(2) All manner of bodily thing is without thy soul and beneath it in nature, yea! the sun and the moon and all the stars, although they be above thy body, nevertheless yet they be beneath thy soul.

(65) The Soul of Man is generated out of the Gates of the Breaking-through out of the Outward into the Inward, and is gone forth out of the Inward (in the Out-birth of the Inward) into the Outward; and that [Soul] must enter again into the Inward; if it remains in the Outward, it is in Hell, in the deep great Width, [Vacuum or Space,] without End, where the Source, [or the rising tormenting Quality,] generates itself according to the Inward, and in itself goes forth into the Outward.

(70) Although indeed, Nature takes hold of the Child in the Mother's Body [or Womb,] and [shapes, figures, or] images it; yet the Region of the Stars has no other than the Image in the four Elements, and not [that] in the holy Element. And although indeed it images [or frames] a Man in the outward bestial Mind with a little Understanding many Times, yet that is no Matter; the outward Man is the Beast of the Stars, but the inward in the [one] Element is the Image of God; and the divine Framing [Figuring or Imaging] is not performed in the a outward, but in the inward Element.

(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.

(2) [Now,] seeing that the hollow roundness of the Cosmos is borne round into the fashion of a sphere; by reason of its [very] quality or form, it never can be altogether visible unto itself. So that, however high a place in it thou shouldest choose for looking down below, thou could’st not see from it what is at bottom, because in many places it confronts [the senses], and so is thought to have the quality [of being visible throughout]. For it is solely owing to the forms of species, with images of which it seems insculpted, that it is thought [to be] as though ’twere visible [throughout]; but as a fact ’tis ever to itself invisible.

(15) The outer man may go through various experiences, while the inner man is quite free and immovable. Now both in Christ and in Our Lady there was an inner and an outer man; when they spoke of outward things, they did so with the outward man, while the inner man remained immovable.

(22) Therefore it happens often, that the Spirit of a deceased Man is seen walking, also many Times it is seen riding in the perfect Form of Fire; also many Times in [some] other Manner of Disquietude; all according as the Clothing of the Soul has been in the Time of the Body, just so has its Source [or Condition] been; and such a Form, according to its Source, it has (after the Departing of the Body) in its Figure, and so rides (in such Form) in the Source [or Working] of the Stars, till that Source also be consumed; and then it is wholly naked, and is never seen more by any Man. But the deep Abyss without End and Number is its eternal Dwelling-House, and its Works which it has here wrought, stand in the Figure, in its Tincture, and follow after it.

(2) So, then, [man] hath his place in the more blessed station of the Midst; so that he loves [all] those below himself, and in his turn is loved by those above. He tills the Earth. He mingles with the Elements by reason of the swiftness of his mind. He plunges into the Sea’s depths by means of its profundity. He puts his values on all things. Heaven seems not too high for him; for it is measured by the wisdom of his mind as though it were quite near. No darkness of the Air obstructs the penetration of his mind. No density of Earth impedes his work. No depth of Water blunts his sight. [Though still] the same [yet] is he all, and everywhere is he the same.

(4) That body again in man is the heart within man, for in it the prânas (which are everything) rest, and do not go beyond.

(1) Now on the subject of a “Void,” —which seems to almost all a thing of vast importance,—I hold the following view. Naught is, naught could have been, naught ever will be void. For all the members of the Cosmos are completely full; so that Cosmos itself is full and [quite] complete with bodies, diverse in quality and form, possessing each its proper kind and size. And of these bodies—one’s greater than another, or another’s less than is another, by difference of strength and size. Of course, the stronger of them are more easily perceived, just as the larger [are]. The lesser ones, however, or the more minute, can scarcely be perceived, or not at all—those which we know are things [at all] by sense of touch alone. Whence many come to think they are not bodies, and that there are void spaces,—which is impossible.

(6) The space between B and C marks the orbits or planes of the seven Spiritual Intelligences called the Divine Planets (not the visible planets). According to the Mysteries, the souls of men enter the lower worlds through ring B, the fixed stars. All creation reflects the glory of Schamayim, the energy that filters into the spheres of the elements through the windows of the stars and planets. Between C and D lies the region of the subtle, spiritual air, a subdivision of ether. D to E marks the surface of the earth and sea, by which are also meant grades of ether. E to F marks the lower region, called "The Gathering of the Waters and the Production of the Virgin Earth, " or "Ares. " The alchemists called this "quicksand," the true mystic foundation of the solid earth. F to G marks the circle of the subterranean air, which is more dense and coarse than that in the outer space, C to D. In this denser atmosphere the stellar influences and celestial impulses are crystallized into corporeal spirits, thus forming the multitude of forms which exist without knowledge of their own fiery source. G is the region of the central fire of the element earth, a coarse fire in contradistinction to the divine fiery Schamayim. The sphere of the starry heavens likewise has its opposite in the sphere of the subterranean air; and the sphere of the upper air (or subtle vaporous water) has its opposite in the sphere E to F. The focal point, D to E, between the three higher and the three lower spheres, is called "The Reservoir." It receives impressions from both the superior and the inferior regions and is common to both.

(8) There then the poor Soul in the first Principle moves in the Door of the Deep, being clothed with the Virtue [or Power of the Dominion or] Region of the Stars, appearing in that [Shape or] Form of the Body, which it had here; and many of them desire this or that, which was their last Will, in Hope thereby to attain Abstinence, and [Quietness or] Rest; also many by Night (according to the syderial Spirit) show themselves very disquiet with Tumbling and Tossing of the Body; which our learned Men from the School of this World ascribe to the Devil, but they have no Knowledge [or Understanding] in it.

(2) If nothing, then, is void, so also Space by its own self does not show what it is unless you add to it lengths, breadths [and depths],—just as you add the proper marks unto men’s bodies. These things, then, being thus, Asclepius, and ye who are with [him],—know the Intelligible Cosmos (that is, [the one] which is discerned by contemplation of the mind alone) is bodiless; nor can aught corporal be mingled with its nature,—[by corporal I mean] what can be known by quality, by quantity, and numbers. For there is nothing of this kind in that.

(11) A: How meanest thou, Thrice-greatest one? H: Is not air body? A: It is. H: And doth this body not pervade all things, and so, pervading, fill them? And "body"; doth body not consist from blending of the "four" ? Full, then, of air are all thou callest void; and if of air, then of the "four". Further, of this the converse follows, that all thou callest full are void - of air; for that they have their space filled out with other bodies, and, therefore, are not able to receive the air therein. These, then, which thou dost say are void, they should be hollow named, not void; for they not only are, but they are full of air and spirit.

(4) This place is empty, into which the starry ones fall down headlong upon their faces, and find not aught whereby they can raise themselves up

(63) And Adam's Body was also created out of it; and the whole World was made through the Element out of its Proceeding forth. Now therefore this Gate is [every where] all over; that which is most inward is also the most outward, but the Middlemost is the Kingdom of God; the outward World hangs to the outermost, and yet is not the outermost; but the Ground of Hell is the outermost, and none of them all comprehends the other, and yet they are in one another, and the one is not seen in the other, but the Source which is broke forth.

(3) He who, dwelling in space, yet is other than space, whom space does not know, whose body space is, who controls space from within — He is your Soul, the Inner Controller, the Immortal.

(10) We have shown the inevitability of certain convictions as to the scheme of things:

There exists a Principle which transcends Being; this is The One, whose nature we have sought to establish in so far as such matters lend themselves to proof. Upon The One follows immediately the Principle which is at once Being and the Intellectual-Principle. Third comes the Principle, Soul.

Now just as these three exist for the system of Nature, so, we must hold, they exist for ourselves. I am not speaking of the material order- all that is separable- but of what lies beyond the sense realm in the same way as the Primals are beyond all the heavens; I mean the corresponding aspect of man, what Plato calls the Interior Man.

Thus our soul, too, is a divine thing, belonging to another order than sense; such is all that holds the rank of soul, but there is the soul perfected as containing Intellectual-Principle with its double phase, reasoning and giving the power to reason. The reasoning phase of the soul, needing no bodily organ for its thinking but maintaining, in purity, its distinctive Act that its thought may be uncontaminated- this we cannot err in placing, separate and not mingled into body, within the first Intellectual. We may not seek any point of space in which to seat it; it must be set outside of all space: its distinct quality, its separateness, its immateriality, demand that it be a thing alone, untouched by all of the bodily order. This is why we read of the universe that the Demiurge cast the soul around it from without- understand that phase of soul which is permanently seated in the Intellectual- and of ourselves that the charioteer's head reaches upwards towards the heights.

The admonition to sever soul from body is not, of course, to be understood spatially- that separation stands made in Nature- the reference is to holding our rank, to use of our thinking, to an attitude of alienation from the body in the effort to lead up and attach to the over-world, equally with the other, that phase of soul seated here and, alone, having to do with body, creating, moulding, spending its care upon it.

[For this reason] he said, “I have come to make [the lower] like the [upper and the] outer like the [inner, and to unite] them in that place.” [He spoke] here in symbols [and images]. Those who say [there is a heavenly person and] one that is higher are wrong, for they call the visible heavenly person “lower” and the one to whom the hidden realm belongs “higher.” It would be better for them to speak of the inner, the outer, and the outermost. For the master called corruption “the outermost darkness,” and there is nothing outside it. He said, “My father who is in secret.” He said, “Go into your room, shut the door behind you, and pray to your father who is in secret”—that is, the one who is innermost. What is innermost is the fullness, and there is nothing further within. And this is what they call uppermost.

(46) For the Door of the Deep to the Light of God appears to thee no more; for thou art now a perfect Creature in the first Principle. And now though thou dost elevate thyself, and wouldst break open the Door of the Deep, yet that cannot be [done;] for thou art a whole Spirit, and not merely in the Will only, wherein the Door of the Deep can be broke open; but thou fliest out aloft over the Kingdom of God, and canst not enter in; and the higher thou fliest, the deeper thou art in the Abyss, and thou seest not God yet, who is so near thee.