Pim Levelt:

A welcome to all of you who have joined us to attend this festive day. This is a very special moment in the fifty-year history of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. We are here for the opening of the jubilee exhibition on Jacob Böhme, whose dissident work was collected, translated and published in the tolerant city of Amsterdam by Abraham Willemsz van Beyerland. His likeness can actually be seen in that painting over there, on the far right.

A thick and beautifully produced volume has been brought out on the occasion of this exhibition, edited by Dr Theodor Harmsen, head of the Ritman Institute, and written by a select gremium of international Böhme experts to chart the publication history of Böhme’s work which was here brought together in Amsterdam.
It is truly a very great honour for the library, its founder Joost Ritman, its director Esther Oosterwijk and all of us present that the minister of Education, Culture and Science, Ronald Plasterk, has been found willing to open this exhibition. May I extend a warm welcome to you and your wife – also present here today, which pleases me very much, Els! – und dann möchten wir das Eröffnungsritual würde ich sagen zusammen machen mit Prof. Dr. Schmidt-Glintzer, Direktor der Herzog-August-Bibliothek in Wolfenbüttel, und auch sie Herr Schmidt-Glintzer, ein herzliches Willkommen! The opening takes place in the presence of many international experts in the area of humanities that is the specialty of this library. For the last two days they have gathered in the Huis met de Hoofden, the newly acquired and wonderful house on Keizersgracht, to talk about the past, but in particular about the future of this house and the role of the library. Welcome to you all, I cannot mention you all in person.

Prof. Dr. Pim Levelt and Minister Ronald Plasterk

Let us now proceed with our programme. First we will have the opening speeches of the minister and Professor Schmidt-Glintzer, after which the director of the library, Esther Oosterwijk, will present the jubilee publication I have just mentioned to the minister and to other people present today. Finally the founder of the library, Joost Ritman, will address you with a word of thanks. Then we can all view the exhibition. Minister Plasterk, may we have your opening address.

Ronald Plasterk:

Ladies and gentlemen, it is a privilige to be present here today in this learned company and a pleasure to see the collection and the exhibition in a few minutes, so I am happy to be here.

If I were a Hermetic philosopher, I would probably think it was no coincidence that yesterday around this time I found myself 80 metres below ground in Geneva, a guest of the institution where they try to create antimatter by colliding particles at the speed of light in a tunnel, in the hope of discovering ‘dark matter’ and that sort of thing. Then to be standing here within the space of 24 hours in a philosophical setting, where the main pursuit is to find out what the world is all about. These two aspects have been joined recently – but we must not talk about that here and now – in the books of Dan Brown, who attempted to relate the undercurrent in the intellectual development of our continent and its history to modern physics, producing thrilling novels in the process, which everybody pretends they haven’t read, like Angels and Demons and the Da Vinci code.

Dr. Ronald Plasterk

Mr Ritman, let me first of all congratulate you on the fiftieth anniversary of your remarkable life’s work, the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. What must have started out as a modest set of rare books on a shelf in your living room, has grown into a world-renowned library and study collection within half a century. A private collection of such great cultural and scholarly significance that the State of the Netherlands became a co-owner in 2005; and so a co-sharer of your wish to make the collection permanently available to scholarship and the community at large. 

The involvement of the State, however, bears no relation to your personal efforts to bring this unique library together. You are a contemporary embodiment of the mercator sapiens – the wise merchant –generously offering the fruits of his commercial success for the benefit of the advancement of learning. It is only right that in 2002 the Royal Academy of Sciences, in the person of the previous speaker, Professor Pim Levelt, presented you with the prestigious Academy silver medal in recognition of your merits for culture and scholarship in the Netherlands.

Your life’s work is not yet complete. It is your greatest wish not only to make accessible the library, but also to disseminate the philosophy it contains for the benefit of scholarly community and for society. By purchasing the Huis met de Hoofden you have taken a monumental new step in this direction. Patronage is anyhow a special phenomenon. But patronage on this scale is breathtaking! The world of thought which you have brought together here, and will take to the Huis met de Hoofden, is highly remarkable. It is a world which we are only partly acquainted with, the world of ‘contrary thinking’. You might say it’s what sent a philosopher like Giordano Bruno to the stake in 1600. He was sentenced for his revolutionary insight that the universe must be infinite. An absurd thought, a scandalous thought. A universe in which our sun is only one of a multitude of stars, each with their own planets. This man deserves to burn…
The intellectual soil for such Renaissance freethinkers was fed by a world view in which physics and metaphysics – the realms of matter and of mind – formed a single continuum. An idea far ahead of its time in many respects, because in actual fact it is the basis for a large part of modern cognitive theory.

