Jakob Boehme, the Lutheran contemplative, was born at Alt Seidelberg near Görlitz in Silesia and lived there nearly all his life, working chiefly as a cobbler. Among his mystical experiences, the seminal one occurred in 1600, when he glanced at a pewter dish that reflected the sunlight and in a rapt state saw "the Being of Beings, the Byss and the Abyss, the eternal generation of the Trinity, the origin and descent of this world, and of all creatures through the Divine Wisdom" (Second Epistle, §6). Though not formally educated, Boehme read rather widely and was influenced by, among others, Paracelsus (1493–1541) and Valentin Weigel (1538–1588), the Lutheran mystic. The above quotation, however, hints at most of the main features of Boehme's Weltanschauung, which he first expressed in his Aurora, oder die Morgenröte im Aufgang (1612) and then in other works (from 1618 onward—he did not write...