Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul [1 ed.] 1527555054, 9781527555051

Table of contents :
Dedication
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. Pathways to the Soul
2. Inspiration
3. Synchronicity
4. Death as Enhanced Subliminality
Ethical Perspectives
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul By

Rico Sneller

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul By Rico Sneller This book first published 2020 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2020 by Rico Sneller All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-5505-4 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-5505-1

This book is dedicated to the memory of Carl du Prel (1839-1899) and Ludwig Klages (1872-1956).

“Bodies which either possessed a malleable (fluid, supple) condition or adopted it after a violent collision, can proceed from being merely next-toeach-other to being into-each-other. —Paul Kammerer 1 “It has been a long time since philosophers have read men’s souls. It is not their task, we are told. Perhaps. But we must not be surprised if they no longer matter much to us.” —Cioran 2 “the Sun and the Moon began to move [se movimentar], and the volcanoes began to move [se movimentar] tearing the womb of fear [o ventre do medo] (deep inside myself [no fundo … eu mesma]); from the fire, men were born and from the sea enormous pieces of female bodies appeared, covered in gelatine, making themselves, composing themselves: it was disturbing. I even lost my sense of balance and could see nothing; everything was movement [movimento], and I was afraid [tive medo] to fall backwards [de cair para trás] like the world…” —Lygia Clark 3

1 “Zum Ineinander statt bloßen Aneinanders kommt es bei Körpern, die einen plastischen (flüssigen, weichen) Zustand entweder besaßen oder bei heftigem Zusammenstoß annahmen.” Paul Kammerer (1919). Das Gesetz der Serie. Eine Lehre von den Wiederholungen im Lebens- und im Weltgeschehen. Stuttgart und Berlin: Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt 1919, p. 410; my trans. 2 “Il y a longtemps que les philosophes ne lisent plus dans les âmes. Ce n’est plus leur métier, dira-t-on. C’est possible. Mais aussi qu’on ne s’étonne pas s’ils ne nous importent guère.” Cioran (1973) De l’inconvénient d’être né. In E.M. Cioran (1995). Œuvres. Paris: Gallimard, p. 1294; trans. Richard Howard (2011). The Trouble with Being Born. New York: Seaver Books. 3 Lygia Clark & Hélio Oiticica (1998). Cartas 1964-1974. Rio de Janeiro: Editora UFRJ, p. 247; trans. Sergio Fernandez and Jeff Lloyd.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments ................................................................................... viii Introduction ............................................................................................... ix Chapter 1 .................................................................................................... 1 Pathways to the Soul Introduction ‘Do We Have a Soul?’ Soul as Inwardness Soul as an Outer Phenomenon Chapter 2 .................................................................................................. 85 Inspiration Introduction Inspiration as primordial experience of self Possession (Hitler; Anneliese Michel) Conclusion Chapter 3 ................................................................................................ 190 Synchronicity Introduction: synchronicity awareness and optic approach Synchronicity and causality Synchronistic observation: Physiognomy Epilogue Chapter 4 ................................................................................................ 265 Death as Enhanced Subliminality Introduction A “higher metaphysics” Enhanced subliminality Conclusive Remarks: ‘Death is good’ Ethical Perspectives ................................................................................ 337 Bibliography ........................................................................................... 342 Index ....................................................................................................... 358

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Many thanks to those who helped me in writing this book, either by stimulating me or by giving their comments: Gerard Visser, Hans Gerding, Hein van Dongen, Jan van de Pol, Linda Roland Danil, Peter du Gardijn, Rijk Schipper, Tatjana Kochetkova, and Willem du Gardijn. Some of the material of Chapter 3 was previously published, in English and in Portuguese, in the Brazilian journal Revista Interparadigmas, Ano 5, No. 5 2019.

INTRODUCTION

Worldviews Our times show a remarkable tension. On the one hand, a scientific, largely materialist worldview, seems to impose itself with vigour. Especially in the so-called post-truth era, rife with ‘fake news,’ politicians and journalists insist on the need to provide reliable, scientifically tested evidence for any ‘fact’ one wishes to come up with. On the other hand, new forms of spirituality are embraced by always more people. Whether this is due to the increasingly experienced emptiness inherent to consumerist societies, or to globalisation processes which may illuminate the darker, nihilistic sides of Western civilisation, cannot be decided here. Probably both are the case. The tension or anachronicity between scientific and spiritual worldviews, being already striking in itself, becomes even more complicated when we realise that there is no such thing as a single scientific worldview. Since its inception in the 16th and 17th centuries in Europe, scientific research has distributed itself over a variety of disciplines, every single one of those inclined to pursue its own, topical, if not idiomatic worldview. How would these not differ amongst themselves, and in their individual successive stages? Whereas contemporary biomedical and neurological research tends to develop materialist accounts of human nature (not to mention other life forms, or even reality as a whole), quantum physics seems to be more susceptible to immaterialist or spiritual interpretations; this is understandable since the very point and purpose of quantum physics is to question the hitherto assumed stable nature of the first particle (‘atom’). Arthur Koestler writes that “[t]he mechanistic universe gradually disintegrated, but the mechanistic notion of causality survived until Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle proved its untenability. Today we know that on the sub-atomic level the fate of an electron or a whole atom is not determined by its past. But this discovery has not led to any basically new departure in the philosophy of nature, only to a state of bewildered embarrassment, a further retreat of physics into a language of even more abstract symbolism.” 1 The 1

Also see Arthur Koestler (2014, 1959). The Sleepwalkers. A History of Man’s Changing Vision of the Universe. London: Penguin Books, p. 505; my italics. Also see Dean Radin (2009/2006). Entangled Minds: Extrasensory Experiences in a

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abstract level of theorising in quantum mechanics hardly allows intellectuals of other disciplines who are unfamiliar with doing experimental research in a laboratory setting, to assess if the defended physical models extend the mere didactical use and have ontological value. This picture is further complicated by the fact that scientific worldviews are often rather prompted by popularising scientists and their audience than by scientific theorists and researchers themselves. The latter may be more prone to persevering in an inquisitive approach of nature than to pretending to offer a conclusive representation of it. They know that paradigms can shift over time and that the theoretical framework within which they are working could be overtaken tomorrow by another, that does more justice to unruly empirical evidence. The upshot of this is an intensifying clash between a plurality of approaches, the simplified forms of which regularly prevail, and contribute to the above-mentioned current anachronistic tension. Let us say, for the sake of clarity, that ‘spiritualistic’ accounts challenge ‘materialist’ accounts of human nature and, accordingly, of reality. As it is not my aim in this book to analyse sociological issues, I will only briefly mention here the following aspects that further confuse perplexed intellectuals who try to makes sense of their own time. For one thing, power games and strategic behaviour play a role in the debate on the nature of human being, of life as a whole, and the universe. Those who control the media (politicians, opinion-makers, news presenters) have an interest in promoting the worldviews that ‘support’ their own political or social views. Their input in the debate is regularly negligent of the uncertainties related to the opinions they wish to defend, let alone that they can reflect on the premises and mindset upholding these views. For another thing, people’s ideas and beliefs are not necessarily pure; on closer, psychoanalytical inspection, they might (though they need not) represent strategies for dealing with inner turmoil (anxiety, feelings of guilt). The more emphatically people insist on their worldview, the more it becomes probable that this worldview is primarily promoted to conceal this turmoil. These issues harm any attempt to further debates on human nature and the existence of the human psyche or soul. When in the present book, I will be Quantum Reality. New York: Paraview; David Bohm (1980). Wholeness and Implicate Order. London/New York: Routledge; Chr. McMillan, R. Main & D. Henderson, Eds. (2020). Holism. Possibilities and Problems. London/New York: Routledge.

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taking a stance in those debates, I cannot always avoid the intricacies mentioned above. Self-reflection, and clarity about my position, will hopefully reduce simplifications to an acceptable level. The position I want to defend here is outspokenly anti-materialist. I want to make a case for the notions of the ‘psyche’ or the ‘soul,’ in other words, for a widely embracing conception of consciousness. Though my pretensions are more modest than his, I feel very comfortable with the subtitle and dedication of a book written by the 19th-century philosopher Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1796-1876, son of Johann Gottlieb Fichte) on human nature: Anthropologie. Die Lehre von der menschlichen Seele. Begründet auf naturwissenschaftlichem Wege für Naturforscher, Seelenärzte und wissenschaftlich Gebildete überhaupt 2 (trans.: Anthropology. The Doctrine of the Human Soul. Grounded on a Scientific Way, for Natural Scientists, Psychologists and Academically Trained People as Such). I hope that what can be gleaned in my book makes sense to the categories of people mentioned here: Naturforscher, Seelenärzte and wissenschaftlich Gebildete überhaupt. Unfortunately, an English translation of these German job descriptions hardly renders what it should provide. It almost collapses under the weight of modern Anglophone academia jargon (in which the English noun ‘scientist’ already designates someone who strictly obeys the most rigid empiricist doctrine of testing and experimenting in a laboratory setting). A Naturforscher, rather than a modern day natural scientist or naturalist – fathoms the depth of nature, at the risk of succumbing to it. A Seelenarzt is not so much a psychologist as a doctor of the soul: someone who takes the depth of the soul phenomenon seriously, which makes any (objectifying) science of it problematic. A wissenschaftlich Gebildeter is not someone trained in ‘doing science,’ but someone to whom their study of the sciences (including the humanities) has led to Bildung (‘all-round formation’); their ‘science’ will preferably consist of ‘knowledge’. The Naturforscher, Seelenärzte and wissenschaftlich Gebildete überhaupt represent what I would call ‘metaphysicians’. In chapter 3, I will define ‘metaphysician’ as someone who feels challenged and encouraged by synthesis, even if that synthesis is only part of an as yet unaccomplished Reality which is always, apparently, on the verge of becoming. I will suggest that a metaphysician is susceptible to ‘ecstasy’; that is, to ‘being under the sway of provisional synthesis’ and fuelled by das Ahnungshafte (Max Picard). Going even further, I am tempted to follow the injunction of the 20th century Bengali ‘natural scientist’ Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858-1937). Bose was famous for his invention of the crescograph (a device to observe plant 2

I.H. Fichte (1876/1860). Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus.

