Every Effort for
the Good
Of Mankind Produces
Its Fruits
Carlos Cardoso
Aveline
A portrait of J. Boehme (1575-1624)
A selfless sacrifice
may open room for real change. In the 17th century, for instance, Quirinus
Kuhlmann - a student of Jacob Boehme’s philosophy - travelled to Moscow and started
preaching the mystical doctrines of that German thinker, which are theosophical
in essence.
Kuhlmann was soon denounced to the Russian authorities
as a heretic. He was taken to prison, tortured, and finally killed in 1689. [1]
By the second half of the 18th century, however, things
had changed. Jacob Boehme was now among the most influential Western
philosophers in Russia, as N. Lossky writes in his “History of Russian
Philosophy”.[2]
Masonry was also popular then among higher classes in
Russia. And this was not an isolated fact.
While the exact worldwide impact caused by Boehme’s
life is difficult to calculate, it is certainly significant. In “The Secret
Doctrine” [3], H.P. Blavatsky says -
quoting some other source - that Isaac Newton derived all his knowledge of
gravitation and its laws from Jacob Boehme. She says Boehme “was the nursling
of the genii (Nirmanakayas) who watched over and guided him”.
A poor and humble man, Jacob Boehme was a shoemaker by
profession. He studied Paracelsus and other pioneering thinkers, and is seen as
one of the main “theosophers” who lived before Russian thinker Helena P.
Blavatsky and helped prepare her work.
Nicolas Berdyaev writes:
“Jacob Boehme, beyond a doubt, is one of the greatest
of Christian Gnostics. I am using the word not in the sense of the heresies of
the opening centuries of the Christian era, but to indicate a wisdom grounded
in revelation and employing myths and symbols rather than concepts - a wisdom
much more contemplative than discursive. Such is religious philosophy, or
theosophy.” [4]
William Q. Judge, one of Blavatsky’s disciples, says in
an article about Boehme:
“Born a Christian, he nevertheless saw the esoteric
truth lying under the moss and crust of centuries, and from the Christian Bible
extracted for his purblind fellows those pearls which they refused to accept.
But he did not get his knowledge from the Christian Scriptures only. Before his
internal eye the panorama of real knowledge passed. His interior vision being
open he could see the things he had learned in a former life, and at first not
knowing what they were was stimulated by them to construe his only spiritual
books in the esoteric fashion. His brain took cognizance of the Book before
him, but his spirit aided by his past, and perchance by the living guardians of
the shining lamp of truth, could not but read them aright.”[5]
It is said that every effort for the higher good of mankind produces its fruits
at some level of Karma. Jacob Boehme’s life and writings constitutes one shining
example of that.
NOTES:
[1] Kuhlmann was born on February 25, 1651. His work and
death are mentioned in the two-volume work “Histoire de la Philosophie Russe”,
by B. Zenkovsky, Librairie Gallimard, Paris, 1952, Tome I, pp. 40-41.
[2] “History of Russian
Philosophy”, N. Lossky, George Allen and
Unwin Ltd, London, first published in 1952, 416 pp., pp. 10-11. For his
influence on Vladimir S. Soloviev, see p. 131. On Sergius Bulgakov, p. 204. On
Nicolas Berdyaev, p. 235. A reference
to the way Russian philosopher S. L. Franck sees an aspect of Boehme’s
intuition is on p. 277.
[3] “The Secret Doctrine”, H. P. Blavatsky, Theosophy
Co., Los Angeles, volume I, p. 494. On Boehme, see also “The Secret Doctrine”,
volume II, p. 630.
[4] See the book “Six
Theosophic Points”, by Jacob Boehme, with an Introduction by Nicolas Berdyaev,
Ann Arbor Paperbacks, the University of Michigan Press, first edition, 1958,
208 pp., page V.
[5] “Theosophical Articles”,
William Q. Judge, Theosophy Co., Los Angeles, 1980, volume I, p. 271. The title
of the article is “Jacob Boehme and the Secret Doctrine”.
000
An
initial version of the above article was published at the June 2013 edition of
“The Aquarian Theosophist”, p. 15.
000
In September 2016, after a careful analysis of the state of the
esoteric movement worldwide, a group of students decided to form the Independent Lodge of Theosophists,
whose priorities include the building of a better future in the different
dimensions of life.
000
