The Wisdom of Jacob Böhme

Selection from the Introduction by Arthur Versluis

Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), sometimes in English called “Behmen,” is arguably the most influential and profound spiritual author of the modern period. His influence, both in Europe and in North America, is much greater than most people realize. Philosophers, artists, literati from Georg Wilhelm Frederic Hegel to William Blake and Ralph Waldo Emerson, all found inspiration in the extraordinary books and treatises written by the “inspired cobbler.” Indeed, he is the origin of a non-sectarian esoteric spiritual tradition called “theosophy,” the chief figures of which I have detailed in a number of books, including Theosophia, Wisdom’s Children, and Wisdom’s Book. Though not well known, this tradition (which has absolutely nothing to do with the nineteenth-century occultist movement of Blavatsky that attempted to take its name) continues to the present day. But more important than Böhme’s influence, wide and deep as it may be, is Böhme’s profundity. In this little book, we can see for the first time the wisdom of Böhme in lucid contemporary language; here, we find a concise manual for the contemporary spiritual seeker who looks for true depth in the Western spiritual tradition.
Böhme’s life is well known, and discussed in detail in numerous other books, so there is little sense in repeating what can be found elsewhere. What is more, this series of books is meant to offer what we may term a spiritual manual of advice, and in this respect is meant to be more practical than academic. Still, it may be of value to outline broadly the arc of Böhme’s life, as to do so helps underscore the nature of his work. There are many legends about Böhme’s early life: it is said that he was visited by a stranger who predicted his spiritual illuminations in later life; and there are other apocryphal stories about him as well in much the same vein. We know from his own testimony that he had a profound spiritual illumination while in his twenties, and that although he led a fairly ordinary lay life as a man who married, had children, and worked as a shoemaker in Görlitz, Germany, (very near what in the twentieth century was divided by the iron curtain into Poland), he also developed very profound insights into nature and into the spiritual life.
His initial insights he wrote down in order to keep them fresh for his memory, and when the resulting manuscript, under the name Aurora began to circulate more widely, it came into the hands of his local Lutheran minister, one Gregorius Richter. Richter was incensed against Böhme’s writings, perhaps not least because of Böhme’s warnings against what he called “Babel,” or the mere outward pretense of Christianity without any inner spiritual awakening. Whatever the reasons, Richter began to persecute Böhme, and for more than a subsequent decade, Böhme obligingly ceased from writing and publishing further books or treatises. But then, later in life, Böhme was prevailed upon by his circle of spiritual friends to write down more of his insights, and it is from this time of late productivity that most of his work dates. During this period, Böhme wrote an astonishing number of very complex spiritual and cosmological works, as well as numerous letters of spiritual advice to seekers. Böhme died in 1624, reportedly with the words “Now I enter into paradise.” Although his grave was later defaced by his persecutors, his readership only continued to grow, especially after Johann Georg Gichtel’s publication of his complete works early in the eighteenth century.
Böhme’s books have a reputation for being extremely complex, even impenetrable, but much of this is due to the cosmological dimensions of his work, and to his often circular, repetitive, and dense style. When he sought to explain his insights into the hidden aspects of nature, he drew upon alchemical language and neologisms that for most modern readers seem totally opaque. While there are glossaries and explanatory works like his Clavis or Key, these often seem only to intensify the reader’s sense that although there is much that is profound in Böhme’s work, it remains beyond most of the rest of us. On the other hand, though Böhme’s insights (especially those into nature) are indeed difficult, many of these belong to his earlier writing, for his later works include much that is very simple and clear. It is chiefly from these kinds of works that this collection is drawn.
Why is it that Böhme has had such a vast underground influence and sparked so many spiritual pilgrims’ inner journeys for centuries? Certainly it is not because of his insights into hidden aspects of nature alone. No, in Böhme’s work, spiritual seekers in Europe, England, and North America in particular found an opening into a rich spiritual life. This inner life is not at all concerned with the foundation of yet another sect, and indeed, for this very reason there are no theosophic churches or even any public organization in the Böhmean tradition. The only such sect was that of the English Philadelphians under the leadership of Jane Leade, herself a visionary but not really in the Böhmean current in the way that, for example, the great spiritual author John Pordage (1608-1681) (her contemporary) was. What attracts spiritual seekers to Böhme’s works is their realization that here is a profound and humble guide into the treasures of the inner life; here in Christianity is an author whose work is much closer to Sufism in Islam, or Kabbalah in Judaism, but who clearly belongs entirely to the Western spiritual lineage, and who reveals great spiritual mysteries.
In this collection, I have chosen selections from a range of Böhme’s works, and have edited and translated them into a lucid contemporary aphoristic form. In this way, it becomes clear that Böhme’s advice to the spiritual seeker is both practical and profound, and is based only on his direct personal experience. For this reason, this collection both begins and ends with selections from his letters to various correspondents, in which he refers to his own experiences and spiritual growth. Other books from which these selections are drawn include Six Theosophic Points, The Way to Christ, Three Principles, and Forty Questions. All that is included in this collection was chosen because it offers direct advice to the spiritual seeker on how to enter into and complete the inner journey of spiritual awakening.
Böhme’s genius lies, in part, in his ability to convey this spiritual advice in the larger context of his spiritual understanding. While this collection does not emphasize his insights into the hidden aspects of nature, it does include this part of his work because it could not be otherwise—one cannot understand his advice to the spiritual seeker without recognizing that it belongs in the context of his theosophic perspective as a whole. Böhme’s work reveals not only the human relationship to the natural world, but also the human relationship to the spiritual realms, most notably, to the various aspects of the divine. According to Böhme, during our brief lives on earth, we have the possibility of spiritual illumination that will have profound ramifications for us in the afterlife. For him, Christianity is not merely “Babel,” or outward show and belief in merely historical events, but a process of inward transmutation and illumination.