(15) And when the Taste has tried it, and if it be good for the Essences of the Soul, then it gives it to the Feeling, which must try what Quality it is of, whether hot or cold, hard or soft, thick or thin, and then the Feeling a sends it into the Heart, [presenting it] before the Flash of the Life, and before the King of the Light of Life; and the Will of the Mind pierces further into that Thing, a great Depth, and sees what is therein, [considering] how much it will receive and take in of that Thing, and when it is enough, then the Will gives it to the Spirit of the Soul, viz. to the eternal Emperor, who brings it (with his strong and austere Might) out of the Heart, in the Sound upon the Tongue under the Roof of the Mouth, and there the Spirit distinguishes according to the Senses, as the Will has discovered [or manifested] it, and the Tongue distinguishes it in the Noise.

(30) But the Sweetness is like Oil or Fire, wherein the Flash continually kindles itself, so that it shines: But the Oil being sweet, and mingled with the Matrix of the Water, therefore the shining Light is steady, [constant and fixed,] and sweet: But seeing it cannot, in the Nature of the Water, continue to be an Oil only (because of the Infection of the Water) therefore it becomes thick; and the [Nature or] Kind of the Fire colours it red; and this is the Blood and the Tincture in a Creature, wherein the noble Life stands. Of the Death and of the Dying. The Gate of Affliction and of Misery.

(13) For observe it, although now in the Harshness there be Bitterness, Fire, Sound, Water, and that out of the springing Vein of the Water there flows Love (or Oil) from whence the Light arises and shines; yet the Harshness retains its first Property, and the Bitterness its Property, the Fire its Property, the Sound or the Stirring its Property, and the overcoming the first harsh or tart Anguish, (viz. the returning down back again) or the Water-Spirit, its Property, and the springing Fountain, the pleasant Love, which is kindled by the Light in the tart or sour Bitterness, (which now is the sweet [Source or] springing Vein of Water,) its property; and yet this is no separable Essence parted asunder, but all one whole Essence or Substance in one another. And each Form or Birth takes its own Form, Virtue, Working and Springing up from all the Forms; and the whole Birth now retains chiefly but these four Forms in its generating or bringing forth; viz. the rising up, the falling down, and then through the turning [of the Wheel in the sour, harsh,] tart Essence, the putting forth on this Side, and on that Side, on both Sides like a Cross; or, as I may so say, the going forth from the Point [or Center] towards the East, the West, the North and the South: For from the Stirring, Moving, and Ascending of the Bitterness in the Fire-Flash, there exists a cross Birth. For the Fire goes forth upward, the Water downward, and the Essences of the Harshness sideways.

(15) And thus also the first bitter Sting or Prickle, or the first Bitterness (after the Light is kindled, and that the first Birth stands in Perfection,) generates again out of its own Quality an or Source springs up in a new Fire or Life, having the Condition and Property of all the Qualities, and yet the Bitterness in this new Sprout is chief est among all the Qualities; so that there is a bitter Bitterness, a bitter Tartness, a bitter Water-Spirit, a bitter Sound, a bitter Fire, a bitter Love, yet all perfectly in the rising up of great Joy.

(34) For ourselves, while whatever in us belongs to the body of the All should be yielded to its action, we ought to make sure that we submit only within limits, realizing that the entire man is not thus bound to it: intelligent servitors yield a part of themselves to their masters but in part retain their personality, and are thus less absolutely at beck and call, as not being slaves, not utterly chattels.

The changing configurations within the All could not fail to be produced as they are, since the moving bodies are not of equal speed.

Now the movement is guided by a Reason-Principle; the relations of the living whole are altered in consequence; here in our own realm all that happens reacts in sympathy to the events of that higher sphere: it becomes, therefore, advisable to ask whether we are to think of this realm as following upon the higher by agreement, or to attribute to the configurations the powers underlying the events, and whether such powers would be vested in the configurations simply or in the relations of the particular items.

It will be said that one position of one given thing has by no means an identical effect- whether of indication or of causation- in its relation to another and still less to any group of others, since each several being seems to have a natural tendency of its own.

The truth is that the configuration of any given group means merely the relationship of the several parts, and, changing the members, the relationship remains the same.

But, this being so, the power will belong, not to the positions but to the beings holding those positions?

