JACOB BÖHME.
After the publication of the psycho-chemical philosophy of the illuminated shoemaker of Görlitz, the adepts are believed to have despaired of any longer retaining their secrets, and in their own writings they began to speak more freely. In this way the mystery of the vas philosophorum is said to have become less impenetrable than previously, when it was considered a divine secret in the keeping of God and his elect.
Jacob Böhme, who may perhaps be considered as the central figure of Christian mysticism, was born in the year 1575, at Old Seidenberg, a village near Görlitz, in what was then called German Prussia. His parents were poor but honest and sober peasants, and were unable to procure him more than the usual religious schooling and the most simple elements of common education. In his spare time he tended cattle with other boys of the village. “He was a quiet, introspective lad,” says one of his latest biographers, “whose face bore somewhat of the dreamy expression which is frequent in poetic natures.” Even at this early age he was rich in inward visions. On one occasion he retired into a cave, in the rock called Land’s Crown, and discovered a large wooden vessel full of money, from which he precipitately retired without touching it, as though it were something diabolical. He told his companions, but there was no such cavern to be found at the place in question, though they often visited the spot in search of the concealed treasure.
On leaving school, Jacob was apprenticed to a shoemaker, and while he was one day serving in the shop during the absence of his master, an old man, of remarkable and benevolent mien, entered and asked for some shoes, for which the lad, fearing to conclude a bargain without his employer, demanded an extravagant price to deter the stranger from buying. The latter, however, paid the sum asked, and then calling him by his name, beckoned him into the street, when taking him by the hand, with sparkling eyes and earnest, angelical countenance, he said:—
“Jacob, thou art as yet but little; nevertheless, the time will come when thou shalt be great, and the world shall marvel at thee. Therefore, be pious, fear God, and reverence the Word. Read the Holy Scriptures diligently; in these thou shalt have comfort and instruction through the misery, poverty, and persecution which are in store for thee. Be courageous and persevere; God loves thee, and is gracious unto thee.”
The stranger then disappeared, or departed, leaving Jacob more serious and devotional than ever. The words of instruction and inspired admonition which he was frequently prompted to give to his fellow apprentices brought him into disputes with his master, and eventually led to his dismissal. He became a journeyman shoemaker, but returned to Görlitz in 1594, where he married the daughter of a tradesman, by whom he had four children.
In 1598 he imagined himself to be surrounded with the divine light for several consecutive days; he beheld the virtue and nature of the vegetable world, gazing into the very heart of creation, and learning the secrets of the physical cosmos by means of the self-interpreting “signatures” which seemed to be impressed on all around him. A similar experience recurred in 1600, when he passed into the hypnotic state by accidentally fixing his eye on a burnished pewter dish. These visions did not interfere with his capacity for work, or with his attention to his domestic affairs. Ten years passed away, and his psychic perceptions became suddenly clearer. “What he had previously seen only chaotically, fragmentarily, and in isolated glimpses, he now beheld as a coherent whole and in more definite outlines.” He wrote what he experienced under a fervour of inspiration, and in this way his first book was produced—“Aurora, the Day Spring, or Dawning of the Day in the East, or Morning Redness in the Rising of the Sun.” It was not originally intended for publication, but manuscript copies were circulated by one of his friends, and he suffered much consequent persecution from the ecclesiastical authorities of Görlitz. He was forbidden to write any more books, and was commanded to stick to his trade. For five years he meekly obeyed the tyrannous mandate, and afterwards contented himself with writing simply for his intimate friends. From 1619 to 1624 he produced a number of voluminous treatises, of which the book of the “True Principles,” the “Mysterium Magnum,” and the “Signatura Rerum” are perhaps the most characteristic and important. The publication, apparently surreptitious, of his “Way to Christ” again brought him into conflict with the orthodoxy of Görlitz, and led to his temporary exile. He was invited to the electoral court at Dresden, where a conference of eminent theologians examined him, and was so greatly impressed by the man that they declared themselves incompetent to judge him.
In 1624 he was attacked by a fever at the house of a friend in Silesia, was carried at his own request to his native town, and there on the 22nd November he expired in a semi-ecstatic condition.
While serving his apprenticeship at Görlitz, Jacob Böhme acquired some knowledge of chemistry, and he subsequently made use of Hermetic terminology in a transfigured and spiritual sense. His example was followed by his disciples, including the illustrious Saint Martin, Dionysius Andreas Freher, and William Law. The second-named writer has treated of the analogy in the process of the philosophic work to the Redemption of man through Christ Jesus, as unfolded by Jacob Böhme.
A treatise on metallurgy is ascribed to the theosophist himself, and there are several alchemical references in his numerous private epistles. The Holy Ghost is stated to be the key to alchemy; there is no need of hard labour and seeking (presumably among physical substances). “Seek only Christ, and you will find all things.” He describes the philosophers’ stone as dark, disesteemed, and grey in colour. It contains the highest tincture. Like Henry Khunrath before him, he deprecates any expenditure beyond that of the time and cost of the operator’s maintenance. “It doth not cost any money, but what is spent upon the time and the maintenance, else it might be prepared with four shillings. The work is easy, the act simple. A boy of sixteen years might make it, but the wisdom therein is great, and it is greatest mystery.”
The seal of God is elsewhere declared to be set on the secret of alchemy, “to conceal the true ground of the same upon pain of eternal punishments, unless a man know for certain that it shall not be misused. There is also no power to attain it, no skill or art availeth; unless one give the tincture into the hands of another, he cannot prepare it, except he be certainly in the new birth.”
The following lines, copied from a manuscript inserted in a volume of his works, are included in the original edition of the “Lives of Alchemysticall Philosophers”:—
“Whate’er the Eastern Magi sought,
Or Orpheus sung, or Hermes taught,
Whate’er Confucius could inspire,
Or Zoroaster’s mystic fire;
The symbols that Pythagoras drew,
The wisdom God-like Plato knew;
What Socrates debating proved,
Or Epictetus lived and loved;
The sacred fire of saint and sage
Through every clime, in every age,
In Bohmen’s wondrous page we view
Discovered and revealed anew.
‘Aurora’ dawned the coming day:
Succeeding books meridian light display.
Ten thousand depths his works explore,
Ten thousand truths unknown before.
Through all his books profound we trace
The abyss of nature, GOD, and grace;
The seals are broke, the mystery’s past,
And all is now revealed at last.
The trumpet sounds, the Spirit’s given,
And Bohmen is the voice from Heaven.”