Leseprobe

Böhme lived in turbulent times – war, religious strife and economic crises marked the period, but it was also an exciting age of new scientific breakthroughs and increasing contact with other lands and peoples. Böhme addressed all of these issues in a way that readers have found compelling from his own time right up to the present day. To highlight some of the most important encounters with Böhme, this section presents a series of short texts designed to provide an impression of the breadth of Böhme’s recep- tion over the centuries. 1 This selection, which is organised chronologically, could easily be expanded, especially since research on Böhme is ongoing. Although Böhme is often thought of as a prophet or genius, writing alone in his study, in fact, he was part of a network of people with similar inter- ests. His home town of Görlitz, today on the border between Germany and Poland, was a crossroads, where intellectuals gathered to discuss the natural science of the time and the ideas of a range of reli- gious reformers from all confessions – not only the mainstreamconfessions of Catholicism, Lutheranism and Calvinism, but also religious minorities. Furthermore, the area surrounding Görlitz was, then as today, a melting pot of different confessions and peoples – Germans, Poles, Slavs, Moravians, and more, and this is reflected in the place names. Towns often carry both German and Polish names, or some- times the names are in German and Sorbian, a Slavic dialect common in Lusatia and Silesia, the regions where Böhme spent most of his life. Böhme’s web of contacts consisted of diverse people from across this area, including physicians, alchemists, devotional writers, and noble patrons who sent him money, books and gifts. In this period, writings were often distributed as manuscripts instead of as published books, and in Böhme’s networks, scribes made hand- written copies of his texts, which they traded with one another. Ironically, the wider public first became aware of Böhme through the polemical writings of his opponents. Throughout the seventeenth century, friends and foes alike kept Böhme’s ideas in circulation and spread them far beyond his corner of Germany. In Lu c i n d a Ma r t i n · C e c i l i a Mu r a t o r i · L e i g h T. I . Pe nman w i t h Mi k e Zub e r THE D I F FUS ION OF BÖHME ’ S THOUGHT