(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.

(51) And in this Joy, in the Water-Spring, [or Source,] the pleasant Source of the bottomless Love rises up, and all that rises up there is the second Principle: For the whole Begetting or Generating falls into a glorious Love; for the Harshness now loves the Light dearly, because it is so refreshing, chearly, and beautiful; for from this pleasant Refreshing it becomes thus sweet, courteous, and humble [or lowly;] and the Bitterness now loves the Harshness, because it is no more dark, nor so strongly [eagerly or fiercely] attractive to itself, but is sweet, mild, pure, and light.

(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.

(31) And when one burnt it, it smelt sweeter than any fragrant odour.

(54) "Take sweet clean water and seal it in a large bottle, leaving about one-fourth empty. Place the bottle in the sun for some weeks until it rots, showing a precipitation in the bottom. This precipitation, when properly manipulated by distillation, will produce a clear, fiery, burning oil, the constituents and use of which are only known to the wise."

(8) Observe now the Depth of the divine Birth; they see well enough. there is no Sulphur in God, but it is generated from him, and there is such a Virtue or Power in him. For the Syllable P H U R is [or signifies] the most inward Virtue or Power of the original Source or Spring of the Anger of the fierce Tartness, or of the Mobility, as is mentioned in the first Chapter, and that Syllable P H U R has a fourfold Form [Property or Power] in it, as first Harshness [or Astringency,] and then Bitterness, Fire, and Water: The Harshness is attractive, and is rough, cold and sharp, and makes all hard, hungry, and full of Anguish; and that Attracting is a bitter Sting or Prickle, very terrible, and the first Swelling or Boiling up exists in the Anguish; yet because it cannot rise higher from its Seat, but is thus continually generated from beneath, therefore it falls into a Turning or Wheeling, as swift as Flash, as if a Steel and Flint or Stone were strongly struck together, and rubbed one against another.

(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.

(67) Timaeus: and to the astringent particles which affect the tongue, and to all the heating particles which we call “bitter“ with these “white” and “black” are really identical affections, occurring in a separate class of sensation, although they appear different for the causes stated. These, therefore, are the names we must assign to them: that which dilates the visual stream is “white” and the opposite thereof “black“ ; and the more rapid motion, being that of a different species of fire, which strikes upon the visual stream and dilates it as far as to the eyes, and penetrating

(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.

(3) The Golden Flower is the Light. What colour has the Light? One uses the Golden Flower as an image. It is the true power of the transcendent Great One. The phrase, " The lead of the water-region has but one taste," refers to it.

(29) Its Essence is the Flash in the Circle [or Circumference] of the Springing of the Life, which in the Water makes the Glance and Shining; and its Root is the Fire; and the Stock is the [sour] Harshness. Now the Flash separates the Bitterness and Harshness from the Water; so that the Water becomes soft, [fluid] and clear, wherein then the Sight of all Creatures does consist, so that the Spirit in the Flash in the Matrix of the Water does see; and the Flash stands therein like a Glance, [or Luster,] and fills the Spirit of the Essences; from which the Essence draws vehemently to itself; for it is the [sour] Harshness, and the Flash continually separates the Darkness from the Light, and the Impure from the Pure; and there now stands the divine Virtue [or Power:] And the divine Glance continually imagines [or imprints] itself in the pure, from which the [sour] strong [Property] is separated out from Nature; and the divine Glance makes the Pure Sweet; for it mingles itself, [or infects] there.

(7) Regarding Lake Âsvast it is declared that the undefiled water which it contains is always constantly flowing into the sea, so bright and copious that one might say that the sun had come into it and looked at Lake Âsvast, into that water which is requisite for restoring the dead in the renovation of the universe.

(3) Through the warmth and clearness of the water, purifying more than other waters, everything continually flows from the source Arêdvîvsûr.

