Leseprobe

150 B öhme’s R e ce pti on large number of drawings, including several pop-ups, which he designed but that were executed mainly by his collaborator, Jeremias Daniel Leuchter (Figs. 2 and 3). Freher wrote several thousands of pages on Böhme, and on the religious controversies of the early eighteenth century. He provided very detailed philosophical explanations for his visualization of Böhme’s thought. For instance, he adapted Böhme’s scheme of the philosophical sphere in order to show the productive interaction of light and darkness, which in his version are connected by the spark of variety of meanings, both in Böhme’s works and in the Bible: “we must of all Necessity speak of God distinctly, and take the word God, according to several different Considerations of him, because that single word is in the Scripture, and so also in my Friend Jacob’s writings justly, not allways, and not every- where taken in the self same Sense.” 3 Given these premises, Freher saw his task as that of offering a comprehensive interpretation of Böhme, or “my friend Jacob,” as he often calls him: this included very broad treatises, such as Serial Elucidations on the Principles of Philosophy and Theology of Boehmius , as well as a 4 “The Philosophical Globe,” from: Forty Questions of the Soul , in: The works of Jacob Behmen, the Teutonic theosopher , so-called Law Edition (Eds. George Ward and Thomas Langcake), London 1764–1781, Copperplate engraving, handcoloured, Embassy of the Free Mind, Collection Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica