Six Theosophic Points, and Other Writings

1. Seeing then there are two Magics in one another, there are also two Magicians who lead them, viz. two spirits. One is God's Spirit, and the other the Reason-spirit, in which the devil ensconces himself. In God's Spirit is the love of unity. And man cannot better prove or try himself than by giving serious attention to what his desire and longing impel him: the same he hath for a leader, and its child he is. Nevertheless, he now has power to break and change that will; for he is magical and possesses the power.

2. But there must be real earnestness; for he must subdue the astral spirit which rules in him. To do this, a sober calm life is necessary, with continual abandonment to God's will. For, to subdue the astral influence, no wisdom nor art will avail; but sobriety of life, with continual withdrawal from the influxes. The elements continually introduce the astral craving into his will. Therefore it is not so easy a thing to become a child of God ; it requires great labour, with much travail and suffering.

3. Antichrist indeed may call himself a child of God. But Christ says: They shall not all enter into the kingdom of heaven who say : Lord, Lord, have we not in thy name cast out devils and done mighty works? But he saith unto them: Away

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from me, ye stinking goats, I know you not (Matt. vii. 21-23) . Ye have done this by means of false magic, and have never become known in my spirit and will. Ye are in your spiritual figure goats, tyrants, covetous muckworms, proud arrogants, voluptuaries. Ye have carried my name on your tongue, but sacrificed your heart to pleasure, to the itch of the flesh, and are generated in the turha. Ye must be proved by fire. And thus to every kingdom its fruit comes home.

4. Therefore, thou brave world, look at thyself in these writings, which the eternal Ground hath set before thee, and meditate on it further and more deeply. Else thou wilt be caught in thy turha. There thou shalt with thy substance pass through the fire of God; and whatsoever is a work out of God's will shall remain in the fire.

5. But whatsoever is done in the will of God shall stand to the honour and glory of God, and for the eternal joy of the image of man.

6. Now think what thou doest. For Babel is already in flames, and begins to burn. There is no longer possible any quenching, nor any remedy. She has been recognized as evil ; her kingdom goeth to the end. Hallelujah.

THEOSCOPIA

OR
THE HIGHLY PRECIOUS GATE OF THE

DIVINE INTUITION

SHOWING WHAT MYSTERIUM MAGNUM IS, AND

HOW ALL IS FROM, THROUGH AND IN GOD;

HOW GOD IS SO NEAR ALL THINGS,

AND FILLS ALL

Written in the year 1622

BY

JACOB BOHME

CHAPTER I

What God is; and how we shall recognize his divine nature in his manifestation.

1. Reason says: I hear much mention made of God, that there is a God who has created all things, also upholds and supports all things; but I have not yet seen any, nor heard from the Hps of any, that hath seen God, or that could tell where God dwells or is, or how he is. For when Reason looks upon the existence of this world, and considers that it fares with the righteous as with the wicked, and how all things are mortal and frail; also how the riffhteous man sees no deliverer to release him from the anxiety and adversity of the wicked man, and so must go down with fear in misery to the grave : then it thinks, all things happen by chance ; there is no God who interests himself in the sufferer, seeing he lets him that hopes in him be in misery, and therein go down to the grave ; neither has any been heard of who has returned from corruption, and said he has been with God.

2. Answer. Reason is a natural life, whose ground lies in a temporal beginning and end, and cannot enter into the supernatural ground wherein God is understood. For though Reason thus views itself in this world, and in its viewing finds no other ground, yet it finds in itself a desire after a higher ground, wherein it might rest.

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