THE ILLUMINATION OF JACOB BOEHME

[Guest guest]

JACOB BOEHME was the most unlikely of mystics. Born into a Lusatian

peasant family on April 24, 1575, it would have been considered an

accomplishment for his times to merely learn to read, let alone

become one of Christianity's outstanding mystic. Boehme is of the

class of uncanny geniuses who may unpredictably be born in any time

or place. His writings served as inspiration to such philosophers as

Hegel, Schopenhauer, Saint Martin and Newton. Hegel called

Boehme " the father of German philosophy " and Schopenhauer remarked

that in understanding Boehme's system he " could withhold neither

admiration or tears. " His writings are dazzling but confusing and

contain nuances of meaning which stir a haunting wonderment. The

eighteenth century mystical poet Gerhard Tersteegen wrote of

Boehme, " I cannot say that I understood, but I read until I was

filled with strange fears and bewilderments... At last I took the

books to their owners, and it was like a weight lifted off my heart. "

(1)

 

An unusual event in Boehme's youth intimated that great things were

to come to him. Jacob apprenticed himself to a shoemaker while in his

teens and would later make this his occupation. He was working in his

master's shoe-shop when he was approached by a stranger about the

price of a certain pair of shoes. The stranger seemed poor and was

dressed as a peasant, but he had a radiating glow about him

and " great eyes which sparkled and seemed filled with divine light. "

Jacob's master was out and the boy trembled to name any price. The

stranger pressed him for a price and Jacob named a very large amount.

Surprisingly the man immediately paid him and took the shoes. When a

short way down the street the stranger turned and cried, " Jacob,

Jacob, come forth! " Frightened and astonished Jacob ran out of the

store and to the stranger. The mysterious man took him by the right

hand and prophesied: " Jacob, thou art little, but shalt be great, and

become another Man, such a one as at whom the world shall wonder.

Therefore be pious, fear God, and reverence His Word. Read diligently

the Holy Scriptures, wherein you have Comfort and Instruction. For

thou must endure Misery and Poverty, and suffer persecution, but be

courageous and persevere, for God loves, and is gracious to thee. "

(2)

 

Frankenberg, Boehme's biographer and first publisher, claimed that

Jacob's initial mystical experience occurred in 1592 when Boehme was

only 17. Boehme left no account of this experience but did mention

several times an experience he had in 1600. Frankenberg claimed that

this experience was catalyzed by sun flashing off a pewter dish.

Boehme received an illumination of knowledge and wrote:

 

" ... my spirit directly saw through all things, and knew God in and

by all creatures, even in herbs and grass... the gate was opened for

me that I saw and knew more in a quarter of an hour than if I had

been many years in the universities. " (3)

 

Boehme's awakening was not limited to just this one experience but

resulted in a long-term elevation of his mind. He wrote that this

experience " unfolded again from time to time " and that he went

about " pregnant " with it for the following 12 years.

 

Jacob Boehme's first book, Aurora, was an attempt to externalize his

insights and was not intended for publication. He wrote some twenty

books in the last five years of his life, but Aurora was his only one

in the 19 years following his experience. Aurora was originally

Boehme's personal notebook. Word spread of the young philosopher and

Boehme allowed his writings to circulate among an increasing number

of scholars and open-minded clergy. In Boehme's time it was illegal

to disagree with even a literal interpretation of the Bible. When his

writings eventually came to the attention of Lutheran' Church

authorities he was called before a tribunal. Boehme was threatened

with banishment from his home of Gorlitz unless he agreed to write no

more. Boehme agreed and would write no more for the following seven

years until 1619, when he again began writing in secret.

 

Boehme was the object of much persecution after this unfortunate

event. His chief opponent was the local Lutheran pastor Gregory

Richter who would preach wild sermons against the " drunken cobbler " -

even while Boehme was seated in church before him! Richter once

incited a mob against Boehme which resulted in the windows being

broken from his house. Under pressure of conscience, Boehme began

writing again in 1619 and succeeded in smuggling some of his works

out of Gorlitz by hiding them in sacks of grain. He was once again

discovered by the Church in 1620 and banished from Gorlitz. Jacob had

given a masterful defense of himself at his trial, but peacefully

agreed to the Church's decision. This must have confounded the

members of the tribunal because the next day they unanimously agreed

to send a search party to find Boehme and bring him back to the city!

