as he came back to normal consciousness,
on the contrary deepened. He went to the public green in Goerlitz, near
his house, and there it seemed to him that he could see into the very
heart and secret of Nature, and that he could behold the innermost
properties of things.[18] In his own account of his experience, Boehme
plainly indicates that he had been going through a long and earnest
travail of soul as a Seeker,[19] "striving to find the heart of Jesus
Christ and to be freed and delivered from everything that turned him
away from Christ." At last, he says, he resolved to "put his life to
the utmost hazard" rather than miss his life-quest, when suddenly the
"gate was opened." He continues his account as follows: "In one
quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years
together in a University. . . . I saw and knew the Being of Beings,
the Byss and Abyss, the eternal generation of the Trinity, the origin
and descent of this world, and of all creatures through Divine Wisdom.
I knew and saw in myself all the three worlds--(1) the Divine,
Angelical, or Paradisaical World; (2) the dark world, the origin of
fire; and (3) the external, visible world as an outbreathing or
expression of the internal and spiritual worlds. I saw, too, the
essential nature of evil and of good, and how the {160} pregnant
Mother--the eternal genetrix--brought them forth."[20]

He has also vividly told his experience in the _Aurora_: "While I was
in affliction and trouble, I elevated my spirit, and earnestly raised
it up unto God, as with a great stress and onset, lifting up my whole
heart and mind and will and resolution to wrestle with the love and
mercy of God and not to give over unless He blessed me--then the Spirit
did break through. When in my resolved zeal I made such an assault,
storm, and onset upon God, as if I had more reserves of virtue and
power ready, with a resolution to hazard my life upon it, suddenly my
spirit did break through the Gate, not without the assistance of the
Holy Spirit, and I reached to the innermost Birth of the Deity and
there I was embraced with love as a bridegroom embraces his bride. My
triumphing can be compared to nothing but the experience in which life
is generated in the midst of death or like the resurrection from the
dead. In this Light my spirit suddenly saw through all, and in all
created things, even in herbs and grass, I knew God--who He is, how He
is, and what His will is-