A gender fluid God? In 17th century Amsterdam, freethinkers brought with them ideas that are still controversial

For refugees from all over Europe who were persecuted for their views or beliefs, Amsterdam was a safe haven in the 17th century. Among them was one of Europe’s most important freethinkers, Jan Amos Comenius from Moravia. He therefore praised the city in 1657 as the ‘Apple of the eye of cities, jewel of the Netherlands, joy of Europe’. In 2026, Amsterdam mayor Femke Halsema is still enthusiastic about that statement. At the opening of a new exhibition in Museum Embassy of the Free Mind – dedicated to 17th-century freethinkers such as Comenius – Halsema quoted Comenius and emphasized the urgency of his almost four-century-old words. Especially now that freedom of the press, freedom of expression and freedom of demonstration are under fire, “we must cherish Amsterdam’s freethinking tradition.”

Museum Embassy of the Free Mind was founded in 2017 by former businessman Joost Ritman, as a knowledge center and home for his own Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica, a collection of 30,000 historical books on religion, philosophy, mysticism, alchemy and hermetics. The museum is located in Het Huis met de Hoofden on Amsterdam’s Keizersgracht. The building (see inset) is now also part of the exhibition: the destitute refugee Comenius found shelter here and wrote his groundbreaking books about “education for boys and girls from all walks of life”, as Halsema recalled. Comenius also exchanged ideas with other freethinkers. Because the wealthy arms merchant Louis de Geer, who had fled from the Southern Netherlands, opened his House with the Heads to more such refugees. (The contradiction that De Geer supported apostles of peace and freedom with capital earned through the trade in war equipment and slaves is unfortunately also part of Amsterdam tradition, Mayor Halsema pointed out.)

Heretical tribute

With the exhibition House with the Heads – a monument to free thinking the Embassy of the Free Mind wants to mark that the freethinking tradition in that house is still alive after four hundred years through Ritman’s library. Because Joost Ritman turned 85 this year and his son Jozef was appointed the new museum director, the exhibition is also a tribute to the founder of the library.

That is why most of the books at the exhibition come from the Ritman collection, with a focus on the interconnectedness of Amsterdam and the freethinking tradition. For example, there are original works printed clandestinely in Amsterdam by the Jewish-Amsterdam philosopher Spinoza (Tractatus theologica-politicus from 1670 and his posthumous The legacy writings from 1677). The first woman to attend university in the Netherlands from 1638 onwards, Anna Maria van Schurman, is represented with her book from 1648, Opuscula. But there is also a small manuscript by Comenius from 1643, the introduction to his great book in which he gives universal recommendations for the improvement of human affairs, such as education, religion and politics, the Consultatio Catholicafrom the Swedish city library in Norrköping. From both the National Library in The Hague and from Ritman’s collection there are books by the German mystic Jakob Böhme (1575-1624), whose heretical texts were popular in Amsterdam. He saw God as simultaneously male and female, and regarded all people of all faiths as children of God with free will. A gender-fluid god, and respecting people of other faiths as equals – that was controversial in Böhme’s time and you don’t have to worry about it with the Christian nationalists who now govern America.

Spiritual tradition: gnosis

In addition to the dozens of books on display, there is an extensive, richly illustrated English-language book, House with the Headsfull of background information about the exhibition. This shows that many of these freethinkers, from Spinoza to Comenius, are partly inspired by the old religious spiritual tradition of gnosis: the view that you can intuitively gain a higher insight by coming into inner contact with the ‘divine spark’ that is present in every person.

The rediscovery during the Renaissance of age-old Gnostic writings by the Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus from Alexandria, about that ‘divine spark’ in every person and the connection of everything in the cosmos, was a great influence on freethinkers at the time.

Hermes’ texts, also the oldest Dutch translation from 1574 in manuscript, can therefore also be found in the exhibition, next to books inspired by them from the mystical Christian society of the Rosicrucians. These heretical pre-modern enlighteners also inspired Comenius, writes Ritman Research Institute researcher, historian Carlos Gilly.

According to Joost Ritman, these new insights into the divine in every person during the Renaissance led to a ‘modern big bang’: new views on the individual and freedom. He would like those ideas to lead to such a spiritual big bang again.

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