(5) The eternal Mind is in the great unsearchable Depth, and from Eternity is the indissoluble Band, and the Spirit in the and therein in the Center of the Deep is the reconceived Will to the Light; and the Will is the Desiring, and the Desiring attracts to it, and that which is attracted makes the Darkness in the Will, so that in the first Will, the second Will generates itself again, that it might fly out of the Darkness; and the second Will is the Mind, which discovers itself in the Darkness, and the [Discovery or] Glance breaks [or dispels] the Darkness, so that it stands in the Sound and in the Crack; where then the Flash sharpens itself, and so stands eternally in the broken Darkness, so that the Darkness thus stands in the Sound of the Stars. And in the Breaking of the Darkness, the reconceived Will is free, and dwells without the Darkness, in itself; and the Flash which there is the Separation and the Sharpness, and the Noise [or Sound] is the Dwelling of the Will, or of the continually conceived Mind; and the Noise and the Sharpness of the Flash are in the Dwelling of the Will free from the Darkness. And the Flash elevates the Will, and the Will triumphs in the Sharpness of the Flash, and the Will discovers itself in the Sharpness of the Sound in the Flash of the Light, without the Darkness in the Breaking, in the Infinity. And in that Infinity of the Flash, there is in every Discovery of the Whole fin the Particular (in every Reflection) again a Center of such a Birth as is in the Whole. And those Particulars are the Senses, and the Whole is the Mind out of which the Senses proceed; and therefore the Senses are mutable [or transitory,] and not in the Substance; but the Mind is whole, and in the Substance.

(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.

(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.

(32) But alas! the Life has many greater and more powerful Enemies; especially the four Elements and the Constellations [or Stars.] As soon as [any] one Element becomes too strong, the Tincture flies from it, and then the Life has its End: if it be overwhelmed with Water, it grows cold, and the Fire goes out, then the Flash flies away like a Glance or Shadow: If it be overwhelmed with Earth, viz. with impure Matter, then the Flash grows dark, and flies away: If it be overwhelmed with Air, that it be stopt, then the Tincture is stifled, and the springing Essences, and the Flash breaks into a Glance, and goes into its Ether. But if it be overwhelmed with Fire or Heat, the Flash is inflamed, and burns up the Tincture, from whence the Blood becomes dark, and swarthy, or black, and the Flash goes out in the Meekness.

(50) Thus the Birth gets an Essence that has Sharpness from the Harshness, and Sweetness, Thinness, and Expansion from the Light. And now when the Flash of Fire comes into its Mother, and finds her so sweet, thin, and light, P then it loses its own Propriety in the Qualification, and flies aloft no more, but continues in its Mother, and loses its fiery Right [or Propriety,] and trembles and rejoices in its Mother.

(31) In the Originality of Darkness, there is Harshness and Austereness, this Harshness causes that it be light; for Harshness is Desirousness, an Attracting; and that is the first Ground of the Willing [or Longing] after the Light, and yet it is not possible to comprehend it; and the Attracting in the Will is the [Sting or] Prickle, which the Desiring attracts, and the first Stirring [or Moving.] Now the Prickle cannot endure the Attracting in the Will, but resists, flies up, and yet cannot get away from thence; for it is generated in the Attracting. But because it cannot remove from thence, nor can endure the Attracting, therefore there is a great Anguish, a Desiring [or Longing] after the Light, like a Furiousness, and like a breaking whirling Wheel; and the Anguish in the Bitterness rises up in the Wrath after the Light, but cannot get it, being desirous in the Anxiety to lift up itself above the Light, yet does not overcome, but is infected, [impregnated or mingled] with the Light, and attains a twinkling Flash; and as soon as the Harshness, or the Hardness (viz. the Darkness) gets the same into it, it is terrified, and instantly goes away into its Ether: And yet the Darkness continues in the Center. And in this Horror [Terror or Shriek] the Hardness or Harshness becomes mild, soft, [supple,] and thin; and the Flash is made in the Bitterness, which flies up thus in the Prickle: Thus the Prickle discovers itself in the Mother, which so terrifies the Mother with the Flash, that she yields herself to be overcome; and when the Prickle strengthens itself in the Mother, and finds her so mild, then that is much more terrified, and loses its [fierce, strong] wrathful Propriety, and in the Twinkling of an Eye becomes white, clear, and bright, and flies up very joyfully, trembling with great Delight, [Lust] and Desire; and the Mother of Harshness from the Light comes to be sweet, mild, thin, and material, even Water. For she loses not the Essence of the harsh Conditions, and therefore the Essence attracts continually to it out of the Mildness, so that out of the Nothing, Something comes to be, viz. Water.

