Rainbow: A Layman's Guide to Managing Spiritual Crisis with The Confessions of Jacob Boehme

Many people of a spiritual disposition often feel isolated when experiencing prolonged periods of psychological distress. Such feelings arise from numerous causes, such as grief, separation, anger, fear, or past trauma. This work aims to comfort and strengthen those who strive - like Jacob Boehme before them - to make sense of their experiences and the state of the world around them.

Misplaced perceptions of faith exacerbate imbalance. Despite the challenges of faith in a world where suffering seems to hold the upper hand, Boehme decided to "take a chance on God" rather than give up on his faith completely. His autobiographical discourses reveal how he came to terms with suffering and would come to regard negative feelings as a primal instinct deriving from fear. Jacob Boehme repeatedly stressed that we must elevate our minds in the spirit if we want to understand the elan vital that animates us. Those who profoundly engage with this understanding similarly distinguish between the lower and higher forms of the mind, which we find embodied in Boehme's doctrine of the Three Principles.

For the mystic, the dark world of the first principle and the light world of the second are of necessity separate; the first is shut off and self-enclosed, the second is free and sacred. Perception is key. In Boehme, we discover a creative, dynamic representation of how the mind can work on self-healing.

Hardcover edition.