6 Heaven and Its Influence

Chapter outline

Heaven is the subtlest and most active portion of the separated Chaos.

Its vapour joins air and the rising outflows of water and earth.

The elements replace what they emit by taking in their like.

Human breathing, nourishment and excretion model this cosmic circulation.

Waste becomes nourishment again through alteration, as manure and fallen leaves show.

The cycle explains the chain, ring and relation of above and below.

After the separation of Chaos, heaven is the first, subtlest, most incomprehensible and highest being: a very subtle water-vapour, light, pure and volatile. It therefore rose to the top and occupied the highest place, being the subtlest part, full of life and the most active being of all. For these reasons heaven is the first agent, the first worker and father of all things, the male seed, the soul and life-giving liquor of life, nectar and ambrosia: a subtle air and water, a volatile earth. As stated, heaven and air direct their outflow downward toward the sphere of earth and water, not upward, according to the Creator’s well-ordered and absolute command. As this flows downward, water and earth flow upward to meet heaven and air. Heaven, the most mobile of all, heats and kindles itself by its ceaseless course and begins to steam, exhale and sweat what it needs for its subsistence, entirely imperceptibly and invisibly. Since it is appointed to release its vapour and influence downward rather than upward, this vapour enters the nearest sphere, air. Air is neither extremely subtle nor too thick, so the vapour is caught within it. It mixes, unites and coagulates with air’s subtle vapours, digesting and circulating to and fro through continual movement until both are thoroughly united. They are then suited to receive the lower outflows of water and earth and forge from them the universal seed, or world spirit, or regenerated chaotic water. Once heaven has entered air, air in turn becomes fit to unite with its nearest neighbours, water and earth.

A lover of the art should not imagine that heaven takes a long time to unite with air, or air with water and then with earth. No: as soon as they meet, the union happens immediately. On their way to it they prepare themselves more and more by extension and circulation, or movement, so that when they come together again they unite at once throughout, like smoke with smoke or water with water. This fourfold conjunction of heaven, air, water and earth takes place as pure subtle vapour, mist or smoke. It is therefore easy to understand how one vapour or smoke readily enters and mixes with another, one water with another, especially since they possess a wholly natural inclination toward one another and share one matter and origin. Someone may now ask whether heaven, continually pouring forth its influence, does not diminish in quantity and power. It seems naturally impossible for anything continually to give of itself and take nothing back without losing its substance and power. A person who sweats heavily and continuously becomes weak, exhausted and powerless: so one may reason from the lesser to the greater.

This is easy to answer, and the matter will also be resolved and considered in this way below. It is certain and perceptible to our eyes, as far as we are permitted to see, that the immense space between heaven and earth is continually and unceasingly full of vapour, mist, smoke, clouds and exhalations. Scarcely have these vapours thickened and resolved into rain, dew, snow, frost, hail and so forth when exhalation immediately begins again from below and above. Thus the generation of such vapours never ceases. We give these vapours the common name air. Everything that exhales vapour or breath desires to draw its like into itself again, as the Creator has commanded and ordered. Once it has taken in what it drew to itself and carried it through all its members, natural compulsion and command oblige it to release its surplus or excrement through the outlets appointed for that purpose. So a person who sweats heavily and breathes out is naturally obliged and compelled, on pain of suffocation and death, to take in and draw to himself air, food and drink as his like. Natural appetite or compulsion makes him do this; he thereby replaces his loss and revives and refreshes his life. But not all the air, food and drink he takes in becomes human substance. He therefore expels the surplus through the appropriate outlets: the subtlest through sweat; the coarser through urine, the nose, mucus and saliva; the coarsest through stool or vomiting. Once this has gone out, he naturally draws fresh air, food and drink into himself again and again produces a surplus or excrement to discharge.

Air, food and drink are wholly removed from their former kind and nature within a human being. Through the human Archeus they become volatile and are transmuted and changed into human substance. Even the excrements show not the slightest sign of the former nature of the air, food and drink. They have an entirely different form and are impregnated with human substance and vital spirits, as with the volatile salt, as analysis shows. In the same way heaven, air, water and earth immediately replace their losses with their like. Heaven receives the vapours that have risen from below, becoming increasingly subtle and prepared along the way, and are drawn through every airy region to the firmament and thence to the highest place, replacing heaven’s loss and outflow. Heaven takes as much of this as it needs and turns it into its own nature. Once satisfied, a natural impulse makes it drive the surplus or excrements out again into the firmament and air. Air too satisfies itself and thickens through the vapours that continually arrive from above and below. It resolves its surplus into dew and rain and drives this, as an excrement, toward the lower sphere, water. Water deposits its thick surplus and gives it to earth. Earth, overwhelmed or satisfied by this influx, drives the excess water out again through its central heat, resolving it into vapour and steam, mist and smoke, and expelling it into the air. The Creator has implanted this alternation of increase and decrease, taking in and driving out, in nature according to the wisest order, to continue until he chooses to bring the world to its end.

From this the lover of the art clearly sees that everything must be sustained again by the very thing that water casts away, though only after an alteration has taken place. What we call excrements or outflow becomes our nourishment again. A person consumes bread, wine, beer and fruit, and makes excrements from them. These are taken back to the field and seed is sown in them; his nourishment then grows again from his own excrement. Likewise, when winter knocks a tree’s leaves off, they fall to its root, rot and become a juice that creeps into the root and feeds and manures the tree again. Observe this carefully and one readily recognizes in it the Above of Hermes, Homer’s Chain and Plato’s Ring. It is also easy to infer that one thing changes into another and, through the vicissitudes of things, becomes once again the same thing, or something like what it was before. There was only one matter, and everything arose from it. Whatever a thing arises from, it must change back into by returning. Everything was water, and everything must become water again, because water was its first beginning. Apply this throughout the whole work that follows: it will greatly advance our art. We shall now, in due order, consider air.