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growth) and of wireless telegraphy. He pleaded for combining scientific research with spirituality and self-reflection. When opening his research institute, the Bose laboratory, he overtly called it both a laboratory and a temple. 3 A parallel view is held by the French philosopher Simone Weil (1909-1943), who goes as far as claiming that scientific research is but one form of religious contemplation. For this claim, Weil relies on Greek Antiquity, where, she says, the same approach was followed. 4 The argument Weil gives for associating science and religion is that the “blind impartiality of inert matter” and the “inexorable regularity of the world order” can be rightfully “proposed to the human soul as a model of perfection” and teach it “the virtue of patience”. (Weil, 1999, p. 1192f.; my trans.) I am fully aware that an extension of academic training today – even beyond all-round formation in liberal arts (Bildung) – towards a proper spiritual or contemplative attitude would go much too fast for a great many scholars. “Science would never confide in a spiritual automatism triggered by meditation or exercises,” Hermann Friedmann asserts, “but, as it knows that thinking all too easily leads to automatic deviations, it will constantly check their logical admissibility and empirical correctness.” 5 Still, in the course of this book, the compelling character of projects like Bose’s or Weil’s will perhaps be mitigated. For such projects to make sense at all, especially for Western readers, it will be indispensable to consider that which is usually neglected in any scientific training, and which forms the central theme of this book: the soul or consciousness at large. The asynchronicity of contemporary worldviews just mentioned (roughly speaking, materialist and spiritualist) does not necessarily create a barrier for addressing the question of the soul as something properly human. What would create a barrier, though, is a twofold threat. On the one hand, this threat consists of a fervently imposed materialism, that claims more certainty than it can account for. Such materialism would prematurely mute any critique against its premises. Koestler writes that “since the space-time framework, the concepts of matter and causality as understood both by classical physics and by commonsense experience, have 3

Mukherji, Visvapriya (1983). Jagadis Chandra Bose. Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Govt. of India, Ch. X. 4 Simone Weil (1999). l’Enracinement. In Oeuvres, Paris: Gallimard, p. 1192. 5 Hermann Friedmann (1930/1925). Die Welt der Formen. System eines morphologischen Idealismus. München: C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung, p. 23; my trans.

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been abandoned by modern physics, there seems to be no justification in refusing to investigate empirical phenomena because they do not fit into that already abandoned philosophy.” (Koestler, 2014, p. 505) But the other threat would be a naïve spiritualism, that lacks philosophical depth and reflective profundity. Such spiritualism would precipitately throw away the intellectual arms it could have used in responding to reductive materialism. If I am siding with spiritualism, this does not imply a surrender of thinking to the immediacy of feeling. Yet, one of the most pressing problems I am dealing with in this book is that the discursive strategy (which I cannot avoid using) risks distorting what it wants to address. As writing poetry or just quoting mystical texts minimises the impact I would like to have on contemporary Naturforscher, Seelenärzte and wissenschaftlich Gebildete überhaupt, I will continue to set up a philosophical argument while trying to reduce its ‘objectifying,’ ‘representationalist’ pretensions.

Philosophical Company In this book, I will often resort to several unjustly forgotten philosophers. They account for a wholly new approach that would, if it were accepted, bring about a complete paradigm shift. Beyond my first and foremost aim – to make a case for the soul, or consciousness more broadly conceived –, I also intend to present those forgotten philosophers to an anglophone audience. Neglecting what they have to say only aggravates the selffulfilling prophecy of a (simplified) empiricist scientific paradigm, and enhances the intellectual predicament of contemporary spiritual needs. Philosophy, I believe, cannot be compared to mere continuous and incremental self-correction; each thinker has fathomed Being in their distinctive way and cannot be reduced to preparatory services offered to the alleged ‘broader’ look of their successors. On the contrary, past or forgotten philosophers may have unjustly suffered from social pressure or power games which have nothing to do with philosophy itself – except that several contemporary philosophers have a hard time analysing and unmasking such mechanisms. Despite the oblivion in which many thinkers explored in this book have fallen, numerous developments in contemporary art and philosophy, as well as in particular scientific disciplines (theoretical physics, innovation sciences, industrial engineering, parapsychology, etc.), seem to confirm some of their theses. Ludwig Klages (1872-1956) or Hermann Friedmann (1873-1957), for example, advocated a correction of a one-sided ‘haptic’ mindset (based on privileged tactility) by what Friedmann called an optic

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approach, favouring visibility. Unravelling the implicit choices on which our overall Western account of Being or reality is based, highlights the contingency or even arbitrariness of its principles. The most important of these principles is perhaps ‘causality’. Reduced to mere efficient causality in Modernity, it is often still confused with a necessary or logical relation, despite Hume and Kant. Both reduction and confusion are impediments to a perception of non-causal processes, like those which Paul Kammerer called serial and C.G. Jung synchronistic. Addressing the justified character of a notion of ‘soul’ should simultaneously insist on the philosophical entitlements of ‘seriality’ or ‘synchronicity,’ by underlining the arbitrariness of both ‘causality’ and the standardised (‘haptic’) mindset which it presupposes. Acausal processes are not irrational at all, nor are visual contemplation and associative thinking necessarily leading the inquisitive intellectual astray. Klages and Friedmann, who were contemporaries, are both perpetuating a tradition of thinking which roots at least in Schopenhauer and which is continued by 19th-century philosophers as Carl du Prel (1839-1899), Gustav Fechner (1801-1887), Lazar von Hellenbach (1827-1887), Immanuel Hermann Fichte (1797-1879), Eduard von Hartmann (1842-1906), or (to some extent) Paul Kammerer (1880-1926). What these thinkers have all in common is an emphasis on the enhancement of consciousness, or altered states of mind, as a necessary condition for more in-depth access to reality. With such an approach, they can hardly avoid bringing ‘reality’ or ‘Being,’ on the one hand, and ‘soul’ or ‘psyche,’ on the other, into close connection with each other, to the point of apparently ‘confusing’ both. C.G. Jung, who is equally heir to the Schopenhauerian tradition, qualifies reality as ‘psychoid’ – soul-like. Provided that this does not exempt reality from its unalienable otherness as regards the soul, I am inclined to subscribe to Jung’s qualification. By insisting on the need to attribute otherness to reality (which I will never be able to know in advance), I by no means want to imply that we are in full possession of reality’s correlate, that is, ‘soul,’ ‘psyche,’ or ‘inwardness’. Strangeness (‘alterity’) is to be found on both sides, I think; both on the side of reality and of the soul. To put it simply, just as the world outside will ultimately be a mystery to me, I will likewise be a mystery to myself as well. I do not even mention here that the personal pronoun ‘I’ used here is not itself as evident as it seems, nor can it ever be taken for granted. While being almost impossible to avoid, the pronoun ‘I’ may still be an obstacle for truth-finding. But let us not anticipate what is to follow in this book.

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In chronological order, I will now introduce to the reader some of the thinkers which from now on, I will frequently resort to and who are very important for my overall argument. In doing so, I will not need to interrupt myself unnecessarily in the chapters to come by first having to present them before continuing. A thinker who inspired me to write this book and whom I hold in high esteem is Carl du Prel (1839-1899). Du Prel has unfortunately been wholly forgotten today. He can be seen as the main bridge between Schopenhauer, on the one hand, and Freud and Jung, on the other. Du Prel’s endeavours in elaborating on ‘exceptional experiences’ as a purported confirmation of Schopenhauer’s metaphysics of will maybe did not contribute to his ‘scientific’ reputation. Du Prel held fascinating ideas, many of which are implicitly accepted, even by modern people; for example on the existence of ‘transcendental’ consciousness, only to be accessed in dreamless sleep. The two books I will frequently refer to are his Philosophy of Mysticism (Philosophie der Mystik 6) and Die monistische Seelenlehre 7 (The Monistic Doctrine of the Soul). Du Prel was very optimistic about the prospective evolutionary enhancement of human consciousness. I will draw on his notion of the sensation threshold (Empfindungsschwelle); this threshold allegedly prevents us from haphazardly crossing the border of the unconscious. Only during so-called ‘altered states of consciousness’ (somnambulism, hypnosis, dreaming, dying, etc.), it is crossed. One can imagine that the vulnerability of such states, despite their experience-based nature, hardly gives them the weight which ‘evidence-based’ science covets. 8 Frederic Myers (1843-1901) was a classicist and one of the founding members of the Society for Psychical Research. He introduced the term ‘telepathy’. Though Myers has a lot in common with Carl du Prel, his work is less philosophical and more empirical. I will mainly consult his marvellous book Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death (1906). This book contains a lot of ‘evidence’ concerning exceptional experiences, and theories to explain these. One way of doing this was hypothesising about the existence of a “subliminal self,” in addition to the 6

Carl du Prel (1885). Philosophie der Mystik, Leipzig: Günther; trans. (1889) Philosophy of Mysticism, by C.C. Massey. London: George Redway. 7 Carl du Prel (1888). Die monistische Seelenlehre. Leipzig: Günther. 8 For a monography on Du Prel see Tomas Kaiser (2006). Zwischen Philosophie und Spiritismus. Annäherungen an Leben und Werk von Carl du Prel. Lüneburg: Universität Lüneburg.

