---
title: "The Signature of All Things"
author: "Jacob Böhme"
translator: "John Ellistone (1651), Everyman edition 1912"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Mystics"
section: 21 of 24
url: https://scriptura.si/works/boehme-signature-of-all-things/21/
cite: "Jacob Böhme, tr. John Ellistone (1651), Everyman edition 1912, The Signature of All Things, section 21. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/boehme-signature-of-all-things/21/"
---

# The Signature of All Things

*Jacob Böhme, tr. John Ellistone (1651), Everyman edition 1912*

Böhme's Signatura Rerum: how outward forms disclose the inner nature of things.

## 21. Chapter XIV · 2 of 2

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/boehme-signature-of-all-things/21/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/boehme-signature-of-all-things/21/#p-N

[¶0] 44. And then secondly it separates itself according to the water of the dark impression into a poison-source, which yet cannot be understood to be a water, but only a corporeal essence of the spirit; for as the spirit's property is, so is also its water; and even so it is in the fire-flagrat.

[¶1] 45. Further understand us in the fiery flagrat concerning the salniter, from whence the manifold salts and powers arise; for all the properties of the spirit are become corporeal in the great motion of the essence of all essences, and entered into a visible and comprehensible being: This flagrat is effected in the enkindling of the fire; and in the mortification of the fire it impresses into itself from the water's original a water, according to the property of the flagrat, which yet is rather fire than water, but its mortal essence is water according to the property of the flagrat; it is the comprisal of all properties, it brings forth in its comprehension, viz. in the fiery flagrat all properties in itself, and apprehends the property of the light in its powers, and also the property of the dark impression in its powers, and makes all fiery; one part according to the coldness, and one part according to the heat; but the most part according to the endless Mercury, which is the life of all essences in evil and good, in light and darkness.

[¶2] 46. This salniter is the mother of all salts in vegetables and animals, viz. in herbs and trees and everything; he is in all things, which give a taste and smell, the first root according to each thing's property; in the good (which grow in the love-desire in the oil of brimstone) he is good, powerful, and pleasant; and in the evil he is evil in the anguish of brimstone; and in the darkness he is the eternal horror and despair, continually desiring in the flagrat to aspire above the gates in the fire, from whence arises the will of all devils, and of all pride, to ascend above the humility of the love-desire; and in the fire is the trial of his essence, as we see how he clashes and consumes himself in the flash as a sudden thought.

[¶3] 47. For its essence arises not in the essence of eternity, also it cannot inherit it, but in the enkindling of the temporal fire, yet it is perceived in the eternal spirit by reason of the elevation of the joy; but according to the essence of mortification, viz. according to the salt of the fire it subsists in the fire: For this property arises out of the first desire, viz. in the essence of the first impression, which property the philosophers call Saturn, therefore the salt is manifold: All sharpness in the taste is salt, the good taste arises out of the oleous salt, and so also the smell, which is the egressive spirit in which the tincture appears as a lustre [or fair complexion] of colours.

[¶4] 48. Thus understand us right; the salniter in the fire-flagrat is the separation of the properties, where death and life separate themselves, viz. the life which enters with the love-desire into an essence and dominion; and then the life which in the flagrat of death, according to the property of the cold, sinks down in the mortification of the flagrat as an impotency, and gives weight; and according to the subtility it gives water, and according to the grossness of the austereness earth; and according to Sulphur and Mercury, sand and stones; and according to the subtility in Sulphur and Mercury, understand according to the water of the same, it makes flesh, and according to the anxious darkness a smoke or rust; but according to the oleous property, viz. according to the love-desire, a sweet spiritual essence; and according to the spirit a pleasant smell; and according to the moving of the fire and light the [one] element; and from the lustre in the fire-flagrat with aspect of the light the precious tincture, which tinctures all oily salts, from whence the pleasant taste and smell arise.

[¶5] 49. The salnitral flagrat is the sude in the essence, from whence the growth and pullulation arise, that there is a growing in the impression of the essence; the salt is the preservation, or upholding of the essence, so that a thing subsists in a body or comprehension; it holds the Sulphur and Mercury, else they would part from each other in the fire-flagrat.

