(3) It is by Spirit that all things are governed in the Cosmos, and made quick,—Spirit made subject to the Will of Highest God, as though it were an engine or machine. So far, then, [only] let Him be by us conceived,—as Him who is conceivable by mind alone, who is called Highest God, the Ruler and Director of God Sensible, —of Him who in Himself includes all Space, all Substance, and all Matter, of things producing and begetting, and all whatever is, however great it be. XVII

(32) Thus now we may know, that God is All in All, and fills All, as it is written; Am not I he thatfilleth all Things? And therefore we know, that the holy pure Element in Paradise is his Dwelling, which is the second Principle, and is in all Things, and yet the Thing (as a dead dark Out-Birth) knows it [the second Principle] not, as the Pot [knows not] its Potter, so also that [Thing] neither comprehends nor apprehends that [second Principle.] For I cannot say (when I take hold of, or comprehend any Thing) that I take hold of the holy Element, together with the Paradise and the Deity, but I comprehend the Out-Birth, the Kingdom of this World, viz. the third Principle and the Substance thereof, and I move [or stir] not the Deity therewith. And so we are to know [and understand] that the holy new Man [is thus] hidden in the old, and not separated, but in the temporal Death.

(1) BECAUSE there belongs a divine Light to the Knowledge and Apprehension of this, and that without the divine Light there is no Comprehensibility at all of the divine Essence, therefore I will a little represent the high hidden Secret in a creaturely Manner, that thereby the Reader may come into the Depth. For the divine Essence cannot be wholly expressed by the Tongue; the Spiraculum Vitae (that is, the Spirit of the Soul which looks into the Light) only comprehends it. For every Creature sees and understands no further nor deeper than its Mother is, out of which it is come originally.

(1) It is by Spirit that all species in the Cosmos are [or] moved or ruled,—each one according to its proper nature given it by God. Matter, or Cosmos, on the other hand, is that which holds all things,—the field of motion, and the that which crowds together all; of which God is the Ruler, distributing unto all cosmic things all that is requisite to each. It is with Spirit that He fills all things, according to the quality of each one’s nature.

(17) Therefore we must know, that God, as he is all in all, so where he is not (in the Love) in the Light, there he is (in the Darkness) in the Fierceness, and Source [or Torment;] for before the Time of the Creation there was nothing but the Source, and over it the Deity, which continues in Eternity. There is no other Ground, you [can] find nothing more, therefore give over your deep Searching, for it is the End of Nature.

(3) That, then, which so transcends, which is not subject unto sense, [which is] beyond all bounds, [and which] cannot be grasped,—That transcends all appraisement; That cannot be supported, nor borne up, nor can it be tracked out. For where, and when, and whence, and how, and what, He is,—is known to none. For He’s borne up by [His] supreme stability, and His stability is in Himself [alone],—whether [this mystery] be God, or the Eternity, or both, or one in other, or both in either.

(20) If you will meditate on God, take before you the eternal Darkness, which is without God; for God dwells in himself, and the Darkness cannot in its own Power comprehend him; which Darkness has a great [Desire of] longing after the Light, caused by the Light's beholding itself in the Darkness, and shining in it. And in this Longing or Desiring, you find the Source, and the Source takes hold of the Power or Virtue of the Light, and the Longing makes the Virtue material, and the material Virtue is the Inclosure to God, or the Heaven; for in the Virtue stands the Paradise, wherein the Spirit which proceeds from the Father and the Son works. All this is incomprehensible to the Creation, but not impossible to be found in the Mind; for Paradise stands open in the Mind of a holy Soul.

(2) The intelligent, whose body is spirit, whose form is light, whose thoughts are true, whose nature is like ether (omnipresent and invisible), from whom all works, all desires, all sweet odours and tastes proceed; he who embraces all this, who never speaks, and is never surprised,

(39) Consider these things about God: he is in every place; on the other hand, he is in no place. With respect to power, to be sure, he is in every place; but with respect to divinity, he is in no place. So then, it is possible to know God a little. With respect to his power, he fills every place, but in the exaltation of his divinity, nothing contains him. Everything is in God, but God is not in anything.

(18) Now some of the things said should bear a sense peculiar to themselves. So understand, for instance, what I'm going to say. All are in God, [but] not as lying in a place. For place is both a body and immovable, and things that lie do not have motion. Now things lie one way in the bodiless, another way in being made manifest. Think, [then,] of Him who doth contain them all; and think, that than the bodiless naught is more comprehensive, or swifter, or more potent, but it is the most comprehensive, the swiftest, and most potent of them all.

(49) And the Spirit of the eternal Essences (which has Understanding and Knowledge, and also the Trial and Proving of every Thing, in which the Source [or active Property or Quality] which is in Man, consists) that was breathed into him, by the Wisdom of God, through the driving Will, which goes forward, out of the eternal Mind, out of the opened Gates of the Deep, through the Word, [together] with the moving Spirit of God. And he had the Touch of the Center of the Abyss [viz.'] the eternal Source a behind him, as a Band, and before him, the Heart and Light of God, as a Glance of the Joy and Kindling of Paradise, which springs up in the Essences with the Light of the Joy; and beneath him [he had] the four Elements in the Budding out of the Limbus which was in him.

(3) Discern what size the water is, that it is immeasurable (and) incomprehensible, both its beginning and its end. It supports the earth; it blows in the air where the gods and the angels are. But in him who is exalted above all these there is the fear and the light, and in him are my writings revealed. I have given them as a service to the creation of the physical things, for it is not possible for anyone to stand without that One, nor is it possible for the aeon to live without him. It is he who possesses what is in him by discerning (it) in purity.

