Jacob Boehme Online

LIBRARY

PRINT EDITIONS

AURORA

THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF

THE DIVINE ESSENCE

THE THREEFOLD LIFE OF MAN

THE EPISTLES

If you are new to Boehme, I recommend the following as the most accessible of his writings:

THE SUPERSENSUAL LIFE

THE FOUR COMPLEXIONS

THE EPISTLES

CLAVIS, OR KEY TO JACOB BOEHME

AURORA

The Time of the Lily: a Jacob Boehme Reader

(get Kindle Edition)

The LEXICON is a concise introduction to Boehme's terminology and an excellent reference, in downloadable PDF, 8 pages.

For a well-researched and organized summary of JB's thought, see THE LIFE AND DOCTRINE OF JACOB BOEHME (aka Personal Christianity: a Science) by Franz Hartmann.

THE CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME is a collection of all autobiographical references from JB's works.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF JACOB BEHMEN Abraham von Franckenberg, published 1651

JACOB BEHMEN'S THEOSOPHICK PHILOSOPHY UNFOLDED, by Edward Taylor, published 1691.

THE WAY TO DIVINE KNOWLEDGE by William Law

JACOB BEHMEN: AN APPRECIATION by Alexander Whyte

JACOB BOEHME: THE TEUTONIC THEOSOPHER W.P. Swainson

JACOB BOEHME: HIS LIFE AND TEACHING Hans Martensen

AN INTRODUCTION TO JACOB BOEHME Anne Judith Penny

SCIENCE, MEANING & EVOLUTION: THE COSMOLOGY OF JACOB BOEHME Basarab Nicolescu

MILTON AND JAKOB BOEHME Margaret Lewis Bailey

THEOSOPHIC CORRESPONDENCE Claude Saint-Martin

BOEHME FOR BEGINNERS Cynthia Bourgeault

THE CROSS IN THE HEART OF GOD Alan Parker

LIFE OF JACOB BOEHME a Timeline by the International Jacob Boehme Institute

Lighthouse Library has produced an exhaustive 27 page BIBLIOGRAPHY

INDEX OF CITATIONS in The Works of Carl Jung, by Donivan Bessinger

MIND ON FIRE short bio of JB by Wayne Kraus

INTRODUCTION from 1764 William Law Edition

KRAUS HOUSE Digital Books JBO's sister site

HOW TO READ JACOB BOEHME

Boehme's writings have been described as "a picnic to which Jacob brings the words and the reader brings the meaning." That may have been intended as a flippant remark, but it is actually a good tip. Many readers, having been warned of the Teutonic Theosopher's "obscurity," approach their first Boehme book the same way they would approach, say, Kant's Critique of Pure Reason; assiduously scribbling notes and diagrams, wracking their brains over the diction, rereading and rereading difficult passages, and finally hurling the book across the room.

The key is to read his books in exactly the same way you read poetry. No brain-wracking required. I sometimes read a few pages of Blake before turning to Boehme, just to get the poetic cadence going.

His books are, as translator John Sparrow said, "Hard at first, easy at last." If you find yourself floundering in a passage about sulphur, mercury and sal, and the interaction of planets, just skim ahead until your head is above water again.

He used terminology from alchemy and astrology because it was the only scientific language available to him. This vocabulary seems strange and occultic to modern readers, but contemporary transdisciplinarians like Basarab Nicolescu have found in Boehme a template for the sought-after Unifying Language that would enable communication between our increasingly balkanized branches of knowledge. Boehme could move from theology to physics to botany to astronomy to psychology to biblical exegesis without changing vocabularies. This vocabulary would not be utile to modern scientists, but the shoemaker's mastery of language is hailed by transdisciplinarians as "a triumph of human thought."

The shoemaker himself put a low premium on "human thought."

He that will learn to understand the true Way, let him depart from and forsake his own reason.

My knowledge is not mine, but God knowing in me.

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."

In Boehme, "reason" is synonymous with "self." This doctrine may ring a strange note in our ears, but if we pursue the thought that "reason" and "self," "intellect" and "ego" are different words for the same thing, it will open a new path toward self-understanding.

Reason, like fire or water, is a good servant and a bad master. People who insist on being "governed by reason" end up being...governed by reason. Rationalism consigns us to the tiny, dark dungeon of the ego.

Reason is a faculty, and Boehme did not despise it any more than he despised eyesight, but in our fallen condition, human nature stands in disarray. The center of the personality is the reasoning ego, which worships as idols the formulations of reductive logic. Systematic Theology ("God in a teacup") is a fearful example how, when reason usurps Spirit, darkness falls and idolatry prevails. Whereas our ancestors shaped gods of wood, stone and metal, religious rationalists fashion gods out of mental fabric. The resulting doctrinal warfare is as boring and pointless as it is unwinnable and endless, but that has not stopped over 1500 authors from publishing books titled Systematic Theology.

From Boehme we learn the Art of Conciseness: simply proclaim the truth and let the Spirit bear witness, instead of piling up arguments and proof texts to try and force all the world to agree with us.

Faith is a faculty of perception immeasurably greater than reason, and the sole purpose of Boehme's writing is to awaken this sleeping giant. When faith awakens, living conscious union with God will follow. It may come like a sunburst or it may dawn gradually. Our first experience of God-consciousness may bring shock to the physical body and humiliation to the intellect, but we soon get acclimated to this new world, and communion with God becomes free, easy, natural and devoid of any sort of religious formality. "Shall I, a gnat that dances in Thy ray, dare to be reverent?"

God is apprehended by love, not reason. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. And if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he knows nothing yet as he ought to know. But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him. (1Corinthians 8:1-3)

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