The Signature of All Things

1. This is an open gate of the foregoing description: Every one says, “Shew me the way to the manifestation of the good.” Hear and observe well, dear reason; thou must thyself be the way, the understanding must be born in thee, otherwise I cannot shew it thee; thou must enter into it, so that the understanding of the work in its practic art, wherein I deal not, may be opened to thee; I write only in the spirit of contemplation; how the generation of good and evil is, and open the fountain: He shall draw the water whom God has appointed thereunto; I will here only describe the wheel of life as it is[258] in itself.

2. When I speak of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, I speak of one only thing, be it either spiritual or corporeal; all created things are that one thing, but the properties in the generation of this only thing make a difference [or give various gradual distinctions]; for when I name a man, or lion, bear, wolf, hare, or any other beast; yea also a root, herb, tree, or whatever may be named, it is the same only thing.

3. All whatever is corporeal is the same being; the herbs and trees, and also the animals, but each thing in its difference of the first beginning: According as the property in the verbum fiat has imprinted itself in each thing, so is that kind in its propagation, and all things stand in the seed and procreation; and there is not anything but has a fixity in it, be it either hidden or manifest, for all shall stand to the glory of God.

4. Whatever is risen from the eternal fixity, as angels and the souls of men, remains indestructible in its fixt being; but whatever is risen in the unfixt being, viz. with the motion of time, that does again enter into the first motion from whence it has taken its original, and is a map of its form which it had here, like a picture, or as an image in a glass without life; for so it was from eternity before the times of this world, which the Most High has introduced into an image, into the comprehensible natural life in time, to behold the great wonders of his wisdom in a creaturely being, as we plainly see.

5. Now we are to consider the only mother, how the same is in her property, from whence the innumerable multiplicity arises, and has continually risen; and how she generates life and death, evil and good; and how all things may be brought into their first [ens], viz. into the place where they originally arise, to which the death, or the dying, is the greatest mystery.

6. For nothing, which is departed out of its first order, as the mother brought it forth, can go back again, and enter with its assumed order into its root, unless it dies again with its assumed order in its mother; and even then it is again in the end, and in the place whence it was created, and so it stands again in the verbum fiat, viz. in the bound of its order in the expressed word, and may enter again into that which it was in the beginning before it was corporeal; and there it is good, for it stands again in that from whence it proceeded.

7. Now therefore we are to consider the beginnings of all things, for we cannot say that this world was made out of something, it was only and barely a desire out of the free lubet, that the abyss, viz. the highest good or being, viz. the eternal will, would behold itself in the lubet as in a glass; therefore the eternal will has conceived the lubet, and brought it into a desire, which has impressed itself, and figurised, and corporised itself both to a body and spirit according to the same impression’s property, according as the impression has introduced itself into forms, whereby the possibilities [or powers] are risen in the impression as a nature.

8. This impression is the only mother of the manifestation of the mystery, and it is called nature and essence, for it manifests what has been from eternity in the eternal will; yet we are to conceive that there was in eternity a nature in the eternal will, as an eternal mind in the will; but it was only a spirit in the will, and the essence of its ability was not made manifest, but only in the looking-glass[259] of the will, which is the eternal wisdom, wherein all things which are in this world were known in two centres, viz. according to the fire and light, and then according to the darkness and essence; all which came with the motion of the eternal will through the desire in the will into a manifest mystery, and so introduced itself into a manifest possibility.

9. This is now the essence expressed or made manifest out of eternity into a time, and consists in the fore-mentioned forms in Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt, where the one is not divided or parted asunder from the other: It is one eternal essence, and shapes[260] itself into the properties of the desire according to the possibility of the manifestation; and we are to understand that one property is not, nor cannot be without the other; they are altogether the same only possibility: And now we will speak of their differences, viz. how this only possibility introduces itself into good and evil, viz. into still peace and constant unquietness.

10. We find seven especial properties in nature, whereby this only mother works all things, which are these, viz. First, the desire, which is astringent, cold, hard, and dark. Secondly, bitter, which is the sting of the astringent hard enclosure;[261] this is the cause of all motion and life. Thirdly, the anguish, by reason of the raging in the impression, where the impressed hardness falls into a tearing anguish and pain by reason of the sting.

