The book's first paragraph is a theory of reading, and it accounts in advance for the difficulty of everything after it. Words about God taken from another remain "an historical Conjecture, from the Mouth of another" until the speaker's signature enters the hearer's own and sounds there; one understands only "if he has the Hammer that can strike my Bell." Understanding is resonance, not inference. It follows that a reader who finds Boehme opaque has learned something about his own instrument rather than about the text. Ellistone's preface draws exactly that conclusion, warning that without the Spirit these things will seem trifles and chimeras. The theory protects the book from its critics, and a careful reader should notice that it does.
Jacob Boehme — the works in English
The Signature of All Things — trans. John Ellistone (1651)
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CHAP. XII. Of the Seventh Form in the Kingdom of the Mother, shewing how the Seventh Kingdom, viz. the Solar Kingdom is again opened and revived, set forth in the Similitude of Christ’s Resurrection.
CHAP. XIII. Of the Enmity [contrary Will or annoying Distemper] of the Spirit and Body, End of their Cure and Restoration.
CHAP. XIV. Of the Wheel of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt; of the Generation of Good and Evil; how the one is changed into the other, and how the one manifests its Property in the other, and yet remains in the first Creation in the Wonder of God to his own Manifestation and Glory.
CHAP. XV. Of the Will of the great Mystery in Good and Evil, how Good and Evil originally arises, and how the one introduces itself into the other.
CHAP. XVI. Of the Eternal Signature and heavenly Joy; why all Things were brought into Evil and Good; wherein the real Ground of Election and Reprobation may be rightly understood.
SIGNATURUM RERUM
THE
SIGNATURE OF All THINGS
The First Chapter.
How that all whatever is spoken of God without the Knowledge of the Signature is dumb and without Understanding; and that in the Mind of Man the Signature lies very exactly composed according to the Essence of all Essences.
1. ALL whatever is spoken, written, or taught of God, without the Knowledge of the Signature is dumb and void of Understanding; for it proceeds only from an historical Conjecture, from the Mouth of another, wherein the Spirit without Knowledge is dumb, but if the Spirit opens to him the Signature, then he under-stands the Speech of another; and further he understands how the Spirit has manifested and revealed itself (out of the Essence through the Principle) in the Sound with the Voice. For though I see one to speak, teach, preach, and write of God, and though I hear and read the same, yet this is not sufficient for me to understand him; but if his Sound and Spirit out of his Signature and Similitude enter into my own Similitude, and imprint his Similitude into mine, then I may understand him really and fundamentally, be it either spoken or written, if he has the Hammer that can strike my Bell.
2. By this we know, that all human Properties proceed from one; that they all have but one only Root and Mother; otherwise one Man could not understand another in the Sound, for with the Sound or Speech the Form notes and imprints itself into the Similitude of another; a like Tone or Sound catches and moves another, and in the Sound the Spirit imprints its own Similitude, which it has conceived in the Essence, and brought to Form in the Principle.
3. So that in the Word may be understood in what the Spirit has conceived, either in Good or Evil; and with this Signature he enters into another Man's Form, and awakens also in the other such a Form in the Signature; so that both Forms mutually assimulate [assimilate] together in one Form, and then there is one Comprehension, one Will, one Spirit, and also one Understanding.
4. And then secondly we understand, that the Signature or Form is no Spirit, but the Receptacle, Container, or Cabinet of the Spirit, wherein it lies; for the Signature stands in the Essence, and is as a Lute that lies still, and is indeed a dumb Thing that is neither heard or understood, but if it be played upon, then its Form is understood, in what Form and Tune it stands, and according to what Note it is set. Thus likewise the Signature of Nature in its Form is a dumb Essence; it is as a prepared Instrument of Music, upon which the Will's Spirit plays; what Strings he touches, they sound according to their Property.
5. In the human Mind the Signature lies most artificially composed, according to the Essence of all Essences; and Man wants nothing but the wise Master that can strike his Instrument, which is the true Spirit of the high Might of Eternity; if that be quickened in Man, that it stirs and acts in the Center of the Mind, then it plays on the Instrument of the human Form, and even then the Form is uttered with the Sound in the Word: As his Instrument was set in the Time of his Incarnation, so it Sounds, and so is his Knowledge, the inward manifests itself in the Sound of the Word, for that is the Mind's natural Knowledge of itself.