To both taken together. For as things change their relations, and as any one thing changes place, there is a change of power.

But what power? That of causation or of indication?

To this double thing- the particular configuration of particular beings- there accrues often the twofold power, that of causation and that of indication, but sometimes only that of indication. Thus we are obliged to attribute powers both to the configuration and to the beings entering into them. In mime dancers each of the hands has its own power, and so with all the limbs; the relative positions have much power; and, for a third power, there is that of the accessories and concomitants; underlying the action of the performers' limbs, there are such items as the clutched fingers and the muscles and veins following suit.

(58) "When you see it black set your glass as before to coagulate and when it begins to be of a grayish color and whitish, set it in a third time to putrefy, and coagulate to the fifth time, until you see that your water in its dissolution is clean, pellucid and clear, and that it appears in its Calcination of a fine white like Snow. Then it is prepared and becomes a Salt fixed which will melt on hot Silver plate like wax; but before you set this your Salt out, set it again [in] the furnace of putrefaction that it may dissolve of itself, then let it cool, open your Glass and you will find your Matter lessened a third part. But instead of your former Salt Water you will have a fine Sweet and very penetrating Water which the Philosophers have hid under very wonderful Names--It is the Mercury of all true Philosophers, the Water out of which comes Gold and Silver, for they say its Father is Gold and its Mother is Silver. Thus hast thou the strength of both these Luminaries conjoined in this Water, most true, in its right Pondus.

(26) And thirdly, you find in all Things a glorious Power and Virtue, which is the Life, Growing and Springing of every Thing, and you find that therein lies its Beauty and pleasant Welfare, from whence it stirs. Now look upon an Herb or Plant, and consider it, what is its Life which makes it grow? And you shall find in the Original, Harshness, Bitterness, Fire, and Water, and if you should separate these four Things one from another, and put them together again, yet you shall neither see nor find any Growing; but if it were severed from its own Mother that generated it at the Beginning, then it remains dead; much less can you bring the pleasant Smell, or Colours into it.

(3) Beautifully then, the super-wise and Good Wisdom is celebrated by the Oracles, as placing a mystical bowl, and pouring forth its sacred drink, but first setting forth the solid meats, and with a loud voice Itself benignly soliciting those who seek It. The Divine Wisdom, then, sets forth the two-fold food; one indeed, solid and fixed, but the other liquid and flowing forth; and in a bowl furnishes Its own providential generosities. Now the bowl, being spherical and open, let it be a symbol of the Providence over the whole, which at once expands Itself and encircles all, without beginning and without end. But since, even while going forth to all, It remains in Itself, and stands fixed in unmoved sameness; and never departing from Itself, the bowl also itself stands fixedly and unmovably. But Wisdom is also said to build a house for itself, and in it to set forth the solid meats and drinks, and the bowl, so that it may be evident to those who understand things Divine in a manner becoming God, that the Author of the being, and of the well being, of all things, is both an all-perfect providence, and advances to all, and comes into being in everything, and embraces them all; and on the other hand, He, the same, in the same, par excellence, is nothing in anything at all, but overtops the whole, Himself being in Himself, identically and always; and standing, and remaining, and resting, and ever being in the same condition and in the same way, and never becoming outside Himself, nor falling from His own session, and unmoved abiding, and shrine,--yea even, in it, benevolently exercising His complete and all-perfect providences, and whilst going forth to all, remaining by Himself alone, and standing always, and moving Himself; and neither standing, nor moving Himself, but, as one might say, both connaturally and supernaturally, having His providential energies, in His steadfastness, and His steadiness in His Providence.

(31) But if it puts its Will forward into Meekness (viz. into the Obedience of God) then it is in the Source [or of the Quality and Property] of the Heart of God, and receives divine Virtue, and then all its rough Essences become angelical and joyful; and then its rough Essences are very serviceable to it, and are better and more profitable to it, than that it were altogether sweet in the Originality; in which [being sweet] there would be no Strength, nor such mighty Power as in the harsh, bitter, and fiery [Essences.]

