Bodhisattva
is the official in the theosophical hierarchy who has charge of the religion and education of the world. He is the founder of religions, instituting these either directly or through one of his messengers, and after a faith has been founded, he puts it in charge of a Master, though he still continues the direction of it.
Bodin, Jean: a jurisconsult and student of demonology, who died of the plague in 1596. An Angevin by birth, he studied law in youth and published his Republique, which La Harpe calls "the rerm of the spirit of law," but it is his Demonomanie des Sorciers by which he is known to occultists. In this work he defended sorcery, but propagated numerous errors. By his Colloquium heptaplomeron de abdites rerum sublimium varcanus he aroused very unfavourable opinions regarding his religious views. In it he discusses in the form of dialogue the theological opinions of Jews, Mussulmans, and deists to the disadvantage of the Christian faith, and although he died a Catholic he professed in his time the tenets of Protestantism, Judaism, sorcery, atheism and deism. The Demonomanie was published in Paris, in 1581, and again under the title of Flèau des demons et des sorciers at Wiort, in 1616. In its first and second books Bodin demonstrates that spirits have communication with mankind, and traces the various characteristics and forms which distinguish good spirits from evil. He unfolds the methods of diabolic prophecy and communication, and those of evocation of evil existences of pacts with the Devil, of journeys through the air to the sorcerers' Sabbath, of infernal ecstasies, of spells by which one may change himself into a werewolf, and of carnal communion with incubi and succubi. The third book speaks of the manner of preventing the work of sorcerers and obviating their charms and enchantments, and the fourth of the manner in which sorcerers may be known. He concludes his study by refuting the work of John Wier or Wierius (q.v.) who, he asserts, was in error in believing sorcerers to be fools and people of unsound mind, and states that the books of that author should be burned "for the honour of God."
Sir Walter Scott says: "Bodin, a lively Frenchman, explained the zeal of Wierius to protect the tribe of sorcerers from punishment, by stating that he himself was a conjurer and the scholar of Cornelius Agrippa, and might therefore well desire to save the lives of those accused of the same league with Satan. Hence they threw on their antagonists the offensive names of witch-patrons and witch-advocates, as if it were impossible for any to hold the opinion of Naudæus, Wierius, Scot, etc., without patronizing the devil and the witches against their brethren of mortality. Assailed by such heavy charges, the philosophers themselves lost patience, and retorted abuse in their turn, calling Bodin, Delrio, and others who used their arguments, witch-advocates, and the like, as the affirming and defending the existence of the crime seemed to increase the number of witches, and assuredly augmented the list of executions. But for a certain time the preponderance of the argument lay on the side of the Demonologists. Boehme, Jakob: (1575-1624): German Mystic. The name o this illustrious mystic and philosopher, who has excited so wide and lasting an influence, is sometimes spelt Beem or Behm, Behmon or Behmont, while commoner still is the form used at the head of this article; but it is probable that Jakob's name was really Böhme, for that spelling savours far more of bygone Germany than any of the multifarious others do. Born in 1575, at Altsteidenberg, in Upper Lusatia, the philosopher came of humble peasant stock, and accordingly his education consisted in but a brief sojourn at the village school of Seidenberg, about a mile from his own home, while the greater part of his childhood was spent in tending his father's flocks on the grassy sides of a mountain, known as the Landskrone. This profession doubtless appealed to a boy of speculative and introspective temperament, but betimes it transpired that Jakob was not strong enough physically to make a good shepherd, and consequently he left home at the age of thirteen, going to seek his fortune at Görlitz, the nearest town of any size.
To this day Görlitz is famous for its shoemakers, while in Boehme's time it was a very centre and stronghold of the cobbling industry; so it was to a cobbler that the boy went first in search of employment, and very soon he had found what he wanted. Unfortunately, the few authentic records of his career offer little information concerning his early years, but apparently he prospered tolerably well, Boehme it being recorded that in 1599 he became a master-shoemaker, and that soon afterwards he was married to Katharina, daughter of Hans Kantzschmann, a butcher. The young couple took a house near the bridge in Neiss Voistadt -their dwelling is still pointed out to the tourist-and some years later Boehme sought to improve his business by adding gloves to his stock in trade, a departure which sent him periodically to Prague to acquire consignments of the goods in question.
