Jacob Bohme Research Articles

W poszukiwaniu utraconej metody, czyli Włodzimierz Sołowjow a idea sofijna w nowej książce Henriecke Stahl „Sophia im Denken Vladimir Solov’evs. Eine Ästhetische Rekonstruktion”

The article is based upon Henriecke Stahl’s newest monograph under the title “Sophia im Denken Vladimir Solov’evs. Eine asthetische Rekonstruktion”. The author’s precise analysis focuses on the metamorphosis of the Sophia-idea in both Solovyov’s philosophy and poetry. The following review discusses the most important aspects of Stahl‘s book as well as the semantic peculiarity of her methodology. Other significant and meaningful elements are various frames of reference between Solovyov and German philosophers (Kant, Hegel, Schelling) and mystics (Jacob Bohme) and Eastern Orthodox thinkers, especially those of the hesychast spiritual tradition (Gregory Palamas, [Pseudo-]Dionisys the Areopagite, Maximus the Confessor).

Censuring the Teutonic Philosopher?

This essay examines Henry More’s engagement with Jacob Bohme and compares the sympathetic critique of Bohme with More’s much more negative evaluation of Spinoza. More directs his criticism of Bohme at the similarities between Spinoza and Bohme: their materialism and confusion of God and world. The present essay suggests, however, that the perception of shared Platonism informs More’s more favourable approach to the Silesian. The problem of what “Platonism” means in this context is thus also addressed. Bohme’s writings were valued by More because of a shared metaphysics that rejected both radical dualism and pantheism, and the Platonic theology of the goodness of God and the freedom of man, together with the rejection of predestination. Spinoza, on the other hand, is rejected because of his radical determinism, his denial of any substantial distinction between good and evil, and the transcendent being of the divine.

От Бёме к Гегелю и обратно

The article presents a critical analysis of Cecilia Muratori’s book “The First German Philosopher”, dedicated to the reception and interpretation of Jacob Bohme’s thought in the works of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The author tries to evaluate the importance of this book for Russian scientific community and to outline the prospects for further researches in this field, taking into account Muratori's results. In addition, the author highlights the fact that, from historical point of view, some of Muratori’s conclusions may seem too radical and / or in need of additional evidences (in particular, this is the case of the question of how direct and immediate Bohme’s influence on Hegel’ philosophy could be).

The First Appearance of Jacob Bohme's Work in Print

The First Appearance of Jacob Bohme's Work in Print

The Genealogy of the Romantic Symbol by Nicholas Halmi

MLR, 104.1, 2009 141 (Nicholas White); fromlatetwentieth-century British andAmericanlesbianfiction (Lynne Pearce) tocontemporary Americancinema(TraciPipkins).In additionto its wide geographical sweep-from BritaintoFrance,from NorthAmerica toGer manyandRussia-this interdisciplinary collection also exploresthethematic and structural role ofdivorceinawidevariety of media: the novel,courtcases,film, and television. Despite thiskaleidoscopicrange,thevolumeas awhole is remarkably coherent initscareful, sustained focus on the meaningandpotential ofdivorceas a narrative form, aswell as itsideological andcultural meaning inspecific contexts. The essayscomprising After Intimacy bringawide range ofmethodologicalap proachestotheir subjects. Someauthors choosetooffer a survey ofdivorceliterature overthe courseoftwo centuries. Forexample, Janet Gartontraces thetransformation ofdivorceinScandinaviafromtheearly nineteenth tothe mid-twentieth century, finding a shift from'a threat to theveryfabric of societyto theindividual drama' (P.112).Likewise, HelenaGoscilo discusses paradigms oftriangulation anddivorce particulartothe Russiancontext, fromthenineteenth century toSoviettimes and post-Soviet literature andculture. Otheressaysoffer amore focused analysis of the divorcetropeeitherin specific historical contexts or ina fewexemplary texts or films. BarbaraLeckie'sbrilliant analysis of 'the CarolineNortonplot'-a truein terdisciplinary tour de force-showshowdivorcecourtjournalism shapedthe way marriagebreakdown anddivorce were represented inthenovelin mid-nineteenth century Britain. Nicholas White's excellent article onFrench women'swritingfrom the Second Empire to the FirstWorld War argues that the divorce plot opens up a fascinating newnarrative potentialtothetraditional conclusions of thelove plot that ofmarriageordeath.Thecollection fittingly concludes with twoessays dealing withpostmodern America:TraciPipkins'sanalysis of WoodyAllen's interrogation of the romantic myths of love and marriage, and Janet McCabe's exploration of how separation and divorce organize the narrative logic in The Sopranos. The volume as a whole does an excellent job of mapping out the field of di vorcenarratives inpost-1789 Westernculture, and createsa blueprint forfurther development of thisfascinating subject. GEORGEWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY MASHA BELENKY TheGenealogyof the RomanticSymbol.ByNICHOLAS HALMI. Oxford:Oxford University Press. 2007. X+206 pp. ?45. ISBN 978-0-19-921241-5. There is a great deal more to this study than the title might suggest. As the author is quick topointout,thisisnot,asonemightexpect, a study of the Romanticsymbol in the more commonly understoodsense,represented, forexample, byNovalis's blue flower. What NicholasHalmi providesisinstead a detailedandnuancedexca vationof theconceptual andphilosophical background rationale fortheemergence of thesymbol duringtheRomanticperiod.Thevolumeprovidesa comparative perspective, witha focus onBritish andGermanRomanticism, avaluableapproach marredonlyby a tendency to refer to 'English' Romanticism while discussinga 142 Reviews criticallandscapethat was oftendominatedby theScottish periodicalpress.The scopeof thevolume is infactthoroughly European,as isbefitting anydiscussion of theemergence ofRomantic thought, and diachronically rich with excursuses intoclassicalthought aswell as the work of sixteenthand seventeenth-century philosophers and theologians. The study openswith a definition of the Romanticsymbol which centres on its theorization 'asanattempt, howeverillogical andmethodologically dubiousinitself, to foster a sense of the harmony of the human mind with nature, of the unity of seemingly disparateintellectual disciplines, and of thecompatibility of individual freedom with a cohesivesocialstructure' (p.24). The relation of thistoprevailing values isdiscussed in thefollowing chapter, which tracestheflowfrom Enlight enmentsemioticstoRomanticsymbolist theory, asRomantic thinkers sought'a securer basisonwhich toclaimthatthe numinousness ofaesthetic ideas [. ..] actu allyinhered intheobjectsthey presented tothesenses'(p.61). The implications of thisfor contemporary theories inthefields ofphilosophy, theology, andmythology areconsideredinthesubsequent chapters. Thechapter on philosophyisimpressive initsrange witha cogent, thematic rather than chronological appraisal ofresponses to Kantianaesthetics inFriedrich Wilhelm Schelling's Naturphilosophie, positedas thefoundation of symbolist theory, Johann Gottfried Herder, KarlPhilipp Moritz, HenrikSteffens, SamuelTaylor Coleridge, WilliamWordsworth, GottholdEphraim Lessing,Johann WolfgangvonGoethe,andFriedrich HeinrichJacobi. Halmi's ex amination of the'UsesofTheology'is weighted more towards the workofColeridge and takesthetheoretical premissof Toposforschung andM. H. Abrams'sNatural Supernaturalism (New York: Norton, 1971) as its starting-point. Relevant also are Schelling and the GermanRomanticreading ofpantheist andmysticalthinkers such as Jacob Bohme. The final chapter on mythology tends once more towards German thought with readings ofHerder,Friedrich Schiller, Friedrich Schlegel, Schelling, andFriedrich Creuzer.Thechapter also engages withDas alteste Systemprogramm desdeutschen Idealismus or 'Oldest Programme fora System ofGerman Idealism', the authorship ofwhich remains amatter for debate, having been ascribed at one timeor anothertoSchelling, Friedrich Holderlin,andGeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel.The 'Programme' isincludedinEnglishtranslation as anappendix. This isa richand complexstudy which encouragesthereadertoengageanew with some of the standard textsof Romantic theory,paying close attention to their contemporary contextand to their criticalreception and theapplication of later theories, such as those of Paul de Man and Ernst Cassirer. Given the complexity of thesubject-matter and thevaluable insights provided,thevolume mighthave benefited from a summarizing concluding chapter, but isnevertheless an important contribution toRomanticscholarship. BANGOR UNIVERSITY CAROL TULLY ...

