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The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme
by Franz Hartmann
1891
Detailed Contents
Chapters and their Subjects
Title Page and Publisher Notes
Part I. THE LIFE OF JACOB BOEHME
Account of His Life and Labours, and of the Influence of his Writings upon the Outside World.
Part II. THE DOCTRINES OF JACOB BOEHME
The only reality—External reasoning is inadequate to comprehend internal truth—Historical aspect of the Bible—Man created in the image of God—The universal and the perverted self-will of man—Atonement—The Yoga practice—Illuminated seers—Jacob Boehme's spiritual knowledge and his terrestrial conditions—How his writings can be understood
God in his aspect as the Father—The unity of the All—Eternity and time—The will—Eternal wisdom—The Son and the Holy Spirit—Trinity—The will the positive energy—Wisdom is merely passive—Three-personality of God—God revealed in being—The magic principle—The antithesis or duality—Fire and light
CHAPTER III. THE SEVEN QUALITIES
Seven states of eternal nature referring to the Trinity—Each quality existing within the others—Seven in one—Matter, darkness, corporification, motion, consciousness, salt, sulphur, and mercury—The lightning flash, illumination, light, substantiality, the water-spirit, sound—The seventh form—Essential wisdom, the body of God, transcendental magnificence, the eternal virgin, glorification
God the All and nevertheless not the All—Pantheism and Theism—Personality of God—Perfection—The subjective becoming objective—Divine love—The world not divine—Eternal nature, wisdom—Differentiation of divine powers—Necessity of the dark fire—Eternal chaos—Beginning, unfolding—The seven divine spirits—Co-operation of Spirit
Three types of God relatively to the Trinity—Sub-divisions of divine intelligences—Harmony—The seven accords in each body—The celestial world objective to the angels—Its products corresponding to their terrestrial types—Realms of Lucifer—Michael and Uriel, dominions, guardian angels, fidelity, freedom of will—Lucifer, his pride and fall—Hell produced by the ignition of the lower principles—Hell not yet complete—Evil spirits—Lucifer's knowledge merely scientific, but not divine—An end of hell inconceivable, unless creation were destroyed
CHAPTER VI. THE RESTORATION OF NATURE
Mosaic account of the restoration of Nature—The outcast spirits—The allegory of the Flood—The appearance of the light—The seventh day—The separation of the material from the immaterial element of water—Their separation not referring to locality—The conjunction of the fiery and watery essence life—Generation of gold and precious stones—Relative good and-evil—The light that shines into the darkness—The sun and the planets—Manifestation of divine wisdom—The sun the life of the stars—The objective planets—Sidereal life—The spirit of the stars—The superiority—The third principle—Man a compendium of Nature and all terrestrial qualities—The soul
Man an image of God—His celestial body—His powers—Eden—The paradise—Man not the equal of God—His free will—Object of the third principle—Object of man's existence—The heart of God and its antithesis the devil and the terrestrial world—Adam's fall—The tree of temptation—The protection offered by the terrestrial form against the powers of evil—The weakening of the divine image—How Adam fell asleep—The terrestrial woman the saviour of man—Creation of Eve—Eating the forbidden fruit—The serpent—Adam caused Eve to sin and Eve seduced him—The rise of the desire for the knowledge of good and evil
CHAPTER VIII. NATURE, OR THE THIRD PRINCIPLE
The origin of Nature—Duality—The powers of light and darkness—Lucifer's influence in the world—The power of God in the inner world—The external sun an image of the divine heart of love—The sun omnipresent—Ruling of the planets—Their good and evil influences—Their living power—Individual life of the earth—Why the earth turns around her axis and around the sun—The four elements and the fifth—Origin of the terrestrial elements—Their attractions and repulsions—Latent qualities in the products of the earth—The vegetable and animal kingdoms—Their relation to paradise—The imperishable inner principle The spiritual quality—The external form
