(84) ["It has in it the first Principle; the spirit of the soul has the second; and the astral or starry spirit in the elements has the third, viz. this world."]

(72) And first there goes forth the great luminary, named the Sun, and his circumference is like the circumference of the heaven, and he is quite filled with illuminating and heating fire.

(77) And III. The third [birth] is generated between the first and the second, that is, between heaven and hell, in the midst or centre of the wrath-fire, and the spirit presseth through the wrath-fire, and generateth the holy life, which stands in the power of the love.

(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.]

(29) The solar orb, like the nature of man, was divided by the ancient sages into three separate bodies. According to the mystics, there are three suns in each solar system, analogous to the three centers of life in each individual constitution. These are called three lights: the spiritual sun, the intellectual or soular sun, and the material sun (now symbolized in Freemasonry by three candles). The spiritual sun manifests the power of God the Father; the soular sun radiates the life of God the Son; and the material sun is the vehicle of manifestation for God the Holy Spirit. Man's nature was divided by the mystics into three distinct parts: spirit, soul, and body. His physical body was unfolded and vitalized by the material sun; his spiritual nature was illuminated by the spiritual sun; and his intellectual nature was redeemed by the true light of grace--the soular sun. The alignment of these three globes in the heavens was one explanation offered for the peculiar fact that the orbits of the planets are not circular but elliptical.

(19) For as the Deity is the Virtue [or Power] and Light of Paradise in the second Principle, so the Sun is the Virtue [or Power] and Light of this material World in the third Principle. And as the Deity shines in the Darkness in the first Principle, so the Sun shines in the Darkness in the third Principle. And as the Deity is the eternal Virtue and the Spirit of the eternal Life, so the Sun is the Spirit and the Virtue in the corruptible Life.

(140) Therefore on the third day the earth began to spring, just as the qualifying or fountain spirits stood in the crack of the word or fire-flash.

(6) The space between B and C marks the orbits or planes of the seven Spiritual Intelligences called the Divine Planets (not the visible planets). According to the Mysteries, the souls of men enter the lower worlds through ring B, the fixed stars. All creation reflects the glory of Schamayim, the energy that filters into the spheres of the elements through the windows of the stars and planets. Between C and D lies the region of the subtle, spiritual air, a subdivision of ether. D to E marks the surface of the earth and sea, by which are also meant grades of ether. E to F marks the lower region, called "The Gathering of the Waters and the Production of the Virgin Earth, " or "Ares. " The alchemists called this "quicksand," the true mystic foundation of the solid earth. F to G marks the circle of the subterranean air, which is more dense and coarse than that in the outer space, C to D. In this denser atmosphere the stellar influences and celestial impulses are crystallized into corporeal spirits, thus forming the multitude of forms which exist without knowledge of their own fiery source. G is the region of the central fire of the element earth, a coarse fire in contradistinction to the divine fiery Schamayim. The sphere of the starry heavens likewise has its opposite in the sphere of the subterranean air; and the sphere of the upper air (or subtle vaporous water) has its opposite in the sphere E to F. The focal point, D to E, between the three higher and the three lower spheres, is called "The Reservoir." It receives impressions from both the superior and the inferior regions and is common to both.

(28) I. First, there arose the fire-crack, or the mobility in the heat; and that is the beginning of life in the chamber of death. II. After this, secondly, the light in the unctuosity or fatness of the water became shining in the heat; and that is now the sun. III. Thirdly, when now the light of the sun had affected or possessed the whole body of the sun, then the power of life, which rose up out of the first affecting or possessing, ascended, as when wood is kindled, or when fire is struck out of a stone.

(12) These three universal centers--the one above, the one below, and the link uniting them-represent three suns or three aspects of one sun--centers of effulgence. These also have their analogues in the three grand centers of the human body, which, like the physical universe, is a Demiurgic fabrication. "The first of these [suns]," says Thomas Taylor, "is analogous to light when viewed subsisting in its fountain the sun; the second to the light immediately proceeding from the sun; and the third to the splendour communicated to other natures by this light."

(23) And there stand the three Principles in Strife. The first Principle, viz. the Kingdom of Sternness [or wrathful Fierceness] says, Go forth in the Midst of the strong Might of the Fire, it must be [so;] then says the second [Principle] in the Mind, Stay and consider, God is here with the Virgin, fear the Abyss of Hell; and the third [Principle,] viz. the Kingdom of this World says, Here we are at Home, we must have it [so,] that we may adorn and sustain the Body, it must be [so;] and it takes the Region of the Air, viz. its own Spirit, and brings that [Region] out at the Mouth, and keeps the Distinction according to the Kingdom of this World.