A Rosicrucian Utopia in Eighteenth-Century Russia: The Masonic Circle of N. I. Novikov by Raffaella Faggionato (review)

REVIEWS 349 Bohdan Tscherkeswrites on Stalinistvisions for the urban transformation of Lviv in I939-55; he identifies the important changes that were made to give the city a Soviet visual and ideological orientation,but revealsthat more grandiose Soviet plans for radically altering the city's appearance were never implemented. Similarily, Martin Aberg concludes, in a study of the demographic and social changes in postwar Lviv, that while Soviet policies altered the city's ethno-linguisticprofile, the relativelymodest programme of industrializationenabled distinctUkrainianculturalforms to survive.Padraic Kenney demonstrates in turn how these contributed to Lviv's 'Central European Renaissance' in I987-90 and the role it played in the protests that led to Ukrainian independence. George Grabowicz closes the volume by dissectingthe myths that Polish and Ukrainianliteratureshave projectedinto the city's history. All the articlesare based on an extensiveprimaryand secondaryliterature in half a dozen languages and, in some cases, on archival sources. Despite some overlapping of subject matter, it is a well structured and handsome volume. Indeed, one can thinkof no better startingpoint for any appreciation of thisbeautifulcity'spast and present,and of the influencesthat have shaped its rich culturalhistory. Abingdon School W. H. ZAWADZKI Faggionato, Raffaella. A Rosicrucian Utopiain Eighteenth-Centugy Russia: The MasonicCircle ofN. I. Jovikov. Archivesinternationalesd'histoiredes idees, I90. Springer,Heidelberg, 2005. xiii + 300 pp. Notes. Glossary.Bibliography . Index. ?87.00: ?I26.00. ONE of the outstanding features of Russian historiographysince the fall of Communism is the enormousvarietyof previouslydiscouragedsubjectswhich are now pursued.One of these is freemasonry,which has seen the publication of many works such as, for instance, A. Serkov's,Russkoe masonstvo I73I-2000 (Moscow, 2000), new publications by V. Sakharov, the reprint in I999 of G. Vernadskii'sRusskoe masonstvo v tsarstvovanie Ekateriny vtoroi and, even more strikingly,the translationinto Russian of F. Yates's TheRosicrucian Enlightenment , both in I999. The new materialin circulationor availablein archiveshas also been exploited by non-Russian scholars, such as Douglas Smith in the USA and more extensively in Italy by Raffaella Faggionato, long known to aficionadosas one of the most knowledgeablewriterson the mysteriousworld of Russian Rosicrucianismin the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The present work has been published in differentversions over the years. The earliest came out in I993 in the RivistaStorica Italiana(Anno CV, F. i, PP. 36-179). A second, much fuller,version appeared, also in Italian, in 1997 in Archivio di StoriadellaCultura, vol. Io, and it is this version which has been translated into somewhat laboured English in the International Archives of the Histogy of Ideas(no. I90) and is reviewed here. It benefits from an extensive bibliography and an extensive list of Masonic sources in Russian archives which will enormously assist any future scholar wishing to penetrate these 350 SEER, 85, 2, 2007 arcane mysteries.The footnotes also supplythe originalRussian text of many quotations in English in the text. Faggionato startswith a brief sketch of the emergence of freemasonryin eighteenth-centuryRussia, which does not add much to previouswork. But it illustratesthe complexity of the various trends and the effort to bring order into confusionin Europeanmasonryat the grand convention of Wilhelmsbad in 1782, which elected the Duke of Brunswickas Grand Master. Faggionato then divides her study into three broad sections: in the first she deals veiy skilfullywith the currentswhich flowed into the spirituallife of those who had been arousedto the issuesdeveloped by the early alchemistsand 'magi' of the seventeenthcentury.These were the followersof hermeticlore, devoted to the investigationof nature, which led on to the scientificdevelopments in mathematics , physics and chemistryof the late seventeenthcentury;in her second part Faggionato deals with the originsof the ideological and spiritualcurrents which fed specificallyinto freemasonryby the end of the eighteenth century, exploring in more detail the complex, often quite contradictory,relationships between the Enlightenment, freemasonry in general and Rosicrucianism in particular (not only in Russia). The third part deals with the specifically Russian form of Rosicrucianism, the gradual influx into Russia of German pietism,followedby the mysticismofJohann Arndt,the 'Angelof Silesia',and most important of all, the teaching of Jacob Bohme, the circulation of the Rosicrucian manifestoes, the later political reform programme of the Rose Cross,and the establishmentof the materialbasisfor the propagationof specifically Rosicrucian Masonic ideas by the small group of adepts...

