SEX PUNCTA MYSTICA
OR A SHORT EXPLANATION OF SIX MYSTICAL POINTS
Jakob Boehme
1620
Author's preface
Precious knowledge will not be obtained until the soul has besieged, conquered and overthrown evil, thus having gained the crown of flowers of the Knight, which gracious and virginal Chastity lays on the forehead of the champion of Christ, after his victory. Then marvelous knowledge will rise, but without perfection.
The first point
Blood and Water of the Soul
1. All that is substantial and tangible is in this world. Since the soul is neither a substance nor an entity in this world, neither its blood nor its water are substance or entity in this world.
2. It is certain that the soul, with its blood and water, resides in the outer blood and water; but its substance is magical. For the soul is also a magic fire, and its image or form is created in the light (by the force of its own fire and its own light) emanating from the magic fire; and yet this is a true picture of flesh and blood, but not in its original state .
3. As the wisdom of God has a being and yet exists: wisdom is not a being. Thus the soul with its image has an existence, and yet this, the soul, is only a magic fire, but its sustenance takes its source in its substance.
4. As a fire needs substance to burn, so the magical fire of the soul has flesh, blood, and water. There would be no blood if the tincture of fire and light were not water. This tincture is the entity or life of wisdom (which has all the forms of Nature within it), and is the other magic fire.
5.Because it gives all colors; and from its form emanates the divine energy of the soft nature of light (ie: according to the property of the light which is in it); and according to the property of the fire which is in it; it is a subtlety of transmutation. It can bring everything to its highest degree; although she is not a living spirit, but the supreme entity.
6. Thus, the tincture is the same entity in the water, and it introduces into the latter, the properties of fire and light, with all the forces of Nature by which it transforms the water into blood; and this it does in the outer water and as well as in the inner water, as it does to the outer and inner blood.
7. The inner blood of the divine substance state is also magical; for it is Magic that transforms it into substance. It is the spiritual blood, which the outer nature can only reach by imagination. The inner imagination brings the outer will into the inner blood, by this process the blood and flesh of the state of divine substance are corrupted, and the noble image of Godlikeness is eclipsed.
8. The blood and the flesh of the soul reside in the highest mystery, for they are the state of the divine substance. And when the outer blood and flesh die, they fall into the outer mystery, and the outer mystery falls into the inner mystery.
9. And every magic fire has its brightness and darkness in itself; which causes a final day of separation to be designated: when all will have to pass through a fire and be tried, which will determine those who will be fit, and those who will not. Then everything will return to its own magic, and then be as it was from eternity.
The second point. Of the election of grace. Good and bad.
1. God alone, from eternity is all. Its essence is divided into three eternal distinctions. The first is the world of fire, the second is the world of darkness, and the third is the world of light. And yet, there is only one essence, one in the other; but one is not the other.
2. The three distinctions are equally eternal and limitless, neither restricted in time nor in space. Each distinction is enclosed in itself in a being; and his qualification is in accord with his property, and in this qualification also resides his desire, as the centrum naturae (center of nature).
3. And desire is its creation, for desire creates being where there was none, and that in the essence of desire, according to the property of desire. And the whole thing is only Magic, or the hunger for the state of being.
4. Each form creates a being in its desire; and each form is filled with the mirror of its own brightness, and has its vision in its own mirror. His vision is darkness to another mirror, and his form is hidden to another eye; but in the feeling there is a difference.
5. For every form derives its sensation from the original state of the three forms of Nature, namely: sour, bitter and anguish; and yet in these three forms there is no suffering in itself, but the fire there causes the pain which the light transforms back into sweetness.
6. Real life is rooted in fire; there is a connection between light and darkness. This bond is desire with all that fills it; this is why desire belongs to fire, and its light shines from this fire. This light is the form, for the sight, of this life; and the substance introduced into desire is firewood with which the fire burns, whether hard or soft; it is also his realm of heaven or hell.
7. Human life is the link between light and darkness; she will burn in the one to which she abandons herself. If she surrenders to the desire for the essence, she will burn in anguish, in the fire of darkness.
