Jacob Boehme Online

"In the time of the end, the time of the Lily, these writings will be sought as serviceable. To all such who are shooting forth into the fair Lily in the kingdom of God, who are in the process of birth, are these lines written; that each one may be strengthened, and bud in the life of God, and grow, and bear fruit in the Tree of paradise."

- Jacob Boehme

JACOB BOEHME THE TEUTONIC THEOSOPHER 1575-1624

JACOB BOEHME (or Behmen) of Goerlitz, Germany, was a shoe-maker by trade, the son of peasant farmers, and received only a rudimentary education. One morning, watching the sunlight play on a pewter bowl, he experienced an extraordinary spiritual illumination, and started writing books. Amazing books. Doctors of Divinity at the great German Universities were astounded that an unlearned craftsman could produce works like The Three Principles of the Divine Essence and The Threefold Life of Man.

But Jacob Boehme explains:

"I never desired to know anything of the Divine Mystery, much less understood I the way how to seek or find it. I sought only after the heart of Jesus Christ, that I might hide myself therein from the wrathful anger of God, and the violent assaults of the devil; and I besought the Lord earnestly for His Holy Spirit, and His Grace, that He would be pleased to bless and guide me in Him; and take that away from me, which did turn me away from Him, and I resigned myself wholly to Him, that I might not live to my own Will, but to His; and that He only might lead and direct me: to the end, that I might be His child in His Son Jesus Christ.

"In this my earnest Christian seeking and desire, the gate was opened unto me, so that in one quarter of an hour I saw and knew more than if I had been many years together at an University; at which I did exceedingly admire, and I knew not how it happened to me; and thereupon I turned my heart to praise God for it.

"For I saw and knew the Being of all Beings, the Byss and Abyss; also the eternal generation of the Holy Trinity; the descent, and origin of this world, and of all creatures, through the divine Wisdom; I knew and saw in myself all the three Worlds; namely, the Divine, Angelical, and Paradisical World and then the Dark World, the original of the Nature to the fire; and then thirdly, the external, and visible World, being a Procreation, or External Birth; or as a substance expressed, or spoken forth, from both the internal and spiritual Worlds; and I saw, and knew the whole working Essence in the evil, and in the good; and the mutual origin, and existence of each of them; and likewise how the fruitful bearing Womb of Eternity brought forth, so that I did not only greatly wonder at it, but did also exceedingly rejoice."

William Law said of Boehme's writings, "The true ground of every doctrine and article of Christian faith and practice is there opened in such a ravishing, amazing depth of clearness of truth and conviction as had never been seen or heard in any age of the Church."

The light revealed to the shoemaker of Goerlitz is all the more astounding when we consider the age of religious rationalism and near-universal spiritual darkness that he lived in.

It was a time of fierce conflict between Lutherans, Calvinists and Catholics, culminating in the Thirty Years War, in which nations actually went to battle over religious dogma.

Protestants identified the Pope as an Antichrist and usurper for proclaiming himself "head of the church." But instead of dethroning the Pope and acknowledging the lordship of Jesus (Col. 1:18), they installed the Bible in place of the Pope as "supreme authority over the church."

Thus we have the irony of the Bible being thrust into the role of Protestant Antichrist, the new usurper. Sola Scriptura was merely a new formation of Priestcraft. The Word of God was now "the letter that killeth" (2 Cor. 3:6) and the iron rod with which the clergy wielded authority over the flock. The church remained a mechanism of political power, just as it always had been under the dominion of Rome. The Reformation had failed.

Boehme himself was persecuted by the State Lutheran Church, tried for heresy, denounced in press and pulpit and generally considered a mad apostate. But for those who had ears to hear, he offered liberation from the world religious system - which he called "Babel" and "Antichrist" - and entry into "the glorious liberty of the children of God." Rom. 8:21

George W. Allen said of Boehme, "He never thought of himself as a great teacher; but only as a humble guide to the one great Teacher, the Holy Spirit, by indicating how, and in what attitude of heart and mind, He must be approached: a meekness which is too strong to be frightened or ashamed; a love which is too mighty to say, 'That I cannot do.'"