(58) Therefore are the Essences of the Spirit of the Soul so very sharp and fiery, and [therefore] the Essences go forth out of such a sharp fiery Tincture, wherein now stand the five Senses, viz. Seeing, Hearing, Smelling, Tasting, and Feeling; for the fierce Sharpness of the Tincture of the first Principle, proves in its own Essences [in or] of the Soul, or [in the Essences] of the Worm of the Soul, in this Place rightly so called, [it proves] the Stars, and Elements, viz. the Out-birth out of the first Principle, and whatsoever unites [or yields] itself to it, it takes that into the Essences of the Worm of the Soul; viz. all whatsoever is harsh [or sour,] bitter, stern, [or fierce,] and fiery, all whatsoever generates itself in the Fierceness, and all whatsoever is of the same Property with the Essences; all that which rises up along there in the fiery Source, and elevates itself in the Breaking of the Gate of the Darkness, and boils, [springs, or flows up] above the Meekness; and all whatsoever is like the sharp austere Eternity, and qualifies [or mixes] with the Sharpness of the fierce Anger of the God of the Eternity, wherein he holds the Kingdom of the Devils captive. O Man! consider thyself here, it is the sure Ground, known by the Author, in the Light of Nature, in the Will of God.

(72) And so also the Kingdom of this World is fixed [or perfect,] and good in itself; neither does it vex or torment itself; but the elevating of the Elements [viz. the Kindling of the Heat, Cold, Air, and Water,] is its Growing and Springing; neither does it torment itself in itself, nor has it any Distress or Fear in itself.

(46) Now the Will or the Desiring in the Dryness cannot reach the Light; and therein consists the Anguish in the Will [Longing] after the Light; and the Anguish is attractive, and in the Attracting is the Woe, and the Woe makes the Anguish greater, so that the Anguish in the Harshness attracts much more, and this Attracting in the Woe is the bitter [Sting or] Prickle, or the Bitterness of the Woe; and the Anguish reaches after the [Sting or] Prickle with attracting, and yet cannot comprehend it, because it resists, and the more the Anguish attracts, the more the [Sting or] Prickle raves and rages.

(38) Whatever springs automatically from the All out of that distinctive life of its own, and, in addition to that self-moving activity, whatever is due to some specific agency- for example, to prayers, simple or taking the form of magic incantations- this entire range of production is to be referred, not to each such single cause, but to the nature of the thing produced .

All that forwards life or some other useful purpose is to be ascribed to the transmission characteristic of the All; it is something flowing from the major of an integral to its minor. Where we think we see the transmission of some force unfavourable to the production of living beings, the flaw must be found in the inability of the subject to take in what would serve it: for what happens does not happen upon a void; there is always specific form and quality; anything that could be affected must have an underlying nature definite and characterized. The inevitable blendings, further, have their constructive effect, every element adding something contributory to the life. Then again some influence may come into play at the time when the forces of a beneficent nature are not acting: the co-ordination of the entire system of things does not always allow to each several entity everything that it needs: and further we ourselves add a great deal to what is transmitted to us.

None the less all entwines into a unity: and there is something wonderful in the agreement holding among these various things of varied source, even of sources frankly opposite; the secret lies in a variety within a unity. When by the standard of the better kind among things of process anything falls short- the reluctance of its material substratum having prevented its perfect shaping under idea- it may be thought of as being deficient in that noble element whose absence brings to shame: the thing is a blend, something due to the high beings, an alloy from the underlying nature, something added by the self.

Because all is ever being knit, all brought to culmination in unity, therefore all events are indicated; but this does not make virtue a matter of compulsion; its spontaneity is equally inwoven into the ordered system by the general law that the things of this sphere are pendant from the higher, that the content of our universe lies in the hands of the diviner beings in whom our world is participant.

(16) And the Fire generates now also a Fire, according to the Property of every Quality; in the tart Spirit it is tart; in the Bitter, bitter; in the Love, it is a very hearty Yearning, Kindling of the Love, a total, fervent, or burning Kindling, and causes very vehement Desires; in the Sound it is a very shrill tanging and where the Sound in all Qualities tells or expresses, as it were with the Lips or Tongue, whatsoever is in all the Fountain-Spirits, what Joy, Virtue, or Power, Essence, Substance, or Property [they have,] and in the Water it is a very drying Fire.