8. But if she abandons herself to a nothingness, she will be without desire and will fall into the fire of light; and so will burn without pain; for she brings to her fire no fuel that could feed a fire. As there is no pain in it, nor does life receive any suffering, for it (life) contains none in itself; it (human life) will fall into primary Magic, which is God in its triad.
9. When life is born, it has all the three worlds in it. It will be contained in the world to which it will unite and it is from this fire that it will burn.
10. For, when life ignites, it is attracted to all the three worlds; and they move in the essence, as in the first fire that ignites. Whatever essence life, in its desire, chooses and receives; it is from this fire that she will burn.
11. If the first essence in which life ignites is good, then the fire is also pleasant and good. But if this is bad and dark, and consists of a property of violent fury, then the fire will also be a fire-fury, and it will have a corresponding desire, conforming to the property of this fire.
12. Each imagination desires only an essence like itself and of the nature from which it was originally born.
13. At present, man's life is like a wheel whose lowest point will soon become the highest point. It ignites with each essence and defiles itself with each essence. But she bathes in the movement of the heart of God, a water of kindness; and from there she is able to introduce a state of substance into her life-fire. The election of God does not depend on the first essence.
14. For the first essence is but the Mysterium for one life; and the first life as well as the fire with which it ignites, belongs to the Mysterium from which it took the essence; whether that essence is entirely violent, or a mixed essence, or an essence of light in accord with the light-world.
15. The property in which life ascends is also that in which its light will burn. This life has no election and no judgment will be passed on it; for it derives from its own primitive condition, and carries its judgment in itself. It separates itself from every other source; for it only burns from its own source, from its own magic fire.
16. Election is related to what is introduced, which can belong to light or to darkness. For according as what is introduced belongs to one property or another, so also will be the will of his life. It is here that one can know if it is of a nature of violent fury, or of an essence of love. As long as it burns with one fire, it is abandoned by the other; and the choice of the fire in which it burns is transmitted to life, by this same fire as long as it remains in this fire.
17. But if the will of this fire (like the flying punctum ) dives into another fire and ignites there, it can kindle all life from this fire, and can remain in this fire.
18. Then life is reborn, either in the world of darkness or in that of light, (according to the world in which the will is kindled), and then arises another election. And this is the reason why God allows man to teach, and the same is true of the devil. Each of them wants life to dive into its own fire and kindle itself there. And so one of the mysterium seizes the other.
The third point of sin. Of what sin is and why it is sin
1. A thing that is One has no commandment or law. But if this thing mixes with another, the result is two separate beings, existing as one, but also two wills, one operating against the other. This is the origin of opposition or enmity.
2. Consider opposition to God. God is One and good; without any suffering or limited quality; and though every source or quality be in Him, He is not yet manifested. For good has absorbed evil, the opposite of itself, and keeps it locked up in good, like a prisoner; for evil will be one of the causes of life and light, but not manifested. Yet good dies in evil, in order to be able to move in evil, without suffering or sensation, within oneself.
3. Love and enmity are one and the same; but each resides in itself, which makes them two distinct things. Death is the dividing line between them; and yet death does not exist, except that good dies to evil, as light is dead to the bite of fire and no longer smells of fire.
4. So we still have to explain sin in human life. Behold: life is One and good; but if there is another quality within itself, this becomes enmity against God, for God dwells in the highest life of man.
5. However, no immeasurable existence can reside in a measurable existence. For as soon as real life awakens pain in itself, it is no longer identical to nothingness, in which there is no pain. Therefore, one immediately separates from the other.
6. For good - or light - is like nothingness; but if something penetrates it, then it becomes something other than nothingness, for the thing that penetrates it resides in itself, in torment; for where there is something, there must also be a quality which creates and maintains it.
7. Now consider love and enmity. Love has only one quality and one will; this one desires only the object of his love, and nothing else; for the good is only the Unity, and the quality is multiple; and the human will, which desires multiple things, brings in itself and in the Unique (where God resides), the torment of plurality.
