OF THE INWARD AND OUTWARD CURE OF MAN 1. Let the lover of God understand us right; we do not go upon an historical heathenish conjecture, nor only upon the light of the outward nature; both suns shine to us. Understand us right, and see how God has cured man when the poison of the serpent and devil held him imprisoned in death, and how he yet still cures the poor soul captivated in God's anger; the like process also must the physician keep in curing the outward body. 2. The divine light and love were extinguished in Adam, because he imagined into the serpent's property, viz. into evil and good, so that the poison of death began effectually to work in Mercury, and the source of anger was inflamed in the eternal Mars, and the dark impression of the eternal nature's property took possession of him: His body became earth in the dark impression in the poison of the enkindled Mercury, and was an enmity against God: he was utterly undone, and there was no remedy for him by any creature, neither in heaven, nor in this world; the wrathful death captivated him in soul and body. 3. Now how did God do to cure him and tincture him again? Did he take a strange thing thereunto? No, he took the likeness, and cured him with that which was corrupted in him, viz. with the divine Mercury, and with the divine Venus, and with the divine Jupiter; understand; in man was the expressed word, which I call the eternal Mercury in man; for it is the true ruling acting life; it was inspired or in-spoken into man's image (which God created out of his essence into an image according to God) as into a creaturely image, which was the soul with the property of all the three worlds, viz. with the world of light and understanding, which is God; and with the fire-world, which is the eternal nature of the Father of all beings; and with the light, love-world, which is heavenly corporality; for in the love-desire is the essence, viz. the corporality. 4. The desire of love is spirit, and is the heart of God, viz. the right divine understanding: In the love-essence Mercury is God's word, and in the fiery nature he is the wrath of God, the 6. Now to help and restore this again, viz. the image of God, God must take the right cure, and even the same which man was in his innocence: But how did he effect it? Behold, O man, behold and see, open thy understanding; thou art called. 7. He introduced the holy Mercury in the flame, viz. in the fiery love with the desire of the divine essentiality, or after the divine essentiality again (which desire makes divine corporality in itself) into the expressed word, viz. into the mercurial fire-soul (understand, into the soul's essence in the womb of Mary), and became again that same image of God: He tinctured the poison, viz. the wrath of the Father of all essences, with the love-fire: He took only that same Mercury which he had breathed into Adam for an image, and formed into a creature: He took only that same property, yet not in the fire's property, but in the burning love: He did with the love introduce again the light of the eternal sun into the human property, that he might tincture the wrath of the enkindled Mercury in the human property, and inflame it with love, that the human Jupiter, viz. the divine understanding, might again appear and be manifest. 8. Ye physicians, if you here understand nothing, then you are captivated in the poison of the devil: Behold, I pray, the right cure, with which the enkindled Mercury in man's life is to 14. There now it was tried whether the image of God would stand, seeing internally there was God's love-fire, and externally the baptism of the water of eternal life: Here the soul was tempted, whether it would be a king, and an angelical throne instead of the fallen angel, and possess the elected throne of God in the royal office, from which Lucifer was taken, and thrust into the darkness, viz. into the throne of poison and death; but seeing he stood (in that the soul did resign and submit its will alone into God's love-fire, and desired no earthly food, nor the earthly kingdom good and evil for outward dominion) the process to the universal, viz. to the restoration of all that which Adam had lost, did further proceed and go on: He turned water into wine. 15. Ye physicians, observe this, it concerns you in your process, you must also go the same way to work: He healed the sick; so you must likewise make the form in your poisonful Mercury whole and sound by the power of the philosophical baptism: He made the dead alive again, the dumb to speak, the deaf to hear, the blind to see, and cleansed the lepers; all this must go before, that all the forms in Mercury may be pure, sound, and living, which Mercury himself does make after the baptism and temptation; as the living speaking Mercury did this in the person of Christ; the artist cannot do it, only there must be faith; for Christ also testifies, that he could not do many wonders at Capernaum, only heal a few diseased; for the faith of those at Capernaum would not enter into the divine Mercury of Christ. 16. So that we see there, that the person of Christ, viz. the