(70) Thus now the Habitation of Man's Sound, wherein the Understanding is, must be from Eternity, although indeed in the Fall of Adam, Man has set himself in the Corruptibility, and in great Want of Understanding, as shall follow here. In like Manner also we find concerning the Smelling; for if the Spirit did not stand in the Sound, then no Smell of any Thing would press [or pierce] into the Essences; for the Spirit would be whole and swelled. But it standing thus in the Gate of the broken Darkness in the Crack and in the Sound, therefore all Virtues of all Things press in into that Gate, and try themselves by one another, and what the Essences of the Spirit love, that it desires, and draws the same into the Tincture; and then Hands and Mouth fall to it, and stuff it into the Stomach, into the outward Court of the four Elements, from whence the earthly Essences of the Stars and Elements feed. 7 1. And the Taste also is a Trying, and Attracting of the Tincture in the Essences of the Spirit. And so the Feeling also, if the Spirit of Man with its Essences did not stand in the Sound, there would be no Feeling; for when the sour Essences draw to them, then they awaken the bitter Prickle [or Sting] in the Fire-flash, which stirs itself, either by Griping, Thrusting, or Striking, and thereupon in all driving the bitter Prickle in the Fire-flash is awakened; and therein stands the Moving; [and] all in the Tincture.

(12) But the Bitterness being so very much affrighted at the Flash of Fire in the Sourness, it catches its Mother (the Sourness) which is become material from the Crack, and flies out, and is clouded or swelled from the material Sourness, as if it also was material, and moves, and strengthens itself continually in the Mother; and that is the Element called Air in this World, which has its Original in the watery Mother, and the Water has its Original from the Air, and the Fire has its Original from the longing Anguish; and the Earth and Stones took their Beginning in the strong Attraction at the Fall of Lucifer, when the Sourness was so fierce, strong, rising, and attractive, which Attraction is stopped again by the Light in the third Principle.

(83) Here now we find, that they heard the Voice of God in the Garden; for the Element, which is before God, wherewith Man qualifies [or mixes,] that did tremble because of Sin; and Sin was manifested in the Element of the Mind, first in Adam and Eve, and then Fear and Terror fell into the Essences of the Soul; for the first Principle in the [fierce] Sternness was stirred, so that [Principle] got (as a Man may say) Fuel for its Source of Fire. And it is risen up in the Kindling, in a Contrariety of Will, in the Essences, where one Form has continually opposed the other, viz. the sour Tartness, and the Cold, with their Attracting, have awakened the bitter Stinging and Tormenting in the Essences of the Tincture of the Blood in the Spirit; and the bitter Raging and Rising has awakened the Fire.

(52) And here begins the Taste, whereby one continually [tries, tastes, and] proves the other, and with great Desire they mingle one with another, so that there is nothing but a mere courteous Embracing. Thus the Bitterness now rejoices in its Mother, and strengthens itself therein, and for great Joy rises up through all the Essences, and declares to the second Principle, that the loving Child is tborn; to which then all the Essences give Heed and rejoice at that dear Child; from whence the Hearing arises, which is the sixth Form where the Wheel of the Birth stands in Triumph. And in this great Joy the Birth cannot contain itself [within its Bounds,] but expands itself, flowing forth very joyfully, and every Essence [or Substance] generates now again a Center in the second Principle.

(13) These four Forms are in the Originality of Nature, and from thence the Mobility exists, as also the Life in the Seed, and in all the Creatures, has its Original from thence; and there is no Comprehensibility in the Originality, but such a Virtue or Power and Spirit. For it is a poisonous or venomous, hostile or enemicitious a Thing: And it must be so, or else there would be no Mobility, but all [would be as] nothing, and the Source of Wrath or Anger is the first Original of Nature.

(29) When the Will thus draws to it, then it becomes inwardly and outwardly impregnated, and is darkened; the Will cannot endure this, viz. to be set in the Dark, and therefore falls into great Anxiety for the Light; for the outward Materia [or Matter] is filled with the Elements, and the Blood is choaked [checked or stopped;] and there then the Tincture withdraws, and there is then the right Abyss of Death, and so the inward [Materia or Matter] is filled from the Essences of the Virtue, [or Power,] and in the inward there rises up another Will, out of the stern Virtue of the Essences, [that it might] lift itself up into the Light of the Meekness; and in the outward stands the Desire to be severed, the Impure from the Pure, for that the outward Fiat does.