8. For the multiple is darkness and darkens the life of light; and the One is the light, for It loves Itself and has no desire for the many.
9. The will of life must therefore be directed towards the One (as towards the good), and thus abide in one quality. But if she imagines another quality, she makes herself pregnant with that thing she desires.
10. And if that thing happens to be without an eternal foundation; it will have a perishable and fragile root. Then the thing will seek a root to ensure its preservation, in order to subsist. For every life resides in a magic fire, and every fire must have substance in order to burn.
11. This same thing must create for itself a substance according to its desire so that its fire will have fuel to feed itself. No fire-source can subsist in the free fire, because the latter cannot reach it, being itself only a thing.
12. All that subsists in God must be released of his own free will. There can be no individual fire burning within oneself, for the fire of God must be one's fire. His will must be united with God, so that God and the will and spirit of man are one and the same.
13. For that which is One cannot be at odds or at enmity with itself, since it possesses only one will. Wherever he goes, whatever he does, he remains one with himself.
14. A single will can only have a single imagination, and the imagination only creates or desires that which assimilates to itself. It is in this way that we must understand the contrary will.
15. God dwells in all things; and nothing contains Him, unless such a thing is One with Him. But if this comes out of Unity, it comes out of God and enters into itself, and then becomes different from God, by separating itself from him. And here is manifested the Law which wants everything to come out of itself to return to Unity or to remain separated from Unity.
16. And this is how we can know what is sin, and why it is sin. When a human being wants to separate himself from God, into an existence of his own, he awakens his own Self and burns with his own fire, which does not have the capacity of divine fire.
17. For whatever the will penetrates and takes possession of will have become foreign to the One Will of God. For everything belongs to God and nothing belongs to the will of man. But if it resides in God, then everything belongs to him too.
18. So we recognize that desire is sin. Because this one is an attraction of a separation of the Unit towards the multiple and the introduction of the multiple in the Unit. He will want to possess, yet should be willless. It is through desire that substance seeks itself, and it is in substance that desire kindles a fire.
19. Each particular fire burns according to the character of its own being; and this is how separation and enmity arise. For Christ said, "He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scatters instead of gathering." (Luke XI,23) For this one gathers up without Christ; and everything that is not in Him is outside of God.
20. So we see that avarice is sin; because it is a desire external to God. And we also understand that pride is sin, because it will tend to become its own thing, separating itself from God, as from Unity.
21. For whatever resides in God must move in Him, in His will. We see then that we are all in God, as a unity divided into many members; he therefore goes against God, the one who separates himself from others, by making himself a lord, as pride can do. Pride will make himself a lord, and God is the only Lord. There will therefore be two lords, one separating from the other.
22. This is why everything that desires to possess is sin and a contrary will, even if it is a matter of eating or drinking. If the will imagine in this state, it fills itself with it and kindles its own fire, and from then on another fire burns in the first and becomes a contrary will and an error.
23. This is why we must cultivate, outside the opposition, a new will, which will abandon itself again in simple Unity; and the opposition will have to be smashed and killed.
24. Let us now consider the Word of God made human. If man places his desire there, he will emerge from pain, from his own fire and will be a newborn in the Word. And so the nascent will will reside in God; but the primary will will remain avarice, materiality and integrity.
25. Likewise, the plurality of the body must be broken, and this must perish and detach itself from the nascent will, then the nascent will will know a new birth. For in Unity, this reabsorbs everything into itself, not with its own desire, but with its own love – a love that is united with God –, so that God may be entirely in all, and His Will be the will of all things; for in God there is only one will.
26. Thus we find that evil must be subordinated to the life of good, inasmuch as the will withdraws again from evil, from itself, into good; for the fire of life consists of ferocity.
27. But the life of the will of life must be turned against itself, in conflict; for she must flee her ferocity and no longer want it. She must no longer want to desire, and yet the will of her fire (that is, the life of her fire) desires and must possess desire. So here's the thing: be reborn in the will.
28. Every will-spirit which remains in the desire of the fire of its life (as in the ardor of the wood for the fire), or which enters there and possesses the earthly, remains separated from God so long as it possesses that which is foreign, that is to say the earthly.