[¶6] 50. All things consist of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt: In the salnitral flagrat the element separates itself into four properties, viz. into Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, which in itself is none of these, but only a moving and gentle walming, not as the air, but as a moving of the will in the body, a cause of life in the essence; for as the eternal Spirit of God proceeds from the Father, who is a spirit from the fire and light, and is the motion and life of the eternity; so likewise the air proceeds forth continually out of all the properties in the salnitral flagrat in the fire, from the anguish in Sulphur in the forcing mercurial wheel, as an impetuous aspiring motion; it is a son of all the properties, and also the life of the same; the fire of all the forms affords it, and also receives it again for its life; the water is its body, wherein it makes the seething in the salniter, and the earth is its power, wherein it enkindles its strength and fire-soul.

[¶7] 51. There is but one only element, and that unfolds itself in the salnitral flagrat into four parts, viz. with the enkindling it gives a consuming fire of the darkness, and its essence; and in the flagrat of the dying of the cold and the darkness it parts itself into essences, viz. according to the subtility into water, and according to the grossness into earth; and then according to the motion in the flagrat's walming into air, which does most resemble the element, but not wholly essentially; for the [one] element is neither hot nor cold, also not forcing or compulsive, but gently moving.

[¶8] 52. Every property keeps its own desire; for a property is nothing else but an hunger, and the hunger forms itself into such an essence as itself is, and in the salnitral sude it gives such a spirit into the four elements; for the original of the sude is in the element, from whence four elements proceed in this flagrat.

[¶9] 53. Each body stands in the inward motion in the element, and in the growth and life in the four elements; but every creature has not the true life of the element, but only the high spirits, as angels and souls of men, which stand in the first principle; in them the element is incitable: In the life of the third principle it stands still, and is as a hand of God, where he holds and governs the four elements as an exit, or instrument with which he works and builds.

[¶10] 54. Now every property of nature does in its hunger take its food out of the four elements; as the hunger is, so it takes a property out of the elements; for the four elements are the body of the properties, and each spirit eats of its own body.

[¶11] 55. First, there are the sulphurean properties according to the first and second impression, viz. according to the dark, astringent, and anxious impression; and then according to the love-impression in the light, viz. according to evil and good.

[¶12] 56. The dark hunger desires essence according to its property, viz. earthly things, all whatever resembles the earth; and the bitter hunger desires bitter raging, stinging, and pain; it receives into itself such an essence (as the poison-source) out of the elements: And the hunger of anguish desires anxious hunger, viz. the anguish in the brimstone; also the melancholy [takes] the desire to die, and continual sadness; and the fire-flash receives into it anger, aspiring, ambition, pride, a desiring to destroy all, and make it subject to it, a desire to domineer in and above all, to consume all, and to be peculiar; and it takes the bitterness from whence the flash arises to envy and hatred, and the astringency to covetousness, and the fire to anger and indignation.

[¶13] 57. Here is the true desire of God's anger and all devils, and of all whatever is against God and love; and this hunger draws such an essence into self; as it is to be known and searched out in the creatures, and also in the herbs.

[¶14] 58. Now the fire-flash is the end of the first desire, viz. of the dark nature, and in the fire the dying of the first hunger and will begins; for the fire consumes all grossness of the first forms, and casts them into death; and here is the separation of both wills, viz. the one which enters back again into the property of death, and is a will in the life of the dark desire; as the devils have done, who would domineer in the fire-flash in the salnitral sude over time and eternity; but they were driven back by the Spirit of God, and spewed forth out of the love-desire as an abomination: And thus also it happens here to the wicked soul of man, upon which the election follows. Here is the [aim] or scope of the election of grace, of which the Scripture speaks, that God knows his; and here the eternal lubet of God's liberty apprehends the will-spirit, which is arisen in the dark centre, and brings it through the dying in the fire into the element.

[¶15] 59. In the salnitral flagrat lies the possibility backwards and forwards; if the will of the desire goes back, then it is as to the kingdom of this world [earthly], and as to the kingdom of the eternal world it is in God's anger, and cannot see God unless it be converted, and enters into the dying in the fire, and wholly dies to its selfness, and enters into the resignation of the eternal will in the salnitral flagrat into the element, viz. into the heavenly essentiality and corporality, so that the hunger may eat of the pure element; and then it has further no other desire; for it is in the fire dead to the austere dark hunger, which is evil; thus from the dying in the fire arises the light, for here the liberty is enkindled, that it becomes also an hunger, and a desire; this is now a love-desire, a love-hunger.

[¶16] 60. In the outward world it is the light of the sun in the four elements; and it is the bestial love-desire, viz. after the sulphurean body and essence, from whence the copulation and multiplication arise, viz. the vegetative life; and from the Mercury in the salniter (in which the sensible life is) therein the astrum gives the reason in the animals from the properties of the salniter.

