(41) Now then the feminine Tincture comes in to aid, and strives for the Child, and supposes that it has the Virgin: And the two Tinctures wrestle both of them for the Virgin, and yet neither of them both has her, and which of the two overcomes, according to that the Fruit gets the Mark of Distinction [or Sex.] But because that the feminine [Tincture] is weak, therefore it takes the Blood also to it in the Matrix, whereby it supposes it shall retain the Virgin. The secret Gate of Women.

(88) Behold, dost thou know how a Child comes to be Flesh and Blood, and in the End a living Soul? And do you not know that the Tincture of the Mother is first, when a Child shall be conceived? which is done in the Desire of the Will between Man and Woman; where then the Seed [for the Child] is sown, and then the Tincture in the Matrix assumes it, with the Mixture of the Limbus of the Man. And though the outward Mother does not desire [to have] the Child, but desires many Times only to have her Pleasure; yet the inward [Mother] desires it, and also first of all impregnates itself in the Tincture, and then attracts the oFiat to it, and holds the Limbus of the Man, and becomes impregnated.

(124) For the astringent and bitter Quality receives the Power from the Spirit out of the Heart, and infects or affects itself therewith: And therefore is Nature now become to weak in the Spirit of the Heart, and is not able to elevate its own innermost Birth of the Heart; and for that Cause Nature has brought forth a Male and a Female.

(113) and the Woman on the Man, and to the Spirit of the Man, understand the root of the Love, which in the Rising up of the Life out of the Water, rises up through the Fire, as also the Woman's Spirit does; and so one Spirit catches the other in that Oil of the Heart, whereby presently a Mass, Seed, or driving Will, or Desire to the propagating of a Man again, arises in the Mass.

(91) Timaeus: which marrow, in our previous account, we termed “seed.” And the marrow, inasmuch as it is animate and has been granted an outlet, has endowed the part where its outlet lies with a love for generating by implanting therein a lively desire for emission. Wherefore in men the nature of the genital organs is disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that is deaf to reason, and it attempts to dominate all because of its frenzied lusts.

(60) Bonellus* saith: Know, all ye disciples, that out of the elect things nothing becomes useful without conjunction and regimen,* because sperma is generated out of blood and desire. For the man mingling with the woman, the sperm is nourished by the humour of the womb, and by the moistening blood, and by heat, and when forty nights have elapsed the sperm is formed. But if the humidity of the blood and of the womb were not heat, the sperm would not be dissolved, nor the foetus be procreated. But God has constituted that heat and blood for the nourishment of the sperm until the foetus is brought forth, after which it is not nourished, save by milk and fire, sparingly and gradually, while it is dust, and the more it burns the more, the bones being strengthened, it is led towards youth, arriving at which it is independent.t Thus it behoves you also to act in this Art. Know ye that without heat nothing is ever generated, and that the bath causes the matter to perish by means of intense heat. If, indeed, it be frigid, it puts to flight and disperses, but if it have been tempered, it is convenient and sweet to the body, wherefore the veins become smooth and the flesh is augmented. Behold it has been demonstrated to you, all ye disciples! Understand, therefore, and in all things which ye attempt to rule, fear God.

(91) Timaeus: And in women again, owing to the same causes, whenever the matrix or womb, as it is called,—which is an indwelling creature desirous of child-bearing,—remains without fruit long beyond the due season, it is vexed and takes it ill; and by straying all ways through the body and blocking up the passages of the breath and preventing respiration it casts the body into the uttermost distress, and causes, moreover, all kinds of maladies; until the desire and love of the two sexes unite them. Then, culling as it were the fruit from trees,

(43) Now God said, Let all Manner of Beasts come forth, every one after its Kind; and so there came forth out of the Essence of every one's kind, a Male and Female. And thus the Spirit of the Stars, or the Spirit of the Form of Fire, had now by its Longing copulated with the watery [Spirit,] and two Sexes sprung out of one Essence; the one according to the Limbus in the Form of Fire, and the other according to. the Aquaster [or Spirit of the Water] in the watery Form; yet so [blended or] mixed, that they were alike as to the Body. And so the Male was qualified according to the Limbus, or Form of Fire, and the Female according to the Aquaster in the watery Form.