17. Thus the artist must not arrogate anything to himself, the Mercury does itself, after the philosophical baptism, work these wonders before it manifests the universal; for all the seven forms of nature must be crystallised and purified, if the universal shall be revealed; and each form carries a peculiar process when it is to be brought out of the property of the wrath, and entered into the pure and clear life; and it must transmute itself into the crystalline sea which stands before the throne of the ancient in the Revelation, and change itself into paradise; for the universal is paradisical; and Christ also came for that reason into our humanity, that he might again open or make manifest the universal, viz. the paradise, again in man: The speaking word in Christ wrought wonders through all the seven properties or forms, through the expressed word in the humanity, before the whole universal was manifest in the body of the human property, and the body glorified. 18. Even thus it is in the philosophical work, when the Mercury shut up in death receives into it the baptism of its refreshment in love, then all the seven forms manifest themselves in this property, as it came to pass in the process of Christ in his miracles, but as yet they are not perfect in the operation of the manifestation of their properties. 19. The universal is not yet there, till all seven give their will into one, and forsake their property in the wrath, and depart from it with their will, and take into them the love's property: They must take in the will of the nothing, that their will be a nothing, and then it can subsist in the wrath of the fire, and there is no further turba therein; for so long as the desire of the wrath is in the form, it is adverse and opposite to the second form, 1 and inflames the second form with its wrathful property, that is, it strikes the signature of the second, and awakens it in the wrath, and then the voice or sound of the second enkindles the first form's property in Mercury, and so no form can attain to any perfection, that it might enter into love.
22. Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness, and the devil came to him, and tempted him. When the soul of Christ did hunger, the devil said to Jesus, Open the centre in the stones, that is, the impressed Mercury, and make thee bread, eat the substance of the soul's property: What, wilt thou eat of nothing, viz. of the speaking word? Eat of the expressed word, viz. of the property of good and evil, and then thou art lord in both; this also was Adam's bit, wherein he did eat death: Then said Christ Jesus, "Man liveth not by bread alone, but by every word which proceedeth from the mouth of God." 23. Mark! Whence had the person of Christ the will, that he would not eat with the soul's hunger of the bread which could have been made of stones, which he could well have performed? Or how had it been, if the hunger of the human property had after the unction of baptism eaten in the temptation of the Mercury in the impression of death, viz. of the Sulphur of the expressed word, in which was the anger, and from whence the love was fled, as it is so in the earthly property? 24. Observe! The will and desire to eat of the speaking word came into the soul's property from the motion of the Deity: When the same had moved itself in the soulish essence, shut up in death in Mary his mother in her essence or seed, and introduced the aspect of the eye of God in the love into the dead 29. Thus the property of the fiery soul resigned itself with its desire into the love, viz. into the speaking word's property, and the fiery desire did eat manna in the love-desire. O ye philosophers! observe it well; when this was done, the love transmuted 30. Here God's love gave the eternal love-life to the corrupted humanity; the love did wholly give itself in unto the fire-wrath, and transmuted the wrath of the soul into a triumphant joyful love; but if the soul's and body's property had obeyed the devil in God's wrath, and made bread of the enclosed Mercury, and eaten thereof, then had the will entered again into its selfhood, and could not have been transmuted. 31. But seeing it entered into resignation, into the speaking word of God, and was willing to be and do whatever that pleased, then the will went from its selfhood, through the wrathful death of God's anger, viz. from the expressed word, which the devil had poisoned with his imagination, quite through the property of the wrath, and sprang forth afresh with a new love-desire in God; here the will was paradise, viz. a divine love budding in death. 