 

Boehme's mystical experience seems to differ in type from what we

normally refer to as " enlightenment " or " Christ consciousness. " His

writings do not describe a state of being such as " Nirvana " or an

identity with God or the Absolute. What Boehme seemed to receive was

an illumination of Knowledge. He saw the inner aspect and " clockwork "

of the cosmos, as it were, and tried to bring his intuitive insights

into material form by the use of symbology and analogy. His ideas

were the result of an instantaneous illumination and not of concept-

building and arduous philosophizing. He wrote of his experiences:

 

" Therein I first knew what God and man were and what God had to do

with men. Previously I understood little about the high articles of

faith... much less about nature. For the Spirit shot through me like

a bolt of lightning. I began to write like a school-boy, and so I

wrote continuously, but only for myself.

 

" For I saw and knew the Being of all beings, the ground and the

unground; the birth of the holy trinity; the source and origin of

this world and all creatures in divine Wisdom. I saw all three worlds

in myself, [1] the divine, angelical, or paradisiacal; [2] the dark

world; [3] the external, visible world; and I saw and knew the whole

being in evil and in good, how one originates in the other ... so

that I not only greatly wondered but also rejoiced.... For the

Light's spirit moved my soul very much ... repeating many things very

often, ever deeper and clearer, from one step to another - it was the

real Jacob's ladder. " (4)

 

H.P. Blavatsky in her Secret Doctrine claims that Boehme was under

the tutelage of Genii or the Nirmanakayas - those beings who watch

over the evolutionary progress of the Earth. We have no way of

knowing if such beings exist, but the fact that Boehme was

illuminated in such an orderly fashion by a seeming external spirit

or " Light " does lend some credence to Blavatsky's viewpoint.

Regardless, he discovered his knowledge from an inner fountainhead

and not from an external, worldly source. As counseled by all sages,

Boehme held that all knowledge was contained within oneself. He wrote

in his Libri Apologetici:

 

" For we men have one book in common which points to God. Each has it

within himself, which is the priceless Name of God. Its letters are

the flames of his love, which He out of His heart in the priceless

Name of Jesus has revealed in us. Read these letters in your hearts

and spirits and you have books enough. All the writings of the

children of God direct you unto that one book, for therein lie all

the treasures of wisdom.... This book is Christ in you. " (5)

 

Boehme believed that this world is but a shadow-play and

representation of what occurs in higher dimensions. Everything in

this world is the " signature " or symbol of something which exists

more concretely in the spiritual world. Since the spiritual world is

contained within oneself, the external world and the body could be

viewed as a projection from these interior contents. Boehme's insight

on this was that:

 

" The whole outward, visible world with all its being is a signature

or figure of the inward spiritual world; whatever is internal, and

however its operation is, so likewise it has its outward

character.... for whatever the natural light is spiritually, that the

earth is in its coarseness. " (6)

 

Boehme speaks of the " corporeality " of the spiritual worlds. We

normally think of the " ethereal " realms as just that, as being more

ethereal and abstract than our normal physical experience. Actually

this cannot be the case at all. The mystical realm must be more real

and substantial than our physical dimension. If the physical world is

a symbol and creation of what exists in a superior dimension, then

our world must be " ethereal " or illusory in comparison. Boehme

referred to the physical world as " the sphere of transmutation and

phantasy " (7) and said that it is " like a smoke or a fog. " (8) It can

little be wondered that those who have experienced the mystical often

regard the physical world with detachment. If one has experienced

Real Life then our mundane grubbing must seem of little importance in

comparison.

 

Boehme took two seemingly contradictory poses in his advice on the

method necessary to achieve spiritual illumination. At the same time

one must surrender and yet fight with warrior-like intensity. Self-

will prevents understanding in ordinary men but this very same self-

will is necessary to overcome obstacles in the path. It takes

the " dark consuming anguish of the fire " (9) to change man, and this

fire is kindled by an interior battle.

