(34) It is just such a Birth as is in Man; the Body is even the Father of the Soul, for the Soul is generated out of the Power of the Body, and when the Body stands in the anguishing Birth or Geniture of God, as the Stars do, and not in the fierce hellish Birth, then the Soul of Man qualifies, mixes, or unites with the pure Deity, as a Member in or of his Body.

(36) For the Generating, or Geniture of the Father cannot catch or comprehend the Light, and use it to its Generating, but the Light stands by itself, and is not comprehended by any Geniture, and it replenishes and enlightens the whole Geniture, viz. 'the only begotten Son of the Father. And this Light I call, in the human Birth or Geniture, the animated or soulish Birth,' [*understand the Image, which budded forth out of the Essences of the Soul, according to the Similitude of God,*] or the Soul’s Birth or Geniture which qualifies, mixes, or unites with this animated or soulish Birth or Geniture of God; and herein is Man’s Soul one Heart with God; but that is when it stands in this Light.

(14) The Reason, then, is the Mind's image, and Mind God's [image]; while Body is [the image] of the Form; and Form [the image] of the Soul. The subtlest part of Matter is, then, Air ; of Air, Soul; of Soul, Mind; and of Mind, God. And God surroundeth all and permeateth all; while Mind Surroundeth Soul, Soul Air, Air Matter. Necessity and Providence and Nature are instruments of Cosmos and of Matter's ordering; while of intelligible things each is Essence, and Sameness is their Essence. But of the bodies of the Cosmos each is many; for through possessiong Sameness, [these] composed bodies, though they do change from one into another of themselves, do natheless keep the incorruption of their Sameness.

(7) Here I must lay hold on the whole divine Body in the Midst or Center at the Heart, and explain the whole Body, how Nature is or exists, and there you will see the highest Ground, how all the seven Spirits of God continually generate one another, and how the Deity has neither Beginning nor End.

(92) Therefore now it expresses or speaks forth all Words, according to the innate infant Generating or Production of Nature; for the Spirit of Man, which stands in the astral Birth, and qualifies or unites with the total universal Nature, and is as it were the whole Nature itself, that forms the Word, according to the innate, infant Birth or Geniture.

(1) Some Existents remain at rest while their Hypostases, or Expressed-Idea, come into being; but, in our view, the Soul generates by its motion, to which is due the sensitive faculty- that in any of its expression-forms- Nature and all forms of life down to the vegetable order. Even as it is present in human beings the Soul carries its Expression-form with it, but is not the dominant since it is not the whole man (humanity including the Intellectual Principal, as well): in the vegetable order it is the highest since there is nothing to rival it; but at this phase it is no longer reproductive, or, at least, what it produces is of quite another order; here life ceases; all later production is lifeless.

What does this imply?

Everything the Soul engenders down to this point comes into being shapeless, and takes form by orientation towards its author and supporter: therefore the thing engendered on the further side can be no image of the Soul, since it is not even alive; it must be an utter Indetermination. No doubt even in things of the nearer order there was indetermination, but within a form; they were undetermined not utterly but only in contrast with their perfect state: at this extreme point we have the utter lack of determination. Let it be raised to its highest degree and it becomes body by taking such shape as serves its scope; then it becomes the recipient of its author and sustainer: this presence in body is the only example of the boundaries of Higher Existents running into the boundary of the Lower.

(17) But these Reason-Principles, contained in the Soul, are they Thoughts?

And if so, by what process does the Soul create in accordance with these Thoughts?

It is upon Matter that this act of the Reason is exercised; and what acts physically is not an intellectual operation or a vision, but a power modifying matter, not conscious of it but merely acting upon it: the Reason-Principle, in other words, acts much like a force producing a figure or pattern upon water- that of a circle, suppose, where the formation of the ring is conditioned by something distinct from that force itself.

If this is so, the prior puissance of the Soul must act by manipulating the other Soul, that which is united with Matter and has the generative function.

But is this handling the result of calculation?