32. Thus now the love-will being set in opposition to the poisonful Mercury of the soul's property in the anger of God, then came the devil, and said, Thou art the king, who hast overcome, come and shew thyself in thy miracles and deeds of wonder; and he brought him upon the pinnacle of the Temple, and said, "Fall down, that men may see it; for it is written, He hath given his angels charge over thee, that they should bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone." Here the devil would fain that he should use again the fire's might, viz. the soul's selfhood in its own fiery property, and depart out of the resignation into an arrogation of self in its own fire-will, as he had done, and also Adam, when he went with the desire in his own might into evil and good, and would have his eyes open in evil and good, as Moses writes thereof, that the serpent did persuade them to it. 33. Here came the fine adorned beast again, and tempted the second Adam also; for God gave him leave, seeing he said the fire's matrix had drawn him, he could not stand: Here now that should be tried; for he was an angel also, as well as the human soul, which he had seduced: But the human property in body and soul in the person of Christ had once cast itself into the resignation out of its selfhood into God's mercy, and stood still in the resignation, viz. in the divine will, and would not cast 34. In this proof Adam did not stand; for he went from the resignation into an arrogation of self, into an own self-will, and would try evil and good, love and anger, and prove how evil and good tasted. Here, dear man, was the trying state before the tree of temptation in paradise, and that was fulfilled which the first Adam could not, and would not do in divine obedience in resignation. 35. When the devil saw that in this also he had no success, that the humanity would not give way to depart out of the resignation, out of God's will, he carried the humanity upon a high mountain, and shewed it all the riches of the world, all whatever does live and move in the expressed word, all the dominions and might in the outward nature, over which he calls himself a prince, but has only the one part in the wrath of death in possession, and said to it (understand to the human property), "If thou fallest down and worshippest me, I will give thee all this." 36. The humanity should again depart out of resignation into a desire of propriety, and desire to possess something of its own in arrogation of self in the cursed property, evil and good; this had been a dainty dish and delight to the devil; then had he remained king, and his lies had been truth: In this Adam also was corrupted, and entered into selfish propriety, and desired worldly dominion and covetousness (which may be seen in Cain), which is the heart of the poisonful Mercury, viz. its hunger's desire, which makes itself essence according to the property of its hunger, not manna, but earth; as we may see in the wild earth, what he has made in the enkindling, or motion of the Father in his fire's property, in which inflammation (viz. in the poisonful wrath of the expressed Mercury) the devil thought to be a prince, and is so in the same property in the wicked, and also in the government of the world in the wrath; but God holds him captive with the water and light of the third principle, so that he is not prince in the dominion of the expressed word, but the judge's executioner; he must look where turba magna is 40. From hence arises all war and contention, namely, from the dominion of God's anger in the corrupt and enkindled Mercury of the expressed word, which does so act its delight and sport in the poisonful wrath's and dark world's property in man.
44. As a limner that pourtrays his own image, and does thereby behold what he is, and how his form and features are; or as a musician composes a curious lesson or song, and so plays and melodises with his life, and will of life, viz. with the sound of his own life's Mercury, in the tune of the song, or upon some musical instrument, as it is agreeable to his life's Mercury, wherewith his vital Mercury does rejoice and delight itself. 45. Thus likewise God created us to his love-consort 2 to his joy and glory, whereby he exalts his speaking eternal word, or plays in the same with us as with his instrument. 46. Therefore, when this melodious instrument was broken in its sound by the wrathful might of his anger, that is, when man's image would play in its own might both in evil and good, in love and anger, viz. in its own self-will, and would not yield itself to be used to what the speaking word had created it, and departed out of resignation into an arrogation of self, and would play as itself pleased, now good, then bad, then this instrument was against the love of God, in which no voice, breath, or smallest degree of anger is manifest or can be, as in the light of the fire no pain of the fire is manifest. 47. For the will of the human Mercury went out from the will of the divine speaking word into its own self-will: Thus it fell into the centre of the pregnatress of all essences, viz. into the anguish, poison, and death, where God's anger, viz. the speaking in the wrath, took possession of it.