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usual “supraliminal self”. Throughout this book, I will frequently use these terms. Though Myers died more than a century ago, his ongoing relevance for psychic research could appear from the recent publication by Terence Palmer, The Science of Spirit Possession. 9 This book was dedicated to Myers and drew on its methodology. Ludwig Klages is another philosopher who greatly influenced me, even though I will sometimes take a different approach. Klages was a ‘philosopher of life’ (Lebensphilosoph) who is mostly known for his magnum opus Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele (The Spirit as the Adversary of the Soul, 1929-1932). 10 This impressive book is a philosophical masterpiece, and one of the most thorough phenomenological studies of consciousness of the 20th century. In my view, it far by-passes what Heidegger wrote about it in Sein und Zeit. Klages’ contemporary Hermann Friedmann, whom I will introduce hereafter, wrote: “According to common scientific standards, Klages’ work and language are so unusual that it is to be feared that a fruitful reception of this work on behalf of our contemporary science would only take place with the greatest difficulties.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 302; my trans.) Klages had a decisive influence on C.G. Jung, Walter Benjamin, Gestalt psychology, etc. He may have been neglected mainly due to his (‘metaphysical’) anti-Semitism (which I believe rests on complete ignorance of the Jewish tradition) and his tight writing style (probably ‘aggravated’ by his stubborn use of stimulating drugs). Klages’ account of the soul as an original susceptibility to life, constantly threatened by the attacks of Spirit (‘reason’ or ‘will’), has much in store that a study of the human soul and synchronicity awareness could reasonably benefit from. 11 Despite the fully-fledged oeuvre which he left us, Hermann Friedmann is still more ignored. Friedmann was jurist, biologist, and philosopher, whose Die Welt der Formen (The World of Forms) may have deterred those 9

Terence Palmer (2014). The Science of Spirit Possession. Newcastle: Cambridge Publishers. 10 Ludwig Klages (1981, 1929-1932). Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag. 11 For one of the few English introductions to Klages, see Paul Bishop (2018). Ludwig Klages and the Philosophy of Life. A Vitalist Toolkit. London/New York: Routledge. Also see Gunnar Alksnis (2015, 1970). Chthonic Gnosis. Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All. München: Theion Publishing. Recently, the following translation appeared: Of Cosmogonic Eros (2018); trans. Mav Kuhn. München: Theion Publishing. For a more historical approach see Nitzan Lebovic (2013). The Philosophy of Life and Death. Ludwig Klages and the Rise of a Nazi Biopolitics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

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readers who feel uncomfortable with discussions of mathematics, physics, and biology jointly with reflections on linguistics, poetry and philosophy. Friedmann was an all-round intellectual who tried to ground a new conception of science based on ‘morphology’ or a doctrine of forms. I already referred to Friedmann’s distinction between the prevailing ‘haptic’ approach and a desirable ‘optic’ approach; the latter endowed with the capacity to integrate phenomena, whereas the former tends to dissect them. 12 Friedmann is another thinker whose contemporary neglect can be associated with his implicit attack on some fundamental premises of science (premises based on notions such as ‘evidence,’ ‘causality,’ ‘proof,’ ‘matter,’ ‘subject’/‘object’-distinction, etc.). Whereas Friedmann disagreed with Klages’ thesis about a thwarting, life-destroying Spirit (Geist), he significantly shared the Klagesian account of images (Bilder). 13 A fifth author I will be drawing on throughout this book is the German biologist-philosopher Hans Driesch (1867-1941). Starting as an empirical researcher of morphogenesis (embryonic development) and being confronted with its potentially anti-Darwinian, anti-materialist implications, Driesch turned more and more to philosophy. At the beginning of the 20th century, he gave the famous Gifford Lectures in Aberdeen. These have later been published as The Philosophy of the Organism (Philosophie des Organischen). Here and in other publications, Driesch defends the idea of ‘entelechy’ as an immaterial principle that has to be taken into account when trying to evidence morphogenesis. The notion of ‘entelechy,’ he argues, will enable us to account for the wholeness, integrity and unity of an organism, without reducing this wholeness to a mere conceptual or logical wholeness. Organic wholeness, Driesch affirms, is experience-based, living wholeness, which demonstrates a vital form. In this book, I will repeatedly dwell on Driesch’ Philosophy of the Organism and his Wirklichkeitslehre (Doctrine of Reality). 14 I will exploit the definition of entelechy – a living organism’s 12 It is not without reason that I will frequently quote Marcel Proust throughout this book. Walter Benjamin writes that the gesture of touching is fully alien to Proust: “Diese Geste [der Berührung] ist keinem fremder als Proust. Er kann auch seinen Leser nicht anrühren, könnte es um nichts in der Welt.” Walter Benjamin. Zum Bilde Prousts. In Walter Benjamin (1999). Gesammelte Schriften II/1. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 321. 13 For an interesting autobiographical account, see Hermann Friedmann (1950). Sinnvolle Odyssee. Geschichte eines Lebens und einer Zeit 1873-1950. München: C.H. Beck. 14 Hans Driesch (1921). Philosophie des Organischen. Leipzig: Wilhelm Engelmann; and id. (1917). Wirklichkeitslehre. Ein metaphysischer Versuch. Leipzig: Emmanuel Reinicke Verlag. For autobiographical information, see Hans Driesch (1951).

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focus on becoming a whole (Ganzheit) that is, a spontaneous, self-contained actor – and use it for purposes far beyond biological morphogenesis. 15 Paul Kammerer coined the term ‘seriality,’ which is almost an equivalent of what Jung would later call ‘synchronicity’. Kammerer was a biologist who started as a musical composer, while endeavouring himself into philosophy in his main work, Das Gesetz der Serie (The Law of Seriality). In this book, he outlined a governing principle in nature beyond standard causality. Throughout his life, Kammerer was far better known as an anti-Darwinian researcher who did experiments with reptiles and allegedly demonstrated that acquired traits are inheritable (rather than the product of random mutation). His amazed Darwinian opponents were unsuccessful in repeating the experiments (reptiles hardly mate in captivity), but could not disprove their reliability. After having been accused of fraud (probably falsely), Kammerer took his own life. 16 As the Darwinian paradigm dominates scientific biology, it can hardly surprise that Kammerer’s alternative (Mendelian) theories about inheritance are entirely ignored today. It was mainly Jung who saved Kammerer’s ideas about seriality from oblivion, by re-coining them as ‘synchronicity’. 17 Otto Rank (1884-1939) was an Austrian psychoanalyst. He was closely associated with Freud. However, Rank gradually emancipated himself from his master. One of his views which will be particularly crucial for me concerns what he terms “birth anxiety”. Rank believes that human birth – being detached from the mother and being thrown into empty space – creates our first and most original trauma. This view embarrassed Freud, insofar as it deprived the Oedipus complex of its status of being a universal psychological glossary. Instead – and this is why Rank’s position interests me – it allowed for a more independent state of human creativity, art and culture. Rank claimed that these are to be seen at the immediate background Lebenserinnerungen. Aufzeichnungen eines Forschers und Denkers in entscheidender Zeit. München/Basel: Ernst Reinhardt Verlag. 15 For a recent introduction to Driesch, see Hans Gerding, Hein van Dongen & Rico Sneller (2014). Wild Beasts of the Philosophical Desert. Philosophers on Telepathy and Other Exceptional Experiences. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, Ch. 6. 16 For an analysis of Kammerer’s experiments and the accusation of fraud, see Arthur Koestler (1971; repr. 2016). The Case of the Midwife Toad. London: Hutchinson & Co. Biographical information can also be found in Julya Rabinowich (2016). Krötenliebe. Berlin: Hanser Verlag. 17 C.G. Jung (1952). Synchronizität als ein Prinzip akausaler Zusammenhänge. In C.G. Jung & W. Pauli, Naturerklärung und Psyche. Basel: Springer Verlag.