Calculation implies reference. Reference, then, to something outside or to something contained within itself? If to its own content, there is no need of reasoning, which could not itself perform the act of creation; creation is the operation of that phase of the Soul which contains Ideal-Principles; for that is its stronger puissance, its creative part.

It creates, then, on the model of the Ideas; for, what it has received from the Intellectual-Principle it must pass on in turn.

In sum, then, the Intellectual-Principle gives from itself to the Soul of the All which follows immediately upon it: this again gives forth from itself to its next, illuminated and imprinted by it; and that secondary Soul at once begins to create, as under order, unhindered in some of its creations, striving in others against the repugnance of Matter.

It has a creative power, derived; it is stored with Reason-Principles not the very originals: therefore it creates, but not in full accordance with the Principles from which it has been endowed: something enters from itself; and, plainly, this is inferior. The issue then is something living, yes; but imperfect, hindering its own life, something very poor and reluctant and crude, formed in a Matter that is the fallen sediment of the Higher Order, bitter and embittering. This is the Soul's contribution to the All.

(49) For the human Flesh is, and resembles Nature in the Body of God, which is generated from the other six qualifying or fountain Spirits, wherein the qualifying or fountain Spirits generate themselves again, and show forth themselves infinitely, wherein Forms and Images rise up, and wherein the Heart of God, or the holy clear Deity in the middle or central Seat, generates itself above Nature in that Center, wherein the Light of Life rises up.

(3) And being conjoined, begins to operate, Coagulating first, then vivifying What for its matter it had made consistent. The active virtue, being made a soul As of a plant, (in so far different, This on the way is, that arrived already,) Then works so much, that now it moves and feels Like a sea-fungus, and then undertakes To organize the powers whose seed it is. Now, Son, dilates and now distends itself The virtue from the generator's heart, Where nature is intent on all the members. But how from animal it man becomes Thou dost not see as yet; this is a point Which made a wiser man than thou once err So far, that in his doctrine separate He made the soul from possible intellect, For he no organ saw by this assumed. Open thy breast unto the truth that's coming, And know that, just as soon as in the foetus The articulation of the brain is perfect, The primal Motor turns to it well pleased At so great art of nature, and inspires A spirit new with virtue all replete,

(3) It is necessary, therefore, to admit a thing of this kind in partial souls. For such as is the life which the soul received, prior to its insertion in a human body, and such as the form which it readily exerted; such also is the organical body which it has suspended from itself, and such the consequent corresponding nature, which receives the more perfect life of the soul. But with respect to more excellent natures, and which, as wholes, comprehend the principle [of parts] in these, inferior are produced in superior natures; bodies, in incorporeal essences; things fabricated, in the fabricators; and, being circularly comprehended in, are directed and governed by, them. Hence, the circulations of the celestial bodies, being primarily inserted in the celestial circulations of the etherial soul, are perpetually inherent in them; and the souls of the worlds [ i. e. of the spheres], being extended to their intellect, are perfectly comprehended by it, and are primarily generated in it. Intellect, also, both that which is partial and that which is universal, is in a similar manner comprehended in the genera that are more excellent than intellect. Since, therefore, second are always converted to first natures, and superior are the leaders of inferior essences, as being the paradigms of them, hence essence and form accede to subordinate from superior natures, and things posterior are primarily produced in such as are more excellent; so that order and measure are derived from primary to secondary beings, and the latter possess that which they are from the former. But the contrary must not be admitted, viz. that peculiarities emanate from things less excellent to the natures which precede them.

(36) Behold! thy Spirit or thy Soul is generated from or out of thy astral Birth or Geniture, and is the third Birth in thee, just as an Apple upon a Tree is the third Birth or Geniture of the Earth, and has not its Vegetation in, from, or within the Earth, but from above the Earth; and if it was a Spirit, as thy Soul is, it would not suffer the Earth any more to tie or bind it to Corruption.

(111) though the Body stands in the outward Palpability, yet it is formed according to the Kind and Manner of the inward Birth, for in the inward Birth or Geniture stands the Word, and the Word is the Sound or Tone, which rises up in the Light in the Fire-flash through the bitter and the astringent Quality.