50. Herein (as it is already mentioned at large) the magus must well consider his purpose and intent; not desiring with the covetousness of the devil to possess the earthly kingdom, also not to fly [or cast himself down] from the Temple, much less to work out his intent from the stones; he must think that he is God's minister and servant, not a selfish lord, of whom becomes a fool: If he will help the poor captive shut up in the anger of God out of the bands of darkness, wherein he is swallowed up in the curse of the earth, and deliver him from the anger of God, then he must think and well observe how God with his entrance [viz. into the humanity] hath redeemed him; he must very exactly and intimately consider the temptation of Christ, not blindly grope after it with outward manual art, and think with himself, I have a dead stone before me; it neither knows or feels anything, I must by force set upon it, that I may compel it, and take its jewel, which it has hidden in it. 55. Christ said, "He that eateth not the flesh of the Son of Man hath no part in him: "And he says further, "He that shall drink of the water that I shall give, it shall spring up in him to a fountain of eternal life." Here lies the pearl of the new-birth: It is not enough to play the sophister; the grain of wheat brings forth no fruit, unless it falls into the earth; all
57. The chaste virgin signifies in the philosophic work the clear Deity, the humanity is Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, both heavenly and earthly; the heavenly property is disappeared, and as a nothing; the deadly property in the wrath is stirred up, and lives to the anger, and in the properties of the anger; the humanity, both in Adam and in Christ, was tempted. Dost thou ask, wherewith? With the like opposite in the wrath, even with such a devil as had all these properties in him, as a potent prince [in all the properties of the anger]. 58. The properties in Sulphur were tempted with the likeness of the Sulphur; in the Sulphur, or from the sulphureous property, the temptation did come and arise, and its forms are 1 three, as one in the impression, which the philosophers call Saturn, which the human spirit or will should open in the property of Venus, and therewith satiate or feed its hunger, viz. the fire; the other property was, that he should live in his own awakened and opened Venus out of Saturn's property, and aspire in self-will. 59. The third property was, he should introduce his will through the awakened love-desire again into the centre, viz. into the sulphurean mother, which arises in the impression in the anguish: And this he would not do, but the first Adam did it; and therefore God when he would help him tempted him in the Sulphur, viz. in the first mother to the humanity, and suffered a wrathful devil, which was enkindled in the Sulphur, to tempt him with his enkindled malignity and malice in the Sulphur:
6i. But now who will persuade it to do so? For it is become a selfish thing, and must enter again into the mother, and become nothing; this seemed a strange and wonderful thing to Nicodemus, but the Lord said to him, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou knowest not from whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; even so is every one that is born of God." Behold, who persuaded the will of Christ in his humanity, to enter again with the will into the filiation or adoption, as it were in the mother's womb, and eat nothing forty days, and would also [eat] nothing, but remained in full steadfast resignation in the mother? Did not the Deity do it, which was entered into the humanity? 62. Thus likewise it goes in the philosophic work, therefore let the artist well observe, and rightly understand us: He must seek the evil stubborn child (which is fled from the mother, and entered into the centre, and would be a selfish thing) in Saturn; for the wrath of God has shut him up with its impression in the chamber of death. 63. Not that he has made him to Saturn, but he holds him shut up in the saturnine death; the same he must again take and bring into the mother's womb, and then send the angel with a message to Mary, and tell her, "She shall bring forth a son, whose name shall be called Jesus: "And if the mother shall yield her consent thereunto, and receive the name Jesus, then the new humanity shall begin in the mother, with the new child in the old apostate captivated in the anger of God, and the name Jesus will first give in itself to the dead child which lay captivated in Saturn, and eagerly draw the will of the evil dead child to itself: This is the fair bride, which shews her crown of pearl to her apostate bridegroom; he