(120) But it has its life in its seat, and that cannot be taken from it, but death hangeth to it in the outermost birth or geniture, as also the wrath in death; for the wrath is the life of death and of the devil; and in the wrath stands also the corporeal being, or the bodies of the devils, but the dead birth or geniture is their eternal dwelling-house. The Depth in the Circle of the Birth or Geniture. Now one might ask, What manner of substance has it, or what is the condition thereof, that the astral birth of the earth did begin its qualifying, operating and generating one day sooner than the astral in the deep above the earth; seeing the fire in the deep above the earth is much sharper and easier to be kindled, than the fire in the earth; and seeing also that the earth must be kindled by the fire in the deep above the earth, else it can bear no fruit? Answer.

(21) As we see that here out of the Earth there springs Plants, Herbs, and Fruits, which receive their Virtue from the Sun, and from the Constellation: So the Heaven or the heavenly Limbus is instead of the Earth; and the Light of God instead of the Sun; and the eternal Father instead of the Virtue of the Stars. The Depth of this Substance is without Beginning and End, its Breadth cannot be reached, there are neither Years nor Time, no Cold nor Heat; no moving of the Air; no Sun nor Stars; no Water nor Fire; no Sight of evil Spirits; no Knowledge nor Apprehension of the Affliction of this World; no stony Rock nor Earth; and yet a figured Substance of all the Creatures of this World. For all the Creatures of this World have appeared to this End, that they might be an eternal figured Similitude; not that they continue in this Spirit in their Substance, no not so: All the Creatures return into their a Ether, and the Spirit corrupts [or fades,] but the Figure and the Shadow continue eternally.

(95) V. Now when it is melted a fifth time, then the love-spirit riseth up in the water through the light, and makes the dead body living again, so that the matter, which remained in the first four meltings, getteth power or strength again, which was the proper own of that qualifying or fountain spirit which was predominant in this mineral ore.

(12) Plunging at once, with terrific speed and force, into the abyss of Manifestation, the World Soul created for itself material garments of the densest and grossest elemental matter. This extreme form of elemental matter is not known to us today, for it has been discarded in the course of evolution on this particular planet. It, however, still exists on other planets of our solar system. This form, or forms, of elemental matter is below the scale of the minerals, and is as much lower than the grossest mineral known to science as that mineral is lower than the highest plant. In texture, structure, and density the extreme form of elemental matter is as much grosser than the lowest form of mineral known to us, as the latter is grosser than the highest form of ethereal vapor or radiant matter known to modern science. It is useless to try to describe this form of matter, for the ordinary mind cannot grasp it in the absence of concrete illustration.

(36) But seeing the wrath also is in that water in the deep above the earth, therefore constantly, through the kindling of the stars, and of the water in the wrath, such palpable water generateth itself, which, with its outermost birth, stands in death.

(3) But Saturn's original is the earnest, astringent and austere anxiety of the whole body of this world; for as, in the time of the kindling of the wrath, the light in the outermost birth or geniture of this world was extinct, (which birth or geniture is the nature or comprehensibility, or the rising up of the birth of all qualifying or fountain spirits), so also the astringent quality stood in its sharpness and severest birth or geniture, and attracted or contracted most strongly and eagerly the whole work or effect of the qualifying or fountain spirits.

(4) But matters are involved here which demand specific investigation and cannot be treated as incidental merely to our present problem. We are faced with several questions: Is the heavenly system exposed to any such flux as would occasion the need of some restoration corresponding to nourishment; or do its members, once set in their due places, suffer no loss of substance, permanent by Kind? Does it consist of fire only, or is it mainly of fire with the other elements, as well, taken up and carried in the circuit by the dominant Principle?

Our doctrine of the immortality of the heavenly system rests on the firmest foundation once we have cited the sovereign agent, the soul, and considered, besides, the peculiar excellence of the bodily substance constituting the stars, a material so pure, so entirely the noblest, and chosen by the soul as, in all living beings, the determining principle appropriates to itself the choicest among their characteristic parts. No doubt Aristotle is right in speaking of flame as a turmoil, fire insolently rioting; but the celestial fire is equable, placid, docile to the purposes of the stars.

