Kirjahaku

This is a biography of one of the most original and one of the least understood seminal writers of the Baroque world, Jacob Boehme.In a period tormented by mysteries and controversies, Boehme's visionary mysticism responded to the vexing quandaries confronting his contemporaries. His concerns included the apocalyptic religious disputes of his day, the havoc wrought by the Thirty Years' War in his region, the disintegration of the Old Middle European order, the rise of new cosmic models from avant-garde heliocentrism to obscure esoteric theories, and his endeavor to express by means of codes and symbols a new sense of the human, divine, and natural realms.

This book offers the reader an introduction to the writings of Hildegard of Bingen, Meister Eckhart, Tauler, Nicholas of Cusa, Paracelsus, Jacob Boehme, Angelus Silesius, Novalis and includes the more recent thinkers, such as Schopenhauer and Wittgenstein, who were influenced by the tradition. It is the first study of its scope to take into account the much ignored historical preconditions of German mysticism and the first to trace the thematic evolution of mystical literature from a core of biblical and Augustinian materials. It also follows in the footsteps of recent scholarship in showing how German mysticism interacts with other currents in intellectual history such as the Reformation, Romanticism, or Modernism. Instead of murky generalizations, the reader will find clear discussions of representative literary documents, analyzed with an eye to theme, source, style, function, and influence.

Journalists have often put themselves in danger to convey crucial information to the public. Many journalists have even died doing their jobs, investigating crimes or traveling to battle zones--and sometimes documenting events in their own communities. Recently, reporters have been assaulted, mocked and silenced, their reports dubbed "fake news" and them, "enemies of the people." A free press is one of the country's most reliable foundations for ensuring a democracy for current and future generations. With a focus on American journalism, this book tackles issues affecting today's news through profiling journalists killed on the job, whether from violent conspiracy, terrorism or mass shootings.

Jacob Boehme’s Aurora (Morgen Röte im auffgang, 1612) exercised a vast open or underground influence on popular and mystical religion, poetry, and philosophy from Germany to England to Russia. This beautiful and highly original work containing elements of alchemical, esoteric, and anticlerical thought is a portal to the cultural, scientific, and theological currents on the eve of the Thirty Years' War. Its author heralded the new heliocentrism, opposed intolerance and religious conflict, and entertained an ecstatic vision of order reconciled with freedom. This first modern English translation places the translated text opposite an edition of the German manuscript from the author’s own hand. Also included is the brief, influential Fundamental Report (Gründlicher Bericht, 1620) in a critical edition and translation. An extensive commentary that cites documents of the time offers access to the sources of Boehme’s themes and concepts.

Paracelsus is regarded as one of the great medical innovators of all time, as a prototype of Goethe's Faust and as a founder of German Renaissance nature philosophy. Recently, his role in the popular "radical Reformation" that coincided with but went beyond Luther's church reform has been recognized as well. A legendary wanderer and rebel, he is an author of undisputed importance, but also one clouded by puzzling ambiguities. Based on a close examination and revised dating of Paracelsus's writings, this book rejects certain myths concerning the author's scientific orientation and experience of nature. The genesis of his thought is traced to his responses to sectarian conflicts of the early Reformation. One can characterize Paracelsus's project as that of a radical theorist who transgressed the boundaries of disciplines and seized upon the irreducible particularities of his phenomena--the transmuted disease or the unrecognized female pathology--to challenge the established order and ideology.