Vol 9 Page 290

MISCELLANEOUS NOTES

[Lucifer, Vol. II, No. 9, May, 1888, p. 253]

[In a review of Charles W. Heckethorn’s volume of poems entitled Roses and Thorns, the following passage with its appended footnote bears the characteristics of H.P.B.’s style:]

Mr. Heckethorn identifies Böhme’s “Three First Properties of Nature” with the “Three Mothers” of Goethe’s Faust. He is quite right, but might have added that the idea, and even its form, are much older than Böhme. Hermes speaks of the Tres Matres—Light, Heat, and Electricity*—who showed to him the mysterious progress of work in Nature; and the “Three Mothers” were much talked about by the older Rosicrucians, who certainly did not derive their knowledge from Böhme.

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* With the Kabalists, “the Three Mothers” in Sepher Yetzirah are Air, Water and Fire. They are EMeS, or :/!
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