Leseprobe

149 T he Vi su al R e pres e ntati on of B öhme’s P hi l o s ophy It is possible that he was drawn to England by the liveliness of the Böhme-reception there, and espe- cially by the work of Jane Leade (1623–1704). In London, he was in contact with the Philadelphian Society, as well as with other German émigrés. His main goal was to explain the relevance of Böhme’s philosophy to a new English readership. The main innovation of Freher is that he sought to combine visual work and text to explain Böhme’s philosophy. He believed that images could have a particularly important function in unravelling the complexity of Böhme’s thought, especially to readers 3 Dionysius Andreas Freher, Untitled (Sophia), in: The Works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic Theosopher , so-called Law Edition (Eds. George Ward and Thomas Langcake), London 1764–1781, Pop-up image, copperplate engraving, handcoloured, Embassy of the Free Mind, Collection Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica who would have to rely on translations of the original German writings. All of Böhme’s works had been translated into English by the 1660s, but Freher pointed out that sometimes the translators misun- derstood Böhme’s meaning, and thus misled their readers. Furthermore, he recognized that Böhme’s language was often complex even in the original: therefore he considered it essential for readers to gain a good grasp of his whole philosophy in order to be able to understand (and translate) individual con- cepts. For instance, with regard to the key concept of God, Freher wrote that the word has a confusing