Andrew Weeks

This book offers the reader an introduction to the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Nicholas of Cusa, Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme, Angelus Silesius, Novalis and includes the more recent thinkers, such as Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein, who were influenced by the tradition. It is the first study of its scope to take into account the much ignored historical preconditions of German mysticism and the first to trace the thematic evolution of mystical literature from a core of biblical and Augustinian materials. It also follows in the footsteps of recent scholarship in showing how German mysticism interacts with other currents in intellectual history such as the Reformation, Romanticism, or Modernism. Instead of murky generalizations, the reader will find clear discussions of representative literary documents, analyzed with an eye to theme, source, style, function, and influence.

A Literary and Intellectual History

German Mysticism From Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein

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.

An Intellectual Biography of the Seventeenth-Century Philosopher and Mystic

Boehme

James M. Van der Laan

New essays revealing the enduring significance of the story made famous in the 1587 Faustbuch and providing insights into the forces that gave the sixteenth century its distinct character.

German Literature and Culture in the Age of Luther and Faustus

The Faustian Century

Leigh Penman

Bo Andersson

Lucinda Martin

This volume deepens our understanding of Jacob Böhme’s texts and contexts and facilitates future research. It encompasses sections on the text-centered approach to Böhme, facets of his environment, and aspects of his influence which bring latent features of his writings to light.

Jacob Böhme and His World

Drawing upon Huser’s 1589 publication of Paracelsus’ works, this dual-language volume combines a critical edition of Essential Theoretical Writings on philosophy, medicine, nature, and the supernatural, with new English translations and extensive commentary on the second largest sixteenth-century German-language corpus.

Essential Theoretical Writings

Paracelsus (Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, 1493-1541)

Jacob Boehme’s beautiful and influential Aurora (1612) with an English translation opposite its source. Commentary on themes and concepts sheds light on the work and its impact on poetry, philosophy, and mystical religion. The volume includes Boehme's Fundamental Report (1620).

Translation, Introduction, Commentary.

Aurora (Morgen Röte im auffgang, 1612) and Fundamental Report (Gründlicher Bericht, Mysterium Pansophicum, 1620)

The treatise of the great philosopher and mystic, Jacob Boehme’s Of the Three Principles of Divine Being, 1619, is a key to his complete work, its historical context, and its role in German intellectual history.

Andrew Weeks

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