Jakob Böhme

Jakob Böhme was a German Christian mystic and theosophical writer whose visionary works had a disproportionate influence on later German philosophy and religious thought. A shoemaker by trade, Böhme experienced a series of mystical illuminations that he recorded in an idiosyncratic, symbol-laden prose. His central insight was that God contains within himself the ground of darkness and light, and that creation is the ongoing process by which divine reality differentiates and comes to self-knowledge.