(46) But the Angels and the Devils, as also the Soul of Man, are merely and purely out of the same Spirit. The Devils and the Angels, in the Time of their Corporization, continued therein; and the Soul of Man, in the Time of the creating of the Body, [is] breathed in from the Spirit of God, in the Root of the third Principle, and now continues therein, in Eternity, inseparately and immoveably in the eternal Substance or Essence of GOD. And as little as the pure eternal Birth and the indissoluble Band of the Father ends or vanishes, so little also will such a Spirit have an End.

(30) And now if we will speak of the Soul, and of its Substance and Essences, we must say that it is the roughest [Thing] in Man; for it is the Originality of the other Substances [or Things.] It is fiery, harsh, bitter, and strong, and it resembles a great [and] mighty Power, its Essences are like Brimstone: Its Gate or Seat out of the eternal Originality is between the fourth and the fifth Form in the eternal Birth, and in the unbeginning Band, of the strong Might of God the Father, where the eternal Light of his Heart (which makes the second Principle) generates itself, and if it wholly loses the bestowed Virgin of the divine Virtue [or Power] (out of which the Light of God generates itself, which is given to the Soul to be its Pearl, as is mentioned above) then it becomes, and is a Devil, like all other [Devils] in Essences, Form, and in Quality also.

(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.

(68) So also it is with the damned [Soul,] when the Body breaks, the Soul needs no flying forth, or departing far away; it remains in that which is Outermost a without the four Elements, in the Darkness, and in the anguishing Source; its Source is [that which comes] after the Light, and its Rising [or Springing-up] is Enmity against itself, and so climbs continually aloft over the Thrones of the Deity, and finds them not, to Eternity; but it rides in its Pride aloft over the Thrones, in their own Game, with the strong Might of the Grimness; of which you shall find at large, about the Description of the last Judgment.

(38) And now seeing the Departure of Souls is various, so also their Source [Quality or Condition] after their Departure is various; so that many of the Souls departed rare indeed for a long Time in Purgatory, if the Soul had been defiled with gross Sins, and has not rightly stepped into the true earnest Regeneration, and yet hangs a little to it; as it used to be with those that have been laden with temporal Honour and Might, [or Authority and Power,] where many Times their own Power and Profit prevails over Right, where Wickedness or Malice (and not Wisdom) is the Judge; and here a great Burden is laid upon the poor Soul, and that poor Soul also would fain be saved.

(6) "Hearken, therefore, that I may discourse with you concerning the soul according as I have said: The five great rulers of the great Fate of the æons and the rulers of the disk of the sun and the rulers of the disk of the moon breathe into that soul, and there cometh out of them a portion of my power, as I have just said. And the portion of that power remaineth within the soul, so that the soul can stand. And they put the counterfeiting spirit outside the soul, watching it and assigned to it; and the rulers bind it to the soul with their seals and their bonds and seal it to it, that it may compel it always, so that it continually doeth its mischiefs and all its iniquities, in order that it may be their slave always and remain under their sway always in the changes of the body; and they seal it to it that it may be in all the sin and all the desires of the world.

(42) And so now the Angels and blessed Men [will] remain in the Birth of the Light; and the Spirits of Alteration out of Light into the Source [or Torment,] together with the Spirits of the wicked Men [will remain] in the eternal Darkness, where no Recalling is to be found; for the Spirits cannot go into the Corruptibility [or Transitoriness] again. They are created out of the aLimbus of God, out of the harsh Matrix, out of which the Light of God exists from Eternity; and not like the Beasts out of the Out-Birth, which went forth out of the Limbus of the conceived Purpose of God, which is finite [or takes an End,] and has been [or appeared] here, only that it might be an eternal Shadow and Figure.

(11) And now it may very exactly be understood by the Essences and Property of the Soul, that in this House of Flesh (where it is as it were generated) it is not at Home; and its horrible Fall may be also understood [thereby.] For it has no Light in itself of its own, it must borrow its Light from the Sun; which indeed springs up along with it in its Birth, but that is corruptible, and the Worm of the Soul is not so; and it is seen that when a Man dies it goes out. And if then the divine Light be not again generated in the Center, then the Soul remains in the eternal Darkness, in the eternal anguishing [Source or] Quality of the Birth, where nothing is to be found in the kindled Captive. Fire, but a horrible Flash of Fire, in which [Source, Property, or] Quality, also the Devils dwell; for it is the first Principle.

(47) Yet in this Principle there is nothing else but the most horrible Begetting, the greatest Anguish and hostile Quickening, like wherein Prince Lucifer (at the extinguishing of his Light) continued; and wherein (viz. in the same Abyss of Hell) the Soul continues, which is separated from the second Principle, and whose Light ([which shines] from the Heart of God) is extinguished, and for which Cause also, at the End of this Time, there will be a Separation or Parting asunder of the Saints of Light from the Damned, whose i Source will be without the Light of God.

