Boehme Jakob (1575–1624), German Protestant speculative mystic. Influenced especially by Paracelsus, Boehme received little formal education, but was successful enough as a shoemaker to devote himself to his writing, explicating his religious experiences. He published little in his lifetime, though enough to attract charges of heresy from local clergy. He did gather followers, and his works were published after his death. His writings are elaborately symbolic rather than argumentative, but respond deeply to fundamental problems in the Christian worldview. He holds that the Godhead, omnipotent will, is as nothing to us, since we can in no way grasp it. The Mysterium Magnum, the ideal world, is conceived in God’s mind through an impulse to selfrevelation. The actual world, separate from God, is created through His will, and seeks to return to the peace of the Godhead. The world is good, as God is, but its goodness falls away, and is restored at the end of history, though not entirely, for some souls are damned eternally. Human beings enjoy free will, and create themselves through rebirth in faith. The Fall is necessary for the selfknowledge gained in recovery from it. Recognition of one’s hidden, free self is a recognition of God manifested in the world, so that human salvation completes God’s act of self-revelation. It is also a recognition of evil rooted in the blind will underlying all individual existence, without which there would be nothing except the Godhead. Boehme’s works influenced Hegel and the later Schelling. See also MYSTICISM, PARACEL- SU. J.Lo.