29. So we recognize how the superfluity of eating and drinking breeds sin. For the pure will, which separates itself from the fire of life, is drowned in desire and imprisoned, and thus finds itself too weak in the fight. For the source of fire (or desire) keeps her captive and fills her with ardent desire, in such a way that this same will directs her imagination into desire.
30. Likewise, the will placed in the desire for food and drink is earthly and is separate from God. But the will which escapes from the earthly fire, burns in the inner fire and is divine.
31. The will that escapes from earthly desire does not arise from earthly fire. No, she is the will of the soul's fire, which has been captured and hidden by earthly desire. She does not wish to remain in earthly desire, but wants to return to her Unity, in God, from which she originally found her source.
32. But if this is kept a prisoner of earthly desire, it will be shut up in death and suffer agony. Here is how to understand sin.
The fourth point. How Christ will return the Kingdom to His Father.
1. During the creation of the world and of all being, the Father moved according to His property, that is, through the center of Nature, through the dark world and the fiery world. These continued their movement and their dominion until the Father moved after his heart (and the world-light), and God became man. Then love reigned, the light overcame the property of violent fury of the Father and guided the Father into the Son with love.
2. Then the Son had dominion over those who cleaved to God; the Holy Spirit (who comes from the Father and the Son) drew men towards the light of love, through the Son, towards God the Father.
3. But at the end of time the Holy Spirit will return to the Father and also to the property of the Son and both properties will become active instantly. The spirit of the Father will reveal itself in fire and light, but also in the violent wrath of the world of darkness. Then the kingdom will return to the Father. For the Holy Spirit must rule eternally and be an eternal revealer in the world of light as well as in the world of darkness.
4. For the two worlds will stand still; and the Holy Spirit, who proceeds from the Father and the Son, has the right to reign eternally in the two worlds, according to the nature and property of each of these worlds.
5. He alone will be the revealer of wonders. And the eternal dominion which He will exercise with the Spirit, will be returned to the Father (who is all), through the Son.
The fifth point. Magic. Of what magic is. Of what is the basis of magic.
1. Magic is the Mother of eternity, of the being of all beings; for it creates itself and its understanding resides in desire.
2. It is itself only a will, and this will is the great mystery of all miracles and of all secrets; but it manifests itself by the imagination of the hunger of the desire to exist.
3. It is the original state of Nature. His desire creates an image. This image or figure is only the will of desire. But desire creates in the will a being similar to what the will contains.
4. True magic is not a being, but the spirit of that being's desire. It is a matrix without substance, but which manifests itself in a being of substance.
5. Magic is the spirit, and the being is its body; and yet the two are one, as soul and body are one person.
6. Magic is the greatest secret, because it is superior to nature and it creates nature according to the form of its will. She is the mystery of the Ternary; that is to say, it resides in the desire, in the will to aspire towards the heart of God.
7. She is the formative power in Eternal Wisdom, being a desire in the Ternary, in which the eternal wonder of the Ternary desires to manifest in cooperation with Nature. It is desire that introduces itself into dark Nature, and through Nature into the fire, and through the fire, through death or violence, into the light of Majesty.
8. She is not Majesty, but desires in Majesty. It is the desire for divine power, not the power itself, but it is the hunger or craving for power. It is not the Omnipotence of God, but the directing element of the Power and Power of God. The heart of God is power, and the Holy Spirit is the revelation of power.
9. It is nevertheless not only the desire of power, but also of the guiding spirit; because it contains Fiat in itself. What the Spirit-Will reveals in it, it manifests as a being by the sourness which is Fiat ; all this is accomplished according to the model of the will. As the will forms a pattern in wisdom, so the desire of Magic receives it; for it has the imagination in its property like an ardent desire.
10. Imagination is soft and tender, it is like water. But desire is hard and dry, like hunger; he hardens the tender and is found in everything, for he is the greatest being in Deity. He guides what has no foundation to its foundation and what is nothing to something.