(58) And there shall be a light that never endeth, And to a limit (lit. 'number') of days they shall not come, For the darkness shall first have been destroyed, [And the light established before the Lord of Spirits] And the light of uprightness established for ever before the Lord of Spirits.

(33) For by the great Longing of the Darkness after the Light and Virtue of God, this World has been generated out of the Darkness, where the holy Virtue of God [shone, or] beheld itself in the Darkness, and therefore this great Desiring and Longing after the divine Virtue, continues in the Spirit of the Sun, Stars, and Elements, and in all Things. All groan and pant after the divine Virtue, and would fain be delivered from the Vanity of the Devil: But seeing that cannot be, therefore all Creatures must wait till their Dissolution, when they [shall] go into their Ether, and get a Place in Paradise, yet only in the Figure and Shadow, and the Spirit [must] be dissolved, which here has had such Lust [or Longing.]

(2) received mysteries in the first space which is without, and if after it hath received the mysteries it hath accomplished them, it [then] turneth and committeth sin after the accomplishing of the mysteries, and if the time of the coming-forth of that soul is completed, then the retributive receivers come to lead that soul out of the body. "And the destiny and the counterfeiting spirit follow that soul. Because the counterfeiting spirit is bound to it with the seals and the bonds of the rulers, it followeth thus that soul which travelleth on the ways with the counterfeiting spirit. "It uttereth the mystery of the undoing of all the bonds and all the seals with which the rulers have bound the counterfeiting spirit to the soul. And when the soul uttereth the mystery of the undoing of the seals, straightway the bonds of the seals which are bound in the counterfeiting spirit to the soul undo themselves. And when the soul uttereth the mystery of the undoing of the seals, straightway the counterfeiting spirit undoeth itself and ceaseth to be assigned to the soul. And in that moment the soul uttereth a mystery and restraineth the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny and dischargeth them which follow it. But no one of them is in its power; but it is in their power. "And in that moment the receivers of that soul come with the mysteries which it hath received, come and snatch that soul out of the hands of the retributive receivers, and the [latter] receivers go back to the works of the rulers for the purpose of the economy of the leading-forth of the souls. "And the receivers of that soul on the other hand who belong to the Light, become wings of light for that soul and become vestures of light for it and they do not lead it into the chaos, because it is not lawful to lead into the chaos souls which have received mysteries, but they lead it on the way of the rulers of the midst. And when it reacheth the rulers of the midst, those rulers meet the soul, they being in great fear and violent fire and with different faces, in a word in great immeasurable fear.

(38) But now, nothing corrupts, [or is transitory,] but only the Spirit in the Will, and its Body in the Fiat; and the Figure remains eternally in the Shadow. And this Figure could not thus have been brought to Light and to Visibility; that it might subsist eternally, if it had not been in the Essence; but now it is also incorruptible, for in the Figure there is no Essence: The Center in the Source is broken asunder, and gone into its Ether, [Receptacle, or Air;] and the Figure does neither Good nor Evil, but it continues eternally to the [Manifestation of the] Deeds of Wonder, and the Glory of God, and for the Joy of the Angels.

(1) When, [then,] the soul’s departure from the body shall take place,—then shall the judgment and the weighing of its merit pass into its highest daimon’s power. And when he sees it pious is and just,—he suffers it to rest in spots appropriate to it. But if he find it soiled with stains of evil deeds, and fouled with vice,—he drives it from Above into the Depths, and hands it o’er to warring hurricanes and vortices of Air, of Fire, and Water.

(38) The Soul is washed in the holy Water, and the Word is presented to it, and the Soul stands in the Covenant. And now it may reach after the Pearl; although the Soul be tied backward in the Kingdom of this World, yet it stands in the Covenant notwithstanding. And if, in the unfeigned Faith of the Parents, of the Priest, and of the Standers by, it be thus washed in the Laver of Regeneration, and so passes into the Covenant, then the Devil may not touch it, till [the Time] that it understands what Evil and Good are, and enters into one of them in a free Will.

