally emanating from itself.

Thus is it to be understood of the noble tincture: where it is noblest, there it is the most hard. For in it the unity is contained in movement. In what is etheric, it is not perceptible, but it is the same in all things, just as water and air are in all things.

But the true Pearl-ground is found in dry water, in which the subtle life-power of the movement of the unity in the centro is contained. To those of us who are worthy of this, know we should not appropriate to ourselves the soft apart from the fiery nature, seeking the mystery therein. Understand the mystery this way: the soft and etheric emanated from the unity out of the great mystery, and is the nearest to the unity. By contrast, the noblest ground of the divine revelation lifes in the life-power of the fiery hardness, a dry unity in which is contained the differentiation of all life-forces. Where the life-forces are not borne within the unity of a will, the will is divided, and there is no great life-force in what is divided. This should be carefully studied by physicians, for they should not look to the coarse spirit or sharp scent and regard it as the true balsalm, even though the tincture within it is quite volatile. Enclose all of these life-forces in one, so that they have one will in love, and then you have the Pearl of the whole world.

But provoke the life-forces to wrath creates pride and strife, which can be seen in all things.

One can only comfort a prisoner with freedom. The prisoner must will hopefully, composing himself in patience, until his restlessness finally becomes hope, enters the tempermentum, and he learns humility. Then he rejoices when one informs him of his release.

You physicians, consider this well: this is your Pearl, if you would but understand it. The meaning of this is both inward and outward.