 

" Man must here be at war with himself, if he wished to become a

heavenly citizen. He must not be a lazy sleeper. Fighting must be his

watchword, and not with tongue and sword, but with mind and spirit,

and not give over...

 

" Do you believe that my spirit has sucked this [knowledge] out of the

corrupt earth, or out of a felt hat? Truly no, for at the time I am

describing my spirit did unite with the deepest birth of God. From

that I got my knowledge, and from that it is sucked. What I

thereafter had to suffer from the Devil, who rules my outer man, you

cannot understand... unless you dance in his round.

 

" Therefore if anyone will climb... after me, let him be careful that

he be not drunk... For he must climb through a gruesome deep and

hell, and he will have to endure scoffing and mocking. ...such

knowledge requires no state of melancholy, but a knightly wrestling. "

(10)

 

Boehme held that it was impossible for man to experience illumination

through an act of his own will. Illumination was an act of grace

which could only be obtained through surrender and resignation to

God.

 

" It is not a very easy thing to become a Christian; it is the most

difficult thing in the world. To become a real Christian, one must

break the power of the selfish will, and this no man can do by his

own human power. He must render his self-will like dead. He will then

live in God and be submerged in the love of God; while he still

continues to live in the external world....

 

" If Christ is to arise in you, then must the will of death... die in

you. For Christ has broken death... and become Lord over death and

hell. When he makes his entry in a man, there must death and hell in

the inward ground of the soul break and give way. He destroys the

Devil's kingdom in the soul... makes the soul into God's child...

gives it his will... slays the will of the corrupt nature. " (11)

 

Advice to surrender the self-will is often met with in spiritual

literature and it is difficult to determine just what is meant. One

might think that if he were to surrender his self-will he would be

shuffled off to the nearest institution from the resulting catatonia.

While this may have been the case of a misguided mystic or two, it is

obviously not what is implied. Boehme seems to indicate that

surrender of the self-will is actually something that is done to you

as a result of sincere spiritual effort. One's own will is realized

at a deeper level as a result of partial escape from the obsessing

influences and ambitions of the lower personality. We cannot attempt

to do " God's will " because no one knows what this is in any concrete

sense. " God's will " can only be interpreted in terms of humanity's

deepest aspirations. In the strictest sense, God as the Absolute is

beyond anything we could describe as desire or will.

 

Boehme was definitely not a utopian. He believed that there would

never be a paradise on earth other than the one found within man's

heart. He saw creation as a manifestation or representation of God,

but in our sphere this manifestation takes its coarsest form. In the

mystical realms duality takes the form of harmony while on Earth

duality takes the form of constant tension and battle. He wrote:

 

" Nature, up to the day of judgment, has two inherent qualities; one

is lovely, celestial, and holy, and the other one wrathful and

hellish.... Light and darkness are opposed to each other, but there

is between them a link, so that neither of them could exist without

the other. " (12)

 

Still a young man when he died from a short illness in 1624, his last

words to his family were, " Now I go hence to paradise. " Boehme had

experienced both worlds during his life, the earthly world of battle

and the paradisiacal world of harmony and knowledge. Volumes could be

written of Boehme's cosmology, but this would miss the most important

point, Boehme experienced a realm that can never be fully described

in words. Coleridge could have had Boehme in mind when he penned

these lines:

 

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of paradise.

 

References

 

Jacob Boehme: His Life and Thought, John Joseph Stoudt, Seabury

Press, New York, New York, 1968, p.19.

The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manly P. Hall, Philosophic Research

Society, Los Angeles, CA, 1975, p. 179.

Stoudt, p. 59.

Ibid, p. 60.

Hall, P. 73.

Stoudt, pp. 243, 248. 7. Ibid, p. 242.

The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme, Franz Hartmann, Health

Research, Mokelumne Hill, CA, 1970, p. 172.

Stoudt, p. 117.

Ibid, pp. 120, 62, 61, 66.

Ibid, pp. 64, 163.

Hartmann, pp. 174, 81.

 

 

by Mark Jaqua

 

posted April 3, 2006.....................bob