• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
 
The Divinity of World and Man: Introduction to Jacob Boehme’sTheosophy
 By Jo Hedesan. Published in Esoteric Coffeehouse on Jan 9, 2009
 I have spent my last few weeks researching the German theosophist Jacob Boehme,and I thought – why not write an introduction to this esotericist who has influenced somuch of modern thinking, including Romanticism, Hegel or Schopenhauer?Boehme (1575-1624) is mostly known and revered today as the forerunner of moderntheosophy, a major esoteric movement made famous by Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner and Krishnamurti (the latter two in their early years). As conceived byBoehme, theosophy was an eclectic mixture of Christian theology, natural philosophyand mysticism. He perceived the Bible as containing esoteric knowledge about Godthat he felt he had a duty to reveal.It all started with a mystical revelation. In 1600, at age 25, Boehme was a rather  prosperous shoemaker in the eastern German town of Gorlitz. He had just married,acquired his license to practice shoemaking, and all was set for him to become arespected and average citizen of Gorlitz. But, the legend goes, Boehme was not ahappy man; he was depressed and often fell into melancholy. One day, however, asBoehme was sitting at home, he suddenly saw the light of the sun reflected in a tindish. In one flash, Boehme experienced a mystical vision of God which changed hislife forever.Moved by such a powerful revelation, Boehme began to write his first book,
 Aurora
,which he only finished twelve years later. He never abandoned his ‘day-job’, so tospeak: he continued to work as a shoemaker until l613, when he began a yarn business. Yet his mystical-esoteric side got him into trouble with the local Lutheranchurch, which pronounced him a heretic and forbade him to write. That, of course, didnot happen; his
 Aurora
became very popular in several influential circles andsubsequently Boehme wrote more than fifteen thick books, which expanded on thefirst revelations of 
 Aurora
.Boehme’s writings are very complex and difficult to read. In fact, his legend is far  better known than the content of his thought (1). One reason for this is that our worldtoday has lost the intellectual background behind Boehme’s speculations, whichmixed a thorough knowledge of the Bible with Neoplatonic and Hermetic philosophy,alchemy and German mysticism. For Boehme, it all came together in one grand visionof God as the self-created Creator.Boehme is a profoundly religious thinker for whom only God can give meaning toexistence. Therefore, the main subject of Boehme’s books is God, or morespecifically, God making himself known (2). God in His essence is completelyinaccessible to humanity – a complete darkness. He dwells in Himself. Yet, God’sdesire, the engine of all existence, is to be known. Hence, at the beginning of time,God springs from Himself, creating this world out of his own Being. Here is whereBoehme contradicts other theologians: he does not believe God created universe outof nothing, because in this sense ‘nothing’ would then be another kind of God.
 
Instead, God creates from Himself (3). Perhaps all this speculation sounds a bitremote for us, but to Boehme it validated a fundamental idea: that our world is divine.The universe, nature, and our own lives are full of God, except he is hidden inside of things.When He began His creative work, God first made the angelic world (4). Boehme isvery concerned with the angelic kingdom, because he believed this was the landwhere the first human, Adam, was made. Adam was an angel just like Michael,Gabriel and Lucifer. If it were not for the corruption of Lucifer – the Devil – wewould still be living rapturously in a beautiful heaven. Falling prey to the Devil,Adam condemned humanity to live in a demonized world. Lucifer’s betrayal of Godwas a cataclysmic event, not only for humanity, but for the entire universe: it set thewheel in motion for the creation of our own world, which is a fallen version of theangelic world. Facing the destruction of all his divine creation, God had to ‘lump’ theuniverse corrupted by Lucifer together and expulse it outside of the heavenly realm(5). Hence we are living in a deformed version of the universe, somewhere at the edgeof divinity.This may sound rather bleak, but it is not. Boehme recognizes that, while our world isa pale image of the divine creation, it is still formed by God. The ‘seed’ of Godremains well hidden inside the corrupted universe, and it is up to us to uncover it. Todo this, we are called to the ‘Heart of God’, Jesus Christ, who can heal us through pure Love (6, 7). Our world is one of contradictions, conflict, pain and anger; butChrist can pour his healing Love on it and restore it to its rightful divinity.This, of course, is a ‘Cliff Note’ version of Boehme’s philosophy. His thinking isextremely profound and complex, and there are changes of emphasis between hisdifferent books. Yet Boehme’s vision remains extremely compelling. For one, it is hisstalwart, unwavering belief in divinity. He does not even conceive of a world withoutGod: that to him is an absurdity. Secondly, there is his powerful view of the world asfundamentally divine: we may today think of our lives as devoid of God, but, he says,that is only a misconception. Divinity traverses all mundane affairs, albeitinconspicuously. He is just inch-deep behind the apparent worldliness of the everyday. Thirdly, Boehme evokes a dynamic, creative universe where things continuouslychange, but the divine substance remains constant in itself. As opposed to many of ustoday, he would not be frightened by change, be it globalization, job security or whathave you. He would say that change is in the natural order of Creation as God made it.Since He is at the center of all things, He provides the solidity to withstand anyspinning.References(1)Weeks, A. (1991).
 Boehme: An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century Philosopher and Mystic
. New York: SUNY Press.(2) Deghaye, P. (1992). ‘Jacob Boehme and His Followers’, in
Modern EsotericSpirituality
, ed. Antoine Faivre and Jacob Needleman. New York: Crossroad.(3), (6) Boehme, J. (1764).
The Three Principles of the Divine Essence
, trans. and ed. by William Law. London: Richardson.
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...