(6) "Now, therefore, if the time of that man is completed, first cometh forth the destiny and leadeth the man unto death through the rulers and their bonds with which they are bound through the Fate. "And thereafter the retributive receivers come and lead that soul out of the body. And thereafter the. retributive receivers spend three days circling round with that soul in all the regions and dispatch it to all the æons of the world. And the counterfeiting spirit and the destiny follow that soul; and the power returneth to the Virgin of Light. "And after three days the retributive receivers lead down that soul to the Amente of the chaos; and when they bring it down to the chaos, they hand it over to those who chastize. And the retributive receivers return unto their own regions according to the economy of the works of the rulers concerning the coming-forth of the souls. "And the counterfeiting spirit becometh the receiver of the soul, being assigned unto it and transferring it according to the chastisement because of the sins which it hath made it commit, and is in great enmity to the soul. "And when the soul hath finished the chastisements in the chaos according to the sins which it hath committed, the counterfeiting spirit leadeth it forth out of the chaos, being assigned unto it and transferring it to every region because of the sins which it hath committed; and it leadeth it forth on the way of the rulers of the midst. And when it reacheth them, [the rulers] question it on the mysteries of the destiny; and if it hath not found them, they question their destiny. And those rulers chastize that soul according to the sins of which it is guilty. I will tell you the type of their chastisements at the expansion of the universe.

(22) Yet if the Soul elevates its Imagination forward into the Light, in Meekness and Comeliness or Humility, and does not (as Lucifer did) use the strong Power of its Fire, in its Qualification, [or Breathing,] then it will be fed by the Word of the Lord, and gets Virtue, Power, Life, and Strength, in the Word of the Lord, which is the Heart of God; and its own original strong [fierce wrathful] Source of the Birth of the eternal Life becomes paradisical, exceeding pleasant, friendly, humble, and sweet, wherein the Rejoicing and the Fountain of the eternal Angel and a Child of God, and it beholds the eternal Generating of the indissoluble Band; and thereof it has Ability to speak, (for it is its own Essence or Substance,) but [it is] not [able to speak] of the infinite Generating, for that has neither Beginning nor End.

(56) And so the Soul of Man is out of the same Balance in the Angle of the recomprehended Will, towards the Light, and also in the first Will in itself, in its own Center, where behind it the Darkness is comprehended, and before it is the End of the eternal Band, and in itself there would be nothing but an anxious Source [or Property;] and if any Thing else were to be in it, then the first Will (in the eternal Band) must conceive another Will in itself, to go out of the dark Source [or Property,] into a joyful Habitation without a Source.

(7) That this world has neither beginning nor end but exists for ever as long as the Supreme stands is certainly no novel teaching. And before this school rose it had been urged that commerce with the body is no gain to a Soul.

But to treat the human Soul as a fair presentment of the Soul of the Universe is like picking out potters and blacksmiths and making them warrant for discrediting an entire well-ordered city.

We must recognize how different is the governance exercised by the All-Soul; the relation is not the same: it is not in fetters. Among the very great number of differences it should not have been overlooked that the We lies under fetter; and this in a second limitation, for the Body-Kind, already fettered within the All-Soul, imprisons all that it grasps.

But the Soul of the Universe cannot be in bond to what itself has bound: it is sovereign and therefore immune of the lower things, over which we on the contrary are not masters. That in it which is directed to the Divine and Transcendent is ever unmingled, knows no encumbering; that in it which imparts life to the body admits nothing bodily to itself. It is the general fact that an inset , necessarily shares the conditions of its containing principle , and does not communicate its own conditions where that principle has an independent life: thus a graft will die if the stock dies, but the stock will live on by its proper life though the graft wither. The fire within your own self may be quenched, but the thing, fire, will exist still; and if fire itself were annihilated that would make no difference to the Soul, the Soul in the Supreme, but only to the plan of the material world; and if the other elements sufficed to maintain a Kosmos, the Soul in the Supreme would be unconcerned.

The constitution of the All is very different from that of the single, separate forms of life: there, the established rule commanding to permanence is sovereign; here things are like deserters kept to their own place and duty by a double bond; there is no outlet from the All, and therefore no need of restraining or of driving errants back to bounds: all remains where from the beginning the Soul's nature appointed.

The natural movement within the plan will be injurious to anything whose natural tendency it opposes: one group will sweep bravely onward with the great total to which it is adapted; the others, not able to comply with the larger order, are destroyed. A great choral is moving to its concerted plan; midway in the march, a tortoise is intercepted; unable to get away from the choral line it is trampled under foot; but if it could only range itself within the greater movement it too would suffer nothing.

(93) And now when the Kingdom of Hell had this mighty Blow, and was thus overcome, then the Devil lost his Right in the Soul; yet he said in himself, Thou hast a Right in the earthly Body, and somewhat was permitted to him; and then he took the Body with the Soul, and set them upon the Pinnacle of the Temple, and said, Cast thyself down (for thou art powerful and canst do all Things) and then the People shall see that thou art God, and hast overcome; this is the right fluttering Spirit, wherewith the Devil would fain always fly above the Thrones over the Deity, and yet goes but in himself into the hellish Fire, and apprehends not the Deity.