Music and Literature in German Romanticism (review)

Siobhan Donovan and Robin Elliott, cds., and literature in German Romanticism. Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2004. xxix + 233 pp. The ways and means of conducting scholarship in humanities are quite anachronistic. They defy trend toward acceleration observable in sciences, and natural scientists' seeming ability to build scholarly networks easily. I refer not to hardware of computers but to their enabling capacity of connecting scholars from around world in previously unthinkable ways. Depending on your point of view, you might want to resist this acceleration or start wondering why more colleagues in social and natural sciences don't see us as odd and strange. Perhaps for some interpretations it simply irrelevant whether they make it into realm of printed republic years after having been conceived. These were my first musings when I opened this overall excellent collection of essays on music and literature in German romanticism.The Acknowledgement informs reader that thirteen essays that found their way into volume grew out a conference in Dublin in December 2000. The welcoming note by Harry White, President of Society of Musicology in Ireland, dated April 2003; book appeared in 2005; by time you read this review no fewer than six years have passed since gathering of scholars in Dublin. In other words, vetting 32 presentations from conference to identify most noteworthy essays, attending to careful editing and book making, truly a slow process.This even more striking when considering speed at which other Wissenschafien convey their professional results. seen in this light, scholarly book, in and of itself, involuntarily becomes an ever more romantic relic of information storage, no matter how much it has proven to be ideal in many ways. Still, one can't help wonder whether there could not be other, swifter modes of exchanging ideas, especially when, as in my case, one's own research would have benefited from access to wealth of information and references presented in this book. As to be expected, in a collection of essays, contributions are quite diverse in their scope, methodology and interpretive frameworks. Some take conventional, yet enlightening influence-approaches such as, e.g., David Larking, who shows that Liszt's Faust Symphony goes back to Wagner's suggestions for revisions and Wagner's revised version of his Faust Overture in turn indebted to Liszt's Faust Symphony. Other essays, such as Jeanne Riou's Music and Non-Verbal Reason in E. T. A. Hoffmann, have a more theoretical approach. However, this essay also a good example of what happens when theory fetishized. References to Adorno, Kittler, Foucault and other theoretical figures are supposed to guarantee substantial insights into E.T.A. Hoffmann's writings on and thinking about music. But Riou's theoretical inclinations turn out to be more obfuscating than elucidating. The brevity imposed on each contributor may explain her elaborations on who is one of least theoretically motivated of Romantic authors but narrates subjectivity. . . that primarily acoustic (43). On other hand, Riou's conclusions are as correct as they are dense when she observes that Hoffmann understood that expression and desire were not contained in an idealized identity or an absolute textual base. Romantic transcendence and path through ambivalence . . . preempts [sic] psychoanalytic re-thinking of rationality, but also adverts to less popular and less well understood role of sound in how thought and feeling intertwine. gives this a particular twist in haunting, music-related themes of his novels and novellas (53-54). Other contributors, like James Hodkinson, demonstrate that one can be concise, and still theoretically sound. Hodkinson, who writes on Novalis's conceptualization of music, shows that Novalis progressively adapted the polyphonic formulation of music as he found it in Jacob Bohme, taking this as blueprint for a discursive system that genuinely universal, upholding rights of all to speak, sing, and play by its inclusion of traditionally marginalized voices of non-Christians and women (24). …

An Other Love

As LONG AS I CAN REMEMBER I have been in love with some manifestations of Christianity (not always ones that my Christian friends would themselves love, or even approve). Tennessee Ernie Ford singing on television the hymn The Garden moved me to tears when I was a child (I won't pretend to remember how old). For an oddly gendered teenager, St. Francis the Sissy proved an incredibly tantalizing figure of a man. Later on it was medieval Christian art and architecture, the cathedrals of Europe, the spirituality of Meister Ekhardt and Jacob Bohme. Still later, and most significantly, it has been the writings of the Fathers of the Church (and their excluded others, the Christian heretics) that have been most riveting to me, pulling me into a world so close to that of my own beloved rabbis of late antiquity and yet so foreign as well, a world in which oceans of ink (and rivers of blood) could be spilt on questions of detail in the description of the precise relationships between the posited persons of a complex godhead -a world, as well, in which massive numbers of men and women could choose freely and enthusiastically to live lives without the pleasures of sex and the joys of family. I find this world endlessly moving, alluring, even at its most bizarre to me. For the last decade or so I have devoted much of my time and spirit to learning the languages of and understanding something of the inner and outer worlds of those early Christian men and women who wrote such texts and lived such lives. Some Jews, it seems, are destined by fate, psychology, personal history, or whatever to be drawn to Christianity.2 My research won't be

From Poimandres to Jacob Bohme: Gnosis, Hermetism, and the Christian Tradition (review)

From Poimandres to Jacob Bohme: Gnosis, Hermetism, and the Christian Tradition (review)