(11) Behold now, when the Bitterness, or the bitter Sting [or Prickle,] (which in the Original was so very bitter, raging and tearing, when it took its Original in the Harshness,) attains this clear Light, and tastes now the Sweetness in the Harshness, which is its Mother, then it is so joyful, and cannot rise or swell so any more, but it trembles and rejoices in its Mother that bare it, and triumphs like a joyful Wheel in the Birth. And in this Triumph the Birth attains the fifth Form, and then the fifth Source springs up, viz. the friendly Love; and so when the bitter Spirit tastes the sweet Water, it rejoices in its Mother [the sour tart Harshness,] and so refreshes and strengthens itself therein, and makes its Mother stirring zin great Joy; where then there springs up the sweet Water-Spirit a very sweet pleasant Source or Fountain: For the Fire-Spirit (which is the Root of the Light, which was a strong [fierce rumbling Shriek, Crack, or] Terror in the Beginning) that now rises up very lovely, pleasantly and joyfully. The divine everlasting Gates or Doors, by which we have Entrance to the Deity,

(12) For the Spring of the great Anguish, which was in the Beginning before the Light, in the [tart] Harshness, from which the bitter Sting or Prickle is generated, that is now in the sweet Fountain of the Love in the Light changed from the Water- Spirit, and from Bitterness or Stinging is now become the Fountain or Spring of the Joy in the Light. Thus now henceforth the Fire-flash is the Father of the Light, and the Light shines in him, and is now the only Cause of the moving Birth, and of the Birth of the Love. That which in the Beginning was the raking Source, is now S U L, or the Oil of the lovely pleasant Fountain, which presses through all the Fountains, so that from hence the Light is kindled.

(3) 'It thought , may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth fire . 'That fire thought, may I be many, may I grow forth. It sent forth water . 'And therefore whenever anybody anywhere is hot and perspires, water is produced on him from fire alone.

(32) For the Fire in the Essence comes to be a a soft meek Light, and is nothing else but a zealous [or eager] Kindling of the Tincture, and the harsh Essence causes that the divine Virtue can draw it to itself, and taste it, for in the [sour or] harsh Essence the Taste does consist, in Nature: In like Manner the bitter Essence serves to [make] the moving rising Joy, Fragrancy and Growing; and out of these Forms the Tincture goes forth, and it is the House of the Soul; as the Holy Ghost [goes forth] from the Father and the Son, so also the Tincture goes forth from the Light of the fiery Soul, and then also from its virtuous [or powerful] Essences, and so it resembles the Holy Ghost, but yet the Holy Ghost of God is a Degree higher; for he goes forth from the Center of the Light wholly in the fifth Form, from the Heart of God, at the End of Nature.

(44) And when the Light of the Sun appeared in the fierce [Sourness or] Harshness, then the Harshness became thin and a sweet, even Water, and the Fierceness in the Fire-flash was extinguished by the Water, so that the Anger stood still, yet the Will could not rest, but went forth in the Mother, out of the Water, and moved itself, which is the Air: And that which the fierce Sourness had attracted to it, that was thrust out of the Element, in the Water, as you see that the Earth swims in the Water.

(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.

(19) You must also mark the Form of the Water-Spirit; when that generates its like, so that it is predominant in its Regeneration or second Birth, and that a Center is awakened in it, (which itself in its own Essence does not awaken, but the other Fountain- Spirits do it therein,) it [the Water-Spirit] is still and quiet as a meek Mother, and suffers the other to sow their Seed into it, and to awaken the Center in it, so that the Fire rises up, from whence the Life is moved. In this [Form] the fire is not a hot burning [scorching] Fire, but cool, mild, soft and sweet; and the Bitterness is no Bitterness, but cool, mild, budding, and flowing forth, from whence the Forming [or Figuring and beauteous Shape] in the heavenly Glory proceeds, and is a most beautiful Substance; for the Sound also in this Birth flows forth most pleasantly and harmoniously, all as it were palpably or feelingly, or in a Similitude, as a Word that comes to be an Essence, or a comprehensible Substance. For in this Regeneration that is brought to pass in the Water-Spirit, (that is, in the true Mother of the Regeneration of all the Fountain-Spirits,) all is as it were comprehensible or substantial; although no Comprehensibility must be understood here, but Spirit.