Jacob Behmen's first book, his _Aurora_, was not a book at all, but a
bundle of loose leaves. Nothing was further from Behmen's mind, when he
took up his pen of an evening, than to make a book. He took up his pen
after his day's work was over in order to preserve for his own memory and
use in after days the revelations that had been made to him, and the
experiences and exercises through which GOD had passed him. And,
besides, Jacob Behmen could not have written a book even if he had tried
it. He was a total stranger to the world of books; and then, over and
above that, he had been taken up into a world of things into which no
book ever written as yet had dared to enter. Again, and again, and
again, till it came to fill his whole life, Behmen would be sitting over
his work, or walking abroad under the stars, or worshipping in his pew in
the parish church, when, like the captive prophet by the river of Chebar,
he would be caught up by the hair of the head and carried away into the
visions of GOD to behold the glory of GOD. And then, when he came to
himself, there would arise within him a 'fiery instigation' to set down
for a 'memorial' what he had again seen and heard. 'The gate of the
Divine Mystery was sometimes so opened to me that in one quarter of an
hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at a
university. At which I did exceedingly admire, and, though it passed my
understanding how it happened, I thereupon turned my heart to GOD to
praise Him for it. For I saw and knew the Being of all Beings; the Byss
and the Abyss; as, also, the Generation of the Son and the Procession of
the Spirit. I saw the descent and original of this world also, and of
all its creatures. I saw in their order and outcome the Divine world,
the angelical world, paradise, and then this fallen and dark world of our
own. I saw the beginning of the good and the evil, and the true origin
and existence of each of them. All of which did not only cause me great
wonder but also a great joy and a great fear. And then it came with