Greetings!
Here we are studying the Word as it relates to the Strength card, A brief excerpt from William Law's Clavis of Boehme:
From the Key to Boehme - William Law.
27. The Holy Scripture says, God has made all things by his eternal Word; also it says, That Word is God, John 1, which we understand thus:
28. The Word is nothing else but the [1] out-breathing will, from the power and virtue; a various dividing of the power into a multitude of powers; a distributing and out-flowing of the Unity, whence knowledge arises.
(above picture from the Tarot of Holy Light By Christine Payne Towler & Michael Dowers)
In our picture of this Key from the Tarot of The Holy Light, The woman standing next to the protecting lion is exhaling a stream of wind and also is showing a very illuminated state of being, by her eyes of sun and moon.
As Boehme says "the Word is nothing else but the out-breathing will from the power and virtue, a various dividing of the power into a multitude of powers distributing and out flowing of the unity, whence knowledge arises".
This phrase is very impactful; the Gnostic redemption given by Christos in Valentinan tradition is titled "Strengthening". This is the Hieros Gamos of the Gnostic Tradition . Strengthening is defined as the Christs redemption of the angels in the ekklesia or church, and thereby having whole angelic revelators of the gnosis to mankind. This cannot be stated enough.
As Boehme says, and by the way this Clavis was recommended by the Author and Designer of the Tarot of Holy Light, "knowledge arises" from this "out flowing of the unity". This is the core of the doctrine of Emanationism. It is through this "many out of one" that we may find how we are connected through this Word. Dr Keizer has expressed In the Johannine tradition the fourth gospel of the new testament has been said to "need no other interpretation except that when we hear the words "I" by the supposed Messiah, we are actually hearing the emanation of the Christ Within, and not that of an individual ". This idea of Jesus as a man and savior of man, is distorted by the Orthodox Church in the Nicene Creed as a physical savior , died , risen and is the only son ... blah blah.
Boehme says that "out-breathing will, from the power and virtue" the out breathing of this key , is , well.. the key. The breath has been related to Prana, life energy, ether, many different properties, but always relates in an amplification or modality different from that of ordinary consciousness.
Even in the Alice Bailey works, the mention of Breath is in relation to the six days of creation in the books of Genesis, in the Hebrew Old Testament. Breath is the absolute expression of life. Out Breathing is both a death and an emptying of ones life force , or return to grace. Since not one of us is in control of the breath and sometimes it may even go un noticed. Boehme says it is the "out breathing will, from power and virtue into multiplicity" that gives us our Gnosis.
In Divine Gnosis
Tim.
