Acknowledged as one of the greatest of the western mystics, Jacob Boehme was born in 1575 at Old Seidenberg, a small village in Silesia. A shoemaker by trade, Boehme's whole life was spent in contemplation and prayer, seeking spiritual enlightenment. He was rewarded with piercing visions of God and the nature of reality, revelations which he set down in a series of books. The Clavis is perhaps the most accessible of all these tomes, a detailed, yet succinct, account of the nature of God and Creation, and of humanity's role within the unfolding evolution of the Universe.
In 1895 the Reverend Dr. Alexander Whyte bemoaned the lack of a Boehme biography, suggesting that a compilation of the many biographic details scattered throughout his works would give the student a better insight into his thoughts and ideas. W. Scott Palmer took up the challenge and the result, The Confessions of Jacob Boehme, serves to shine a light on the doubts and temptations that lay on the path to Boehme's eventual enlightenment.
The author sets forth fundamentally the birth, sympathy, and antipathy of all beings; how all beings originally arise out of one eternal mystery, and how that same mystery begets itself in itself from eternity to eternity; and likewise how all things, which take their original out of this eternal mystery, may be changed into evil, and again out of evil into good; with a clear and manifest demonstration how man has turned himself out of the good into the evil, and how his transmutation is again out of the evil into the good: Moreover, herein is declared the outward cure of the body; how the outward life may be freed from sickness by its likeness or assimulate, and be again introduced into its first essence; where also, by way of parable and similitude, the Philosopher's Stone is with great life described for the temporal cure; and along with it the holy Corner Stone, Christ alone, for the everlasting cure, regeneration, and perfect restitution of all the true, faithful, eternal souls. In a word, his intent is to let you know the inward power and property by the outward sign; for nature has given marks and notes to everything, whereby it may be known; and this is the Language of Nature, which signifies for what everything is good and profitable: And herein lies the mystery, or central science of the high philosophical work in the true spagiric art, which consummates the cure, not only for the body, but for the soul.
Jacob Boehme wrote his masterwork following two series of illuminating visions; his insights span the religious, metaphysical and mystical, and fascinated scholars of his era.
Working as a shoemaker in 1600, Boehme's early life was obscure - as a village cobbler, he was diligent but unremarkable. However a sudden series of visions, which Boehme chronicled in writing, changed his life profoundly. The local Lutheran pastor rebuffed the revelatory wisdom, urging the local councilmen to banish Boehme - a process prevented by the author's good reputation. In any case, Boehme departed for the city; his writings soon gained attention, with many scholars fascinated by the depth of the humble shoemaker's sacred wisdom.
Greatly influenced by Christian teachings and the life of Jesus, the book also proposes a range of explanations for the natural world. Reality and existence are perceived through a vividly spiritual and mystical lens, in a manner startlingly original in post-Reformation Europe. God's divinity sets the stage of the visible world and the journey of all living souls; a profound spiritual force overseeing and transcending every aspect of nature. This book contains Boehme's Signatura Rerum in full, organized and translated to English by John Ellistone.
To this day, Boehme is referred to as Europe's last great mystic.
Born in the German village of Alt Seidenberg in 1575, Jacob Boehme was from his childhood was subject to profound mystical visions. Although a shoemaker by trade, he felt compelled to publish his experiences, and to expound a philosophy which - although based solidly on Christian mysticism - led him into conflict with Church authorities. He was briefly exiled from his home town and persecuted for most of the remainder of his life. In 'Signatura Rerum', Boehme describes God as both Void and Source of All Creation, the font from which creative will struggles towards manifestation and consciousness. For Boehme, Evil results when individual elements of Deity strive to become the whole. Boehme's views became very popular, and he is known to have influenced a wide variety of thinkers, including St Martin, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Nietsche and Newton.