1The motive for this whole teaching of "forms" or
" qualities " is, owing to the abundance and variety of
imagery, not easy to discern or point out. But we may
venture to suppose that the philosopher was guided by
his awareness of the presence of good and evil in all
things, and that he found the good in the visibility, the
audibleness and the form, in the intellectual side, in
short of nature, wherefrom he took light, sound and
loveliness as the last three forms ; while the impression
of the " furious madness " of mutually antagonistic
elemental forces in lifeless inorganic nature furnished
material for his first three forms. Describing the arising
of the anguish (3rd form) out of the two first forms,
Boehme uses the following words: "The hardness
" (1st form) is a holding, and the drawing [or pull] is
" afleeing. One wills (to stay) in itself ; the other (to
" go) out of itself ; but as they cannot yield or part, they
" become, within one another, as a turning- wheel ....
" and hence follows a fearful anguish [terror]." Now, on
reading the above, everyone will probably be reminded
of Attraction and Repulsion, the struggle of which
begets, in a body circumscribed in space, limitation, or,
as Boehme calls it, " the anguish." Only here, as everywhere, other elements have been brought into this view
of the fundamental facts of nature, and distort it so as
INTRODUCTION Ixi
2to make it well-nigh unrecognizable. Yet the underlying idea ever breaks through, namely, that the peculiar
essence of the first three forms, and, through these,
of the others, is a hunger, a desire, a will which in the
fourth form becomes fire, the origin of life, and that
therein also the forms of light and love have their
foundation. "The wrath is the root of all things."
" And if the will be in darkness, it is then in the
" anguish ; for it desires (to be) out of the dark-
" ness .... and excites the root of the fire .... and
" dwells in the broken [burst] darkness, in the light, in
" sweetness and joy in itself " (Three Principles, xxi.
13, 16).
The fourth form, the fire, is the centrum natures ;
it is the pivot between the kingdom of light and that
of darkness, between love and anger, between good and
evil ; it is the turning-point whence the will may exercise its sway in either direction, be it backward into the
darkness, or forward into the world of light and divine
love. "It is free, and has the choice between both of
these."
3The freedom of the will — Boehme develops this theme
in connection with Biblical tradition and through a
highly spiritual treatment of the same — leads to the
fall, which consists in a breaking away of self-will from
the divine will. The fall of Adam is preceded by that
of Lucifer. The latter was created the mightiest angel
in heaven; but instead of setting his "imagination in
the light of God," and to " walk in God," he attempted,
on the strength of his free-will, to measure himself
against God, "triumph over the divine birth and lift
himself above the Heart of God," and thereby "he
removed himself out of God's love into God's anger,"
inclined himself towards "the dark world with the
kingdom of phantasy," went out of the light, became
limited to the first forms, which without the eternal
light, constitute the Abyss, the anger of God and hell.
"The foundation of hell is from all eternity, but was
Ixii THE THREE PRINCIPLES
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.