"Christ saith, I am the Light of the World, he that followeth me, walketh not in Darkness. He directs us only to himself. He is the Morning Star, and is generated and riseth in us, and shineth in the Darkness of our Nature. O how great a Triumph is there in the Soul, when He ariseth in it!"

In the same way that Jesus uses parables and John the Revelator uses symbols to reveal divine mysteries to the children of the Kingdom and conceal them from the scornful and unbelieving, Boehme uses totally abstract words which have no prior meaning for the modern reader. Therefore apprehending his thought requires an investment of time, and a new way of reading; reading inwardly and imaginatively, not with "sharp outward reasoning." Critical intelligence, though useful and necessary in daily living, is powerless to apprehend the Mysteries of Deity. God can only be known by Revelation.

"But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you" John 14:26

"But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you." 1 John 1:27

And this anointing is available to anyone who asks, irrespective of education or intellectual ability.

I thank Thee, Oh Father, Lord of Heaven and Earth, because Thou hast hidden these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Thy sight." Matt. 11:25-26

In describing the mysteries of creation, Boehme used terminology from Alchemy and Astrology because it was the only scientific language available to him. This vocabulary may seem arcane and occultic to modern readers: "Sophia," "Luna," "Mercurius," "Hermes," "Philosopher's Stone," "astral," "magia," "tincture," "salnitral flagrat," etc. His verbiage alone has made him a favorite target of heresy-hunters in all ages.

Boehme, in turn, repeatedly warns his readers against the Guardians of Orthodoxy, who would have us believe that God is mainly concerned with doctrinal formulations, and that Christianity consists primarily in proper word usage.

Boehme believed in the divine origin of the Bible and makes constant reference to Moses, the Prophets and the Apostles. He sometimes strains to bring his own revelations into concurrence with Scripture. This is sometimes troublesome to readers who have a hermetic/esoteric orientation and want nothing to do with Christianity. This is understandable, since what historically has passed for "Christianity" has rendered the Bible ridiculous by insisting on a literal/historical reading of the texts. But when we learn to read the Bible the way Boehme read it, we discover a new and fathomless depth of meaning.

Biographer Franz Hartmann puts it this way, "The writings of Jacob Boehme are all in accordance with the statements contained in the Christian Bible, and this circumstance will at once prove to be an obstacle in the way of those who have no understanding of the internal meaning of the Bible accounts, and may frighten them away from giving any attention to his works. The Bible, which, in an external sense, was formerly credulously believed and accepted by the pious and ignorant, is now universally disbelieved and laughed at by the 'enlightened' portions of rationalistic humanity; and very naturally so, because the rationalistic specimens of mankind are not enlightened enough to see the delicious fruit within the indigestible shell; they do not know that behind these tales, full of absurdity, there is hidden more wisdom than in all the philosophical books of the world."

Believers similarly encounter stumbling-blocks in Boehme's theosophy, since it is such a departure from the modes of Bible interpretation that we are accustomed to. Most of us have lived our lives under the smog of Industrial Christianity and been trained to read the Bible according to the dictates of Priestcraft, which venerates the Bible as the Word of God but cunningly empties it of meaning; which reduces the Gospel of the Kingdom to a code of ethics or a guidebook for happy living; and which transmutes the New Birth into a legal fiction imparted to anyone who recites the Sinner's Prayer or eats a magic communion wafer. Priestcraft, whether in the form of fundamentalism or scholasticism, protestantism or popery, always demands a reading of the Bible that is literal and superficial and strenuously avoids the imaginal, the inward, and the transcendent.

"A historical belief is merely an opinion based upon some adopted explanation of the letter of the written word, having been learned in schools, heard by the external ear, and which produces dogmatists, sophists, and opinionated servants of the letter. But Faith is the result of the direct perception of the truth, heard and understood by the inner sense, taught by the Holy Ghost, and productive of theosophists and servants of the divine Spirit."

