Commentary on Genesis (Mysterium Magnum)

§. 12. The 3rd property is the anxiety or torment, or the quelling, which the two first properties make, when the sting, as the agitation in the hardness, as in the impression, moves with fury and breaks the hardness; so there arises, in the breaking of the hardness, the first sensibility, and is the beginning of essences: For 1. it is the separability, whereby in the free delight in the Word of the powers each power becomes feeling within itself and distinct. It is the original state of distinction. 2. That the powers may each become manifest within itself, also the original state of the senses and of the mind.

13. For the eternal mind is the omnipresent power of the Godhead, but the senses arise through nature with the movement in the distinction of the powers, where each power senses itself within and feels. It is also the original state of taste and smell. When the sensibility of the powers, in the distinction, ever enters into one another, so they feel, taste, smell, hear, and see one another; and herein arises the life's joy, which in the stillness of the power of God, in the freedom, could not be. Therefore the Divine understanding leads itself into spiritual properties, that it might be manifest to itself and be an active life.

14. Now we must, however, consider the anxiety in its begetting and self-property: For just as in the freedom in the Word of the power of God there is a mind, as an understanding, so also in the same manner the first will leads itself to desire, in the desire of the darkness into a mind, which mind is the anxiety-torment, as a sulfur-torment, and here only spirit is understood.

15. The anxiety-torment is understood thus: The astringent desire grasps itself and draws itself into itself and makes itself full, hard, and rough, so is the drawing a foe of the hardness. The hardness is holding and the drawing is fleeing; one wants to be in itself and the other wants to be out of itself: But since it cannot move away from one another or separate itself, so it becomes into one another, like a grinding wheel: One wants above itself, the other below itself.

16. For the hardness gives being and weights, and the sting gives spirit, and the flying life: ” ” This grinds itself with one another into itself and out of itself and yet cannot go anywhere. What the desire, as the magnet, makes hard, that the drawing breaks again, and is the greatest unrest within itself, like a