should but again receive her, and she would again give him her love. Now if the apostate youth shut up in death does again receive her, then is the artist well prepared, and counted worthy by God to finish his purpose: Now will the bride love the bridegroom, and a virgin bring forth 65. This being done, the young man with his virgin-like heart will wholly give himself up to the mother, when the tempter comes and assaults him, and the mother will wholly swallow him up into herself through the devil's wrath: He gives himself forth wholly out of his own will into the nothing. Now, thinks the artist with himself, I have lost all; for he thinks that he has lost heaven; for he seeks nothing, and does not consider that a virgin has now brought forth: But let him have patience; that which is impossible to the artist, that is possible to nature; after the night it is day; when the tempter has finished all his temptations, then comes the sign [or appearance] of the angels; then the devil which has tempted him must depart. 66. Let the artist well observe this, and pack away the devil, and suffer the young man with his virgin-like heart to lie in his bed, and eat his former food, for he is now become a physician of his sisters 2 in his mother's house; he will do great wonders in all the seven kingdoms of his mother (which are the seven forms of life) as Christ has done. 67. In Saturn he will raise the dead, understand, he will awaken the dead essence which held him captive in his former prison; for he shall turn [or make] the earth to heaven: Even as the virgin has raised up his will out of the anger in the love, and made him a wonder-worker; so must he also awaken with his will, which is united to the virgin's heart, the form or signature in his mother's womb, whence she has brought forth him and all her children, and enkindle it with the virgin's and his love-desire: This is effected and done in the Sulphur of Saturn in the young man's own personal 3 property, and in his mother; for before the espousing of the virgin the heavenly essence of the young man lies shut up in death: For when God cursed the earth, then the heavenly paradisical body disappeared, and the impression of Saturn took it in possession, till the restitution,
68. In the second kingdom of the mother, viz. in Luna, he shall also do wonders; for Jesus fed with five barley loaves five thousand people; this is the working in the essentiality or corporality. He turned water to wine: These and the like do all belong to the lunar property, where the champion with his virgin opens paradise, and feeds the body, where nothing is, where the outward Mercury has not laboured and wrought: Thus the forms 2 in the lunar property open themselves as if they are paradisical, even then the artist thinks I am nigh unto it; but he is yet far off from the end. 69. In the third kingdom of the mother, viz. in Jupiter, Christ did make the babes and ignorant, of a very weak and mean capacity, knowing and understanding, viz. of poor fishermen, carpenters, and the like mechanics, he made apostles, and the most understanding men of all; and also of poor, disrespected, vilified people, as of women, and simple ones, he made faithful, devout, dear, godly children, who apprehended in themselves the universal without any art. 70. Thus likewise it goes in the philosophic work; the essentiality which lies disappeared in death, where the Mercury is wholly earthly, cold, and impotent, does now arise in power, as if the whole being and essence were become a new life, at which the artist wonders, and marvels what it is, or how it happens, and yet does also exceedingly rejoice that he sees the divine power to spring forth before his eyes in a half dead essence, and that in the curse of God: He sees all the four elements, each apart, and sees how the wisdom of God represents 3 itself therein, as an harmony of joy, and sees all colours, and the rainbow upon which Christ sits in judgment in the expressed Mercury. 71. The nature of this splendour arises out of the impression of Saturn; the good Jupiter gives himself forth to be seen in such a manner, as God will change the world, and transform it again into paradise; for this is the understanding in the expressed word, even as Christ has made the foolish, rude, ignorant people truly wise and knowing in divine, real, heavenly jovial understanding and knowledge. 72. In the fourth kingdom of the mother of all beings, which
