Of the Threefold Life Chapter 1.

Colossians 1:18–19; 1 John 1:7.?

...alone, as a garment covers the body, but rather is infected with the astral and elemental spirit, just as the plague or another sickness infects the elemental spirit, so that it poisons its body, collapses, and dies. At that point, the astral torment: "Qual." Böhme uses this term to describe the restless, vibrating quality of life that can be both a source (Quelle) and a suffering (Qual). also breaks away from the soul and consumes itself; because the elemental mother: The physical world or the material source from which the elements are born. breaks apart, the astral spirit no longer has any food. It therefore consumes itself, but the soul remains raw: "rohe," meaning persisting in its essential, unrefined state without being destroyed by physical death. because it lives on another food.

How the soul is imprisoned with the astral and elemental spirit.

11. Understand us then in this way: although the soul is imprisoned with the astral and elemental spirit, that same torment The "torment" here refers to the energetic friction of the lower spheres of existence. dwells within the soul.

What the soul's food is. The second principle. God's Word and Heart.

12. Yet the soul has another food and lives in another principle: "Principium," one of the three fundamental realms of existence in Böhme’s system (Darkness/Fire, Light/Love, and the Material World).; it is also of another essence, for its essences are not from the stars. Instead, they have their beginning and bodily union from the eternal band, out of eternal nature, which is God the Father’s before the light of His love. In this, He enters into Himself and creates for Himself the second principle in His love, from which He ever brings forth His eternal Word and Heart from eternity to eternity. There, the holy name of God always takes its origin: "uhrständet," a term Böhme created to describe a primordial arising or manifestation. and retains its divine nature as a spirit in the other principle within itself, dwelling in nothing but simply in itself.

The Divine Spirit is not subject to the band of nature.

13. For although the band of eternal nature is in Him, the Divine Spirit is not subject to that band; for the Spirit ignites the band of nature, so that it becomes illuminated and welling: "quällende," referencing the active, flowing source-spirit of life. with the power of light in love within the life of the Word of God’s Heart.