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Argues that the discourse of Jacob Boehme represents the return of Gnostic thought in modernity after a thousand year hiatus. ... Read more

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Out-Boehming Boehme
O'Regan's second work in his projected seven-volume study gives him an opportunity to take the methodology outlined in Gnostic Return in Modernity and to apply it to Jacob Boehme, the father of the Gnostic Return in the post-Reformation West.

Boehme's works are fascinating but offputting, even in English translation. His Lutheran pietist style grates on the contemporary ear. And he is far indeed from clear. But O'Regan, whose prose sometimes makes Boehme seem lucid by contrast, tries to match the famous cobbler's mythopoetic theologizing with the "narrative grammar" of Valentianian Gnosticism.

This "narrative grammar" is at the heart of O'Regan's project of "Gnostic return in modernity". Unlike other academic students of Gnosticism (Michael Allen Williams and Karen King, for example) who are very text-centered, O'Regan cares less for the details of the materials than for how they exhibit a deeper and repetitive structure. And this structure, in his view, tells a story of God, man and the universe that uses the materials of the Bible but disassembles and then reassembles them into a mythic vision. This narrative is not just heretical but utterly disfiguring.

The familiar orthodox narrative is of a self-sufficent but communitarian Deity (Father, Son and Spirit) who creates a variegated universe out of love and whose special human creation freely turns on this love to choose wilful selfishness; the divine Son becomes incarnate and by his obedience andsacrificial death restores the possibility of original communion, through the community of the Church and with the communitarian Deity. The Valentinian narrative describes a self-sufficient communitarian divine world of many variegated characters, where one of them likewise chooses wilfulness for the sake of knowledge and thus falls from this communion into a space of alienation and ignorance, indirectly creating the universe of matter and psyche and entrapping parts of his/herself therein. An envoy from the divine world enters this universe to awaken the entrapped and fragmented divinities caught therein (humans) and this self-knowledge restores them to their original home. In the orthodox narrative, God becomes man out of love, so that men might become gods by grace. In the Gnostic narrative, God becomes man out of need, so that men might remember by grace that they are gods by nature. Salvation by grace, faith and works vs salvation by nature, knowledge and identity.

O'Regan sees this second narrative, using characters and material from the Bible, as a parasitic deformation, a spiritual pathology, where the proper estate of man as an ontologically inferior, morally weak and epistemically challenged creature is overblown into a self-aggrandizement based on special knowledge of the divine causes of the state of the universe.

Like his spiritual and intellectual ancestor, Irenaeus of Lyons, O'Regan performs the paradoxical service of explaining to Gnostics more about their own religious experience. His outline of the Valentinian narrative and its resurfacing in modern thought is, for this Gnostic, utterly illuminating. And O'Regan's politely but firmly stated negative judgment on Gnosticism is not, of course, convincing to one who has found it liberating.

However, he does pressgood questions for Gnostics who do not thereby wish to embrace nihilism. But I fear that the influence of Voegelin's undisciplined and overblown use of Gnosticism as the prime category of modern evil is too strong in O'Regan. Political utopianism -or utopianism of any kind- is (pace Voegelin) hardly a Gnostic temptation. It is much more likely to find fertile soil in the visions that have grown from the theocratic and nationalistic legalism of the Old Testament combined with the messianic universalism of the New. In a religion like Islam, for example, which is, I think, accurately described in the previous sentence.

One thing that O'Regan "gets" clearly about Gnosticism is that it is provoked by the question of theodicy: how can this world, which for all its beauty and order, is structured on suffering and death, be the creation of a God who is utterly wise, good and powerful? Gnostics are pretty clear on the answer: it can't.We search beyond the creator God of this world for the Deity beyond Him, and hidden in us. But O'Regan makes a powerful argument to the contrary. Orthodoxy cannot solve, that is, explain,the problem of evil. Evil must be recognized and confronted. But if you solve the problem of evil by successfully explaining it, justifying it for the sake of God (theo-dicy) as Gnostics try to do, then what have you actually done but validated it and removed the reason to confront it? A successful theodicy is self-defeating. Food for thought.

Jacob Boehme may appear to have gotten lost in this review. And he has. But unless you can absorb O'Regan's underlying, orverarching and penetrating hermeneutic project, you might find the Boehme book just mystifying.Once you grasp his plan -whether you agree with his evaluation or not-it is a rewarding experience to see him "explain" Boehme so clearly, if ponderously.