73. This comes to pass also in the philosophic work: The artist will see how the heaven separates itself from the earth, and how the heaven does again sink into the earth, and changes the earth into a heavenly colour; he will see how Mercury purifies the matter, and how the purified colours will appear in antimony in their property, and how the wonder proceeds. 74. In the fifth kingdom of the mother of all beings, Christ expelled the devils out of the possessed, and healed the deaf in this form and property. 75. This likewise the artist will see in the philosophic work, how Jupiter in Mercury will drive up a black twinkling fiery vapour out of the matter, which sticks on like soot; for it is a hunger of the poison in Mercury, and is very rightly compared to the devil, for it is of his property. 76. In the sixth kingdom of the mother of all beings, viz. in the wheel of life, called Venus, Christ loved his brethren and sisters according to the humanity, and washed his disciples’ feet, and loved them even to the deepest exinanition, and gave his life into the wrath's property even to death for them, and manifested himself among them that he was Christ: And when they perceived that the king was come that should deprive self-will of its might and dominion, and destroy the devil's kingdom; then they cried out, and said, "We have no king but Cæsar;" they took him in the dark night into their power, bound him, and brought him before their council, 2 mocked him, whipped him, and beat him, stripped him of clothes, and hung him on the cross. 77. This also the artist will see very powerfully in the philosophic work; for as soon as the dark fiery stream, viz. the material devil goes from the matter, then virgin Venus appears in her virginity very glorious and beautiful; for it betokens Christ's love, who did so humble himself, and manifested his love in our humanity; then the artist thinks that he has the philosophic child, then he has now the fine morsel: But he
78. Now observe right, What do the properties, viz. Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, when they see the child, viz. the champion in royal colour, and find that he manages no external dominion and royalty with power and authority as they do, but will only rule with love in their poisonful fire-might? They will not suffer him. 79. For Saturn signifies the worldly dominion, and Mercury the spiritual dominion, viz. the Pharisees, 2 and Mars signifies the devil; these three would not endure Christ among them; for he said that he was a king of love, and the Son of God, and was come to deliver his people from sin: Then thought the devil, sure this rhimes not well, thou wilt lose thy kingdom: And the worldly magistrate thought, Is this a king, and God's Son? Then he will take away our might; this does not at all like us: And the mercurial priests thought; This man is too mean for us, we will have a Messiah who may bring us to worldly dominion, and make us to be high and rich in the world, that we may alone possess the honour of the world; we will not receive him, he is too poor for us; we might so lose the favour and respect of the worldly magistrate, and should be much damaged; we will rather abide in our power, respect, and authority, and abandon this beggarly king with his love-kingdom: In like manner as yet to this day they are so minded, and serve his messengers so whom he sends. 80. Thus likewise it goes in the philosophic work, when Venus manifests herself with love, viz. in her own property in the three wrathful forms, viz. in Saturn, Mars, and Mercury; they can by no means endure it, for it is wholly against their austere, dark, fiery might, but especially against the poison of Mercury, they flash and lighten against Venus, and shoot their rays, viz. the mercurial poisonful rays upon her, as the Pharisees did upon Christ. In the meanwhile, Jupiter and Luna hold with Venus, and give their power to Venus; for Venus does here stand forth in the power of Jupiter; at this the Pharisees laugh, and think with themselves, We are wise enough already, what need we
111:1 Put its desire, hunger, and imagination into the nothing, the highest good or omnipotence, and eat of God's bread. 112:1 Or other forms. 117:1 Or life's light. 118:1 And all his legions of evil spirits. 118:2 Agree, or make for. 119:1 Image, or likeness. 119:2 Melody, harmony, delight, or play. 121:1 Or change. 122:1 Or were. 124:1 Royal fort, fort rampant. 124:2 Or kindred. 124:3 Text, bodily. 125:1 By degrees. 125:2 Or signatures. 125:3 Speculates, or beholds. 126:1 Orb, rotation, or course. 126:2 Or judgment-seat. 127:1 Or lets the woman deceive him. 127:2 Or priests who call themselves the ministers of Christ, but are not.Here now was our distress, we were forlorn,
Opprest in wrathful death, and woeful scorn;
If God had not restored us again,
We should have still been rowling in death's plain.The Magical Process