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of the birth trauma which they are emulating with. Creativity, Rank argued, is an ultimate human endeavour for self-immortalisation. 18 A final author I will mention already here and whose theories I will discuss in chapter 3 is Max Picard (1888-1965). Picard was a German-Swiss philosopher of culture, who wrote among many others two books on physiognomy, Das Menschengesicht (The Human Face) and Grenzen der Physiognomik (The Limits of Physiognomy). 19 He was a friend to Gabriel Marcel, who is better known as a leading Christian existentialist philosopher. Both authors share conversion to Christianity from Judaism, as well as a higher (‘paranormal’) sensitivity. (Gerding et al., 2014, Ch. 7) 20

Methodology A short methodological remark may be desirable at this point. I already noted that this book is destined to Naturforscher, Seelenärzte and wissenschaftlich Gebildete überhaupt; that is, those who are taking seriously the unanswered questions upon which their discipline rests. It is a modest attempt to deal with the tension between human consciousness as an object both of research and experience. Superfluous to say that the terms ‘subject’ and ‘object’ themselves cannot remain unscathed in such an attempt, as already Schopenhauer taught. Remarkably, the philosophical tradition which Schopenhauer initiated – and which flourished in the 19th and the early 20th centuries – seems to have been brutally discontinued. Not only by reductionist philosophies ‘ensnared’ by the ‘implications’ of modern brain research, genetics, or neurology; but also by the philosophical epigones of Nietzsche and Heidegger who vulgarised the spiritual struggles of these thinkers and transformed them into flat secularism. What I believe is lacking in our age of a renewing spiritual sensitivity is a robust philosophical account of spirituality which unearths hitherto neglected potentials for its corroboration. Such an account would have the double advantage of not only reshuffling the history of Western thinking and discovering some of its forgotten treasures but also of paving ways towards East-West dialogues. What I believe is the most potent lesson Western thought (if such a thing exists in purity) could take from Asia is a broader 18

For an interesting study of Rank, see E. James Lieberman (1998, 1985). Acts of Will: The Life and Work of Otto Rank. New York: Free Press. 19 Max Picard (1947, 1929). Das Menschengesicht. Erlenbach: Rentsch Verlag; id. (1937). Grenzen der Physiognomik. Erlenbach: Rentsch Verlag. 20 Also see Gabriel Marcel – Max Picard (2006). Correspondance 1947-1965. Introd. Xavier Tilliette. Paris: l’Harmattan.

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approach to method. In chapter 1, I will argue that a rigorous methodology demands more than the sole scepticism or logical-dialectical acuteness with which it has been identified over the ages. What is also essential is an ongoing self-reflection, nourished by meditation and ethical purification. Needless to say that this is an immense task which no philosopher or researcher can ever claim to have definitively accomplished. A point worth noting here is my view that (what is called) ‘literature’ can give supportive evidence – despite its so-called ‘fictitious’ character. Throughout my book, I will repeatedly quote literary sources. Essential for my overall account is the Cyclops narrative extant in Homer’s Odyssey and its Latin sequel, Virgil’s Aeneid. I will repeatedly come back to it as I think it offers many clues for clarifying my ideas and intuitions. For example, despite its ambiguity, the Cyclops can function as a paradigm for (with a term from Hermann Friedmann) a haptic approach which favours tactility over vision. 21 Other literary sources are Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (1913-1927); Thomas Wolfe’s Look Homeward, Angel (1929); Robert Musil’s, Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (1930-1932); Joris-Karl Huysmans’ A rebours (1884); James Joyce’s Ulysses (1922); John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (1939); etc. I am inclined to attribute truth value to these novels, also in light of the global appreciation they have received (Nobel Prize, Pulitzer Prize, etc.). The same applies to the work of the artists to whose work I will be referring, such as the American photographer Francesca Woodman (1958-1981), especially her self-portraits and her artbook Some Disordered Interior Geometries; the Brazilian artist Lygia Clark (1920-1988); the American photographer Saul Leiter (1923-2013); the Japanese photographer Nobuyohsi Araki (1940); the American paintress and child prodigy Akiane Kramarik (1994), etc.

21

Horkheimer/Adorno’s reading of the Cyclops narrative in Dialektik der Aufklärung is, while certainly interesting, also confusing if not contrived. If Ulysses – as the modern citizen – both fights and continues mythical violence (using cunning), it becomes unclear, 1) how (if at all) myth can give birth to its own undermining (i.e., Ulysses, Modernity), and 2) how the critical confrontation between Ulysses (Modernity) and Polyphemus (the mythical) should be interpreted. Granted, similar questions are incumbent on my own argument, but (other than Horkheimer/Adorno) I try to escape the impasse by insisting on the requisite transition from monoculism to contemplation; in other words, on the question of soul. See Horkheimer & Adorno (1988, 1944). Dialektik der Aufklärung. Philosophische Fragmente. Frankfurt: Fischer Verlag, pp. 71-76.

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Since the concepts of ‘image’ and ‘imagination’ will be essential for me in this book, one can reasonably assume that I cannot take any boundaries between ‘fiction’ and ‘non-fiction’ for granted. While acknowledging Aristotelian logic as an indispensable propaedeutic for setting up arguments, the intuitions on which these arguments ultimately rely are far beyond it.

Short Outline In chapter 1, I will start outlining some pathways to the notion of ‘soul’. Instead of ‘soul,’ I will also frequently use the word ‘consciousness’. It should be clear, however, that ‘soul’ covers a broader field since it includes consciousness and unconscious alike. A useful distinction I will often resort to is a distinction made by Hermann Friedmann between an ‘optic’ and a ‘haptic’ approach. In Ludwig Klages we find something similar. It will turn out to be necessary to brighten one’s overall theoretical approach; without having clarity about it, one remains blind to the contingent nature of one’s conclusions, however sound they may seem. Next, I will successively sketch a more direct and a more indirect form of access to the soul; the first consisting of increasing self-awareness and interiorisation, the second of the contemplation of some external phenomena. I will try to explain that the general distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ needs revision, to the extent that it relies upon problematic notions of space and matter. I will end by addressing the complex issue as to pathological self-awareness, which forms a serious threat, both to internal and external soul access. Whereas chapter 1 describes internal or immediate soul access from a more general perspective, in chapter 2 I will discuss this form of access from a more particular perspective: the enhanced way of soul-access which I will refer to as ‘inspiration’ and ‘ecstasy’. Using Carl du Prel’s words, I will define inspiration as “clairvoyance of one’s own soul”, and ecstasy as the corresponding experience of this clairvoyance. Together with ecstasy, I will characterise inspiration as being based upon a vocation experience and an inner drive. In contradistinction to prevailing biologistic approaches, and drawing on Ludwig Klages, I will extend the allegedly ‘unique’ instinct of self-preservation with a drive towards self-abandonment; the latter being indispensable, in my view, to account for art and culture. I will analyse both drives as different yet mutually connected ways of dealing with shame, anxiety and birth trauma (Rank). When discussing ecstasy, it will turn out to be impossible to avoid the so-called ‘pathological’. In conclusion to

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chapter 2, I will try to make a useful distinction between the former and the latter without excluding their coincidence. I will analyse the phenomenon of (what used to be called) ‘possession’ in terms of an over-identification with selfhood and a penance complex. Under the header of ‘synchronicity,’ chapter 3 discusses a possible overlap between ‘soul’ and ‘world,’ or ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. By ‘synchronicity’ I understand a meaningful yet acausal series of concurrent events that seem to reflect someone’s actual mindset. Since synchronicity seems to challenge ordinary causality, I will briefly dwell on the historical and sometimes problematic presuppositions of this notion in the history of Western thinking. I will pay attention to the intriguing notion of ‘necessity’ which, eliminated by Hume from the notion of causality, returns on a higher level; it returns without, for that matter, confusing sheer (Aristotelian) logic and experience. Synchronicity can be witnessed both on an individual and on a social level. To avoid casuistry, I will mainly refer to some global examples of synchronicity, for instance, the enigmatic simultaneity of discoveries and inventions in world history without a common cause. Since I hypothesise that developing new insights and ideas in art, science and philosophy may be surrounded by synchronicity experiences, I have randomly selected some examples of each category that might make my hypothesis probable (though not more than that). As a case in point of a commonly accessible synchronicity experience, and guided in this by Max Picard, I will discuss ‘physiognomy’. I define ‘physiognomy’ as an immediate invitation to synchronicity encounters in the present. While a human countenance can be seen as a coalescence of individual causal chains, such an approach seems ridiculous, ultimately even for the plastic surgeon whose job it is to restore facial flaws. A countenance is commonly experienced as a unity which comprehends and synthesises such individual causal chains. A serious encounter with a face, I will argue, may even bring together physiognomy and ecstasy. In the final chapter, I will dwell on death and suffering. I take these to be revelatory limit experiences of the soul. After suggesting that standard accounts of death are insufficient since negative (they interpret death in terms of mere cessation), I will argue that death is better conceived as enhanced ‘subliminality’. To underpin my claim, I will try to investigate the phenomena of memory and recollection – of which Hans Driesch claims that these tend to give a unitary trait to personality. I will contend that

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trauma, which blocks and impedes memory, may find its sole solution in the experience of death. To address the questions about ‘survival,’ I will resort to the subject of images and imagination in light of a reconsideration of ‘presence’. In addition to subliminal enhancement, death may make visible an image in the moribund which consolidates presence without making it available. Suffering, I will argue, can be seen both as resistance against subliminal enhancement and as a desire towards undisturbed wholeness or completeness, amidst an experience of incompleteness. A thorough rereading of the Cyclops narrative, both in Homer’s Odyssey and in Virgil’s Aeneid, will turn out to offer promising perspectives when illuminating suffering.