(198) A similar Fire flashingly extending through the rushings of Air, or a Fire formless whence cometh the Image of a Voice, or even a flashing Light abounding, revolving, whirling forth, crying aloud. Also there is the vision of the fire-flashing Courser of Light, or also a Child, borne aloft on the shoulders of the Celestial Steed, fiery, or clothed with gold, or naked, or shooting with the bow shafts of Light, and standing on the shoulders of the horse; then if thy meditation prolongeth itself, thou shalt unite all these Symbols into the Form of a Lion.

(22) The Sun is the Goddess in the third Principle; in the created World (understand, in the material Virtue) it went forth out of the Darkness in the Anguish of the Will, in the Way and Manner of the eternal Birth. For when God set the Fiat in the Darkness, then the Darkness received the Will of God, and was impregnated P for the Birth. The Will causes the [sour] Harshness, the Harshness causes the Attracting, and the Stirring of the Attracting to Mobility causes the Bitterness, which is the Woe, and the Woe causes the Anguish, and the Anguish causes the Moving, Breaking, and Rising up. Now the sour Harshness cannot endure the Stirring, and therefore attracts the harder to itself; and the Bitterness or the Attracting will not endure to be stayed, but breaks and stings so very hard in the Attracting, that it stirs up the Heat, wherein the Flash springs up, and the dark [Sourness or] Harshness is affrighted by the Flash, and in the Shriek the Fire kindles, and in the Fire the Light. Now there would be no Light if the Shriek in the Hardness had not been, but there would have remained nothing but Fire; yet the Shriek in the Harshness of the Fire kills the hard Harshness, so that it sinks down as it were to the Ground, and becomes as it were dead and soft; and when the Flash perceives itself in the Harshness, then it is affrighted much more, because it finds the Mother so very mild, and half dead in Weakness; and so in this Shriek its fiery Property becomes white, soft, and mild, and it is the Kindling of the Light, wherein the Fire is changed into a white Clarity, [Glance, Luster, or Brightness.]

(2) Invoking then Jesus, the Paternal Light, the Real, the True, "which lighteth every man coming into the world," "through Whom we have access to the Father," Source of Light, let us aspire, as far as is attainable, to the illuminations handed down by our fathers in the most sacred Oracles, and let us gaze, as we may, upon the Hierarchies of the Heavenly Minds manifested by them symbolically for our instruction. And when we have received, with immaterial and unflinching mental eyes, the gift of Light, primal and super-primal, of the supremely Divine Father, which manifests to us the most blessed Hierarchies of the Angels in types and symbols, let us then, from it, be elevated to its simple splendour. For it never loses its own unique inwardness, but multiplied and going forth, as becomes its goodness, for an elevating and unifying blending of the objects of its care, remains firmly and solitarily centred within itself in its unmoved sameness; and raises, according to their capacity, those who lawfully aspire to it, and makes them one, after the example of its own unifying Oneness. For it is not possible that the supremely Divine Ray should otherwise illuminate us, except so far as it is enveloped, for the purpose of instruction, in variegated sacred veils, and arranged naturally and appropriately, for such as we are, by paternal forethought.

(16) And if the Will be thus in Darkness, then it is in Anguish; for it desires to be out of the Darkness, and that Desiring is the Flowing [or Working,] and the Attracting in itself, where yet nothing is attained but a fierce Source in itself, which by its Attraction makes Hardness and Roughness, which the Will cannot endure, and thus it stirs up the Root of the Fire in the Flash, as is before-mentioned, whereupon the re-comprehended Will goes forth from the Flash, into itself, and 1 breaks the Darkness, and dwells in the broken Darkness, in the Light, in a pleasant [Joy or] Habitation in itself; after which [Joy or] Habitation, the Will (in the Darkness) continually lusts, from whence Longing arises, and thus it is an eternal Band, which can never be loosed; and thus the Will now labours in the broken Gate, that it may manifest or discover his Wonders out of himself, as may be seen well enough in the Creation of the World and all Creatures.

(7) But now the first Will in the Mind is out of the sour Anxiety, and its Glimpse [or Discovery] in the Original, is the bitter, strong, [or sour] Fire-flash in the Sharpness, which makes the Stirring and Noise, and also the Seeing in the Glance of the Sharpness of the Fire-flash, that so the reconceived Glimpses [Discoveries or Glances in the Thoughts] have a Light in them from whence they see, when they run [along] like a Flash.

(54) In the first Principle is the Fire-flash; and in the Tincture thereof is the terrible Light of the Sun, which has its Original very sharply out of the eternal Originality, out of the first Principle, with its Root out of the fifth Essence, through the Element, which may be explained in another Place, it would be too long to do it here. And besides it should be hidden; he that knows it, will conceal it, as he would also [conceal] the Springing-up of the Stars and Planets. For the cornered Cap will needs have it under the Jurisdiction of his School-learning, though indeed he apprehends little or nothing at all in the Light of Nature. Let it remain [hidden] till the Time of the Lily, there it stands all open: And the Tincture is [then] the Light of the World.