Most of the authors you have collected here in their original, first editions, were condemned by the Church for heresy at one point or another. Their way of thinking was officially forbidden throughout Europe – except in one little village (think of Asterix) on the river Amstel: Amsterdam. Celebrated as a haven for freethinkers in the seventeenth century, it was the only place, or at any rate one of the few places (we Hollanders of course like to think it was the only place) where unconventional ideas could be printed without restrictions – which led to a flourishing book trade. Your library not only collects the books that contain these ideas, it is also a monument to the first free press in the world. And that is something we should be proud of, a tradition which we should always uphold. Because it is a fact that the Netherlands still largely owes its reputation in the world to this tradition of unconventional, contrary thinking.

Minister Ronald Plasterk and Joost Ritman

The exhibition which you have put together to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica is devoted to Jacob Böhme. I have jotted down a few qualifications I found with respect for him, such as ‘philosophus Teutonicus’ and the theosopher from Görlitz. He was inspired by alchemy, spiritualism, astrology, which you must not expect me, a simple scientist, to embrace unreservedly. But he was also a freethinker. He was open to new ideas and he was prepared to stick out his neck. And that is something which appeals to me. What very much appeals to me is that somehow there must be a Hermetic connection, because one of the interests shared by Professor Levelt and myself is a passion for beautiful shoes (I see you are wearing a pair of Edward Greens). And Böhme was a shoemaker! Finally, he was someone who was convinced it was possible for men to progress, also spiritually, without the mediation of the official church. You might say that in a sense he was a precursor of the current we indicate as ‘somethingism’ here, the feeling that there is something out there and that everybody should find his or her own way towards or around it. But not necessarily via an organized church. He was someone who managed to inspire Leibniz and others in his time, a writing ban was imposed on him, but it is very interesting to see how he influenced his day and age. I was given to understand that the choice of Jacob Böhme was not a random one, but has to do with the fact that your mother gave you one of his books when you were 23. The title of the exhibition, ‘Jacob Böhme’s Way into the World’, is aptly chosen, because it is also symbolical of how you have found your own way into the world, and how you have managed to bring all these books together. Once again, my thanks to you, and I am speaking I think not only on behalf of those present, but on behalf of our entire society, for having built this library and for offering it to the community. I am greatly looking forward – and I think everyone is – to seeing the exhibition.

Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer:

Dear Mr Ritman, dear Minister, dear ladies and gentlemen,

I am very pleased that the BPH is celebrating its fiftieth anniversary with a symposium and an exhibition, ‘Jacob Böhme’s Way into the World’, because not only does it bring into relief the great merits of Joost R. Ritman, his family and the librarians who support him as a collector, it also commemorates Abraham Willemsz van Beyerland (1586/7-1648), to whom we owe the preservation of the Böhme manuscripts.

Prof. Dr Helwig Schmidt-Glintzer

Jacob Böhme (1575-1624), a shoemaker from Görlitz, is one of the most outstanding mystics and theosophers of the post-Reformation era. His works, which he often signed with ‘philosophus Teutonicus’, were already very influential throughout Germany in his own time. Böhme’s pantheistic thought, his alignment of nature with God as well as his sceptical attitude towards the organized church as a mediator, brought upon him rejection and persecution. Many of his works remained uncompleted, like the Aurora, Böhme’s first work, in which he expounded his visions and teachings; it remained unfinished because the magistrate of Görlitz confiscated the text while he was working on it.

Throughout the centuries these autographs have been part of an exciting itinerary, an odyssee. Already in 1692 the University of Helmstedt bought a few of Böhme’s autographs, which were moved to Wolfenbüttel together with the rest of the university library in 1815. Thanks to this treasure already present in our library, the members of Jacob Böhme communities were moved to donate the Böhme manuscripts in their possession to the HAB.

The Friends of Böhme in Linz am Rhein owned the Böhme autographs. Researchers only became aware of them in 1934; in 1941 they were confiscated by the Gestapo and taken via Koblenz to Berlin, where officials of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt assayed the alleged subversive character of the confiscated Böhme archives. The autographs came to Görlitz in 1943 and were taken to Breslau after the war ended.

The most important manuscripts from Linz, however, escaped confiscation, because – unknown to their owners – the church historian Wilhelm Goeters had taken them home for his own use. After the war they were restored to the rightful owners. The Friends of Böhme eventually decided to make these documents, so important for Böhme research, accessible to the public. Wolfram Buddecke, son of Böhme researcher Werner Buddecke, mediated in their transferral to Wolfenbüttel.