CHAPTER 1 PATHWAYS TO THE SOUL

Introduction In this chapter, I will start addressing the notions of ‘soul’ and ‘psyche’ themselves. I will argue that they challenge the way we usually approach objects whose nature we are asking for. To substantiate my claim, I will resort to a distinction made by Hermann Friedmann between a ‘haptic’ and an ‘optic’ attitude; the former being oriented on tactility, the latter on visuality and visibility. Implicitly, Ludwig Klages supports this distinction, when he characterises the Western tradition as primarily based on tactility (and concomitant objectification). To illustrate the possibly obnoxious core of hapticism, I will quote passages from the Cyclops narratives in the Odyssey and the Aeneid. As already mentioned in the introduction, the Cyclops ominously exemplifies what is at stake in hapticism on a larger scale.1 Next, I will discuss two ways of approaching the soul: as inwardness and as an outer phenomenon. The first approach refers to immediate self-access, the second to a spectator perspective. Whereas self-access indeed implies immediacy, we should not ignore that inner impediments may impose themselves. A threshold may inhibit selfpenetration. Carl du Prel, for example, introduces the significant term ‘threshold of sensibility’ (Empfindungsschwelle). Thereby, he intends to designate content which lies beneath immediate sense perception and which is consequently out of reach. Depending on the assumed flexibility of the threshold, one can or cannot access altered states of consciousness. True, irrespective of inner thresholds, claims about inwardness or self-access are not necessarily flawless, let alone compelling. Self-deception cannot be excluded. I will argue that, to minimise the possibility of being misled, one should respect specific codes. I will distinguish three such codes: following a particular way of life, overcoming fixations, and enhancing concentration. It will turn out to be conceptually precise. Otherwise, one might easily be 1

Despite the adjective ‘cycloptic’.

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Chapter 1

confused if for example Patañjali, author of the Yoga sutras, famously defines ‘concentration’ as “the fixing of the mind in one place”. In contrast, Pierre Janet identifies what he terms as idées fixes as a primary obstacle. For that reason, I will propose to translate deĞa-bandhaĞ cittasya dharana as “the enleaguing of the mind with one place” or “unique mental ligament”. Finally, I will examine to what extent the soul can be approached as an outer phenomenon, that is, from a spectator perspective. I will try to clarify two things. Firstly, that it is indispensable to re-interpret prevailing notions of space and matter, and secondly, that with ‘spectator perspective’ I do not mean to imply any neutral stance of a supposedly disengaged subject. I will instead argue that a specific loss of one’s mind is requisite. As possible examples of the soul’s outer manifestation, I will successively discuss (1) ideation, (2) production of kin or procreation, (3) self-relatedness, and (4) repetitive constellations. I will make use of the work of Frederic Myers, Hans Driesch, Gustav Fechner, Carl du Prel, Levinas, Walter Benjamin, and others. By way of conclusion to this chapter, I will briefly address the problematic subject of failed soul access. Excessive concentration and self-immersion could easily lead to becoming overruled by personal obsessions and fixations, in the form of neuroses or even psychoses. I will discuss two literary examples of each, one from Proust’s novel La prisonnière and another from J.-K. Huysmans’ A rebours. I will put these examples in the theoretical perspective of Pierre Janet, Frederic Myers, Otto Rank and Alphonse de Waelhens.

‘Do we have a soul?’ “[T]hat all roads to the mind [Geist] start in the soul, but none lead back there again.” —Robert Musil2 “God said, ‘Let there be light’ – and what is the light of God? It is the soul of man.” —Franz Rosenzweig3

Do we have a soul? one could ask. Has not any evidence for the existence of a separate, non- or meta-physical soul been gradually deleted with the 2

Robert Musil (1997, 1930-32). Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften I. Hamburg: Rowoldt Verlag, p. 393; trans. Sophie Wilkins (1995). The Man Without Qualities. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, Ch. 86. 3 Frans Rosenzweig (1990, 1921). Der Stern der Erlösung. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 123; trans. William W. Hallo (1971). The Star of Redemption. New York/Chicago/ San Francisco: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, p. 111.

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rise of the physical sciences? Is not man a machine (La Mettrie), or, in contemporary language, the inevitable material outcome of a predetermined, neurological-genetic patchwork? Is not life itself, both human, animal and vegetal, a complex chemical-physical process, the essence of which will one day be unravelled by the life sciences? Is not ‘soul’ another name for man’s moral or spiritual core, the non-existence of which has meanwhile been demonstrated not only by those life sciences but also by (positivist) sociology or (behaviourist) psychology? As a rule, examining the presuppositions of a question can show why that question is unanswerable. Which, then, are the presuppositions of the question, ‘Do we have a soul?’ There are at least four, I believe. First, it assumes that a soul is something that can be had or possessed. Second, it takes for granted the existence of a (material or physical, pre-psychical) subject (‘we’), supposedly capable of deciding if it has or lacks a soul. Third, it anticipates a particular meaning of the word ‘soul’ (i.e., something spiritual) – for, without this anticipation, the question would become meaningless. Fourth, it rashly assumes that, for something to exist, it must have object character, that is, it must be definable, discernible or delimitate. The question itself objectifies; it follows a ‘representationalist’ model – as if the soul were something that could be represented by a concept. Referring to Socrates, already Heidegger insisted that the particular way in which the father of Western philosophy asked his questions (‘what is justice, love?,’ etc.) unjustly anticipated a particular answer (‘there must be a readymade thing or an entity called Justice, Love,’ etc.). Instead, Heidegger continued, Socrates could just as well have asked for the way in which justice, love, etc., are: how is justice, love? etc. Such a question would have avoided a premature reification of justice, love, etc., and a reduction of these notions to definable or delimitate entities with object character. Why are we so familiar today with the Socratic, reifying what-is questions that we hardly see any problem in asking them? And how do these questions obfuscate a possibly more adequate picture of what they are hinting at? In his breath-taking magnum opus Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, Ludwig Klages sets out to describe how the Greek-European tradition issues in thinking as an objectification strategy. In this tradition, Klages argues, thinking objectifies to the extent that it ‘disturbs’ the act of viewing or contemplating (schauen) the world. It does so by implicitly crediting the tactile sense with a predominant role. Tactility, being only one of the senses, merely approaches the environment as a continuum of pressure and counterpressure; our ‘object world’ owes its existence to the literal,

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‘Cycloptic’ short-sightedness of a prematurely and unilaterally promoted tactility, at the expense of visibility, viewability, or contemplatability.4 As a case in point, Klages says, can be taken Kant’s notion of ‘reality’ as the phenomenal side of a ‘thing’ in itself (‘Ding’ an sich). (Klages, 1981, p. 339) Whereas Indian thought, Klages continues, still forms an amalgam of Aryan and Asian thinking, and is therefore endowed with the same flaws as the Greek-European tradition, Chinese Daoism, ignoring or neglecting the ‘pressure’ and ‘resistance’ that govern tactility-based worldviews, has a proclivity to sheer contemplation. As a result, when compared to GreekEuropean thinking, Daoist thinking has developed a wholly different approach to space. (Klages, 1981, p. 341) I will come back to the notion of ‘space,’ and the need for revising its naïve Newtonian version, when discussing the soul as an ‘outer phenomenon’ below. By his analysis, Klages does not intend to simply oppose Europe’s tact-based and China’s vision-based worldviews as inadequate versus adequate. He merely wants to underline the arbitrariness of object-thinking and to expose the onesidedness of reification. Ultimately, a sole emphasis on vision and contemplation (as in Daoism) equally leads to narrowmindedness – although, to be honest, perhaps less than the Greek-European alternative, which has led to unspeakably sadder consequences (the destruction of our life-world by technology on a global scale).5 Klages is undoubtedly not the only one to criticise a one-sidedness of the European tradition. His argument about the preponderantly tact-based approach is further corroborated in the work of Hermann Friedmann, especially his Die Welt der Formen. In this extremely important and yet wholly forgotten book Friedmann addresses the issue of a “haptic” (i.e., tact-based) versus an “optic” worldview.6 The haptic approach thrives on 4 “Allein das ist nun das Eigentümliche des abendländischen Verstandes überhaupt, dass er auch bei Bevorzugung von Gestalten und ‘Formen’ vor den Körpern und Stoffen seinen Gegenstand nach Analogie von Dingen behandelt.” Klages, 1981, p. 338. 5 “Verglichen mit europäischer Geistigkeit ist ostasiatische Geistigkeit minder lebensgefährlich, weil sie zwar am Ende vertrocknen macht, Blumen gewissermaßen in Strohblumen wandelnd, nicht aber um sich greift gleich einem fressenden Feuer.” Ibid., p. 340. European thinking, Klages argues, is characterised by an “schaudererregenden Angriff auf die Wirklichkeit”. Ludwig Klages (1936/1910). Grundlagen der Charakterkunde. Leipzig: J.H. Barth, p. 165; trans. The Science of Character, by W.H. Johnston (1929). London: George Allen & Unwin. 6 Paul Kammerer speaks here of Berührungskausalität (tangential causality), as opposed to Beharrungskausalität (inert causality) or Serialität (seriality). The latter entail synchronicity, see Ch. 3. Kammerer, 1919, p. 365, 453 and passim.

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the average physical or physiological methodology and interprets beings in terms of tangible, delimitate objects, which are connected by attraction or repulsion (Zug und Druck). It is accompanied by a corresponding causality principle, which presupposes the interaction between those objects to be similar to an active stimulus that communicates a measurable impetus to a passive recipient. It is the haptic approach with which we have become all too familiar, Friedmann argues, so much so that we tacitly identify it with the only available approach which we can rely on. The optic-morphological account, which Friedmann advocates, draws on viewing and vision; instead of chronology, it entails a synchronicity principle and concomitant interrelatedness of actors. It partly overlaps with Klages’ notion of contemplation (Schauen). For an example of optic causality, Friedmann refers to paintings, which are better interpreted in light of, for instance, the rightness of their perspective or harmony of colours. When it comes to an understanding of an artwork (and, mutatis mutandis, of our world), an optic approach will make more sense than a haptic approach: “The haptic defectiveness of the sculpture [haptische Mangelhaftigkeit des Bildwerkes] is confronted with an opponent: interpolating, reintegrating optic fantasy, which heals all fractures. Therefore, that which exists only partially from a haptic perspective, will ‘increase’ in existence from an optic perspective; optic existence by no means coincides with haptic existence.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 32; my trans.)

