9 - Wider Behmenist influences in the eighteenth century

Summary

In the eighteenth century, Behmenism as a movement disappeared, leaving only individuals, many of whom are better described as admirers rather than followers of the cobbler of Görlitz. By the end of the century the occult world-view which had informed Behmenist thought had largely ceased to be tenable among the educated classes of Europe. It maintained some influence among the Romantics, and literary figures like Walt Whitman, Charles Baudelaire and W.B. Yeats were to feel its attractions to various degrees. There was even something of an occult revival at the end of the nineteenth century, exemplified by A.E. Waite and the Order of the Golden Dawn. The New Age spirituality of the late twentieth century can also be connected with the occult tradition. Nevertheless, this world-view was never to regain the prominence in intellectual life that it had achieved in the early modern period. Interest in Boehme's ideas, however, continued throughout the eighteenth century, and his remained ‘the name most frequently mentioned as an exemplar’ by anyone inclined to mysticism. In addition to the so-called Law edition of Boehme's works, several other of the theosopher's writings were reprinted. Frankenberg's biography of Boehme was published with a preface by the Moravian, Francis Okeley. Earlier in the century, a number of Continental works related to Behmenism were translated, including Baron Wolf von Metternich's Fides et ratio. Pierre Poiret's The divine oeconomy was also translated at this time, as were several works by Antoinette Bourignon.

The Bourignon translations were the work of George Garden, the leading figure in a remarkable flowering of mysticism in north-east Scotland. The group was fairly eclectic in its mystical tastes, and cannot be regarded as Behmenist in the strictest sense.