(29) For the Stars themselves are senseless, and have no Knowledge or Perception, yet their soft Operation in the Water makes a seething, flowing forth, or boiling up one of another, and in the Tincture of the Blood, they cause a Rising, Seeing, Feeling, Hearing, and Tasting. Therefore consider from whence the Tincture proceeds, wherein the noble Life springs up, that thus becomes sweet from Harshness, Bitterness, and Fire, and you shall certainly find no other Cause of it than the Light: But whence comes the Light, that it can shine in a dark Body? If you say it comes from the Light of the Sun. Then what shines in the Night, and enlightens your Senses and Understanding so, that though your Eyes are shut, you perceive and know what you do? Here you will say, the noble Mind leads you, and it is true. But whence has the Mind its Original? You will say, the Senses make the Mind stirring; and that is also true. But whence come they both? What is their Birth or Off- spring? Why is it not so with the Beasts?

(45) But that I now write, that the Stars rule in all Beasts, and other Creatures; and that every Creature received the Spirit of the Stars in the Creation, and that all Things still stand in the same Regimen; this the Simple will hardly believe, though the Doctor knows it well, and therefore we direct them to Experience. Behold, a Male and Female beget young Ones, and that often; now they come forth out of one only Body, and yet are not of one Kind, [nor of the same] Colour and Virtue, nor [shape or] Form of Body. All this is caused by the Alteration of the Stars; for when the Seed is sown, the Carver makes an image according to his Pleasure; yet according to the first Essence, he cannot alter that; but he gives the Spirit in the Essence to it according to his Power, [or Ability or Dominion,] as also Manners, and Senses, Colour and Gesture like himself, to be as he is, and as the Constellation is in its Essence at that Time, (when the [Creature] draws Breath) [first in its Mother's body,] whether [the Essence] be in Evil or in Good, [inclined] to Biting, Worrying and Striking, or to Meekness, [or loving Kindness and Gentleness;] all as the Heaven is at that Time, so will also the Spirit and the Beast be.

(4) For the created Spirit of Man, which is out of the Matrix of this World, that rules (by the Virtue of the second Principle in the Virtue of the Light) over and in the Virtue of the Spirit of the Stars and Elements very mightily, as in that which is its proper own. But in the Fall of Adam we lost this great Power, when we left Paradise, and went into the third Principle, into the Matrix of this World, which presently held us captive in Restraint. But yet we have the Knowledge [of that Power] by a Glance [or Glimmering,] and we see as through a dim or dark Glass the eternal Birth.

(30) And they say, Yes, we will take thee in, for thou art a Member of our Spirit; thou shalt dwell in us, and strengthen the Essences of our Spirit, that it may not faint; yet we must also have the Children of the Earth (for they have our Quality also in them) that we may rejoice. And the Spirit of the Lungs says; Then I will live in you wholly, and rejoice myself with you. The Gate of the Syderial, or Starry Spirit. 3 1. Thus now when the Light of the Sun, which had discovered and imprinted itself in the Fire-flash of the Essences of the Spirit, and was shining in the Fire-flash (as in a strange Virtue, and not in the Sun's own Virtue,) [when he] sees that he has gotten the Region, and that the Essences of the Soul (which are the Worm or the Spirit) as also the Elements will rejoice in his Virtue and Splendor, and that the Elements have made their four Regions [or Dominions] and Habitations, for an everlasting Possession, and that he should be a King, and that they should serve at Court (in the Spirit of the Essences) in the Heart, and so exceedingly love him, and rejoice in their Service, and have besides brought the Children of the Earth, that the Spirit might present them (where then they will first be frolick and potent, and eat and drink of the Essences of the Children of the Earth) then i he thinks with himself, it is good to dwell here, thou art a King, thou wilt bring kthy Kindred [Offspring, or Generation] hither, and raise them up above the Elements, and make thyself Gate where the Children of this World are wiser than the Children of Light. O Man! consider thyself! And he draws the Constellations to him, and brings them into the Essences, and sets them over the Elements, with their wonderful and unsearchable various Essences, (whose Number is infinite,) and makes himself

(7) But they think [consider or imagine] only how to fill themselves and multiply, that their Life may subsist; and we also receive no more from the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. And therefore also our Children are naked and bare, with great Inability, and without Understanding; and now if the Spirit of this World had full [perfect and absolute] Power over the Essences of the Child, then he would easily put his rough Garment upon it also (viz. a rough Hide) but he must let that alone: And he must leave the Essences in the first and second Principle, to Man's own Choosing, to bind and yield himself to which [Principle] he will; which Man has (undeniably) in his full Power, which I will explain in its own Place according to its Worth, and deeply demonstrate it, in Spite of all the Gates of the Devil, and this World, which strive much against it.

(14) But if now the Essences of the first Principle of the Soul have been so very conversant about [or addicted to] the Kingdom of this World, so that the Essences of the Soul have sought after the Pleasures of this World only, in temporary Honour, Power, and Bravery; then the Soul (or the Essences out of the first Principle) keeps the starry Region to it still, as its dearest Jewel, with a Desire to live therein; but then [the starry Region] has the Mother (viz. the four Elements) no more, and therefore it consumes, with the Time itself, in the Essences out of the first Principle; and so the Essences of the first Principle continue raw, [or naked without a Body.]

(7) So likewise this Intelligence diffuses Its virtue multiplied among the stars. Itself revolving on its unity. Virtue diverse doth a diverse alloyage Make with the precious body that it quickens, In which, as life in you, it is combined. From the glad nature whence it is derived, The mingled virtue through the body shines, Even as gladness through the living pupil. From this proceeds whate'er from light to light Appeareth different, not from dense and rare: This is the formal principle that produces, According to its goodness, dark and bright."

(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.

(26) Thus it is plain to our Sight, how the starry Heaven, (or as I may better render it to the enlightened Reader) the Quintessence, (or the fifth Form in the Birth,) is severed from the watery Matrix; or else there would have been no ceasing from the generating of Stones and Earth, if the fiery P Nature had not been severed: But because the eternal Essence (viz. God) would manifest himself in the dark Matrix, and [has desired] to make the Nothing Something, therefore he has severed the kindled Virtue, and made the Matrix clear or pure.

(5) And although we move thus weakly or impotently in all the three Births, and that the Gate of Paradise is so often darkened to us, and that the Devil does so often draw us into the hellish Gate, and that also the Elements cover the syderial Gate, and wholly cloud them, so that we oftentimes move in the whole Matrix, as if we were deaf, dumb, or half dead, yet if the paradisical Or the Dominion or Influences of the Stars. Light shines to us, we may very well see into the Mother of all the three Principles; for nothing can hinder us, the threefold Spirit of Man sees every Form and Quality in its Mother.

(46) Hereupon now the Spirit of the Stars and Elements would continually [get] again into the Element; for in the Element there is Meekness and Rest; and in the Kindling thereof there is mere Enmity and contrary Will, and the Devil rules also therein; and they would fain be released from that abominable and evil Guest, and they seek with great Anxiety after Deliverance, as Paul says; All Creatures groan together with us, to be freed from Vanity.

(2) Are these planets to be thought of as soulless or unsouled?

Suppose them, first, to be without Soul.

In that case they can purvey only heat or cold- if cold from the stars can be thought of- that is to say, any communication from them will affect only our bodily nature, since all they have to communicate to us is merely corporeal. This implies that no considerable change can be caused in the bodies affected since emanations merely corporeal cannot differ greatly from star to star, and must, moreover, blend upon earth into one collective resultant: at most the differences would be such as depend upon local position, upon nearness or farness with regard to the centre of influence. This reasoning, of course, is as valid of any cold emanation there may be as of the warm.

Now, what is there in such corporeal action to account for the various classes and kinds of men, learned and illiterate, scholars as against orators, musicians as against people of other professions? Can a power merely physical make rich or poor? Can it bring about such conditions as in no sense depend upon the interaction of corporeal elements? Could it, for example, bring a man such and such a brother, father, son, or wife, give him a stroke of good fortune at a particular moment, or make him generalissimo or king?

Next, suppose the stars to have life and mind and to be effective by deliberate purpose.

In that case, what have they suffered from us that they should, in free will, do us hurt, they who are established in a divine place, themselves divine? There is nothing in their nature of what makes men base, nor can our weal or woe bring them the slightest good or ill.

(52) And the third Principle retains its Light wholly for itself, which (as soon as the Light of Life springs up) presses into the Tincture of the Soul, to the Element, and reaches after the Element; but it attains no more than to the Light of the Sun, which is proceeded out of the Quinta Essentia, out of the Element. And thus the Stars and Elements rule in their Light and Virtue, which is the Sun's, and qualify with the Soul, and bring many Distempers, and also Diseases into the Essences, from whence come Stitches, Agues, Swellings and [other] Sicknesses, [as] the Plague, &c. into those [Essences,] and at last their Corruption and Death.

(42) It follows that, for the purposes which have induced this discussion, the stars have no need of memory or of any sense of petitions addressed to them; they give no such voluntary attention to prayers as some have thought: it is sufficient that, in virtue simply of the nature of parts and of parts within a whole, something proceeds from them whether in answer to prayer or without prayer. We have the analogy of many powers- as in some one living organism- which, independently of plan or as the result of applied method, act without any collaboration of the will: one member or function is helped or hurt by another in the mere play of natural forces; and the art of doctor or magic healer will compel some one centre to purvey something of its own power to another centre. just so the All: it purveys spontaneously, but it purveys also under spell; some entity is concerned for a member situated within itself and summons the All which, then, pours in its gift; it gives to its own part by the natural law we have cited since the petitioner is no alien to it. Even though the suppliant be a sinner, the answering need not shock us; sinners draw from the brooks; and the giver does not know of the gift but simply gives- though we must remember that all is one woof and the giving is always consonant with the order of the universe. There is, therefore, no necessity by ineluctable law that one who has helped himself to what lies open to all should receive his deserts then and there.

In sum, we must hold that the All cannot be affected; its leading principle remains for ever immune whatsoever happens to its members; the affection is really present to them, but since nothing existent can be at strife with the total of existence, no such affection conflicts with its impassivity.

Thus the stars, in so far as they are parts, can be affected and yet are immune on various counts; their will, like that of the All, is untouched, just as their bodies and their characteristic natures are beyond all reach of harm; if they give by means of their souls, their souls lose nothing; their bodies remain unchanged or, if there is ebb or inflow, it is of something going unfelt and coming unawares.

(8) For as the Soul of Man moves and swims between the Virtue of the Stars and Elements, so the created Heaven also moves between Paradise and the Kingdom of Hell, and it swims in the eternal Matrix; its Limit reaches as far as the Ethera [Skies or Receptacle] has yielded itself up to the Creation, so far as the Kingdom of Lucifer did reach, where yet no End is to be found: For the Virtue or Power of God is without End, but our Sense reaches only to the fiery Heaven of the Stars, which are a Propagation in the fifth Form of the eternal Mother, (or third Principle, (or in the Beginning of this World,) the Virtue or Power of the Matrix was separated, where now the Separation is thus moved: And then every Essence in the Propagation, in the manifold Centers of the Stars, have a longing Desire one after the other, and a continual Will to infect, [impregnate, or mix Influences;] and the one Essence, or Virtue, is the oMeat and Drink, as also the Chest [Case, or Receptacle] of the other. Or Outbirth, or Offspring.