11. Fourthly, the fire, where the eternal will in this anxious desire introduces itself into an anxious darting flash [or twinkling lightening], viz. into strength and devouring of the darkness, with which the hardness is again consumed, and introduced into a corporeal moving spirit.

12. Fifthly, the egress[262] of the free will out of the darkness and out of the fire, and dwelling in itself, where the free will has received the lustre, so that it enlightens and shines as a light out of the fire, and the potent desire of the free will, which it has sharpened in the fire (in that it is dead in the fire to the essence of the darkness of the first form, and consumed) does now in the light’s desire draw into itself the essence from the dying of the fire, according to its hunger, which is now water; and in the lustre it is a tincture from the fire and light, viz. a love-desire, or a beauty of colours;[263] and here all colours arise; as we have fully set it down in our other books, but especially in the Threefold Life of Man.

13. Sixthly, the voice or sound, which in the first form is only a noise from the hardness, and is dead or mortified as to that [hardness] in the fire, and yet in the fifth form, in the love-desire, viz. in the pleasant property, it is again received as a clear sound out of the dying of the fire in the lustre of the light in the tincture, wherein all the five senses, viz. Hearing, Seeing, Feeling, Smelling, and Tasting, arise in the tincture of the light from the fire.

15. Thus these are the seven forms of the mother of all beings, from whence all whatever is in this world is generated; and moreover the Most High has, according to this mother,. introduced and created such properties as this mother is in her wrestling forms (understand, as she brings herself with the wrestling into properties) into a wheel,[264] which is as a mind of the mother, from whence she continually creates and works; and these are the stars with the planetary orb according to the platform of the eternal astrum, which is only a spirit, and the eternal mind in the wisdom of God, viz. the eternal nature, from whence the eternal spirits are proceeded and entered into a creaturely being.

16. And moreover the Most High has introduced the property of this wheel in the motion, as a life into the four officers, which manage the dominion in the pregnant mother; and these are the four elements to which the wheel of the mind, viz. the astrum affords will and desire; so that this whole being is but one only thing, and yet is so proportioned [or composed] as a mind of a man: Even as he is in soul and body, so also is this only essence; for it[265] was created out of this whole essence into an image according to eternity and time; out of eternity according to the soul, and out of time according to the outward essence, as a similitude and image of eternity and time, both according to the eternal will and mind and its essence, and also according to the mind of time and its essence: And therefore now we are rightly to consider of the sulphurean wheel of all essences, how the properties introduce themselves into good and evil, and again bring themselves out of good and evil.

17. The impression or desire, viz. the first form to nature, which is called, and is also the fiat, receives the desire’s property according to the property of all the seven forms into itself, and impresses them, so that out of the nothing proceeds forth an essence according to the properties of the will: Now its own property, seeing it is only a desire, and impresses itself, is dark, and causes hardness, viz. a strong pulsation,[266] which is a cause of the tone or sound, which becomes yet more hard in the fire, viz. in the fourth form, where then the grossness dies away, and it is received again in the fifth form, viz. in the love-desire; and again it proceeds forth in its own property in the love-desire, and makes the sixth form, viz. the sound, voice, or tone out of the fire and water.

18. Now this tone or sound, which is called Mercury, arises in the first form, viz. in the impression, by reason of the will and attractive desire; for the attraction makes the motions and the compunction in the hardness, which we distinguish, and call the second form, but it is a son of the first, and in the first.

19. This second form or property is the raging, stinging, and bitter pain; for the first is astringent, and the second is drawing, viz. the desire into an essence; this same essence is the property of the first,[267] and the attraction makes therein the second property, viz. a bitter stinging which the hardness cannot endure; for it would be still, and thereupon it does more vehemently impress itself to withhold the sting, and yet the sting does thereby only grow the greater: Now the hardness, viz. the astringency draws inwards, and the sting from the hardness[268] upwards: Hence arises the first enmity and opposition; for the two forms, which yet are but one, make themselves their own enemies; and yet if this were not, there would not be any essence, neither body nor spirit, also no manifestation of the eternity of the abyss.

20. But now seeing the bitter sting cannot ascend, and the hardness also cannot hold or enclose it, they fall into a turning or breaking through like a wheel, which runs into itself as an horrible essence, where both properties are known only as one, and yet each remains in itself unaltered, and produce the third property between both, viz. the great anguish; out of which the will, understand the fixt will to nature, desires to go forth again into the liberty, viz. into the nothing, into the eternal rest; for here it has thus found itself, and manifested itself, and yet there is no separating or departing: and this anxious form is the mother of Sulphur, for the sting makes it[269] painful, and the hardness impresses it, that it is as a dying source, and yet it is the true original to life.

21. It has two properties in itself, viz. according to the impression or desire it is dark and hard; and according to the desire of the will, which wills to be free from the anguish, and enters again into the liberty, it is spiritual and light; and the sting breaks in pieces its conceived essence which the astringent desire conceives in itself, so that its essence is hard and spalt, and wholly darting as a flash of lightning from the darkness, and from the desire of the light, understand to the liberty.

22. Now these three forms are in one essence as a raging spirit; and the desire impresses these properties, so that an essence is made according to their property, viz. according to the astringent dark desire, viz. according to the first original: There is an earthly essence, out of which in the beginning of the great motion the earth was made, and according to the bitter raging spirit there is the instigation in the essence, viz. a poison, and it also imprints [or impresses] itself in the essence, from whence the earthliness is so wholly loathsome and bitter; and the third form, viz. the anguish gives a fiery property thereinto; and yet here there cannot be as yet any essence, but it is only a spiritual essence, and the mother to the essence.[270]

23. The fourth form in this essence is the fire, which as to one part takes its original out of the dark hard impression, viz. from the hardness, and from the raging sting in the anguish, which is the cold black fire, and the pain of the great anguish; and as to the other part it takes its original in the will’s spirit to nature, which goes again out of this hard dark coldness into itself, viz. into the liberty without the nature of the austere motion, and enkindles the liberty, viz. the eternal lubet to the desire of nature, with its sharpness, which it has conceived in the impression, whereby it is a moving and stirring lustre: For the liberty is neither dark nor light; but by reason of the motion it is light, for its lubet brings itself into the desire to light, that it may be manifest in the light and lustre; and yet it cannot be otherwise brought to pass but through darkness, so that the light might be made known and manifest, and the eternal mind might find and manifest itself; for a will is only one thing and essence, but through the multiplicity its form is made manifest, that it is infinite, and a mere wonder, of which we speak with a babe’s tongue, being only as a little spark out of these great infinite wonders.

24. Now understand us thus; the liberty is, and stands in the darkness (and inclining to the dark desire after the desire of the light[271]), it attains with the eternal will the darkness; and the darkness reaches after the light of the liberty, and cannot attain it; for it encloses itself with the desire in itself, and makes itself darkness in itself; and out of both these, viz. out of the dark impression, and out of the desire of the light or liberty towards the impression, there is a twinkling [or darting] flash in the impression, viz. the original of the fire; for the liberty shines in the impression, but the impression in the anguish comprehends it into itself, and so it is now as a flash: But seeing the liberty is incomprehensible, and as a nothing, and moreover without and before the impression, and abyssal,[272] therefore the impression cannot conceive or hold it; but it gives itself into the liberty, and the liberty devours its dark property and essence, and rules with the assumed mobility in the darkness, unapprehensible to the darkness.

25. Thus understand us right: There is in the fire a devouring; the sharpness of the fire is from the austere impression of the coldness and bitterness, from the anguish; and the devouring is from the liberty, which makes out of the something again a nothing according to its property.

26. And understand us very exactly and well: The liberty will not be a nothing, for therefore the lubet of the liberty introduces itself into nature and essence, that it might be manifest in power, wonder, and being; it likewise assumes to itself through the sharpness in the cold and dark impression the properties, that it might manifest the power of the liberty: For it consumes the dark essence in the fire, and proceeds forth out of the fire, out of the anguish of the impression, with the spiritual properties in the light; as you see, that the outward light so shines forth out of the fire, and has not the source and pain of the fire in it, but only the property; the light manifests the properties of the darkness, and that only in itself; the darkness remains in itself dark, and the light continues in itself light.

27. The liberty (which is called God) is the cause of the light; and the impression of the desire is the cause of the darkness and painful source: Now herein understand two eternal beginnings, viz. two principles, one in the liberty in the light, the other in the impression in the pain and source of the darkness, each dwelling in itself.

