Gnostic Apocalypse: Jacob Boehme's Haunted NarrativeJacob Boehme, the seventeenth-century German speculative mystic, influenced the philosophers Hegel and Schelling and both English and German Romantics alike with his visionary thought. Gnostic Apocalypse focuses on the way Boehme s thought repeats and surpasses post-reformation Lutheran thinking, deploys and subverts the commitments of medieval mysticism, realizes the speculative thrust of Renaissance alchemy, is open to esoteric discourses such as the Kabbalah, and articulates a dynamic metaphysics. This book critically assesses the striking claim made in the nineteenth century that Boehme s visionary discourse represents within the confines of specifically Protestant thought nothing less than the return of ancient Gnosis. Although the grounds adduced on behalf of the Gnostic return claim in the nineteenth century are dismissed as questionable, O Regan shows that the fundamental intuition is correct. Boehme s visionary discourse does represent a return of Gnosticism in the modern period, and in this lies its fundamental claim to our contemporary philosophical, theological, and literary attention. |
Contents
Narrative Trajectory of the SelfManifesting Divine | 31 |
11 Boehmes SixStage Narrative | 32 |
Narrative Codes | 50 |
13 Trinitarian Configuration of Ontotheological Narrative | 52 |
Discursive Contexts of Boehmes Visionary Narrative | 57 |
21 Alchemy as Discursive Context and its Sublation | 58 |
22 Narrative Deconstitution of Negative Theology | 69 |
Metalepsis Unbounding | 83 |
Valentinianism and Valentinian Enlisting of NonValentinian Narrative Discourses | 141 |
Boehmes Discourse and Valentinian Narrative Grammar | 147 |
Apocalyptic in Boehmes Discourse and its Valentinian Enlisting | 161 |
71 Apocalyptic Inscription and Distention | 169 |
Neoplatonism in Boehmes Discourse and its Valentinian Enlisting | 177 |
81 Valentinian Enlisting of Neoplatonic Narrative | 187 |
Kabbalah in Boehmes Discourse and its Valentinian Enlisting | 193 |
91 Valentinian Enlisting of the Kabbalah | 205 |
Nondistinctive Swerves Boehmes Recapitulation of Minority PreReformation and PostReformation Traditions | 87 |
Distinctive Swerves Toward Metalepsis | 103 |
41 Distinctive Individual Hermeneutic and Theological Swerves | 104 |
Metalepsis | 115 |
Boehmes Visionary Discourse and the Limits of Metalepsis | 129 |
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Common terms and phrases
Adam agonistic alchemy apocalyptic apophatic articulation ascription Baur biblical narrative biblical text Blake Boehme's discourse Boehme's narrative discourse Boehme's texts Boehme's visionary Boehmian chapter Christ Christian classical Valentinian genres context creation distinction divine manifestation Eckhart eros erotic especially essence Eternal Nature evil functions genealogical Gnosis Gnostic return Hegel hermeneutic human Immanent Trinity immanifest interpretation Jacob Boehme Jakob Böhme Joachim Joachimite Kabbalah Kabbalistic kenosis Koyré Luther Lutheran Lutheran orthodoxy Meister Eckhart metalepsis metaleptic metanarrative Mysterium Magnum mystical narra negative theology Neoplatonism ontological ontotheological narrative Paracelsian Paracelsus Paracelsus's perfection philosophical post-Reformation pre-Reformation and Reformation provides radical rative reality reflection relation represents respect Return in Modernity Schelling Scripture Second Principle sense sephirot six-stage Sophia specifically speculative Spirit suggests swerves symbol taxonomic teleological theogonic theological tradition thought tinian tion tive Tractate trans transcends trinitarian Unground Valentin Weigel Valentinian Enlisting Valentinian narrative grammar vision Weigel Wisdom