Still, the great argument remains, the Soul, moving in its marvellous might second only to the very loftiest Existents: how could anything once placed within this Soul break away from it into non-being? No one that understands this principle, the support of all things, can fail to see that, sprung from God, it is a stronger stay than any bonds.

And is it conceivable that the Soul, valid to sustain for a certain space of time, could not so sustain for ever? This would be to assume that it holds things together by violence; that there is a "natural course" at variance with what actually exists in the nature of the universe and in these exquisitely ordered beings; and that there is some power able to storm the established system and destroy its ordered coherence, some kingdom or dominion that may shatter the order founded by the Soul.

Further: The Kosmos has had no beginning- the impossibility has been shown elsewhere- and this is warrant for its continued existence. Why should there be in the future a change that has not yet occurred? The elements there are not worn away like beams and rafters: they hold sound for ever, and so the All holds sound. And even supposing these elements to be in ceaseless transmutation, yet the All persists: the ground of all the change must itself be changeless.

As to any alteration of purpose in the Soul we have already shown the emptiness of that fancy: the administration of the universe entails neither labour nor loss; and, even supposing the possibility of annihilating all that is material, the Soul would be no whit the better or the worse.

(33) For if it be too much elevated or too preponderant in any creature, and be inflamed in the heat, then flesh and spirit separate, and the creature loseth its life and must die; for then it moveth and kindleth the element fire; and in the great heat and bitterness no flesh can subsist. But if it be kindled in the element water, and springeth [becometh active] therein, it causes debility and sickness in the flesh, and finally death. Of the Sweet Quality.

(96) VI. Now when it is melted the sixth time, then it grows somewhat harder, and then the life, which is risen up in the love, moveth and stirreth itself. From this stirring existeth the tone in the hardness, and the mineral ore gets a clear sound, for the hard and dead beating or noise of the bitter fiery matter is gone away.

(40) Thus now the Stars and the Elements (after the withdrawing of the Love in the Tincture) take the House into Possession, and fill it in the first Month. And in the second, they sever the Members [or Parts] by the sour Fiat, as is mentioned before. And in the third, the Strife begins about the Regions of the Stars and Elements, where then they separate, and every Element makes its own House and Region for itself; viz. the Heart, Liver, Lungs, Bladder, and Stomach; as also the Head to be the and their princely Throne, as it follows further.

(22) Now the Sun and the Stars [or Constellations] continually kindle the Tincture, for it is fiery; and the Tincture kindles the Body, with the Matrix of the Water, so that they are always boiling, [rising] and seething. The Stars [or Constellations] and the Sun are the Fire of the Tincture, and the Tincture is the Fire of the Body, and so all are seething. And therefore when the Sun is underneath, so that its Beams [or Shining] is no more [upon a Thing,] then the Tincture is weaker, for it has no Kindling from the Virtue of the Sun. And although the Virtue of the Stars and the quality are kindled from the Sun, yet all is too little, and so it becomes feeble, [or as it were dead.] And when the Tincture is feeble, then the Virtue in the Blood (which is the Tincture) is wholly weak, and sinks into a sweet Rest, as it were dead or overcome.

(12) All that thus proceeds from the supernal combines into a unity and every existing entity takes something from this blended infusion so that the result is the thing itself plus some quality. The effluence does not make the horse but adds something to it; for horse comes by horse, and man by man: the sun plays its part no doubt in the shaping, but the man has his origin in the Human-Principle. Outer things have their effect, sometimes to hurt and sometimes to help; like a father, they often contribute to good but sometimes also to harm; but they do not wrench the human being from the foundations of its nature; though sometimes Matter is the dominant, and the human principle takes the second place so that there is a failure to achieve perfection; the Ideal has been attenuated.

