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'Key' of Jacob Boehme
Phanes (fa-nays) means "manifester" or "revealer", and is related to the Greek words "light" and "to shine forth".Phanes Press was founded in 1985 to publish quality books on the spiritual, philosophical, and cosmological traditions of the Western world. Since that time, we have published 45 books, including five volumes of Alexandria, a book-length journal of cosmology, philosophy, myth, and culture.
The year 2000 marks our fifteen-year anniversary, and we are working to bring out more interdisciplinary works, including books on creativity, psychology, literature, and the intersections between science, spirituality, and culture.
The second edition of a volume in the Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks series introducing the ideas and spiritual philosophy of a seventeenth-century Christian mystic. As a young man, Boehme, an unschooled shoemaker, experienced an intense vision of the origin of the universe, the struggle of polarities in creation, and the role of Sophia or Divine Wisdom in the world. In trying to find a language to communicate his mystical perceptions, he turned to alchemical ideas and Hermetic imagery.
This condensation is taken from William Law's translation of Boehme's complete works, and includes Law's "Illustration of the Deep Principles of Jacob Boehme", with thirteen emblematic figures designed by Dionysius Freher.
The year 2000 marks our fifteen-year anniversary, and we are working to bring out more interdisciplinary works, including books on creativity, psychology, literature, and the intersections between science, spirituality, and culture.
The second edition of a volume in the Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks series introducing the ideas and spiritual philosophy of a seventeenth-century Christian mystic. As a young man, Boehme, an unschooled shoemaker, experienced an intense vision of the origin of the universe, the struggle of polarities in creation, and the role of Sophia or Divine Wisdom in the world. In trying to find a language to communicate his mystical perceptions, he turned to alchemical ideas and Hermetic imagery.
This condensation is taken from William Law's translation of Boehme's complete works, and includes Law's "Illustration of the Deep Principles of Jacob Boehme", with thirteen emblematic figures designed by Dionysius Freher.
86 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1624
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About the author
Jakob Böhme
445 books155 followersJakob Böhme (probably April 24, 1575[1] – November 17, 1624) was a German Christian mystic and theologian. He is considered an original thinker within the Lutheran tradition, and his first book, commonly known as Aurora, caused a great scandal. In contemporary English, his name may be spelled Jacob Boehme; in seventeenth-century England it was also spelled Behmen, approximating the contemporary English pronunciation of the German Böhme.
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
April 29, 2020
As of whatsoever(little) I have read, all of the existing doctrines point towards the same direction.
April 9, 2021
Jacob Boehme is the cornerstone of solid spiritual foundation. His works explain the original Light and Darkness with principles.
October 29, 2013
It being the most obscure piece of work I've ever read, I will need to reread this in a few years.
January 12, 2025
Boehme. A name that's been falling out of the mouths of people I read and listen to for the last five years. You can't throw a rock through the subjects of Alchemy, Mysticism, Hermeticism, off-the-path Christianity or the Occult without someone referencing him.
Another few pages of commentary would have been nice. Or even an exposition on Boehme's ideas beyond saying he was a Protestant Mystic Dualist who went on to influence others.
The book itself is Boehme standing back and saying, "Yeah some of that other stuff I wrote is nuts, here's how to read it." It's his model rendered concisely.
Two hours after starting I'm left with a rough sketch of Boehme's mysticism, and a defense of the concept of the Trinity as a resolution to the tension of opposites that makes up this Universe we live in.
Boehme was a Christian persecuted by Christians. His legacy as a founding member of the choir of mystical spiritualism leads, to this day, to further Christian on Christian fear and persecution. A quick glance at nearly any conspiracy sub shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Spirituality/Satanism and the foothold of the occult on society at large.
In Boehme I find none of the perversion attributed by the conspiracy minded to Blavatsky and those who followed her. At best he says that darkness/chaos is the left hand of God and admits that this is a path also. It's not advocacy for it. His goal is to use Christ to reach union with God.
I'll read more Boehme, but I don't think I've found my own Key here. Just a vivid and pretty hermetic understanding of a dual universe. Where all of this lines up with Kabbalah and the development of that Tree of Life symbol I don't know, but I appreciate the medieval thinkers and Alchemists and religious for leaving us such delightful images of contemplation.
Another few pages of commentary would have been nice. Or even an exposition on Boehme's ideas beyond saying he was a Protestant Mystic Dualist who went on to influence others.
The book itself is Boehme standing back and saying, "Yeah some of that other stuff I wrote is nuts, here's how to read it." It's his model rendered concisely.
Two hours after starting I'm left with a rough sketch of Boehme's mysticism, and a defense of the concept of the Trinity as a resolution to the tension of opposites that makes up this Universe we live in.
Boehme was a Christian persecuted by Christians. His legacy as a founding member of the choir of mystical spiritualism leads, to this day, to further Christian on Christian fear and persecution. A quick glance at nearly any conspiracy sub shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Spirituality/Satanism and the foothold of the occult on society at large.
In Boehme I find none of the perversion attributed by the conspiracy minded to Blavatsky and those who followed her. At best he says that darkness/chaos is the left hand of God and admits that this is a path also. It's not advocacy for it. His goal is to use Christ to reach union with God.
I'll read more Boehme, but I don't think I've found my own Key here. Just a vivid and pretty hermetic understanding of a dual universe. Where all of this lines up with Kabbalah and the development of that Tree of Life symbol I don't know, but I appreciate the medieval thinkers and Alchemists and religious for leaving us such delightful images of contemplation.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews