Boehme

An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century Philosopher and Mystic

By Andrew Weeks

Subjects: Biography
Paperback : 9780791405970, 280 pages, July 1991
Hardcover : 9780791405963, 280 pages, July 1991

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Table of contents

Preface

Introduction

1. Upper Lusatia

2. The Genesis of Boehme's Vision

3. The Twofold Aurora

4. The Three Worlds

5. The Fire-World

6. The Mirror of Darkness

7. The Will to Revelation

8. Boehme's Last Year

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Description

This is a biography of one of the most original and one of the least understood seminal writers of the Baroque world, Jacob Boehme.

In a period tormented by mysteries and controversies, Boehme's visionary mysticism responded to the vexing quandaries confronting his contemporaries. His concerns included the apocalyptic religious disputes of his day, the havoc wrought by the Thirty Years' War in his region, the disintegration of the Old Middle European order, the rise of new cosmic models from avant-garde heliocentrism to obscure esoteric theories, and his endeavor to express by means of codes and symbols a new sense of the human, divine, and natural realms.

Reviews

"This is the first book which describes Boehme's writings in the context of the events of his time as well as of his own life. It is a major contribution to Boehme material and to studies of seventeenth-century German thought." — Henry Le Roy Finch, Hunter College

"The author's ability to provide an overview of Boehme scholarship to date and to provide fine commentary on earlier Boehme works will win it many admirers." — Peter C. Erb, Wilfrid Laurier University, Ontario, Canada

"His writings have continued to fascinate, from his death in 1624 to the Romantic movement and beyond. Andrew Weeks's knowledgeable and well-written study makes Boehme's mystical visions considerably more accessible than have most previous works on the subject." — Times Literary Supplement