The donation involved eight original manuscripts and three documents in photocopy, the originals of which are kept in the national archive of Breslau. It was decided to donate them to the HAB, because the library already contained eleven Böhme manuscripts and manuscript Sammelbände which were formerly part of the old Helmstedt university library  – mainly copies, though Böhme’s Gebetbüchlein auf alle Tage der Woche and his Über die Gnadenwahl are autograph copies.

On 5 December 1970 Paul Raabe, my predecessor as the director of the Herzog August Bibliothek, officially received the valuable autographs in Balingen (Württemberg) from the hands of the Böhme communities in Balingen and Linz am Rhein. The community never regarded the manuscripts they owned as commercial commodities and they never considered asking a price for them. To the library, the donation represented a remarkable addition to its seventeenth-century holdings. Among these new Böhme manuscripts there are seventeen autograph epistles, the Morgen Röte im Auffgang, Zweij buchlein von Christi Testamenten (1623) and Epistola oder sende Brieff An eine Hungrige und dürstige Seele, all written by Böhme himself, as well as several copies and photocopies.

However, ‘Jacob Böhme’s Way into the World’ not only focuses on the manuscripts and their history, it also deals with their reception. Throughout the centuries, Böhme attracted the attention of noted scholars, while he also features prominently in the work of the great expert on mysticism Alois M. Haas, Mystik als Aussage. Erfahrungs-, Denk und Redeformen christlicher Mystik (Frankfurt am Main 2007), a new edition of which was recently published by the new Verlag der Weltreligionen. Böhme’s philosophy has been of lasting influence on the perception of the relationship between man, nature and God in Europe. With regard to the recent debates on religion, particularly the monotheistic creeds, Böhme’s philosophy has not lost any of its urgency, especially, as I feel, where his reflections on Predestination and man’s freedom are concerned.

Then there is another aspect to this exhibition, which is the early visualization of the contents of his works. ‘The magnificent cycle of title engravings made for the Amsterdam collected edition of 1682 surely ranks amongst  the most significant sources of occultism’, an expert, Christoph Geissmar, concluded. The impact of these 22 images can even be traced to the beginnings of modern abstract art.  Many of the enigmas posed by these images have been solved, but there is still a lot that requires further exploration.

Most important: to a large degree Jacob Böhme has been able to find his way into the world thanks to the Netherlands. It was there that ‘in the 17th century, more than anywhere else, mystical works could be printed in German and disseminated. More than 600 German-language titles were probably printed here in the Netherlands in the 17th century. As of 1645, Amsterdam was the absolute centre of printing activity. Mystical works formed a large part of the book production, because Amsterdam had become a haven for Hermetists and enthusiasts of all denominations, whose works were censured, unprintable or simply confiscated elsewhere. Of all the countless mystics and enthusiasts who would not submit to the local orthodoxy, Jacob Böhme was the most important. It is therefore not surprising to find that there was a lively interest in Jacob Böhme in England, even earlier than in Germany, and that by 1663, already a few decades after his death, virtually all of his work had been translated into English. The Netherlands, however, long remained the centre and one can even go so far as to say that the Dutch reception of Böhme also fed the Böhme iconography.

What had been carefully and closely guarded in the 250 years that Jacob Böhme’s heritage was in the care of his friends and followers, was scattered some sixty years ago in National Socialist Germany. The stages in the itinerary or odysee of these works are now better known, thanks to the research efforts of many Böhme scholars, specifically Matthias Wenzel and Carlos Gilly. Because of state persecution, important autographs of this major European thinker were dispersed throughout the world. That the works are now once more back together in Amsterdam is something we owe to the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and its director. However quietly the community in Linz, firmly withdrawn from the world, may have continued to guard Jacob Böhme’s heritage throughout the centuries, his works and their workings were certainly known.

I am very grateful therefore to be able to attend this opening and I extend my thanks to the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and Mrs Esther Oosterwijk-Ritman.

Esther Oosterwijk-Ritman:

Your Excellency, dear ladies and gentlemen, learned friends of the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica. As the daughter of Rachel and Joost Ritman I would like to dwell briefly on the special occasion we are celebrating here, the fiftieth anniverdary of the library which has become part of Dutch cultural heritage, and which, being part of all of us, represents an area of interest within the humanities, that of the Christian-Hermetic gnosis, an area of expertise which is actively being studied. In the Netherlands for instance there is a Chair at the University of Amsterdam, the ‘History of Hermetic philosophy and related currents’.
The library’s holdings contains some 21,000 books, 5,000 of which were printed before 1800, while a further 300 are incunables, books printed in the fifteenth century, 100 medieval manuscripts and more than 600 manuscripts produced after 1550. This library belongs to us all, to quote the words of Maria van der Hoeven, former minister of Education, Culture and Science. Today we are celebrating the anniversary of a library founded fifty years ago by a sixteen-year-old boy – imagine this! – in a field which did not quite exist at the time, the blueprint of which he carried in his soul. He started collecting rare books actively when my grandmother presented him with a few books by Jacob Böhme for his 23rd birthday that had been printed in Amsterdam. It made him realize that Amsterdam, a city which boasted many printers in the past, was also the place to find many more similar books. This library represents the world of inspiration which my father witnessed, the world also which Jacob Böhme envisioned, a world in itself, unbounded by time and space.