William Law, Behmenism, and Counter Enlightenment

The importance of William Law has never been in doubt. Scholars have regarded him as an extremely effective High Church apologist by virtue of his replies to Bishop Benjamin Hoadly on ecclesiology and eucharistic theology, and as an influential pastoral guide by virtue of the success of his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. He is also considered the most notable post-Reformation English mystic by virtue of his later works, written under the influence of the early seventeenth-century Silesian theosophist, Jacob Bohme. This Behmenism, however, has served to reduce the admiration expressed for him. Even sympathetic contemporaries regarded Law's enthusiasm for Böhme as certainly eccentric, and perhaps even more objectionable than that. Retrospection did not blunt eighteenth-century disapproval. Dean (later Bishop) George Home, who was an ardent admirer and indeed disciple of the pre-Behmenist Law, lamented the descent of “one of the brightest stars in the firmament of the church…into the sink and complication of Paganism, Quakerism, and Socinianism, mixed up with chemistry and astrology by a possessed cobbler.” The writers of the Romantic era were far more disposed to acknowledge the value of that from which the eighteenth-century had recoiled as “enthusiasm.”

QUAL and the dynamics of evolution

Abstract The emergence of the first structures that are capable of “replication” is a mysterious problem of evolution. The majority of the scientists dealing with evolution agree on the point that this is the very property that differenciate animate and inanimate beings. The main purpose of the present paper is to prove that the phenomenon of replication cannot be forced into frames of the Bios, but is an inherent attribute of the material, and the biological replication is a more advanced and perfect manifestation of this attribute. The cohesion and resistance, in a general sense, is the attribute of any material system, i.e. it is an attribute of coexistence that makes possible its life. This may be the property that was identified as Jacob Bohme's mystic concept “Qual”. The self‐preservation, the cohesion in a general sense is manifested against the different destructive effects by scattering the “attacked” system into successor systems. This process makes possible for the different successive systems ...

The ins and outs of mysticism

IMACaNE AN trtO~C;RADUATE who did not wish to study anthropology, history, politics, sociology, or any of the humanities, but had come to university to learn about mysticism. It would not be easy to recommend which department he or she should approach. Departments of Philosophy usually offer a subject called "Philosophy of Religion', but it tends to be a disguised course in metaphysics, its curriculum consisting of the standard proofs of God's existence and a consideration of the problem of evil. The list of prescribed reading is more likely to include works by Aquinas and Hume than by Julian of Norwich or Walter Hilton. Here mystics may be studied in terms of culture, poetics, rhetoric or stylistics; but even if they are read in their own right, and not just to illumine a canonical literary text such as Piers Plowman, they will never be studied alongside Jacob Bohme, Meister Eckhart, Catherine of Genoa or St Teresa of Jesus. One might think that a Department of Theology would be the best place to study mystical writings in depth. But again one would be disappointed. Mysticism generally falls outside vocational training, and theologians have traditionally regarded it with suspicion, perhaps fearing (not unreasonably) that some of its most seductive motifs are independent of Christianity. If the study of mysticism falls between disiciplines, it is because it requires an interdisciplinary approach. One of the things that has characterised Max Charlesworth's intellectual life is a profound commitment to interdisciplinarity. That commitment does not overlook a due stress on the classical disciplines. Their histories, methodologies and protocols must be respected; but that is a different thing from accepting them as a natural way of dividing the world of ideas. (Learn some philosophy, literature and theology, Charlesworth would advise the student, but do not keep them in separate mental compartments.) To say that Charlesworth's work has centred on the philosophy of religion would be to miss one point of that work. It begins, often enough, with questions traditionally posed there but develops by putting pressure on both 'philosophy' and 'religion'. When thinking about spirituality, Charlesworth draws from anthropology as

Friedrich von Hardenberg's Twelfth "Geistliches Lied"

The only derivative work of Friedrich von Hardenberg, his twelfth Geistliches Lied, is examined from both literary–historical and critical perspectives. The historical background sheds light on the influence of the Baroque on the early Romantic writers, since the source of Novalis' hymn is a work by Friedrich von Spee. The dating of the period of composition to the period between February and November 1800 can also be determined by the further influence of the Baroque in the person of the Protestant mystic Jacob Bohme. The poem itself presents a combination and permutation of these various influences woven into a unique whole having as its chief compositional feature the development of the concept of the unio mystica. This overall form is traced to one of the later varients of Spee's hymn.

Jacob Bohme and his Relation to Hegel

Jacob Bohme and his Relation to Hegel