Rose Library › Christian & Western mysticism

The Signature of All Things, with Other Writings

Jacob Boehme · tr. John Ellistone (Signatura Rerum, 1651) and the 18th-century “Law edition” translators · 1912 (translations of 1651 and later) · 126,199 words

The shoemaker-mystic of Görlitz on how every thing bears the outward signature of its inner spirit: the seven properties, the alchemical process as the path of the soul’s rebirth, and three dialogues on the supersensual life, heaven and hell, and the soul’s way to God.

Read it now

Opening

Signatura Rerum · Preface to the Reader

This book is a true mystical mirror of the highest wisdom. The best treasure that a man can attain unto in this world is true knowledge; even the knowledge of himself: For man is the great mystery of God, the microcosm, or the complete abridgment of the whole universe: He is the mirandum Dei opus, God's masterpiece, a living emblem and hieroglyphic of eternity and time; and therefore to know whence he is, and what his temporal and eternal being and well-being are, must needs be that ONE necessary thing, to which all our chief study should aim, and in comparison of which all the wealth of this world is but dross, and a loss to us.

Hence Solomon, the wisest of the kings of Israel, says: "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding; for the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold; she is more precious than rubies, and all things that can be desired are not to be compared unto her."

Continue reading in the Rose Library →

Contents

  1. Signatura Rerum · Preface to the Reader
  2. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 1: How That All Whatever Is Spoken of God Without the Knowledge of the Signature…
  3. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 2: Of the Opposition and Combat in the Essence of All Essences, Whereby the…
  4. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 3: Of the Grand Mystery of All Beings
  5. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 4: Of the Birth of the Stars, and Four Elements in the Metalline and Creaturely…
  6. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 5: Of the Sulphurean Death, and How the Dead Body Is Revived, and Replaced into…
  7. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 6: How a Water and Oil Are Generated, and of the Difference of the Water and…
  8. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 7: How Adam in Paradise, and How Lucifer Was a Fair Angel, and How They Were…
  9. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 8: Of the Fiery Sulphureous Seething of the Earth, and How the Growth Is in the…
  10. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 9: Of the Signature, Shewing How the Internal Signs the External
  11. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 10: Of the Inward and Outward Cure of Man
  12. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 11: Of the Process of Christ in his Suffering, Death, and Resurrection: of the…
  13. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 12: Of the Seventh Form in the Kingdom of the Mother; How the Seventh Kingdom…
  14. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 13: Of the Enmity of the Spirit and of the Body, and of their Cure and Remedy
  15. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 14: Of the Wheel of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt; of the Generation of Good and…
  16. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 15: Concerning the Will of the Great Mystery in Good and Evil, Shewing from…
  17. Signatura Rerum · Chapter 16: Concerning the Eternal Signature and Heavenly Joy; Why All Things Were…
  18. Signatura Rerum · Postscript by the Translator
  19. Of the Supersensual Life · Dialogue I
  20. Of the Supersensual Life · Dialogue II
  21. Of Heaven and Hell
  22. The Way from Darkness to True Illumination

About this edition

Source: Internet Sacred Text Archive · archive.org

Public domain: The translations are public domain everywhere (17th–18th century). This 1912 Everyman volume also has an introduction by Clifford Bax, which is not public domain in every country, so it is left out.

What’s included: Signatura Rerum (preface to the reader, all sixteen chapters and the translator’s postscript), the two dialogues Of the Supersensual Life, Of Heaven and Hell, and The Way from Darkness to True Illumination (a discourse between a soul hungry and thirsty and an enlightened soul). Clifford Bax’s introduction is not included.

In the Rose Library you can search every word of this book, have it read aloud, and save it to read offline.