(60) For when the lightning lightens, the thunder utters its voice, and the spirit enforces a pause during the peal, and divides equally between them; for the treasury of their peals is like the sand, and each one of them as it peals is held in with a bridle, and turned back by the power of the spirit, and pushed forward according to the many quarters of the earth. And the spirit of the sea is masculine and strong, and according to the might of his strength he draws it back with a rein, and in like manner it is driven forward and disperses amid all the mountains of the earth.

(45) Seeing then that the Shriek of the Joy in the Virtue of God (which breaks the Doors of the deep Darkness) thus springs up in the Heart, and flies with its Glimpse [or Sparkling] into the Head, then the Virtue of the Joy sets itself above, as being the strongest, and the Flash [or Glance] beneath, as being the weakest; and so when the Flash [or Glance] comes into the Head into its Seat, then it makes itself two open Gates. For it has broken the Doors of the deep Darkness, and therefore it continues no more in the Darkness, but it must be free as a victorious Prince [or Conqueror,] and will not be held captive. And this signifies to us the Resurrection of Christ from the dead, who is now free, and will not be held [therein,] which in its due Place shall be very deeply described. And those Gates which the Glance holds open, they are the Eyes, and the Spirit of Joy is their Root, which [Spirit] springs up at first in the Kindling of the Life.

(71) Father begotten Light, which alone hath gathered from the strength of the Father the Flower of mind, and hath the power of understanding the Paternal mind, and doth instil into all Fountains and Principles the power of understanding and the function of ceaseless revolution.

(11) But mark the Depth, in a Similitude which I set down thus; the harsh Spring in the Original is the Mother out of which the other five Springs are generated, viz. Bitterness, Fire, Love, Sound, and Water. Now these are Members of this Birth [of their Mother,] and without them there would be nothing but an anguishing dark Vale [or vacuum,] where there could be no Mobility, nor any Light or Life: But now the Life is born in her by the kindling of the Light, and then she rejoices in her own Property, and labours in her own tart sour Quality to generate again; and in her own Quality there rises a Life again, and a Center opens itself again, and the Life comes to be generated again out of her in a six-fold Form, yet not in any such Anguish as at the Beginning, but in great Joy.

(36) Thus also is the eternal Birth, wherein the Virtue [or Power] is continually generated from Eternity; and out of the Virtue the Light; and the Light causes and makes the Virtue. And the Light shines in the eternal Darkness, and makes in the eternal Mind the [desiring] and attracting Will; so that the Will Well-spring. in the Darkness generates the Thoughts, the Lust and the Desiring, and the Desiring is the attracting of the Virtue, and in the Attracting of the Virtue is the Mouth that expresses the Fiat, and the Fiat makes the Materia [or Matter,] and the Spirit separates it, and forms it according to the Thoughts.

(3) And now seeing the Virgin of the eternal Wisdom has a discovered herself in the eternal Original, and in the eternal Mind in the sharp Essence of the Breaking of the Darkness in the Fire-flash [has found] the Depth of the [very] Image of God, and that the Similitude of God is there in the eternal Original, therefore she has longed after the Similitude, and that Longing makes the Attracting in the Will, and the Will stood [fright] against the Similitude; and the Fiat in the Attracting of the Willing, created the Will in the Similitude, out of which came the Angels all together. But now the eternal Essence was in the Similitude, and the Wisdom discovered [or manifested] herself in the Essences in many thousand Thousands, that the eternal Wonders might be revealed [or made manifest;] and thereupon there went forth (according to every Essence, as out of a Fountain) many thousand Thousands.

(57) Now you may well perceive that the Birth of the Sun takes its Original in the Fire, and attains his Personality and Name in the Kindling of the soft, white, and clear Light, which is Himself; and Himself makes the pleasant Smell, Taste, and Satisfaction [or Reconciliation and Well-pleasing] in the Father, and is rightly the Father's Heart, and another Person; for he opens and produces the second Principle in the Father; and his own Essence is the Power or Virtue and the Light; and therefore his is rightly called the Power or Virtue of the Father.

(20) So now a Spirit is nothing else but a Springing Will, and in the Will there is the Anguish to the Birth, and in the Anguish the Fire generates itself, and in the Fire the Light, and from the Light the Will becomes friendly, pleasant, mild, and sweet, and in the sweet Will the Kingdom and the Glory generates itself. Thus the Light keeps the Might [or Power;] and if that be put out, then the Virtue [or Power] and Glory ceases, and the Kingdom also.