(26) But if we search what it is in Essence and Property, and how it is generated, then we find a very worthy [precious] noble the Fountain of the Deity, which has imprinted itself in all Things. And therefore it is so secret and hidden, and is imparted to the Knowledge of none of the Ungodly, to find it, or to know it. And although it be there, yet a vain, false, [or evil] Mind is not worthy of it, and therefore it remains hidden to him; And God rules all in all incomprehensibly and imperceptibly to the Creature; the Creature passes away it knows not how; and the Shadow and the Figure of the Tincture continues eternally; for it is generated out of the eternal Will: But the Spirit is given to it by the Fiat, according to the Kind of every Creature; also in the Beginning of the Creation it was implanted and incorporated in Jewels, Stones, and Metals, according to the Kind of every One.

(3) This Cosmos, then, which is called Sensible, is the receptacle of all things sensible,—of species, qualities, or bodies. But not a single one of these can quicken without God. For God is all, and by Him [are] all things, and all [are] of His Will. For that He is all Goodness, Fitness, Wisdom, unchangeable,—that can be sensed and understood by His own self alone. Without Him naught hath been, nor is, nor will be.

(1) There is above the Celestial Lights an Incorruptible Flame always sparkling; the Spring of Life, the Formation of all Beings, the Original of all things! This Flame produceth all things, and nothing perisheth but what it consumeth. It maketh Itself known by Itself. This Fire cannot be contained in any Place, it is without Body and without Matter. It encompasseth the Heavens. And there goeth out from it little Sparks, which make all the Fires of the Sun, of the Moon, and of the Stars. Behold! what I know of God! Strive not to know more of Him, for that is beyond thy capacity, how wise soever thou art. As to the rest, know that unjust and wicked Man cannot hide himself from the Presence of God ! No subtilty nor excuse can disguise anything from His piercing Eyes. All is full of God, and God is in All!

(5) And yet, if It is superior to every expression and every knowledge, and is altogether placed above mind and essence,--being such as embraces and unites and comprehends and anticipates all things, but Itself is altogether incomprehensible to all, and of It, there is neither perception nor imagination, nor surmise, nor name, nor expression, nor contact, nor science;--in what way can our treatise thoroughly investigate the meaning of the Divine Names, when the superessential Deity is shewn to be without Name, and above Name? But, as we said when we put forth the Theological Outlines, it is not possible either to express or to conceive what the One, the Unknown, the Superessential self-existing Good is,--I mean the threefold Unity, the alike God, and the alike Good. But even the unions, such as befit angels, of the holy Powers, whether we must call them efforts after, or receptions from, the super-Unknown and surpassing Goodness, are both unutterable and unknown, and exist in those angels alone who, above angelic knowledge, are deemed worthy of them. The godlike minds (men) made one by these unions, through imitation of angels as far as attainable (since it is during cessation of every mental energy that such an union as this of the deified minds towards the super-divine light takes place) celebrate It most appropriately through the abstraction of all created things--enlightened in this matter, truly and super-naturally from the most blessed union towards It--that It is Cause Indeed of all things existing, but Itself none of them, as being superessentially elevated above all. To none, indeed, who are lovers of the Truth above all Truth, is it permitted to celebrate the supremely-Divine Essentiality--that which is the super-subsistence of the super-goodness,--neither as word or power, neither as mind or life or essence, but as pre-eminently separated from every condition, movement, life, imagination, surmise, name, word, thought, conception, essence, position, stability, union, boundary, infinitude, all things whatever. But since, as sustaining source of goodness, by the very fact of Its being, It is cause of all things that be, from all created things must we celebrate the benevolent Providence of the Godhead; for all things are both around It and for It, and It is before all things, and all things in It consist, and by Its being is the production and sustenance of the whole, and all things aspire to It--the intellectual and rational, by means of knowledge--things inferior to these, through the senses, and other things by living movement, or substantial and habitual aptitude.

(3) What, then, is the spirit ?

The Spirit of here and now.

And the God?

The God of here and now.

Spirit, God; This in act within us, conducts every life; for, even here and now, it is the dominant of our Nature.

That is to say that the dominant is the spirit which takes possession of the human being at birth?

No: the dominant is the Prior of the individual spirit; it presides inoperative while its secondary acts: so that if the acting force is that of men of the sense-life, the tutelary spirit is the Rational Being, while if we live by that Rational Being, our tutelary Spirit is the still higher Being, not directly operative but assenting to the working principle. The words "You shall yourselves choose" are true, then; for by our life we elect our own loftier.

But how does this spirit come to be the determinant of our fate?

It is not when the life is ended that it conducts us here or there; it operates during the lifetime; when we cease to live, our death hands over to another principle this energy of our own personal career.

That principle strives to gain control, and if it succeeds it also lives and itself, in turn, possesses a guiding spirit : if on the contrary it is weighed down by the developed evil in the character, the spirit of the previous life pays the penalty: the evil-liver loses grade because during his life the active principle of his being took the tilt towards the brute by force of affinity. If, on the contrary, the Man is able to follow the leading of his higher Spirit, he rises: he lives that Spirit; that noblest part of himself to which he is being led becomes sovereign in his life; this made his own, he works for the next above until he has attained the height.

For the Soul is many things, is all, is the Above and the Beneath to the totality of life: and each of us is an Intellectual Kosmos, linked to this world by what is lowest in us, but, by what is the highest, to the Divine Intellect: by all that is intellective we are permanently in that higher realm, but at the fringe of the Intellectual we are fettered to the lower; it is as if we gave forth from it some emanation towards that lower, or, rather some Act, which however leaves our diviner part not in itself diminished.