Speaking of ponderously. A final word about his style. He is a Hegel scholar, so perhaps he is beyond redemption. And his third volume will be on Hegel. I'm stockpiling Advil for that adventure. But he really needs to do something about his writing. O'Regan is prodigiously intelligent and massively well-read, an tribute to the impressive Hibernian and Catholic intellectual tradition. And I do not fault him for his grand reach and neologisms. A Gnostic could hardly complain about that. But his sentences and form of argument are so wearyingly complex, overly nuanced at every turn, and obsessively lawyerlike that it stresses the patience of even the well-read. (Gnostic writings are notoriously dense and ill-done; you'd think an anti-Gnostic would take a lesson.) He should be forced, for the sake of his own project,to swear a feudal oath of vassalage to his editor and simply obey. ... Read more

Product Description
If Signatura Rerum by the German mystic Jacob Boehme looks like a book you'd find in the library at a certain school of wizardry, you're not too far off. Boehme discourses at length here on one of the fundamental laws of Magic: the law of signatures, the concept that every object in the real world has some hidden meaning, and particularly how these signatures interact.

At the core of Boehme's philosophy is a mystical Christianity. However, his beliefs were far from that of the Lutheran establishment, and he was persecuted his entire life. Boehme's view of a universe where a creative and destructive principle are in conflict was later repurposed by Hegel as the dialectic. Newton, Nietzsche, the Quaker George Fox, and even Phillip K. Dick have all been cited as being influenced by Boehme. (Quote from sacred-texts.com)

About the Author

Jacob Boehme (1575 - 1624)
Bohme was born in eastern Germany, near Gorlitz. He grew up as a Lutheran, and worked as a shoemaker in Gorlitz.

Bohme had mystical experiences throughout his youth, culminating in a vision in 1600 that he received through observing the exquisite beauty of a beam of sunlight reflected in a pewter dish. He believed this vision revealed to him the spiritual structure of the world, as well as the relationship between God and man, and good and evil. At the time he chose not to speak of this experience openly, preferring instead to continue his work and raise a family. (Quote from wikipedia.org)

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books is a publisher of historical writings, such as: Philosophy, Classics, Science, Religion, History, Folklore and Mythology.
http://www.forgottenbooks.org ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

philosopher of divinity
Simply amazing! That's how I can discribe this Boehme's book.
It's not just a writen about cosmogony, philosofy, alchemy and Kabbalah. It fills our heart with the most deep subjects about life, existence and death.
One of the best book from Jacob Boehme. Recommended! ... Read more

Product Description
THIS 18 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Dialogues on the Supersensual Life, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592162. ... Read more

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Other volumes in this set include ISBN number(s): 0766126021. Volume two of two volumes. (The following description is for both volumes.) Edited by John Sparrow. Of the Eternal, Dark, Light, and Temporary World. Showing What the Soul, the Image and the Spirit of the Soul are; and also what Angels, Heaven, and Paradise are. How Adam was before the Fall, in the Fall, and after the Fall. And what the Wrath of God, Sin, Death, the Devils and Hell are. How all things have been, now are, and how they shall be at the Last. Some have complained of the hardness to understand his writings, and therefore I have endeavored the Englishing of this book of the Three Principles, which, the author saith, is the A, B, C to all his writings; and if they read it carefully, they will find it, though hard at first, easy at last, and then all his other books easy, and full of deep understanding. A man cannot conceive the wonderful knowledge before he hath read this book thoroughly and diligently, which he will find to be contained in it. ... Read more

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The Way to Christ was the first published book of German mystic JACOB BOEHME (1575-1624), who received a revelatory vision in 1600 while watching a beam of sunlight reflect in a metal dish. A spiritual guide for Christians, this book contains Boehme's method for attaining enlightenment and unity with God. He offers prayers for readers to repeat and guides them through the repentance that is necessary in finding Christ. Lost souls and Christians out of touch with their faith will find Boehme's conviction and passion inspiring. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Understanding the Fall...
Boehme lends new light to the study of sin and redemption and how man can find his way back to Christ indwelling.A powerful and inspirational read.

