The term ‘theosophy’, derived from the Greek theo (‘divine’) and sophia (‘wisdom’), refers generally to divine wisdom and its mystical interpretation. Arising in the third century, the term acted as a synonym for theology until the sixteenth century, when Jakob Böhme (1575–1624), drawing on Neoplatonism and alchemy, described it as divine knowledge by which man interprets the natural world – an idea of great importance to the Romantics.