And if the channel of the breath—its sole pathway—were blocked, the body would burn by its fire, and it would blow out from the least orifice and fly to its world and leave it a ruin on the ground, and this is death.

So, O you people, the spirit is a secret that fills space, and overflows upon the universes; rather, it penetrates the fence of solid bodies, and passes into the regions of the heavens and the earth in a single moment. Then when it flies to its world, it sees there spiritual pairs and celestial angels, so recognition and coupling occur, and it takes the secrets of the kingdom from them, either through an intermediary or the forms of those structures and their meanings are imprinted in it. Then whenever it returns by the ebbing tide to its structures, it overflows those knowledges upon it, so he says what he willed and informs of what he wants from what was cast to him: {He casts the spirit of His command upon whom He wills of His servants} ¹ . The spirit, O you, is fit to fly with its structure into the atmosphere, rather, and to puncture the fence of the ether, if you nourished it with sincerity of determination,