(53) 4. The three Mothers, א מ ש, in the universe are: air, water, and fire. Heaven was created from the elementary fire (or ether) ש, the earth, comprising sea and land, from the elementary water, מ, and the atmospheric air from the elementary air, or spirit, א, which establishes the balance among them. Thus were all things produced.

(16) Now when the Heaven became clear [or pure,] and cleansed from the Earth and the dark Mist [or Dust] in the Concretion [or Driving together,] then in the Matrix of the Heaven there were the three Elements, Fire, Air, and Water, which are three in one another, in one Mother; and that Mother is here called the Heaven; therefore henceforward in my Writing, I shall use the Word Heaven instead of the Word Matrix.

(26) The Heat is the third murtherous Spirit, which killed its Mother, the sweet Water, but the astringent Spirit is the Cause thereof, for by its Stern severe attracting together and hardening, it has thus vehemently awakened and kindled the Fire by the bitter Quality; for the Fire is the Sword of the astringent and bitter Quality.

(67) The three Elements, Fire, Air, and Water, have a threefold Moving or Qualification, but proceed from one Body; and consider, the Fire or Heat swells and flies aloft from the Sun and Stars; and from the Heat the Air swells and flies aloft; and from the Air comes the Water. [Or expands itself.]

(61) And as we perceive that in this World there are Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, also the Sun and the Stars, and therein consist all the Things of this World, so you may conceive, by Way of Similitude, that the Father is the Fire of the whole [holy] Constellations, and also in the [holy] Element; and that the Son (viz. his Heart) is the Sun, which sets all the Constellations in a light pleasant Habitation; and that the Holy Ghost is the Air of the Life, without which neither Sun nor Constellation would subsist; and then that the concreted Spiritus majoris Mundi [or Spirit of the great World] is the chaste Virgin before God; which Spirit of the great World, in this World, gives to all Creatures, Mind, Sense, and Understanding, through the Influence of the Stars; and so also [does the chaste Virgin] in the Heaven.

(27) Thus is Heat and Cold a Cause and Original of Water and Air, in which every Thing acts and stands; every Life and Mobility stands therein. Of this I shall write more plainly, when I speak of the Creation of the Stars. Of the Influences of the other Qualities in the Three Elements, Fire, Air, and Water. Of the Bitter Quality.

(51) 2. The three Mothers, א מ ש, enclose a great, wonderful, and unknown mystery, and are sealed by six wings (or elementary circles), namely, air, water, fire--each divided into an active and a passive power. The Mothers, א מ ש, gave birth to the Fathers (the progenitors), and these gave birth to the generations.

(21) Now these Two Qualities wrestle continually one with another, the Heat consumes the Water, and the Cold condenses or crowds the Air. Now Air is a Cause and the Spirit of every Life and Motion in the World, whether it be in Flesh, or in any of the Vegetables; all whatever is, has its Life from the Air, and Nothing whatsoever can subsist without Air, that moves and is in this World.

(97) But when the third Mother is kindled in the Light, then it stands in the created Heaven of the holy Life, and shines through the second Mother, the seven Spirits, whereby the seven Spirits get a friendly courteous Will, which is the Love of the Life, as you may read in the eighth Chapter of this Book, concerning the Love-birth or Geniture of God.

(69) And as the three Elements, Fire, Air, and Water, proceed from the Sun and Stars, and are one Body in one another, and cause the living Motion, and the Spirit of all the Creatures of this World,

(11) Now the Heat reigns and predominates in all Powers in Nature, and warms all, and is one Source or Spring in all; for if it was not so, the Water would be too cold, and the Earth would be congealed, and there would be no Air.

(24) Then thus say the three Elements (the Fire, the Air, and the Water) to the Earth; Thou art indeed too dark, too rough, and too cold, and thou art rejected by the Fiat: We cannot take thee in; thou destroyest our Dwelling, and makest it dark and stinking, and thou afflictest our Virgin, which is our only Delight and Treasure wherein we live. And the Earth says; Yet pray take my P Children in; they are lovely, and of good Esteem; they afford you Meat and Drink, and cherish you, that you never suffer Want.

(19) The Ideal Principles entering into Matter as to a Mother affect it neither for better nor for worse.

Their action is not upon Matter but upon each other; these powers conflict with their opponent principles, not with their substrata- which it would be foolish to confuse with the entrant forms- Heat annuls Cold, and Blackness annuls Whiteness; or, the opponents blend to form an intermediate quality. Only that is affected which enters into combinations: being affected is losing something of self-identity.

In beings of soul and body, the affection occurs in the body, modified according to the qualities and powers presiding at the act of change: in all such dissolution of constituent parts, in the new combinations, in all variation from the original structure, the affection is bodily, the Soul or Mind having no more than an accompanying knowledge of the more drastic changes, or perhaps not even that. but the Matter concerned remains unaffected; heat enters, cold leaves it, and it is unchanged because neither Principle is associated with it as friend or enemy.

So the appellation "Recipient and Nurse" is the better description: Matter is the mother only in the sense indicated; it has no begetting power. But probably the term Mother is used by those who think of a Mother as Matter to the offspring, as a container only, giving nothing to them, the entire bodily frame of the child being formed out of food. But if this Mother does give anything to the offspring it does so not in its quality as Matter but as being an Ideal-Form; for only the Idea is generative; the contrary Kind is sterile.

This, I think, is why the doctors of old, teaching through symbols and mystic representations, exhibit the ancient Hermes with the generative organ always in active posture; this is to convey that the generator of things of sense is the Intellectual Reason Principle: the sterility of Matter, eternally unmoved, is indicated by the eunuchs surrounding it in its representation as the All-Mother.

This too exalting title is conferred upon it in order to indicate that it is the source of things in the sense of being their underlie: it is an approximate name chosen for a general conception; there is no intention of suggesting a complete parallel with motherhood to those not satisfied with a surface impression but needing a precisely true presentment; by a remote symbolism, the nearest they could find, they indicate that Matter is sterile, not female to full effect, female in receptivity only, not in pregnancy: this they accomplish by exhibiting Matter as approached by what is neither female nor effectively male, but castrated of that impregnating power which belongs only to the unchangeably masculine.

(28) The fourth Spirit of God is Heat, which is generated between the bitter and astringent Quality, and is conceived or bred in the sweet Water, and is shining and giving Light, and is the true Fountain of Life.

(55) For the astringent and Fire-Spirit holds it fast, and the meek Water, which melts from the Body of Nature in the Kindling of the Light, that goes through the severe and earnest, cold and fiery Birth or Geniture, and is very sweet, pleasant, and lovely.

(8) And in this Form in the Wrath [or fierce Strength] in the watry sour Mother, the sour bitter Earth, Brimstone and Salt, is generated, before the Kindling of the Sun in the Matrix that is void of Understanding. But the Separation that is in it, is caused from the Birth's standing in great Anguish, and from its desiring the Separation in the Birth; for the Bitterness agrees not with the Harshness [or Sourness,] and yet they are as Mother and Son, and as Members one of another; and it must be so, or else nothing could be, for it is the eternal Band, and the Original of Life.

(53) The astringent and bitter Qualities are the Father of the Heat, and the sweet Fountain-water is its Mother, which conceives, retains, and generates it: For the Heat exists through the astringent and bitter hard Driving, which rises up in the sweet Quality, as in Wood or Fuel.

(44) And when the Light of the Sun appeared in the fierce [Sourness or] Harshness, then the Harshness became thin and a sweet, even Water, and the Fierceness in the Fire-flash was extinguished by the Water, so that the Anger stood still, yet the Will could not rest, but went forth in the Mother, out of the Water, and moved itself, which is the Air: And that which the fierce Sourness had attracted to it, that was thrust out of the Element, in the Water, as you see that the Earth swims in the Water.

(106) The other three, viz. the Heat, Love, and Tone, stand in the Incomprehensibility, and are generated out of the first three; and this now is the inward Birth, wherewith the Deity qualifies, mixes or unites. And now

(98) But the third Mother they cannot constantly or permanently shine through, for it stands in the House of Darkness, but they often catch a Glimpse upon it, even as if it lightened, whereby the third Mother many Times becomes very longing, and rejoices highly, but is soon bolted up again by the Fierceness of God's Wrath. *