11. It is in Magic that all forms of Being of all beings are found. She is a mother in each of the three worlds and creates everything after that thing's pattern and will. It is not the understanding, but an element of creation according to the understanding and it lends itself to good as well as to evil.
12. It is all this that the will models in wisdom, provided that the will of the understanding also penetrates there, it is that which receives its being from Magic. It serves those who love God in His Being, for it creates the divine substance in the mind and takes it from the imagination as well as from the softness of light.
13. It is Magic that creates divine flesh; and the understanding is born of wisdom, because this one distinguishes the colors, the powers and the virtues. The understanding leads the true and just spirit by the bridle; for the spirit soars and the understanding is its fire.
14. The mind is not rebellious, it should not oppose the understanding; but be the will of the understanding. But the senses, in the understanding fly away and are rebellious.
15. For the senses are the lightning of the spirit-fire, they bring with them, in the light, the flames of Majesty; and in the darkness they bring with them the flash of terror, like a fierce flash of fire.
16. The senses are of such subtle minds, that they enter into every being and absorb every being into themselves. But the understanding tests everything in its own fire; he rejects the evil and retains only the good. Then Magic, his mother, takes the good from him and gives him being.
17. Magick is the mother from which Nature comes, and the mind is the mother from Nature. Magic guides the fierce fire, and the understanding brings out its own mother: Magic, from the fierce fire to its own fire.
18. For the mind is the fire of power, and magick is the blazing fire; and yet it should not be understood as fire, but as the power or the mother of fire. Fire is called principle, and Magic is called desire.
19. Everything is accomplished by Magic, the good as well as the bad. His own work is Nigromantia, but it is distributed across all properties. In what is good, she is good, and in what is bad, she is bad. It is useful to the children of the Kingdom of God, and to the sorcerers of the kingdom of the devil; for the understanding can do with it what it pleases. She has no understanding, yet she understands everything; for it is the understanding of all things.
20. It is impossible to measure its depth, for it has been from eternity the basis and foundation of all things. She is a master of philosophy as well as the mother of philosophy.
21. But philosophy leads Magic, its mother, as it pleases. As the divine power, that is to say the Word (or the heart of God), leads the severe Father towards meekness; thus philosophy (or the understanding) leads its mother towards a sweet and divine quality.
22. Magic is the book of all scholars. Those who want to learn must first learn Magic, whether their art is higher or lower. Even the farmer of the fields must go to the magic school, if he wants to cultivate his field.
23. Magic is the best theology, for in it true faith has its foundation and its dwelling place. And he who blurs it is a madman; for he does not know it and he blasphemes God and himself, and he is more a juggler than a theologian possessing understanding.
24. He is like someone who fights in front of a mirror and does not know the cause of the dispute, because he fights a superficial fight, the unjust theologian looks at Magic in its reflection and understands nothing of its power. For she is in the likeness of God, and he is not divine, yes, he is even diabolical, according to the property of each principle. In sum: Magic is the Activity of Mind-Will.
The sixth point. Of Mystery. Of what is the Mystery.
1. The mystery is nothing but the magical will which is still imprisoned in desire. He can mold himself at will in the mirror of wisdom. And as it molds itself in the tincture, it will be fixed and formed in Magic, and finally brought into being.
2. For the Mysterium Magnum is nothing but the faculty of the Deity to conceal itself, in company with the Being of all beings, from this mystery proceed others, and each mystery is the mirror and model of the next. And here is the great marvel of eternity, in which all is included, and which from all eternity has been seen in the mirror of wisdom. And nothing passes that has not been, from all eternity, known in the mirror of Wisdom.
3. But you must understand this according to the properties of the mirror, according to all the forms of Nature, that is according to light and shadow, according to understanding and misunderstanding, according to love and wrath, or according to fire and light, as has been demonstrated elsewhere.
4. The Magician has the power, in this Mystery, to act according to his will, and he can do what he pleases.
5. But he must be armed in that very element, in which he could create; otherwise, he will be thrown out as a stranger, and handed over to the power of the spirits of that element, who can treat him as they see fit. Nothing more can be said about it, because of the peat.