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Mystical
Experiences of Jacob Boehme
(1575 - 1624)
The
most famous Protestant mystic, Jacob
Boehme (1575-1624) had two distinct mystical experiences.
The first, in 1600 when he was 25 years old:
- "Sitting
one day in his room his eyes fell upon a burnished
pewter dish, which reflected the sunshine with such
marvellous splendor that he fell into an inward ecstasy,
and it seemed to him as if he could now look into
the principles and deepest foundations of things.
He believed that it was only a fancy, and in order
to banish it from his mind he went out upon the green.
But here he remarked that he gazed into the very heart
of things, the very herbs and grass, and that actual
nature harmonized with what he had inwardly seen.
He said nothing of this to anyone, but praised and
thanked God in silence."
He
has his second experience ten years later when he is
35 years old. Boehme writes:
- "The
gate was opened to me that in one quarter of an hour
I saw and knew more than if I had been many years
together at a university...For I saw and knew the
being of all beings...I saw in myself all the three
worlds, namely the divine...the dark...and the external
and visible world..And I saw and knew the whole working
essence, in the evil and the good and the original
and the existence of each of them..."
(Quoted
from R.M. Bucke's Cosmic Consciousness, pp.180
- 182.
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