28. And understand us farther concerning their opening essence and will, how nature is introduced into seven properties; for we speak not of a beginning, for there is none in eternity; but thus the eternal generation is from eternity to eternity in itself; and this same eternal generation has according to the property of eternity through its own desire and motion introduced itself with this visible world (as with a likeness of the eternal spirit into such a creaturely being which is a type or platform of the eternal being) into a time, of which we will speak afterwards, and shew what the creature is, namely a similitude of the operation of eternity, and how it has also this same working temporally in itself.

29. Now concerning the fire understand us thus: The fire is the principle of every life; to the darkness it gives essence and source, else there would be no sensibility in the darkness, also no spirit, but mere hardness, a hard, sharp, bitter, galling sting, as it is really so in the eternal darkness; but so far as the hot fire may be obtained,[273] the dark compunctive property stands in the aspiring covetous greediness like to a horrible madness, that it may be known what wisdom and folly is.

30. Now the fire gives also desire, source, and properties to the light, viz. to the liberty; yet know this, the liberty, viz. the nothing, has no essence in itself, but the impression of the austere desire makes the first essence, which the will-spirit of the liberty (which has manifested itself through the nature of the desire) receives into itself, and brings it forth through the fire, where the grossness, viz. the rawness, does then die in the fire.

31. Understand it thus: When the flash of fire reaches the dark essentiality, then it becomes a great flagrat, where the cold fire is dismayed, and does as it were die, falls into a swoon,[274] and sinks down: And this flagrat is effected in the enkindling of the fire in the essence of the anguish, which has two properties in it; viz. the one goes downwards into the death’s property, being a mortification of the cold fire, from whence the water arises, and according to the grossness[275] the earth is risen; and the other part ascends in the will of the liberty, in the lubet, as a flagrat of joyfulness; and this same essence is also mortified in the flagrat in the fire, understand the cold fire’s property, and gives also a water-source, understand such a property.

33. The lower part, which is thus marked , is the first principle, and is the eternal nature in the anger, viz. the kingdom of darkness dwelling in itself; and the upper part, with this figure is the salniter: The upper cross above the circle is the kingdom of glory, which proceeds forth in the flagrat of joy, in the will of the free lubet in itself out of the fire in the lustre of the light into the power of the liberty; and this spiritual water, which also arises in the flagrat of joy, is the corporality, or essentiality, in which the lustre from the fire and light makes a tincture, viz. a budding and growing, and a manifestation of colours from the fire and light.

34. And this form of separation between the living and the dead essentiality is the fifth form, and is called the love-desire; its original is from the liberty, which in the fire has introduced itself into a desire, viz. out of the lubet of the liberty into the fair and fiery elevation of joy, being a flame of love, which also imprints in its love-desire the property of that which it has conceived in the will of the eternal mind, which brings itself through the fire’s sharpness again into itself, viz. into the first properties, which arise in the first impression, viz. from the motion and stirring; and the joyfulness arises out of the anguish: For this is joy, that the will to nature is delivered and freed from the dark anguish, for else there would be no knowledge of what joy was, if there was not a painful source; and in its love-desire it conceives the first properties in the first impression, which divide themselves in this desire into five forms; viz. from the fire-flash into seeing, for the water of love reaches the lustre of the tincture,wherein the sight consists; and from the hardness, viz. from the penetration of the sting in the hardness, into hearing, so that in this same nothing, viz. in the liberty, there is a sound, which the tincture catches, and brings it forth in the water of the desire: and from the raging sting into feeling, so that one property feels another; for if all properties were only one, there would be no seeing, hearing, or feeling, also no understanding:

35. Now these five forms do all of them together make in the love-desire, viz. in the fifth form, the sixth, that is, the sound or voice, as a manifestation of all the forms in the spirit’s property, which the fiery light’s desire encloses with the spiritual water as one only essence, which is now the fiery will’s own essence, which has brought itself forth in the light, wherein it works and makes the seventh form, as an habitation of the sixth, from whence the essence and dominion of this world were generated, and introduced into a form according to the right[276] of the eternal birth.

36. Now understand us right; we do not hereby understand a beginning of the Deity, but the manifestation of the Deity: The Deity is herein known and manifested in Trinity; the Deity is the eternal liberty without all nature, viz. the eternal abyss; but thus it brings itself into byss for its own manifestation, eternal wisdom, and deeds of wonder.