[¶17] 61. For the whole astrum is nothing else but a salniter in the verbum fiat in the motion of the Being of all beings in the fiery flagrat, comprehended in the properties of the salts, wherein all the powers of the element stand as an external birth, which continually boil in the four elements as a salnitral salt, and introduce their property in their desire in the four elements into the essence of bodies, as is to be seen in trees, herbs, grass, and all growing things.

[¶18] 62. Thus understand us farther concerning the second centre, which is manifest in the dying of the fire in the light, whereby the abyss of God's liberty introduces itself into the byss of nature, both with the inward world in the kingdom of heaven in the eternity; and then also with the outward kingdom in the time.

[¶19] 63. Now all this has also the properties of the desire, and takes its original from the first principle, viz. from the first centre, and there is yet no right dying in the fire; the dark essence only dies, and the will-spirit goes forth with the eternal will to nature again out of the fiery death in the light; it is only a transmutation of the spirit, so that an hunger arises out of the liberty, and this hunger is a love-desire; as to the soul of man it draws essence from the element of God, viz. in the divine salniter it [takes] the divine salts or powers into itself; and as to the outward world's desire it draws the oil out of the Sulphur into itself, in which [oil] the outward life burns; and so it is likewise in the vegetables and metals, and other things.

[¶20] 64. The sun makes the outward transmutation, and the divine light in the soul's property makes the inward; according as each thing stands in its degree, so does its hunger reach a property: those which are in the time [receive a property] from the time, and those in eternity likewise out of eternity: The hunger which proceeds from eternity eats of the eternity, and that which is of the time eats of the time. The true life of all creatures eats of the spiritual Mercury, viz. of the sixth form, where all salts are essentially; the spirit cats of the five senses, for they are the spirit's corporality; and the body, viz. the vegetable life, eats of the essence of the Sulphur and Salt; for Christ says in like manner, "Man liveth not by bread only, but by every word which proceedeth out of the mouth of God."

[¶21] 65. Now the sixth form of nature is the expressed spiritual word; and the speaking word therein is the eternal word: In the first impression in the darkness it is the word of God's anger; and in the outward world it is the poisonful Mercury, viz. a cause of all life and stirring, of all tones and sounds; now every property eats of its likeness in its degree; the hunger of time [eats] of time, and the hunger of eternity [eats] of eternity, both the spirit of Mercury and the spirit of Sulphur; whereas yet there are not two [spirits] but only two properties; all whatever does only take its original in one principle, as the creatures of the outward world, they have only one region, but a twofold inclination from the good and evil; but whatever takes its original out of two principles, as man, he has also a twofold food and dominion, viz. from the dark centre, and from the outward centre; but if he dies to his self-hood, and brings his hunger into God's kingdom, then he may eat of the divine Mercury, viz. of the five divine senses with the soul, and of the element in the divine essence; and yet the outward man apprehends not in this life-time the divine essence corporeally, but only through the imagination, where the inward body penetrates the outward; as the sun shines through the water, and yet the water continues still water, for here lies our fall in Adam.

[¶22] 66. The element did wholly penetrate the four elements, and it was wholly one in man, but in the curse the element separated from the soul, so that the poor soul now lives only in the vessel of the four elements, unless it again enters in the death of its earthly will into the divine desire, and springs forth in the element.

[¶23] 67. Thus also the outward body is in the curse, and eats of the cursed earth's property, viz. only of the earthly salniter, where one hunger of the earthly properties continually opposes another; for the curse is a loathsome abominate in all salts, and from thence it comes that a constant contrariety arises in the outward body; for one hunger of the properties receives [or catches] from the other the abominate: Now to help the body that it may be freed from the abominate, it must take the assimulate of the lothing abominate, which is risen in the body as a sude or seething, and introduce it into the dying of the fire, and bring it out in the love-desire from the curse of the vanity; now this is no otherwise effected, but as the true life dies to the dark vanity.

[¶24] 68. The abominate of the outward life arises from a property of the salt which is contrary to the oil of the life: Thus the abominate does forthwith enkindle itself in the four elements, and begins to seethe in the salniter as a strange life: This strange life does at last darken and destroy the first true life, if it be not resisted; and it can have no better help than with the assimulate of the introduced abominate, which the life has taken into itself; therefore that must be done to the cure, which is to be done to the life, that it might be freed from the abominate.