(50) Pandolphus saith: If, O Belus, thou dost describe the sublimation* of sulphur for future generations, thou wilt accomplish an excellent thing! And the Turba: Dothou show it forth, therefore,O Pandolphus! And he: The philosophers have ordered that quicksilver should be taken out of Cambar, and albeit they spoke truly, yet in these words there is a little ambiguity, the obscurity of which I will remove. Seethen that the quicksilver is sublimed in tabernacles, and extract the same from Cambar, but there is another Cambar in sulphur* which Belus hath demonstrated to you, for out of sulphur mixed with sulphur, many works proceed. When the same has been sublimed, there proceeds from the Cambar that quicksilver which is called Ethelia, Orpiment, Zendrio, or Sanderich,t Ebsemich, Magnesia, Kuhul, or Chuhul, and many other. names. Concerning this, philosophers have said that, being ruled by its regimen (for ten is the perfection of all things), its white nature appears, nor is there any shadow therein. Then the envious* have called it lead from Ebmich, Magnesia, Marteck, White Copper. For, when truly whitened, it is devoid of shadow and blackness, it has left its thickened ponderous bodies, and therewith a clean humid spirit has ascended, which spirit is tincture. Accordingly, the wise have said that copper has a soul and a body. Now, its soul is spirit, and its body is thick. Therefore, it behoves you to destroy the thick body until ye extract a tingeing spirit from the same. Mix, also, the spirit extracted therefrom with light sulphur until you, investigators, find your design accomplished.

(23) In such a Manner as this the Sun rose up in the Fiat, and out of the Sun (in its first Kindling) [rose] the other Planets, viz. upwards, out of the raging Bitterness, Mars [rose,] which pTo. the Splendor of the Sun stayed [or upheld] when it discovered it: And out of the Virtue of the Sun, which raised itself higher, [rose] Jupiter imprisoned in the Center of the Fiat: And out of the Chamber of Anguish [rose] Saturnus: And downwards Venus [rose] from the soft Mildness, when the Harshness was overcome, and was soft, sweet, and sinking down like Water. And when the Light kindled, then out of the sour harsh Wrath came Love and Humility to be, running downwards: And out of the overcome Virtue in the sour Harshness [rose Mercurius,] wherein stands the Knowledge of what was in the Original before the Light: But when the Light made the Virtue in the Place of the Sun material, as it were in an earthly Manner [rose] the Moon.

(26) Now thus say the three Elements (Fire, Water, and Air,) to the Spirit; Fetch us Children of the Earth, that they may dwell in our Courts, we will eat of their Essences, and make thee strong. Here the Spirit of the Soul (like a Captive) must be obedient, and must reach with his Essences, and fetch them forth. And then comes the Fiat, and says, No: Thou tmightest [so] out-run me; and [the Fiat] created the Reaching forth, and there came forth from thence, Hands, and all other Essences and Forms, as it is before our Eyes, and the Astronomicus [Astronomer] knows it well, yet he knows not the Secrecy of it, although he can explain the Signs according to the Constellation and Elements, which qualify [and mingle] together in the Essences of the Spirit of the Soul.

(39) But hearken, Friend, tarry yet a little while, and then give the bestial body for food to the worms: But when the total God shall kindle the seven spirits of God in the corrupted earth, then, if that same Salitter which thou sowest in the earth will not be capable of the fire, then thy qualifying or fountain spirits, which thou didst sow in thy lifetime, and which are sown in thy departure from hence, will rise again in the same Salitter which thou hast sown, and will triumph therein, and become a body again.

(1) SATURN, that cold, sharp, austere and astringent regent, taketh its beginning and original not from the sun; for Saturn has in its power the chamber of death, and is a drier up of all powers, from whence corporeity existeth.

(23) The Earth is not eternal, and for the Sake of the Fragility [or Corruptibility,] therefore Man's Body must break [or perish,] because he has attracted the Corruptibility to him. Thus also the paradisical Knowledge, Delight and Joy is departed from him, and he is fallen into the kindled Anger, of the kindled four Elements, which (according to their Fierceness) P qualify with the eternal Anger in the Abyss; although the outward Region of the Sun is mitigated, so that it is a pleasant Habitation, as is seen before our Eyes; yet if the Sun should vanish away, then thou wouldst well see and feel the Anger of God. Consider it well.

(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.

(100) VII. Now when it is melted the seventh time, then there belongeth to, and is required for, the process, a yet more subtile fire, for therein the life riseth up and rejoiceth in the love, and will shew forth itself in infinity, as it has done in heaven before the time of the wrath.