Inspirational!
Boehem was an enlightened mystic. This is a shorter collection of Boehme's writing's. It was his desire to bring others into a deeper relationship with Jesus Christ. The purification of the soul being the predominant underlying theme. A truly inspirational book. ... Read more

Product Description
Other volumes in this set include ISBN number(s): 0766126021. Volume two of two volumes. (The following description is for both volumes.) Edited by John Sparrow.Of the Eternal, Dark, Light, and Temporary World.Showing What the Soul, the Image and the Spirit of the Soul are; and also what Angels, Heaven, and Paradise are.How Adam was before the Fall, in the Fall, and after the Fall.And what the Wrath of God, Sin, Death, the Devils and Hell are.How all things have been, now are, and how they shall be at the Last.Some have complained of the hardness to understand his writings, and therefore I have endeavored the Englishing of this book of the Three Principles, which, the author saith, is the A, B, C to all his writings; and if they read it carefully, they will find it, though hard at first, easy at last, and then all his other books easy, and full of deep understanding.A man cannot conceive the wonderful knowledge before he hath read this book thoroughly and diligently, which he will find to be contained in it. ... Read more

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THIS 9 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Three Famous Mystics, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0922802858. ... Read more

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Other volumes in this set include ISBN number(s): 0766126285. Volume 1 of 2.(This description is for all volumes.) Edited by John Sparrow. Concerning the Manifestation or Revelation of the Divine Word through the Three Principles of the Divine Essence; also of the Original of the World and the Creation.Wherein the Kingdom of Nature, and the Kingdom of Grace, are Expounded.For the better understanding of the Old and New Testament, and what Adam and Christ are, also How Man should consider and may know himself in the Light of Nature, what he is, and wherein his Temporal, and Eternal Life, Consist; also, wherein his Eternal Blessedness, and Damnation Consist.And is an Exposition of the Essence of all Essences for the further Consideration of the Lovers, in the Divine Gift.Comprised in Three Parts."Since then the great Mysteries, the beginning of and original of all things, do befall us by divine grace; that we are able to understand the same in real knowledge, with the inspired word of the divine science, we will write down its ground in this book: I. We will signify and declare what the centre and ground of all essences is.II.What the divine manifestation is.III. How evil and good have their original from one only ground.IV. How all things have their ground from the Grand Mystery.V. How the eternal One introduceth itself into sensation, perception, and severation, to the science of itself, and the play of the divine power.VI. How man may attain to the true knowledge of God, and to the knowledge of the eternal and temporal nature.VII. Also how man may come unto the real contemplation of the Being of all beings.VIII. Also of the creation of the world and of all creatures.IX. And then of the original, fall, and restoration of man; what he is according to the first Adamical man in the kingdom of nature:and what he is in the new regeneration in the kingdom of grace, and how the new birth comes to pass.X. Also what the Old and New Testaments are, each in its understanding.And we will enlarge this exposition through all the chapters of the first Book of Moses; and signify how the Old Testament is a figure of the New. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Masterpiece!
This was the last work of Boehme, a most humble mystic, this was his interpretation of the Book of Genesis that also considers the message of the New Testament and the true nature of mystical experience. ... Read more

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THIS 20 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Signature of all Things; of the Supersensual Life; of Heaven and Hell; Discourse Between Two Souls, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592154. ... Read more

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THIS 8 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Forty Questions of the Soul, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592669. ... Read more

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THIS 7 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Aurora, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564591158. ... Read more

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THIS 9 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Forty Questions of the Soul, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592669. ... Read more

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THIS 8 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Way to Christ, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592189. ... Read more

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THIS 9 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Forty Questions of the Soul, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564592669. ... Read more

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Short description: Mysterium Magnum is central to Boehme's work. Taking the general form of an interpretation of Genesis, it far outstrips such apparent confines, and explains the popularity of his work among followers as varied as Hegel, Law, Blake and Berdyaev. ... Read more

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THIS 26 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Incarnation of Jesus Christ, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 1564593789. ... Read more

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THIS 9 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Three Famous Mystics, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 0922802858. ... Read more

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THIS 58 PAGE ARTICLE WAS EXTRACTED FROM THE BOOK: Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence Part 1, by Jacob Boehme. To purchase the entire book, please order ISBN 076612603X. ... Read more