Tertium Organum

But there each part always 
proceeds from the whole, and is at the same time each part and the whole. For it 
appears indeed as a party; but by him whose sight is acute, it will be seen as a whole. 
. . .
There is likewise no weariness of the vision which is there, nor any plenitude of 
perception which can bring intuition to an end. For neither was there any vacuity, 
which when filled might cause the visive energy to cease; nor is this one thing, but 
that another, so as to occasion a part of one thing not to be amicable with that of 
another. 
And that [the knowledge] which is there insatiable is so, because its plenitude 
never causes it to despise that by which it is filled. For by seeing it more abundantly 
sees, and perceiving both itself and the objects of its perception to be infinite, it 
follows its own nature [in unceasing contemplation]. . . . And the life there is wisdom; 
a wisdom not obtained by a reasoning process, because the whole of it always was, 
and is not in any respect deficient, so as to be in want of investigation. But it is the 
first wisdom, and is not derived from another.* 
Surprisingly akin to Plotinus is Jacob Boehme, who was an ordinary shoemaker in 
the German town of Goerlitz at the end of the sixteenth and the beginning of the 
seventeenth century, and who left a whole series of remarkable writings in which he 
described the knowledge that came to him in moments of illumination. 
His first 'illumination' occurred in 1600 when he was twenty-five.** 
Sitting one day in his room his eye fell upon a burnished pewter dish, which reflected 
the sunshine with such marvellous splendour that he fell into an inward ecstasy, and it 
seemed to him as if he could now look into the principles and deepest foundation of 
things. He believed that it was only a fancy, and in order to banish it from his mind he 
went out upon the green. But here he remarked that he gazed into the very heart of 
things, the very herbs and grass, and that actual nature harmonized with what he had 
inwardly seen. He said nothing of this to anyone, but praised and thanked God in 
silence. . . . 
Of this first illumination Hartmann [Boehme's biographer] says that by it or from 
it: 'He learned to know the innermost foundation of nature, and acquired the capacity 
to see henceforth with the eyes of the soul into 
* Select Works of Plotinus,
trs. Thomas Taylor, ed. G. R. S. Mead, London, G. 
Bell & Sons, 1929. 
** The ensuing quotation is from Dr R. M. Bucke's book 
Cosmic Consciousness, 
Philadelphia, Innes & Sons, 1905, reprinted New York, Dutton, 1969. 

---

the heart of all things, a faculty which remained with him even in his normal 
condition. . . . 
'About the year 1600 ... he was again surrounded by the divine light and 
replenished with the heavenly knowledge; inasmuch as going abroad in the fields to 
a green before Neys Gate, at Görlitz, he there sat down and, viewing the herbs and 
grass of the field in his inward light, he saw into their essences, use and properties, 
which were discovered to him by their lineaments, figures and signatures. In like 
manner he beheld the whole creation, and from that foundation of revelation he 
afterwards wrote his book, 
De Signatura Rerum. 
In the unfolding of those mysteries 
before his understanding he had a great measure of joy, yet returned home and took 
care of his family and lived in great peace and silence, scarce intimating to any these 
wonderful things that had befallen him, till in the year 1610, being again 
taken into 
the light,
lest the mysteries revealed to him should pass through him as a stream, and 
rather for a memorial than intending any publication, he wrote his first book, called 
Aurora, or