The Logos—The soul in the light of God—Self-will destructive to the perception of the divine idea—The growth of the manifestation of the evil principle—Man creates his own hell—His natural protection by means of external life—The rise of his natural qualities—Primordial man—How he became dense and material—Death—Man's animal nature—His senses—Will and mind—Temperaments—Origin of his terrestrial desires—Present method of reproduction caused by man's degradation—The male and the female in one individuality—Primitive generation—Division of sex—Sexual attraction—Its necessity—Generation of soul—Sexual intercourse and its delight—Interaction of divine elements during the same—The nature of the child dependent on the qualities of the parents—Each soul an individual being
Necessity of divine aid—Mercy—The entering of the spiritual light into the body of humanity—Preparation for redemption was made before the world was created—The Redeemer in man not perceptible until after the fall—The power of the Redeemer preeminently manifested in womanhood—The celestial virgin—Her influence over humanity—When redemption became possible—Cain and Abel—Genesis—The descendants of Seth—The three primordial races—The name of Abraham has no terrestrial meaning—It is the antitype of Christ—The sons of Isaac representing the first and the second Adam and the final conquest of the first by the second—The false gods of the sons of Japhet—Their oracles, symbols of celestial things—The power of the Redeemer present in all mankind—Sacrifices—External ceremonies and internal faith—The sacrificial fire not of a terrestrial but of a celestial wood—The light of the Christ represented within the fire—The children of light receiving the substance of Christ
The configuration of the person of the Redeemer—The Son of God; the celestial and the terrestrial man—Christ's terrestrial nature—The necessity of his suffering in the flesh—The terrestrial virgin overshadowed by the virgin of wisdom—The immaculate conception—The restoration of the divine image in man by the power of the Holy Spirit—The glorification of the virgin—the three principles uniting but not commingling in the body of Christ—The eternal Word not mingling with the body and not even with the soul—The soul being penetrated and illuminated by the Word, Christ not a limited human being—This celestial corporeity likened to the sun—The Godhead
Means of redemption—The absolute will becoming relative—Necessity, of incarnation; the conquest of death—The three temptations—The victory—Christ's corporeal death—Sacrifice of the self-will and also of the holy love-will—Its entering into the divine will—The transmutation of the body—The resurrection and glorification—The approaching destruction of the whole terrestrial world—The paradisical body—The heaven of the Redeemer
Spirituality—The living Christ—Christ in man—How to effect regeneration—The nature of true prayer—What is faith?—Spiritual substantiality—The new body—Dangers—The new life—The terrestrial man realising the celestial ideal—The three temptations—Battle between the high and the low—Relation between the outer and inner man—Self-sacrifice—Conquest of evil—Uselessness of external desires—Changes in the physical body of man—Inner perception of Christ—Its realisation after the death of the body—Trials, trouble, and suffering—The mystical death—External and eternal possessions—The finding of salvation
CHAPTER XIV. DEATH AND ETERNAL LIFE
Man's existence in three worlds—Death of the physical body—The soul in her twofold aspect after the death of the body—The law of spiritual gravitation—The power of self-control lost through death—Heaven and hell—Animal elementaries—Tortured souls—Objectivity and corporeity of mental images after death—Conscience and remorse—No salvation for devils—Suffering, fear, and despair—The redeemed souls in the light of God—Intercourse between spirits and mortals—Sanctified souls—Orthodox superstitions—Miracles—The "Thread-souls" (Sutratma)—Kama loca (Purgatory)—Dead souls—Astral forms of the dead—Prayers and ceremonies for the dead
What to believe—Babel—Christ—The true light—The unknown Church—Humanity—"Practical occultism"—Divinity in Humanity
Apparitions—Asceticism—Astral spirit—Atonement—The Cross—Death—Doubt—God—Humility—Jesus Christ—Man—Nature—Path—Planets—Principle—Sex—Sophia—Substantiality—Sulphur, salt, and mercury—Word
Works by Boehme and others, cited by Hartmann in this volume.