Esther Oosterwijk-Ritman

My father once said he is really more of a book than a human being. And Böhme would surely have grasped what he meant, because he once wrote:

"The book in which all secrets are contained is man himself. It is he who is the book of the being of all beings, because he is like unto God. The great arcanum, the great concealment (which in a sense also applied to the library, although this is soon a thing of the past!) lies in man, to be revealed by the spirit of God only."

It is by no means a coincidence that Jacob Böhme, the German Hermes, is so central to this jubilee. Böhme, who liked to sign his letters with ‘Philosophus Teutonicus’, regarded himself above all as a servant of Christ. In an anonymous work published in 1695 with the title Metallurgia Böhmiana, Böhme is repeatedly called the ‘Hermes Trismegistus Teutonicus redivivus’ – the reborn German Hermes. It is an apposite term, one which Böhme’s translator, publisher and propagandist Abraham Willemz van Beyerland would undoubtedly agree with. Immediately after he had completed his project of publishing Böhme’s work, in 1642, Beyerland turned to the translation of the Corpus Hermeticum into Dutch, which he then also published. With this jubilee and the exhibition ‘Jacob Böhme’s Way into the World’, we wish to honour my father with a scholarly volume of essays, the result of twenty years of research presented by the Ritman Institute and by scholars with whom the library has managed to build up a relationship during this period. The volume describes the fortunes of Böhme’s works, including the near century that the books were circulating in the Dutch Republic.

I would like to offer the first copies of this volume, Jacob Böhmes Weg in die Welt, to minister Plasterk, to Professor Schmidt-Glintzer, and to Dr Piotrowicz on behalf of the board of the library and on behalf of the staff, which has contributed a large part of the essays in this volume. And finally, I would very much like to offer my parents this very special copy, which was bound and cased by Geert van Daal. I have always said that when grandmother presented that first book by Böhme, I was already watching from your belly, mummy, and it is a very great honour for me to share this moment with you and with all those present.

Joost R. Ritman:

Your Excellency, I am very glad that you have introduced the idea of ‘contrary thinking’ today, because it is what characterizes Amsterdam. We know that in the seventeenth century an incredible revolution took place in Europe, which shook the hegemony, and loosened the grip exerted by nobility and church on society. These past days I have been talking to one of our friends during the jubilee symposium ‘Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica 1957-2007. From treasure house to virtual library’ and he said to me: ‘Joost, you are right. If that vision, that power, that spirit present in the Netherlands had not been able to find a focus in the city of Amsterdam, we would not be sitting here today, we would have had a different world.’ I am also glad that you alluded to our great friend Giordano Bruno. In the year 2000, the 400th anniversary of his death – he ended his life at the stake – we attended the opening of an exhibition in Rome for which we had provided some loans. The Italian minister of Culture thanked us warmly for our gesture, saying that the copies from our library were no longer to be found in Italy itself. Shortly afterwards I gave an interview in which I was asked to put into a nutshell my relationship with Giordano Bruno. And I replied: ‘Giordano Bruno was burnt on the Campo di Fiore, the flower market, and I live on Bloemgracht, the flower canal’.
That is essentially my entire vision. I am also glad because I know you are a man of science, and I can tell you that I share your interest in the particle accelerator. When I was in Scotland a while ago I read in an article that the unknown particle is called ‘God’s particle in the universe’. In other words, it is the creator in motion. We have learnt not to perceive God as an institutionalized organization trying to influence our life, and in the development of free thought which we encounter in the Hermetica we can see how nature and science, and the promotion of knowledge, belong to each other. This has led me to think, in the context of my special relationship with the Netherlands Royal Academy of Sciences, that the time has come to unite rational thought and intuitive thinking, to serve as a model for a new way of perception. It eventually boils down to this: without emotions there is no life, without reason there is no future. This is a historical moment. We see it as our task to unite the sciences and the humanities, intuition and reason, by means of this library. And we are happy to present the library as a kind of particle accelerator!

Joost Ritman