It is likely that Boehme began to write soon after becoming a master-cobbler, if not even at an earlier period, but it was not till he was approaching forty that his gifts became known and appreciated. About the year 1612, he composed a philosophical treatise, Aurora, oder die Morgenröte un Aufgang, and, though this was not printed till much later, manuscript copies were passed from hand to hand, the result being that the writer soon found himself the centre of a local circle of thinkers and scholars, many of them people far above him in the social scale. These did not say that the cobbler should stick to his last, but realised that his intellect was an exceptionally keen one; and Boehme would no doubt have proceeded to print and publish his work but for an unfortunate occurrence, just that occurrence which has always been liable to harass the man of bold and original mind. In short, a charge of heresy was brought against him by the Lutheran Church; he was loudly denounced from the pulpit by Gregorius Richter, pastor primarius of Görlitz, and anon, the town council, fearing to contend with the omnipotent ecclesiastical authorities, took po session of the original manuscript of Boehme's work, and bade the unfortunate author desist from writing in the meantime. So far as can be ascertained, he obeyed instructions for a little while, perhaps fearing the persecution which would await him if he did otherwise, but by 1618 he was busy again, compiling polemical and expository treatises; while in 1622, he wrote certain short pieces on repentance, resignation, and the like. These last were the only things from his pen which were published in book form during his lifetime, and with his consent, nor were they of a nature likely to excite clerical hostility; but a little later Boehme circulated a less cautious theological work, Der Weg zu Christa, and this was the signal for a fresh outburst of hatred on the part of the church, Richter storming from his pulpit once again. The philosopher, however, contrived to go unscathed, and, during a brief sojourn at Dresden, he had the pleasure of listening to sundry orations made in his praise by some of his admirers, whose number was now greatly increased. But Boehme was not destined to survive this triumph long, for, struck down by fever at Dresden, he was carried with great difficulty to his home at Görlitz, and there he died in 1624, his wife being absent at the time Boehme's literary output divides itself easily and naturally into three distinct sections, and indeed he himself observed this, and drew up a sort of specification wherein he virtually indicated his successive aims. At first he was concerned simply with the study of the deity, and to this period belongs his Aurora; next he grew interested in the manifestation of the divine in the structure of the world and of man, a predilection which resulted in four great works, Die Drei Principien Gottlichens Wes Wescus, Vom Dreifachen Leben der Menschen, Von der Menschwerdung Christi, and Von der Geburt and Bezlichnung Aller Wescu; while finally, he devoted himself to advanced theological speculations and researches, the main outcome being his Von Christi Testamenten and his Von der Chadenwahl: Mysterium Magnum. Other notable works from his hand, are his seven Quellgeister, and likewise his study of the three first properties of eternal nature, a treatise in which some of his ardent devotees have found Sir Adam Newton's formulæ anticipated. and which certainly resembles Schelling's Theogonische Natur.
Alchemist or not himself, Boehme's writings demonstrate that he studied Paracclsas closely, while they also reflect the influence of Valentine Weigel, and of the earliest protestant mystic, Kaspar Schwenhfeld. Nor was it other than natural that the latter should appeal keenly to the philosopher of Görlitz, he too being essentially a stout Protestant, and having little or nothing in common with the mystics of other forms of Christianity. That is to say, he is seldom or never dogmatic, but always speculative, true Teuton that he was; while his writings disclose none of those religious ecstasies which fill the pages of Santa Theresa, and he never talks of holding converse with spirits or angels, or with bygone saints; he never refers to miracles worked on his behalf, practically the one exception being a passage where he tells how, when a shepherd boy on the Landskrone, he was vouchsafed an apparition of a pail of gold. At the same time, he seems to have felt a curious and constant intimacy with the invisible world, he appears to have had a strangely perspicacious vision of the Urgrund, as he calls it, which is, being literally translated, primitive cause; and it was probably his gift in these particular ways, and the typically German clearness with which he sets down his ideas and convictions, which chiefly begot his vast and wide influence over subsequent people inclined to mysticism. Throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century, his works were translated into a number of different languages, and found a place in the library of nearly every broadminded English theologian; while they proved a great and acknowledged source of inspiration to William Law, the author of Christian Perfection and A Serious Call to a Devout Life. Since then, various religious bodies, regarding Boehme as their high priest, have been founded in Great Britain and in Holland; while in America, too, the sect known as
Philadelphians owe their dominant tenets to the mystic of Görlitz.
W. S. B-M.