Friedmann associates the haptic and the optic account with two different, albeit often oscillating, mindsets. Whereas the haptic mindset, he argues, aggravates the innate drive towards self-preservation and issues in selfconfirmation and authority over the observed object, the optic mindset, in complete self-negligence and self-abandonment, instead focuses on the ‘object’ itself, to the point of almost absorbing it. (Friedmann, 1930, p. 33f) In the next chapter, I will come back to the two inner drives implied here (i.e., self-preservation and self-abandonment), without for that matter taking over the extreme oppositional relation which Friedmann assumes exists between them. ‘Haptic’ and ‘optic’ may be useful yet unstable, selfinvigorating categories. In the third chapter, I will associate optic causality with synchronicity experiences. Upon closer scrutiny, Friedmann states, the haptic approach is not so much focussed on the object of perception but a subject’s self-preservation while facing it – as if it were primarily a threat. Therefore, it responds to its observations with pleasure or pain (Lust oder Unlust), depending on what the perceived object does to the perceiving subject. The optic approach, on the other hand, consists of self-abandoning contemplation of the perceived object. It responds to its object with approval

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or disapproval (Billigung oder Missbilligung) – an attitude that aims at effacing self-involvement, similar to Klages’ contemplation.7 In psychoanalytical terms, a purely optic approach (if it existed) would have overcome inner unconscious fixations and projections, and be wholly free towards its object. (Friedmann, 1930, p. 36)8 “Rigid links rooting in the essence of a haptic world, still captivate our contemporary psychology, logic and metaphysics within this world. Only persistent impregnation, completion and experiencing [ein beharrliches Durchdringen, Ergänzen und Erleben] of our optic-morphological concepts and ideas can lead to a fully consistent theory and practice of the form. (Friedmann, 1930, p. 61; my trans.) As said, ‘haptic’ and ‘optic’ approach may not be existing as a pure opposition, as Friedmann sometimes seems to suggest. Yet, the distinction is beneficial, I think, to highlight the involvement of a mental attitude or mindset in how we perceive the world.9 To underline my view that what Friedmann calls a ‘haptic’ approach is not innocuous, I will illustrate it here by referring to the Cyclops narrative in Homer’s Odyssey. It is my claim that ‘hapticism’ is to some extent exemplified by Polyphemus, the brutal Cyclops who kills and swallows several of Ulysses’ comrades in his cave. See, for example, the following passage, in which, instead of offering hospitality to his visitors, the Cyclops grabs and devours two of them. It is Ulysses himself who is speaking in the following, shocking passage: “The cruel wretch [ȞȘȜȑȚ șȣȝ૶: ‘with a ruthless thumos/mind’] vouchsafed me not one word of answer, but with a sudden clutch he gripped up [ਥʌ੿ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ ੅ĮȜȜİ] two of my men at once [ıઃȞ į੻ įȪȦ ȝȐȡȥĮȢ] and dashed them 7

“ist der Optiker, der Distanz zu den Dingen hat, ihnen selbstvergessen hingegeben”. Friedmann, 1930, p. 34. 8 Also see Walter Benjamin’s doctrine of resemblances: “Die Gabe, Ähnlichkeit zu sehn, die wir besitzen, ist nichts als nur ein schwaches Rudiment des ehemals gewaltigen Zwanges, ähnlich zu werden und sich zu verhalten. Und das verschollene Vermögen, ähnlich zu werden, reichte weit hinaus über die schmale Merkwelt, in der wir noch Ähnlichkeit zu sehen imstande sind.” Walter Benjamin. Die Lehre vom Ähnlichen. In Walter Benjamin (1999). Gesammelte Schriften II/1. Frankfurt: Surhrkamp, p. 210. 9 The crucial importance of opticality is underlined by the Italian psychologist Sante de Sanctis (1862-1935), who argues that, when it comes to facial expressions, attention – regardless of the sensory faculty which is predominant – tends to follow an optical paradigm. Even the facial expressivity of thinkers draws from paying optical attention: “dass die Mimik des Denkens nur einem Typus angehört, dem optischen.” Sante de Sanctis (1906). Die Mimik des Denkens. Halle: Carl Marhold, p. 98.

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down [țȩʌIJૃ] upon the ground as though they had been puppies. Their brains were shed upon the ground, and the earth was wet with their blood. Then he tore them limb from limb [įȚ੹ ȝİȜİȧıIJ੿ IJĮȝઅȞ] and supped upon them [੪ʌȜȓııĮIJȠ įȩȡʌȠȞ]. He gobbled them up like a lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow [ȝȣİȜȩİȞIJĮ], and entrails [਩ȖțĮIJȐ], without leaving anything uneaten. As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to heaven [ਕȞİıȤȑșȠȝİȞ ǻȚ੿ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ: ‘to Zeus/God’] on seeing such a horrid sight [ıȤȑIJȜȚĮ ਩ȡȖૃ ੒ȡȩȦȞIJİȢ], for we did not know what else to do [ਕȝȘȤĮȞȓȘ įૃ ਩Ȥİ șȣȝȩȞ]; but when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch, and had washed down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk, he stretched himself full length upon the ground among his sheep, and went to sleep.” (9, 287-298)

A similar description can be found in Virgil. This time it is not Ulysses speaking but one of his former comrades, Achaemenides. The poor man had inadvertently been left behind on the Cyclopes island and just happened to be found by the Trojan hero Aeneas, many years later. “I saw myself [vidi egomet],” Achaemenides exclaims, “how [Polyphemus, the Cyclops] seized two of our number in his huge hands [prensa manu magna], and reclining in the centre of the cave, broke [frangeret] them on the rock, so the threshold [limina], drenched, swam with blood”. (Aneid III, 623ff; trans. A.S. Kline). As one might expect, the Cyclops is depicted as “not pleasant to look at [nec visu facilis], affable to no one [nec dictu adfabilis ulli]”. (Aneid III, 621) For all their graphic details, these passages highlight what I think is ultimately at stake in the extremer forms of a ‘haptic’ and ‘myopic,’ ‘monochronistic’ mindset (which, as we will see in chapter 3, optic mindset and synchronicity awareness correct and invert). As I will try to demonstrate in the next chapter, a haptic mindset originates in an innate drive towards selfpreservation. It issues in self-confirmation and authority over the observed object. (Friedmann, 1930, p. 33f; 1950, p. 250) Granted, it would be simplifying to play off an alleged ‘purely’ haptic against a ‘purely’ optic approach. Both categories are unstable and not always easy to identify; they could overlap. What will be of crucial importance is the inner tendency of the approach.

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Soul as inwardness “The concept of soul I can only reach following the concept of My Self.” —Hans Driesch10

In the 19th century, the age in which naturalism and materialism started to outlaw the classical assumption of a human soul (whether Platonic, Aristotelian or Cartesian), two more inspiring slants tried to save this assumption. One identified it with human consciousness, the other with the human unconscious. The first slant can be roughly identified with Kierkegaard’s philosophy. It more or less issues in existentialism and Husserl’s phenomenology. While being fully un-Cartesian by essence, it nonetheless roots in Descartes’ notion of the cogito, the truth, and integrity of which always coincides with its conscious enactment. The second slant is Schopenhauerian. It inspired great, yet generally forgotten thinkers such as Eduard von Hartmann, Albrecht Steinbeck, Carl du Prel, Lazarus Hellenbach. It finally issues in Freud, Jung, and the psychoanalytical tradition in general.11 I will show that both strands of thought, though apparently opposite, are not necessarily incompatible.

Soul as consciousness Let us start with the first slant, which identifies the soul with consciousness. Though at first sight hardly anything seems to be gained by this identification, appearances are deceptive. We should not ignore that consciousness is never exhausted by its immediate, present focus. It will always be accompanied by forms of awareness that dimly resonate at the background; not even to mention memories of the immediate or remote past that can be re-minded with or without difficulty. The American psychologist and philosopher William James (1842-1910) rejects the notion of the unconscious – which he believes is far too speculative – and only accepts the idea of a ‘subliminal’ consciousness. Thereby he wants to understand consciousness as a continuous sphere of mental availability. Whether or not this conception theoretically excludes the existence of an 10

“Zum Begriff Seele gelange ich ja über den Begriff Mein Selbst”. Driesch, 1917, p. 17; my trans. 11 Interestingly, Husserl’s philosophical heirs (Heidegger, Levinas, Derrida, Henry, Merleau-Ponty) often insisted on pre-intentional states of mind – which comes down to an implicit, yet phenomenologically warranted, acceptance of an unconscious. Sartre, however, remained faithful to Husserl’s and Kierkegaard’s Cartesian legacy, and radicalised consciousness.

