Esoteric Coffeehouse

I have spent my last few weeks researching the German theosophist Jacob Boehme, and I thought – why not write an introduction to this esotericist who has influenced so much of modern thinking, including Romanticism, Hegel or Schopenhauer?

Boehme (1575-1624) is mostly known and revered today as the forerunner of modern theosophy, a major esoteric movement made famous by Helena Blavatsky, Rudolf Steiner and Krishnamurti (the latter two in their early years). As conceived by Boehme, theosophy was an eclectic mixture of Christian theology, natural philosophy and mysticism. He perceived the Bible as containing esoteric knowledge about God that he felt he had a duty to reveal.

It all started with a mystical revelation. In 1600, at age 25, Boehme was a rather prosperous shoemaker in the eastern German town of Gorlitz. He had just married, acquired his license to practice shoemaking, and all was set for him to become a respected and average citizen of Gorlitz. But, the legend goes, Boehme was not a happy man; he was depressed and often fell into melancholy. One day, however, as Boehme was sitting at home, he suddenly saw the light of the sun reflected in a tin dish. In one flash, Boehme experienced a mystical vision of God which changed his life forever.

Moved by such a powerful revelation, Boehme began to write his first book, Aurora, which he only finished twelve years later. He never abandoned his ‘day-job’, so to speak: he continued to work as a shoemaker until l613, when he began a yarn business. Yet his mystical-esoteric side got him into trouble with the local Lutheran church, which pronounced him a heretic and forbade him to write. That, of course, did not happen; his Aurora became very popular in several influential circles and subsequently Boehme wrote more than fifteen thick books, which expanded on the first revelations of Aurora.

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Like all things of Hermetic extract, alchemy hails from Egypt, and its recorded origins can be traced back to the late antique world. The etymology of the name ‘alchemy’ is not clear – it may have referred to Egypt as the “black land” (chemia) or perhaps to the first stage of the alchemical work, nigredo (blackness) (1, 2). The beginnings of alchemy are shrouded in mystery, but it is known that, by 300-400 AD, Greek alchemists such as Pseudo-Democritus, Zosimos and Synesius were writing about the process of gold-making in mystical, obscure terms.

Alchemy has survived throughout the centuries based on a few fundamental concepts, which I have summarized as:

1. the tradition that viewed gold as the highest, and purest of metals.

2. the belief that matter was not inert, but continuously transformed itself into something ‘higher’. Thus all metals would eventually become gold, given enough time.

3. human beings could hasten the work of nature, transforming metals into gold by means of an intermediary substance called the Philosopher’s Stone. This Stone was seen as not only bettering metals but human beings as well, lengthening life and curing illnesses (3).

4. the process of going to the heart of matter and enacting its change was seen as something sacred or even mystical; thus there was a fundamental participation of the alchemist in the work resulting in an inner change as well as an outer one.

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These days if you turn on National Geographic or the Discovery channel you can be sure to run into a program that talks about ancient Egypt and the Pyramids. It is fairly obvious that Pharaonic Egypt continues to exercise a profound fascination on people’s minds. Modern folk are not exception, but the rule, for almost every period in history was mesmerized by the mystery of ancient Egypt. Starting with the Greeks, continuing with the Romans, Islamic culture, the Renaissance down to the present, Egypt continues to embody the mystery of the beginnings of civilization. For most people, the legacy of Egypt is a dead culture buried deep within the sands of the Valley of Kings: but for many of those studying or practicing Hermeticism, it is still very much alive. Today, it is becoming more and more likely that at least part of the ancient Egyptian heritage passed through the figure of the god Thoth to an offshoot of him, Hermes Trismegistus, and then on to the modern times.

Ancient Egyptian religion is still shrouded in mystery, despite the translations of the hieroglyphs. Today we associate this religion mostly with the cult of Osiris and Isis, as well as the sun-god Re. However, it now appears that the god Thoth was an equally, or eventually more important god than these.

I must confess that I have encountered problems trying to unearth the mysterious figure of Thoth. There’s hardly anything up-to-date written about him: my main sources had to remain at the level of 1922’s classic by P. Boylan (1) and a 1973 book by J.C. Bleeker (2), none of which cover the late antique transformation of Thoth into Hermes Trismegistus. For Hermes and Hermes Trismegistus there is quite an enlightening book written by the founder of Western Esotericism research, A. Faivre (3). Yet in the end the information on Thoth is sadly disjointed, not updated and fragmentary, as if destined to perpetuate the myth and mystique of this shadowy god!

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