[¶25] 69. The cure must be freed from the same abominate, which it has received in the four elements from the like false insinuation [influence, or impression], it must be brought into the death of the four elements, and its spirit must also be tinctured in the fifth form with the Venus desire, viz. with a pleasant essence, that the spiritual Mercury may arise in Jupiter's property; understand, the cure must first die to its sickness in all the four elements; it must be introduced into the putrefaction of all the four elements; in the fire it dies to its earthliness, and in the putrefaction to the water's earthliness, and in the air's putrefaction to the abominate and earthliness of the air; and then it must be brought into Venus, and from Venus into Jupiter, and then the sun will arise in the love-desire, and with this the abominate in the body may be resisted.

[¶26] 70. All other cures, which are administered raw and undigested (as when one takes cold, and will resist heat, and so likewise heat to resist cold), are only an opposite fiery flagrat, whereby indeed the enkindled fire ceases from its powerful working, but the flagrat enters into death's anguish, and the root of the abominate becomes a poisonful Mercury unless the heat and cold are before tempered with Venus and Jupiter, and then indeed it is an appeasing of the abominate in the salnitral sude; but the root of the abominate remains still, unless the life be strong, and mightily brings forth its desire out of the abominate. This the physicians must well observe, that the raw herbs do not reach the root, where the abominate is arisen in the centre in the property of the life's form; they reach only the four elements, and give some easement, but the abominate remains still in the root as an hidden sickness.

[¶27] 71. The like is also to be understood concerning the astrum, which has its sude in the outward body as a peculiar body in the four elements; if the cure may be freed from the abominate of the four elements, then the astrum falls also into the good part, and introduces its desire thereinto, and so the body is also freed from the abominate of the astrum; for the Scripture says, that " the whole creature longeth together with us to be freed from the vanity: "Now the curse of the earth, wherein the astrum injects its desire, is the vanity; and if it tastes a pure life in itself, then it also rejoices therein, and casts forth the abominate.

[¶28] 72. Every abominate of the oily life arises from the inward Mercury in the inward Sulphur; for sin also does hence take its original, that the poisonful Mercury (which is a cause of the life) does in the fire-flash in the original of the salniter, in retiring backwards, introduce itself again into self-hood, for even there is the original of the poison-life.

[¶29] 73. Every life which will be without spot, must die in the will-spirit to nature in the fire of the abominate to the first impression of the wrath, and must give itself forth, in the will-spirit to nature, as a resigned will through the mortification in the light of love: Let it be either heavenly or earthly it must hold that process, or else it comes not to the highest perfection in its degree; for man could not be helped unless the love-centre of the love-desire did enter again into the humanity, and bring forth the own life, viz. the human self, through the mortification into itself: This is an exact type or resemblance, that whatsoever will be freed from the abominate, viz. from the curse, the same must die to the four elements in the abominate, and bring forth its degree through the mortification of the fire in the light.

[¶30] 74. Thus likewise is the salnitral sude in the earth, from whence metals, good herbs and trees grow; each property is desirous of the assimulate; and if it can reach the assimulate in Sulphur, and Mercury in the love, then it brings forth itself higher than it is in its degree; as the eternal liberty with its lubet introduces the eternal nature through the mortification into desire, and thereby brings itself forth higher, viz. in power and majesty; the like is to be considered in all things; for all things arise out of one only being; the same is a mystery of all beings, and a manifestation of the abyss in byss.

[¶31] 75. All things are generated out of the grand mystery, and proceed out of one degree into another: Now whatever goes forwards in its degree, the same receives no abominate, let it be either in vegetables or animals; but whatever enters in itself into its self-hood, viz. into its own lubet, the same receives, in passing through the degrees, the abominate; for each form of nature out of the mystery receives of its property in its hunger, and therein it is not annoyed or molested, for it is of their property.

[¶32] 76. But if the will enters back again into the birth of the other properties, then it receives the lust, and the lust makes an hunger, and the hunger receives strange essence into itself: Here now is the abominate and turba born; for this will is entered contrary to the course of nature into a strange essence, which is not of its property; this strange essence domineers now in the strange will, and overcomes the will; now the will must either cast it out, or else it will itself be cast out by the strange essence; and seeing this also cannot be, thereupon arises anger and enmity.

[¶33] 77. For the properties run to their centre of the first impression, and seek the strength and might of the fire, from whence arises the heat and cold in the body, and they are in one another as enemies, whereby the first mother is stirred up in her most wrathful malice and malignity according to the austere impression, and then begins the contest for the conquest, and that property which maintains and keeps its power and prevalence, casts the other into death's property, viz. into the devoration, into the house of misery.