K E V I N F I S C H E R
Berdyaev, whose own thought is thoroughly Behmenist in its outlook, observes that
the man who is seeking the spiritual life must join himself to all those who have participated in the development of the knowledge of the spirit in history. That is why a philosophy of the spirit inevitably contains within itself a traditional element and presupposes fellowship with tradition.8
Henry Crabb Robinson recorded in his diary a conversation he had with Blake in 1824, in the poet’s last few years, writing that ‘Jacob Boehme was spoken of as a divinely inspired man’.9 Although a brief statement and one of only three existing direct acknowledgements of Boehme’s influence on and importance to Blake,10 this is significant praise from someone who had devoted his life to the revelation of the divine in man, and who believed that ‘Inspiration & Vision was . . . & now is & I hope will always Remain my Element my Eternal Dwelling Place’.11 Although Blake was born more than 130 years after Boehme’s death—Boehme lived between 1575 and 1624, and Blake between 1757 and 1827—they were kindred spirits, for whom an active spiritual imagination was vital.
Their views of existence and the world, and of the spiritual itself, are unconventional and, in many respects, difficult to grasp. Boehme’s God, for instance, occupies no place or space, does not exist in time, cannot be thought of, and is spoken of by him as the primal Nothing. In a similar heterodox spirit, Blake wrote: ‘Seek not thy heavenly father
Daniel, 1938), p. 173.