Gichtelians

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The Gichtelian community goes back to the circle of friends of the mystic and spiritualist Johann Georg Gichtel (1638–1710). They are also called " angel brothers " and " angel sisters" in relation to ( Mt 22:30  LUT ). Later on they called themselves “affectionate” or “ sentimental” because in their minds they intend to hunger for love at all times. The name "Children of Good Will" refers to the collection of letters collected from extracts for children of good will ...back. This collection of letters from Gichtel and his pupil Johann Wilhelm Überfeld is divided up over three years for three-part daily reading. This reading is still cultivated by Gichtelians to this day.

history

Johann Georg Gichtel was expelled from Regensburg because of his criticism of the church . He dealt intensively with religious, later especially with Jakob Boehme's writings, which he first published in full (1682). He was accepted by the pastor and spiritualist Friedrich Breckling in Zwolle . There he was again expelled for his criticism of the church. He found his refuge in Amsterdam. Here a small group of friends gathered around him for prayer, exchange and reading the writings of Jakob Boehme. He lived - not always without tension - with several house brothers and sisters and was supported by benefactors. His ideal was voluntary poverty. Around 1674 the house community in Amsterdam, which was founded in 1668, had 30 house brothers who kept themselves separate from the church. As the “brides of the heavenly Sophia” they led a celibate life. This ideal is still lived by the Gichtelians today.

The guests in the Amsterdam household included u. a. Gottfried Arnold . Gichtel conducted an intensive correspondence with the nonconformists ( spiritualists and radical pietists ) of his time. In 1722 his student and successor Johann Wilhelm Überfeld published large parts of Gichtel's letters in a seven-volume edition under the title Theosophia practica .

After Gichtel's death, Überfeld gathered his circle of friends in a house community in Leiden . This became the model for all other Gichtelian house communities. The Leiden community became a magnet for Gichtel's supporters. Many of them gathered in small house communities, mostly agricultural estates, but also castles that were owned by friends of Gichtel's. In the 18th century there were u. a. Communities in Dresden, Glaucha near Halle, Copenhagen, Magdeburg, Merzien near Koethen, Nordhausen, Weimar, Schlodien and Hohendorf in East Prussia. House parents were in charge of the house communities. Married couples who joined the Gichtelians lived in celibacy from then on.

In Switzerland , at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, circles of Gichtel followers emerged following houses of nonconformists, especially in the Zurich Oberland, in Pfäffikon, in the Emmental and in the canton of Bern. These communities were partially suppressed by the authorities. In the hamlet of Fälmis (Zurich Oberland), a revival arose based on the life testimony of the first Gichtelians. At the beginning of the 19th century, over 300 people were counted in this group. The individual communities kept in touch through intensive correspondence. In the middle of the 19th century there were house communities in Winikon, Ober-Uster, Bussenhausen / Pfäffikon, and Oberdorf near Hinwil. The strict separation from the church was given up by the mitigating influence of the German Gichtelian Baron Carl Joseph von Campagne (1751-1833). Henceforth the local evangelical clergy buried deceased Gichtelians, often in their own cemetery plots. Nevertheless, the Gichtelians stayed away from Protestant services and the Lord's Supper. At the end of the 19th century, the Gichtelians in the Bergisches Land split into the "old" and the "new cosiness".

resolution

After the Second World War , the number of Gichtelians and the house communities they led decreased steadily due to the death of members and a lack of offspring. The last member of the Linz house community died in 1990. Jakob Bertschi, the last president of the Friends of the Blessed Lord of Campagne (Alte Gemütliche) association founded in Fehraltdorf (Switzerland) in 1898 , died in 1995 in Oberglatt (Canton of Zurich). In December 2000, Switzerland's last angel sister died in Fehraltdorf. In 2007 the Kellermann house in Diezenkausen near Waldbröl was sold and the Association of Friends of Jakob Böhme eV Waldbröl was dissolved (Neue Gemütliche). In June 2011, Gretchen Mand died in Oberhaun (Hesse), the last member of the Alte Gemütlichkeit. She was almost 106 years old. Later, the Höh (Neue Gemütliche) house in Hückeswagen was the last Gichtelian house to be sold. In the early 1990s it still had four members. In October 2018 there was still an angel sister (New Direction) living in Hückeswagen and Waldbröl, both of them at an advanced age (99 and 90 years respectively).

Teaching

According to the Swiss theologian Jürgen Seidel, the Gichtelians see themselves as heirs to the theosophy of Jakob Boehme and Johann Georg Gichtel. Her goal is the spiritual union with Jesus in the form of the heavenly Sophia through unconditional chastity and love of God and neighbor. The writings of Jakob Böhme, Gichtel and Johann Wilhelm Ueberfeld (one of the most important editors of the works of Jakob Böhme) therefore enjoy great esteem among the Gichtelians. For example, an important archive with original manuscripts by Jakob Boehme, Gichtel and Überfeld was confiscated in 1941 by the Gestapo in a house community of the old people (“Haus Thielen-Schulte”) founded in Linz on the Rhine in 1896 . A sister had written a letter to Hitler beforehand, in which she explained how World War II could be won and thereby made the authorities aware of the group. The new Gemütliche also welcomed Hitler's rise to power in 1933. The Gichtelians reject the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper as useless externals. Its members lived in communitarian communities and mostly also worked together. In Linz on the Rhine and in Waldbröl, the city cemeteries have their own simple grave fields without gravestones.

Remarks

  1. ^ J. Jürgen Seidel, Between Theosophy and Pietimus, pp. 98f.
  2. ↑ J. Jürgen Seidel, Between Theosophy and Pietimus pp. 95–98.
  3. ↑ J. Jürgen Seidel, Between Theosophy and Pietimus pp. 100-102
  4. ^ Biography of the Baron von Campagne
  5. ↑ J. Jürgen Seidel, Between Theosophy and Pietimus, pp. 104-109.116f. "
  6. ^ J. Jürgen Seidel, Between Theosophy and Pietimus, p. 118.
  7. ^ J. Jürgen Seidel, Between Theosophy and Pietimus, p. 113.
  8. ↑ Jacob Böhme in the OLB (accessed on January 8, 2011)

literature