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unconscious level, at any rate, it demonstrates that the field of consciousness itself is multi-layered and can always be penetrated deeper, according to the thresholds it has established. This is paradigmatically shown by Kierkegaard, who equates consciousness with ‘inwardness’. Being-conscious, to him, is not equal to merely receiving empirical data through the senses. Such a flat conception of ‘experience’ has gained the upper hand in the natural, and often also the social sciences. Kierkegaard has shown that moods determine experience. Whether or not one agrees with the specific moods that Kierkegaard himself distinguishes (anxiety, enjoyment, guilt, etc.)12, the least one could say is that always deeper layers of consciousness can eventually be unearthed. These layers need not be entirely out of reach – in which case they would be unconscious indeed. They might become accessible as soon as a meditative or contemplative stance is adopted. It should be noted at this point that the empiricist conception of the human mind as a blank slate (Locke, Hume) has damaged not only anthropology but also the human experience of ‘reality’ at large. Descartes, the acclaimed father of rationalist thinking, at least knew that to think, inner retreat, selfcontemplation, and introspection are necessary.13 One of Descartes’ most interesting disciples, the spiritualist thinker Malebranche, was fully aware of this. And his 20th-century successors Husserl and Sartre, though giving up on consciousness as inwardness and reducing it to pure intentionality, at least compensated for this loss by penetrating concrete life experiences deeper than any naturalist would ever do.

Soul as unconscious Therefore, I think it is not necessarily a critique of Kierkegaard and his existentialist successors if, for example, Lazarus Hellenbach explicitly rejects any identification of the soul with consciousness. Hellenbach was an Austro-Hungarian politician famous for his fight against rampant antiSemitism, and a private philosophical scholar and researcher on the distinction between (finite) consciousness and the (infinite) soul. In his book 12 William James would most likely qualify Kierkegaard as a “sick soul”. (My italics) 13 Cf Charles Taylor who makes a distinction between two Modern conceptions of subjectivity and selfhood, the internalist (Augustinian-Cartesian) and the externalist (Lockean-Humean). Charles Taylor (1989). Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Eine Philosophie des gesunden Menschenverstandes (A Philosophy of Common Sense/Sound Reasoning) he writes: “The almost common conception that the soul is identical to the thinking and experiencing ego of the human being has become the source of many errors in philosophical and religious systems; simultaneously, it has become the cause of the easy victory of the modern materialist worldview […]. Our consciousness is neither a substance nor a real entity, but the highly artificial product of our brain [das sehr künstliche Werk unseres Gehirns].”14 Hellenbach’s argument, while not cogent in itself, would at first sight appeal to many contemporary empiricists and materialists: consciousness is a product of the brain. However, these empiricists and materialists would soon discover that Hellenbach is not their man, as he concludes to the existence of a still deeper consciousness (‘soul’), that organises both the body and its consciousness. “Consciousness,” he claims, “is only the reflection of a brain that is organised and animated by the soul”15 and “our conscious form of existence is like a dreamt I [geträumtes Ich]”. (Hellenbach, 1876, p. 245) Consequently, from the perspective of ordinary consciousness, the deeper consciousness, or the ‘soul,’ is unconscious; it will only be conscious for and to itself. Carl du Prel defends a similar view in his Monistische Seelenlehre (Monistic Doctrine of the Soul). In this marvellous book, Du Prel claims that the body-mind dualism with which we are all too familiar can be reduced to a higher-order monism at the level of the unconscious. At this level, not only the (‘conscious’) mental functions but even the bodily – such as blood circulation, metabolism, respiration, reproduction, etc. – have a more in-depth, conscious awareness. The ‘soul,’ Du Prel holds, unifies the two forms of deeper awareness and consciousness: both the intellectual-mental and the physical-corporeal. Resorting to Kantian terminology, Du Prel qualifies the soul as ‘transcendental consciousness’. Interestingly, we can find explicit parallels of Du Prel’s notion of conscious body awareness in the Advaita Vedanta tradition.

Threshold of sensibility Do these two attempts to save the soul, that is, as identical with either consciousness or with an additional, unconscious layer, contradict each 14 Lazarus Hellenbach (1876). Eine Philosophie des gesunden Menschenverstandes. Gedanken über das Wesen der menschlichen Erscheinung. Wien: Wilhelm Braumüller, p. 6; my trans. 15 “das Bewusstsein ist ja nur das Spiegelbild des von der Seele organisierten, belebten Gehirns”. Hellenbach 1876, p. 251.

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other? This ultimately depends on the factual accessibility of the alleged ‘unconscious,’ the existence of which Hellenbach, Du Prel, and others are arguing for. Provided that it exists at all, its sub-liminal character diminishes in proportion to its accessibility and the flexibility of the limen or threshold. Whereas Freud will resolutely locate the unconscious beyond that which can be reached by our conscious thinking, leaving it to the psychoanalyst to interpret its remaining traces, his 19th predecessors seem to be less strict. Du Prel identifies a threshold of sensibility (Empfindungsschwelle), which he believes is only crossed in either dreamless sleep or sudden states of ‘somnambulism’ (hypnosis).16 Du Prel’s daring thesis is that, whereas each perception becomes possible due to incoming stimuli, some stimuli are too subtle to be immediately perceived. Comparable to starlight at day, they do not cross the threshold of sensibility for being too weak. Typically, we pass this threshold every night without realising it, Du Prel contends. When asked how we can know that it can be passed at all, Du Prel would refer to the extrapolated experience of those single individuals who somehow – involuntarily – pass the threshold of sensibility at unpredictable moments. A large part of his Philosophie der Mystik consists of reportings about exceptional states of mind that, if reliable, could not otherwise be accounted for than by assuming a layered, stratified consciousness, partly endowed with higher forms of awareness or ‘in-depth’ knowledge. Du Prel draws from like-minded authors, such as not only the already mentioned Lazarus von Hellenbach, but also Gotthilf Heinrich Schubert (1780-1860), author of a series of lectures on the Nightside of the natural sciences (Ansichten von der Nachtseite der Naturwissenschaften), Justinus Kerner (1786-1862), physician and author of the widely-read The Seeress of Prevorst (Die Seherin von Prevorst), Maximilian Perty (1804-1884), a natural philosopher who wrote about mystical phenomena connected to human nature, and Léon d’Hervey de Saint-Denys (1822-1892), a sinologist and author of dream studies. Other sources are ancient, such as Hippocrates, Aristotle, Plutarch, or the Indian Vedanta philosophy. A first methodical remark seems to be in place here. Any attempt to convince the sceptic by always adducing more testimonies is bound to fail, for two different reasons at least. Firstly, a multiplication of probabilities will never lead to necessity; consequently, they will never be cogent. Already Hume and Kant have seen this. Secondly, it is even impossible that 16 “Nicht zeitlich und räumlich sind wir also vom Jenseits getrennt, werden nicht erst durch den Tod dahin versetzt, sondern wurzeln darin schon jetzt, und was uns davon trennt, ist lediglich die subjektive Schranke der Empfindungsschwelle.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 282.

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exceptional testimonies will ever convince anyone whose subjectivity is structured in a way such as to exclude any exceptional ‘evidence’ undermining the condition of possibility of that subjectivity. Du Prel ironically remarks that many scholars and specialists are inclined to consider each discovery as “a breach of patent”; he instead recommends to welcome those facts that perplex us and create an embarrassment for science. “It is for is for nature to determine the range of possibility,” not the observer’s. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 16f; trans. p. 20f) Should these possibilities, despite frequently occurring fraud, be realities, then – and I would agree with Du Prel on this – our philosophical anthropology needs full revision.17 It might turn out that the prevailing anthropologies, whether rationalist or materialist, are predominantly based on what seems average rather than on what is exceptional. Perhaps even the notion of an ‘average’ human being with supposedly ‘normal’ experiences is a purely hypothetical construction since what is usually called ‘exceptional experiences’ is far more widespread than is often acknowledged.18

The seeress of Prevorst Let me briefly present here one example of those exceptional experiences of consciousness, evinced by Du Prel, of ‘transcendental,’ ‘somnambulist’ or ‘subliminal’ consciousness. It is one of the most famous and extensively researched 19th-century cases allegedly ‘proving’ the unconscious. Whether or not it supports Du Prel’s and others’ claims, or makes them at least probable, I will leave to the decision of the reader. Friederike Hauffe (1801-1829), daughter of a German forest ranger, suffered from convulsions and often fell into trances. During these states, she was reportedly highly vigilant, clairvoyant and capable of ‘seeing’ the circumstances and (mental and physical) condition of other persons. She 17 “Weil nun aber der Schlaf auch positive Seiten hat, erwächst uns die Pflicht, auch auf der Basis des Traumlebens ein philosophisches Lehrgebäude zu errichten, weil der Mensch sowohl, als die Natur, darin anders erscheinen, als im Wachen.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 53. Also see “die Psychologie, die nur den Tagesmenschen zu ihrem Objekt macht, [muss] die richtige Definition des Menschen notwendig verfehlen”. Ibid. 18 See for example Imants Barušs and Julia Mossbridge (2016). Transcendent Mind: Rethinking the Science of Consciousness. Washington: American Psychological Association; Edward F. Kelly etc. (2010, 2007). Irreducible Mind: Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. New York etc.: Rowman & Littlefield Publ; C.G. Jung, Die Bedeutung des Individuums in der modernen Gesellschaft. In C.G. Jung (1957). Gegenwart und Zukunft. Zürich/Stuttgart: Rascher-Verlag, Ch. 1.