(95) "The third Principle of this world is generated and created out of the first, that is, magically: As is clearly demonstrated in our second [Three Principles], and in our third book [Threefold Life], unto which this book is only an introduction, and is the first book, which was not sufficiently apprehended by the author at the first time, though it appeared clearly enough, yet all of it could not be conceived; also it was as when a torrent or stormy shower of rain passeth over a place, from whence vegetation and springing existeth; for therein is the seed of the whole Deity."]

(100) ["The soul containeth the first principle; and the soul's spirit the second principle in Ternario sancto, in the holy Ternary; and the outward spirit, viz. the astral, containeth the third Principle of this world."]

(69) And as the three elements, fire, air and water, proceed from the sun and stars, and are one body in one another, and cause the living motion, and the spirit of all the creatures of this world.

(13) But thou art to know this Mystery: that in the centre or midst of these three kingdoms is generated the splendour or Son of God. [14. "This needs explanation: Read the second (The Three Principles) and the third part (The Threefold Life) of these writings, where it is described more fundamentally: for nothing that is divisible, measurable or circumscriptive is here meant or understood, only it was in simplicity and plainness so set down at the first, because of the slow and dull apprehension."]

(103) First there is the ground, or the corporeal being, although in the Deity, or in the creatures, it [the heat] has no peculiar or several body, for all the qualities are one in another as one, however the operation of every quality is perceived in particular and severally.

(77) And the first quarter is called the east, because it is the first: and the second, the south, because the Most High will descend there, yea, there in quite a special sense will He who is blessed for ever descend.

(53) "Plato writes that it is needful for the philosopher to know how the seven circles beneath the first one are arranged according to the Egyptians. The first triad of fire denotes life; the second, water, over which rule the Ibimorphous divinities; and the third, air, ruled by Nephta. From the fire the heavens were created, from the water the earth, and air was the mediator between them. In the Sephira Yetzirah it is said that from the three originate the seven, i. e., the height, the depth, the East, the West, the North, and the South, and the Holy Temple in the center sustaining them all. Is not the Holy Temple in the center the great throne of the many-formed Spirit of Nature which is shown in the middle of the Tablet? What are the seven triads but the seven Powers that rule over the world? Psellus writes: 'The Egyptians worshipped the triad of faith, truth, and love; and the seven fountains: the Sun as ruler--the fountain of matter; then the fountain of the archangels; the fountain of the senses; of judgment; of lightning; of reflections; and of characters of unknown composition. They say that the highest material fountains are those of Apollo, Osiris, and Mercury--the fountains of the centers of the elements. 'Thus, they understood by the Sun as ruler the solar world; by the material archangelic, the lunar world; by the fountain of the senses, the world of Saturn; by judgment, Jupiter; by lightning, Mars; by that of the reflections, or mirrors, the world of Venus; by the fountain of characters, the world of Mercury. All these are shown by the figures in the center pane of the Tablet."

(20) In his introduction to the Table, Kircher summarizes its symbolism thus: "It teaches, in the first place, the whole constitution of the threefold world--archetypal, intellectual, and sensible. The Supreme Divinity is shown moving from the center to the circumference of a universe made up of both sensible and inanimate things, all of which are animated and agitated by the one supreme power which they call the Father Mind and represented by a threefold symbol. Here also are shown three triads from the Supreme One, each manifesting one attribute of the first Trimurti. These triads are called the Foundation, or the base of all things. In the Table is also set forth the arrangement and distribution of those divine creatures that aid the Father Mind in the control of the universe. Here [in the upper panel] are to be seen the Governors of the worlds, each with its fiery, ethereal, and material insignia. Here also [in the lower panel] are the Fathers of Fountains, whose duty it is to care for and preserve the principles of all things and sustain the inviolable laws of Nature. Here are the gods of the spheres and also those who wander from place to place, laboring with all substances and forms (Zonia and Azonia), grouped together as figures of both sexes, with their faces turned to their superior deity."

(2) All things being undefined and yet unwrought, the light things were assigned unto the height, the heavy ones had their foundations laid down underneath the moist part of Dry Space, the universal things being bounded off by Fire and hanged in Breath to keep them up. And Heaven was seen in seven circles; its Gods were visible in forms of stars with all their signs; while Nature had her members made articulate together with the Gods in her. And [Heaven's] periphery revolved in cyclic course, borne on by Breath of God.