(44) And so now there is a vehement Desire in the Creatures. The Spirit of the Male seeks the loving Child in the Female, and the Female in the Male; for the Irrationality of the Body in the unreasonable Creatures knows not what it does; the Body would not, if it had Reason, move so eagerly towards Propagation; neither does it know any Thing of the Impregnation [or Conception,] only its Spirit does so burn and desire after the Child of Love, that it seeks Love, (which yet is paradisical) and it cannot comprehend it; but it makes a P Semination only, wherein there is again a Center to the Birth. And thus is the Original of both Sexes, and their Propagation; yet it does not attain the paradisical Child of Love, but it is a vehement Hunger, and so the Propagation is acted with great Earnestness.

(40) For in the Beginning of the Creation, at the Time when the Earth became material, all was generated out of one only Substance, and there was no more done but a Separation made of one from another: Therefore in every Separation there must needs be always a vehement Hunger of one 1 after another. An Example whereof you have in Propagation; for the Sake whereof the Separation was so made: For you see that there is a Male and a Female; and that the one continually desires Copulation with the other, that they may generate. This is a great hidden Secret. Observe, when the Creator by the Fiat separated the Matrix from the Aquaster [or watery Mother;] for the first Form is heavenly and incorruptible, as long as the Kingdom of this World stands, and the Root of the first Form holds Paradise. vill set it down more intelligibly [or plainly] for the simplest Reader's Sake.

(3) For if thou should’st regard that supreme [point] of time when . . . the one nature doth pour forth the young into the other one, and when the other greedily absorbs [it] from the first, and hides it [ever] deeper [in itself]; then, at that time, out of their common congress, females attain the nature of the males, males weary grow with female listlessness. And so the consummation of this mystery, so sweet and requisite, is wrought in secret; lest, owing to the vulgar jests of ignorance, the deity of either sex should be compelled to blush at natural congress,—and much more still, if it should be subjected to the sight of impious folk. XXII

(48) The Seed of Man is generated in such a Manner, as the wonderful Proportion, Harmony, or Form of Nature in its Wrestling and Rising up, is generated from Eternity.

(94) And then also it presses forth in little Leaves, like a Woman which is in travel and bringing forth, but the little Leaves or Blossoms have no more its Colour and Form, but the Form of all the Qualities; for now the sweet Quality must bring forth the Children of the other Qualities.

(90) Now behold! As in the Deep of this World, through the kindling of the Stars, a Seed is generated out of the Body of the dark Deep, like the creaturely Body, so also in like manner, in Man's House of Flesh, there is generated a Seed, according to the eternal Birth-right of the seven qualifying or fountain Spirits.

(82) When the sweet Quality thus flies from the bitter, sour, and astringent, then the astringent and bitter make all the haste they can after it, as their best Treasure; and the Sweet presses vehemently from them, and strives so much, that it drives and penetrates through the astringent or harsh Quality, and rends the Body, and goes forth from the Body, out above the Earth, and hastens so fast, till a long Stalk grows up. [The Stalk.] And

(6) Now, the woman whom one may desire with the thought, with her and joining mouth with mouth, he should first inhale, then exhale, and say: c With power, with semen, I reclaim the semen from you! ' Thus she comes to be without seed.

(38) And it highly concerns us to know and apprehend, that when the Seed is sown in the Matrix, and that it is drawn together by the Fiat (when the Stars and the outward Elements set themselves in [the Dominion,] and that the Love and Meekness is extinguished; for there comes to be a fierce Substance in the Stopping [or Congealing] of the Tincture) that before the Kindling of the Light of Life, in the Child, there is no heavenly Creature. And although kit be figured [or shaped] with all the Forms [or Parts] of the Body, yet notwithstanding the heavenly Image is not therein, but the bestial. And if that Body perishes [corrupts, or breaks] before the Kindling of the Spirit of the Soul in the springing up of the Life, then nothing of this Figure appears before God on the Day of the Restitution, but its Shadow and Shape; for it has yet had no Spirit.

(88) Now when that is done, then the astringent and bitter Qualities rejoice in their Son, understand in the Sweat, and each of them gives to it their Power, Virtue and Life, and stuff it like a greedy gormandizing Hog, so that it soon comes to grow full and swelled: For the astringent Quality, as also the bitter, always draw the Sap out of the Earth, and stuff it into their young Son.

(32) As above said, the visions of males and females in union will appear. If, at that time, one entereth into the womb through the feelings of attachment and repulsion, one may be born either as a horse, a fowl, a dog, or a human being.

(82) But seeing Man's Body is its proper own, and is a Son of the whole Body of God, therefore it generates also a proper Seed of its own, according to the Government or Dominion of his corporeal, qualifying, or fountain Spirits.