(5) And therefore be wary that thou conceive not bodily that which is meant ghostly, although it be spoken in bodily words, as be these, up or down, in or out, behind or before, on one side or on other. For although that a thing be never so ghostly in itself, nevertheless yet if it shall be spoken of, since it so is that speech is a bodily work wrought with the tongue, the which is an instrument of the body, it behoveth always be spoken in bodily words. But what thereof? Shall it therefore be taken and conceived bodily? Nay, but ghostly, as it be meant.

(63) And such a house is the whole deep without, within, and above all heavens; which house is called the Eternity. And such a house also is the house of flesh in man, and in all creatures.

(47) And we must further a consider, that when the Shriek [or Crack] makes its Dwelling-house, in its strong Breaking-through, out of the Gate of the anxious Darkness, viz. the Tongue, that the Shriek [or Crack] has not then yet seen the Virgin; but when it reflected [or shined] back again into the Heart, into the opened Darkness, and found her so habitable, there then first sprung up its Joy, and Pleasantness, and it became paradisical, and desired not [to go] into the Tongue again, but into the Head, and [desired] there to have its Region out of the Source of the Heart. Therefore the Tongue ought not in all [or altogether] to be believed, for it sits not in the heavenly Region, as the friendly pleasant Virtue [does;] but it has its Region in the Crack and Flash, and the Flash is as near the hellish Region, as the Crack is, for they are both generated in the Sharpness of the Stars, in the Essences, and the Tongue speaks both Lyes and Truth; in which of the two the Spirit arms itself, according to that it speaks: Also it many Times speaks Lies in great Men; when it is armed from the Essences, then it speaks in the Crack, like a Rider in his [haughty, surly, vaunting State,] or high Mindedness. The Life of the Soul. The Gate.

(20) Here a question rises to which we must find an answer: whether these and the other powers which we call "parts" of the Soul are situated, all, in place; or whether some have place and standpoint, others not; or whether again none are situated in place.

The matter is difficult: if we do not allot to each of the parts of the Soul some form of Place, but leave all unallocated- no more within the body than outside it- we leave the body soulless, and are at a loss to explain plausibly the origin of acts performed by means of the bodily organs: if, on the other hand, we suppose some of those phases to be in place but others not so, we will be supposing that those parts to which we deny place are ineffective in us, or, in other words, that we do not possess our entire soul.

This simply shows that neither the soul entire nor any part of it may be considered to be within the body as in a space: space is a container, a container of body; it is the home of such things as consist of isolated parts, things, therefore, in which at no point is there an entirety; now, the soul is not a body and is no more contained than containing.

Neither is it in body as in some vessel: whether as vessel or as place of location, the body would remain, in itself, unensouled. If we are to think of some passing-over from the soul- that self-gathered thing- to the containing vessel, then soul is diminished by just as much as the vessel takes.

Space, again, in the strict sense is unembodied, and is not, itself, body; why, then, should it need soul?

Besides contact would be only at the surface of the body, not throughout the entire mass.

Many other considerations equally refute the notion that the soul is in body as in space; for example, this space would be shifted with every movement, and a thing itself would carry its own space about.

Of course if by space we understand the interval separating objects, it is still less possible that the soul be in body as in space: such a separating interval must be a void; but body is not a void; the void must be that in which body is placed; body will be in the void.

Nor can it be in the body as in some substratum: anything in a substratum is a condition affecting that- a colour, a form- but the soul is a separate existence.

Nor is it present as a part in the whole; soul is no part of body. If we are asked to think of soul as a part in the living total we are faced with the old difficulty: How it is in that whole. It is certainly not there as the wine is in the wine jar, or as the jar in the jar, or as some absolute is self-present.

Nor can the presence be that of a whole in its part: It would be absurd to think of the soul as a total of which the body should represent the parts.

It is not present as Form is in Matter; for the Form as in Matter is inseparable and, further, is something superimposed upon an already existent thing; soul, on the contrary, is that which engenders the Form residing within the Matter and therefore is not the Form. If the reference is not to the Form actually present, but to Form as a thing existing apart from all formed objects, it is hard to see how such an entity has found its way into body, and at any rate this makes the soul separable.

How comes it then that everyone speaks of soul as being in body?

Because the soul is not seen and the body is: we perceive the body, and by its movement and sensation we understand that it is ensouled, and we say that it possesses a soul; to speak of residence is a natural sequence. If the soul were visible, an object of the senses, radiating throughout the entire life, if it were manifest in full force to the very outermost surface, we would no longer speak of soul as in body; we would say the minor was within the major, the contained within the container, the fleeting within the perdurable.

(10) But the body of this great house, which lies hid under the shell or rind of darkness, incomprehensibly to the darkness, that body is the house of life, wherein love and wrath wrestle the one with the other.

(14) First the King gives it to the Eyes, to see whether it be Good or Evil; and the Eyes give it to the Ears, to hear from whence it comes, whether out of a true, or out of a false Region, and whether it be a Lie or Truth; and the Ears give it to the Nose, (the Smell,) that must smell, whether that which is brought in (and stands before the King) comes out of a good or uevil Essence; and the Nose gives it to the Taste, which must try whether it be pure or impure, and therefore the Taste has the Tongue, that it may spit it out again if it be impure; but if it be a Thought to [be expressed in] a Word, then the Lips are the Door-keepers, which must keep it shut, and not let the Tongue forth, but must bring it into the Region of the Air, into the Nostrils, and not into the Heart, and stifle it, and then it is dead.

