Tuesday, October 04, 2005

Into the Mystic

Jakob Böhme (1575-1624) was a German mystic theologian and prolific writer but few of his works were published during his lifetime. This was at least partly because he was accused of being a heretic by the chief Pastor Gregorius Richter of Görlitz. [fabulous name]


The Tree of Faith from Philosophia Revelata 1730

His theosophical writings were framed by mystical speculation and alchemical traditions and although obscure and difficult to interpret into a rational philosophy, they had a widespread direct and indirect effect upon the development of western philosophy. It is beyond my knowledge and the scope of this entry to attempt to distil out his thoughts other than to observe that there was an emphasis on individual development. Carl Jung particularly, mentions Böhme often in his writings.


Supersensual Soul from Philosophia Revelata 1730

There is a lot of material devoted to Böhme on the web but I abandoned the search to find the engraver of the images here. The publication history associated with Böhme's works is very convoluted.

3 comments :

Anonymous said...

These images are fascinating, & it’s frustrating that so little is known about their origin: the Ritman Library link above has as much information about them as I could find. Some more scans of frontispieces, etc., from Böhme’s books: 1, 2, 3, 4.

peacay said...

I'm getting the feeling that there was something of a 'tin pan alley' approach to engravings in the middle ages/renaissance. The history of how things were commissioned must be quite intersting.

Thanks for those, they're great - I searched the Giornale with the contracted spelling obviously! (I was most surprised I didn't find anything)

cloudhand said...

try the following link and associated lynx. extraordianry blog, by the way. thank you.

http://sitelevel.whatuseek.com/query.go?crid=6812065c78bba89e&query=boehme&slice_title=&page=1&fo=1

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