GICHTEL, JOHANN GEORG German mystic, was born at Ratisbon on March 14, 1638. He was admitted an advocate, first at Spires, and then at Ratisbon, but a meeting with the baron Justinianus von Weltz (1621-1668), a Hungarian nobleman who cherished schemes for the reunion of Christendom and the conversion of the world, and a natural leaning towards mysticism changed his career. He promoted a society known as the "Christerbauliche Jesusgesellscha f t." The movement in its beginning provoked no active hostility; but when Gichtel began to attack the teaching of the Lutheran clergy and church, especially upon the fundamental doctrine of justification by faith, he was prosecuted and banished (1665) . He settled at Zwolle, Holland, where he co-operated with Friedrich Breckling (1629-1711), who shared his views and aspirations. In 1668 he removed to Amsterdam, where he made the acquaintance of Antoinette Bourignon (1616-168o), and became an ardent disciple of Jakob Boehme, whose works he published in 1682 (Amsterdam, 2 vols.) . He had attracted to himself a small band of followers known as Gichtelians or Brethren of the Angels, who held views at which he had arrived independently of Boehme. But, unlike Boehme, who "desired to remain a faithful son of the Church," the Gichtelians became Separatists (cf. J. A. Dorner, History of Protestant Theology, ii. p. 185).
Gichtel's correspondence was published without his knowledge by Gottfried Arnold, a disciple, in 17o1 (2 vols.), and again in 1708 (3 vols.). It has been frequently reprinted under the title Theosophia practica. The seventh volume of the Berlin edition (1768) contains a notice of Gichtel's life. See also G. C. A. von Harless, Jakob Bohme and die Alchinzisten (187o, and ed., 1882).