Boehme's theosophy is the antithesis and antidote of Priest-craft, which is literally a form of devil worship. Jesus Christ said, "The Kingdom of God is within you." Any doctrine that turns us away from this inward Kingdom and directs our worship to an external, rule-making god - an old man sitting on a throne high above the stars, frowning down on sinners, requiring priestly ordinances and fretting over church dogmatics - is a worship that ends at the feet of the god of this world, Satan.

When we learn to read Boehme, we learn to read the Bible in a new and living way. Difficulties and seeming contradictions are resolved in the Three Principles. Theological enigmas like predestination, the fall of man and the wrath of God become easily discernible. His unearthly and strangely beautiful prose is like a silent music, an inscrutable language that bypasses the cognitive centers of the brain and illuminates the heart.

But Boehme's doctrine is more than just mystical speculation. Isaac Newton sequestered himself with Boehme's books for several weeks, believing that they contained all the mysteries of Creation. He emerged from his study with the Theory of Gravity. Though he did not credit Boehme with the discovery, one reviewer stated, "Newton hath ploughed with Behmen's Heifer." For Boehme had written long before, "The three first Properties of Nature are Attraction, Resistance and Whirling."

It was this anecdote that first kindled my interest in Boehme, but I found his books more or less impenetrable, until I read The Way to Christ, and found myself standing on new ground, reading a new Bible and beginning to understand in a new way.

For years I wracked my brains over learned theological grimoires in an effort to understand the mysteries of the Gospel. Why did Jesus have to die for our salvation? The priestly explanation that he had to die to satiate the wrath of an angry Father, or to satisfy some bizzare requirement of divine justice, struck me as absurd. And what does Paul mean when he says we died with Christ? that our old man is crucified with Him? Academic theology offers only academic answers.

But when we set aside theological reasoning and contemplate Calvary, meditating on the love of God for sinners, the scales fall from our eyes and the mystery of "the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world" can be seen. Rev. 13:8 God is known by revelation, and revelation is given to the inward imaginal nature. Intellect belongs to the outward man, the fallen Adamic ego, and has no light in itself. The renewed mind is illuminated from within.

It is not that intelligence and learning have no value; they enhance our ability to communicate the mystery of salvation to our fellow-creatures, but this mystery is revealed to the inner man, the spirit.

"The rational Man understands nothing in reference to God; for it is without and not in God....The true Understanding must flow from the inward Ground, out of the living Word of God. In which inward Ground, all my Knowledge concerning the Divine and natural Ground, hath taken its Rise, Beginning, and Understanding. I am not born of the School of this World, and am a plain simple Man; but by God's Spirit and Will am brought, without my own Purpose and Desire, into Divine Knowledge in high natural Searchings." {Epistles, page 121.}

"He that will learn to understand the true Way, let him depart from and forsake his own Reason." {Epistles, page 138.}

"Reason must be blinded, kept under, and not allowed to stir." {page .68.}

"Reason must yield up its own Hearing and Life, and give itself up to God, that God may live in the Understanding of Man, else there is no Finding in the Divine Wisdom. All that is taught and spoken concerning God, without the Spirit of God, is but Babel." {Epistle. page 9.}

"We must wholly reject our own Reason; it is not available to help us to the Light, but is a mere leading astray, and keeping us back. This we intimate to the Reader, that he may know what he readeth. Let none account it for a Work of outward Reason." {Three-fold Life. pages 68,88.}

"Pray to God the most High, that he would be pleased to open the Door of Knowledge, without which no Man will understand my Writings; for they surpass the astral Reason; they apprehend and comprehend the Divine Birth; and therefore only the like Spirit can understand them aright. No Reasoning or Speculating reacheth them, unless the Mind be illuminated from God, to the finding of which the Way is faithfully shown to the seeking Reader." {Epistles. page 138.}

I hope this intro has sparked your interest in Jacob Boehme. If so, check out the LIBRARY

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