(71) But that by the word or syllable (mel) it is conceived again upon the tongue, and held fast with the upper gums, and that in the meanwhile the spirit goeth out on both sides of the tongue.

(21) It goes not out at the Mouth like a Bodily Substance; it is raw [or naked] without a Body, and instantly passes (at the Departure of the four Elements) into the Center, into the Gate of the Deep, [in the hidden Eternity;] and that which it is clothed with, that it comprehends, and keeps it: If its Treasure be Voluptuousness, Might, [or Power,] Honour, Riches, Malice, Wrath, Lying, or the Falshood of the World, then the fierce Might of the Essences out of the first Principle comprehends these Things, through the syderial Spirit, and keeps them, and works therewith according to the Region of the Stars; yet the [starry Region] cannot bring the Spirit of the Soul into its own Form, but it practises its juggling therewith, and so there is no Rest in its Worm, and its Worm of the Soul hangs to its Treasure; as Christ said, Where thy Treasure is, there is thy Heart also.

(74) Now, as the deep, or the house of this world, is a dark house, where the whole corporeity generateth itself, and is very thick, dark, anxious and half dead, and taketh its moving from the planets and stars which kindle the body in the outermost birth or geniture, from whence existeth the mobility of the elements, as also the figured and creaturely being, so also the human house of flesh is a dark valley, wherein is indeed the anxiety to the birth of life, and it always highly endeavoureth, intending to elevate itself into the light, from whence the life might kindle itself.

(72) For this body is but a husk, from which the new body grows— ["The new body grows out of the heavenly substantiality in the Word, out of the flesh and blood of Christ, out of the mystery of the old body."] —as it is with a grain of wheat in the earth. The husk or shell will not rise again, no more than it does in the wheat, but will remain for ever in death and in hell.

(111) For he goeth and penetrateth through all shut or closed doors, closets and births, and needs no opening of them; as the teeth cannot stay or hinder the spirit or breath from going or passing through them.

(18) So also the tongue sharpeneth, articulateth and distinguisheth all that which the five senses in the head bring through the heart on to the tongue; and the spirit goeth forth from the tongue through the Mercurius or tone in that place, as it was decreed or concluded by the council of the five senses, and executeth it all. Of the Mouth.

(92) First there is the whole body of man, which is a dark house, and has no mobility besides, or without, or distinct from the qualifying or operation of the seven spirits, but is a dark valley, as the body of the deep of this world is.

(14) The whole house of this world, which stands in a visible and comprehensible or palpable being, is the old house of God, or the old body, which stood before the time of wrath in a heavenly clarity and brightness. But when the devil stirred up the wrath therein, then it became a house of darkness and of death.

(4) Hence, through these things such a corporeal-formed division as you introduce, is demonstrated to be false. It is, indeed, especially necessary not to propose any thing of this kind; but if this should appear to you to be requisite, yet you must not think, that what is false deserves to be discussed. For such a discussion does not exhibit a copiousness of arguments; but he wearies himself in vain, who, proposing things that are false, endeavours afterwards to subvert them, as things that are not true. For how is it possible that an essence, which is of itself incorporeal, and which has nothing in common with the bodies that participate of it, should be distinguished from other things by corporeal qualities? How can that which is not locally present with bodies, be separated by corporeal places? And how can that which is not inclosed by the partible circumscriptions of subjects, be partibly detained by the parts of the world? What, also, is that which can prevent the Gods from being every where? And what can restrain their power from extending as far as to the celestial arch? For to effect this, must be the work of a more powerful cause, which is able to inclose and circumscribe them in certain parts.

(81) Now man's house of flesh is also such a house as the dark deep of this world is, wherein the seven spirits of God generate themselves.

(4) Verily, while he does not there speak, he is verily speak- ing, though he does not speak (what is [usually] to be spoken); for there is no cessation of the speaking of a speaker, because of his imperishability [as a speaker]. It is not, however, a second thing, other than himself and separate, to uhich he may speak.

(123) But, that after the conceiving and compacting of the word together in the astringent quality at the hinder gums upon the tongue, the mouth openeth itself wide, and the compacted and united spirit goeth forth together at the mouth, which spirit is generated out of the heart and also out of the astringent and bitter quality, signifieth that the creatures would live in great anguish and adversity, and would not be able to generate through one body, but through two.

(36) Furthermore, I shall speak of what is more exalted than this: the mind, with respect to actual being, is in a place, which means it is in the body; but with respect to thought, the mind is not in a place. For how can it be in a place, when it contemplates every place?

(17) Hermes: The hearer, son, should think with him who speaks and breathe with him; nay, he should have a hearing subtler than the voice of him who speaks. It is, son, in a body made of earth that this arrangement of the vestures comes to pass. For in a body made of earth it is impossible the mind should take its seat itself by its own self in nakedness. For neither is it possible on the one hand the earthly body should contain so much immortality, nor on the other that so great a virtue should endure a body passible in such close contact with it. It taketh, then, the soul for as it were an envelope. And soul itself, being too and thing divine, doth use the spirit as its envelope, while spirit doth pervade the living creature.