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was exposed to ‘photisms’ (light apparitions) and to hearing voices. During the final years of her short life, she was both studied and treated by Justinus Kerner (1786-1862). The fame of her case spread everywhere throughout Germany, to the point of attracting many a contemporary philosopher’s attention. Friederike Hauffe was visited by Schleiermacher, Schelling, Von Baader, Schubert, and many others. These thinkers were likely curious to know if the young woman’s ‘disease’ could give supportive evidence of their layered consciousness theory. As said, the case of the seeress of Prevorst has often been described, and we will not repeat those descriptions here. The case could not fail to become the subject-matter of mystification and confusion.19 Even Du Prel, who regularly refers to the seeress and her physician, notes that Kerner’s attempts at explaining her condition could be subject to debate. However, he hastens to add, the reported facts themselves are beyond doubt, as they have been observed by a significant number of doctors, philosophers, laypeople, and others. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 206) It is interesting to see how Kerner’s patient describes her state, since it seems to be in line with Du Prel’s account: “In this state I do not dream,” she says, “it is not to be taken for sleep; it may be so for the outer world, but for the inner world it is the clearest waking [das hellste Wachen].”20 During her trance, Friederike Hauffe was reportedly endowed with a higher degree of sensitivity, enabling her to diagnose her visitors’ hidden diseases and to recommend them the use of curative herbs or sanative potions. One detail of Kerner’s description particularly drew Du Prel’s attention since it seemed to confirm his idea that transcendental consciousness (the ‘unconscious’) encompasses waking consciousness and not the reverse. In Kerner’s general account of somnambulism, it is stated that the internal (that is, ‘transcendental’) sense, while being able to look through the outward shell of things, cannot become its own object in return; just as the physical eye can see anything except itself. Were the internal sense to be localised, however, it would have to be situated in the stomach region, that is, the solar plexus. Du Prel observes that not only Kerner’s seeress but other 19 Cf W.J. Hanegraaff (2000, 2001). Versuch über Friederike Hauffe: Zum Verhältnis zwischen Lebensgeschichte und Mythos der Seherin von Prevorst (I). In Suevica 8 Stuttgart, pp. 17-45; and id. (2004, 2005) (II). In Suevica 9, pp. 233-276; John DeSalvo (2008). The Seeress of Prevorst: Her Secret Language and Prophecies from the Spirit World. Rochester, Vermont: Destiny Books. 20 Kerner, Die Seherin von Prevorst I, 149; quoted in Du Prel, 1885, p. 143; trans. p. 172.

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somnambulists as well refer to the stomach as the place where they ‘see’. Remarkably, Friederike Hauffe even claimed to be capable of ‘seeing’ the solar plexus itself, which she experienced as a sun moving gently through her and illuminating her nerves21 (which she managed to describe correctly). Du Prel concludes saying that “[t]his inner sight [innere Gesicht], concentrated in the region of the stomach, is very frequently referred to in the sayings of somnambulists, and must, therefore, have a real foundation of some sort.” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 227; trans., p. 191f). Let us take a direct look into Kerner’s book, Die Seherin von Prevorst, from which Du Prel is mostly drawing in support of his thesis of the somnambulist consciousness. In this book, we can find a passage which Du Prel does not quote but which is highly relevant for our context: “She also repeatedly said, that at the bottom of the human eye [im Grunde des Menschenauges] there was a spiritual spark [geistiger Funke], which she would like to call the mirror of the soul [Seelenspiegel]; using it the external object, that would hit the nerves upside down, is reversed. “If this device did not exist and if the objects were directly incident, their imprint on the nerves would have been deeper, they would adhere too long to the nerves, would not give way for too long, to make space for others.”22

This passage reminds us not only of Du Prel’s statement about a transcendental consciousness encompassing waking consciousness, but also for example of Malebranche, addressing God’s light as the light in which we can see at all, of Meister Eckhart’s discussion of a spiritual spark 21 “sie beschreibt [das Sonnengeflecht] als eine Sonne, die sich langsam bewege, ihre Nerven sieht sie leuchtend und beschreibt von mehreren derselben den Lauf anatomisch ganz richtig.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 190. This passage remarkable corresponds with an autobiographical description by the French author Jean Genet: “L’arrivée du soleil me terrassait. Je lui rendait un culte. Une sorte d’intimité malicieuse s’établissait entre lui et moi. […] C’est dans mon corps qu’il se levait, qu’il continuait sa courbe et l’achevait.” Jean Genet (1949). Journal du voleur. Paris: Gallimard, p. 78f. Also cf. the enigmatic lines written by D.-P. Schreber: “dass die Sonne seit Jahren in menschlichen Worten mit mir spricht und sich damit als belebtes Wesen oder Organ eines noch hinter ihr stehenden höheren Wesens zu erkennen gibt.” D.-P. Schreber (2011, 1903). Denkwürdigkeiten eines Nervenkranken. Hamburg: tredition, p. 23. What to think of the following remark by Derrida: “Les métaphores héliotropiques sont toujours des métaphores imparfaites.”? J. Derrida (1972). La mythologie blanche. In Marges – de la philosophie. Paris: Minuit, p. 299. 22 Justinus Kerner & Raimund Pissin (1998). Kerners Werke. Auswahl in sechs Teile 4. Zürich/New York/Hildesheim: Georg Olms Verlag, p. 113; my trans.

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(Seelenfünklein), of Plotinus23, or even of Plato. The unique difference between Du Prel and Kerner’s account, on the one hand, and the latter examples, on the other, could be said to lay in the former suggesting an inner susceptibility to the transient and ephemeral (concretely: daily events), whereas the latter restrict transcendental consciousness to what is purely eternal. However, one would only have to show that this difference rests upon a problematic conception of time (that is, as modelled upon a detemporalised, false notion of eternity) to mitigate its rigour.

Methodological problems Undeniably, somnambulist experiences such as Friederike Hauffe’s will always be faced with the problem of their communication. Those who claim to have had such experiences will be oblivious to them immediately after relapsing into a ‘normal’ state. We are reliant here on the reports of eyewitnesses and bystanders, ideally even rigorous researchers. Fortunately, the latter are equally represented amongst the reporters. One of the first psychiatrists who did innovative clinical research on the particular phenomenon of somnambulism was Pierre Janet (1859-1947). Drawing both on the philosophical work of Maine de Biran, Richet, Bergson, and on his own clinical experience with patients, Janet coined the term (already available at his time) ‘dissociation’.24 By this term, Janet intended to account for the existence of multiple nuclei of consciousness. One can imagine that such theories were warmly welcomed by postmodern thinkers, such as Jacques Lacan or Gilles Deleuze, who were already critical of a supposedly uniform, self-contained consciousness. As opposed to Du Prel, however, the presence of multiple nuclei of consciousness seemed to bring Janet to pathologising this multiplicity rather than acknowledging the potential revelatory qualities of one of those nuclei.25 On the other hand, it 23

“supposing the mind to be stamped with an imprint of the object, it could not grasp as an object of vision what is stamped upon itself”. Enneads IV.6.1 24 Cf. Pierre Janet (2003, 1889). L’Automatisme psychologique. Essai de psychologie expérimentale sur les formes inferieures de l’activité humaine. Paris: Harmattan. Also see H. Ellenberger (1970). The Discovery of the Unconscious. The History and Evolution of Dynamic Psychiatry. New York: BasicBooks, Ch. 6; Onno van der Hart and Rutger Horst (1989). The Dissociation Theory of Pierre Janet. In Journal of Traumatic Stress, Vol 2, 4, pp. 1-11; and Stanley Krippner (2000). A Cross-cultural Model of Dissociation and its Inclusion of Anomalous Phenomena. In European Journal of Parapsychology 15, pp. 3-29. 25 Interestingly, Janet’s dissociation theory is continued by the Stanford psychologist Ernest Hilgard. Other than Janet, Hilgard does not pathologise dissociation and takes

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should be noted that in the many articles that Janet devoted to somnambulism, he also recommends interpretative reticence and scientific openness rather than a simple ostracising of the phenomena.26 “Forgetfulness upon awakening and alternating memory,” he said, “do not simply belong to ordinary somnambulism, but […] can be found with many variations in many states, and allows for distinguishing a variety of forms of somnambulism. (Janet, 2003, p. 80; my trans.) It will be my hypothesis in this book that both accounts of the soul distinguished above – one identifying it with consciousness and one with an unconscious – are compatible on the condition that the ‘threshold of sensibility,’ however tenacious, keep some degree of flexibility. If true, this hypothesis implies that there is a continuous line between a deepened consciousness on the one hand, and an altered state of consciousness (that is, a switch from a normal state of mind to a consciousness that transcends – or, relates differently to – time and space), on the other. More concretely, it would mean that the self-reflexive thinker, the inspired artist, and the somnambulist-hypnotic clairvoyant, are all on a continuous line of increased awareness, the continuity only being disturbed by ‘thresholds’. I am inclined to subscribe to the idea of mental continuity and to follow the model of an always widening, albeit never all-comprehensive, consciousness. I certainly do not want to imply that altering states of consciousness cannot be it to be a universal phenomenon. See Van der Hart & Horst, 1989, p. 8. Jaspers, heir to Kierkegaard in this respect, dryly observes: “Fälle, in denen die Janetschen Experimente gelingen, die das Bestehen eines abgespaltenen Bewusstseins beweisen, sind selten.” Karl Jaspers (1959/1913). Allgemeine Psychopathologie. Berlin etc.: Springer Verlag, p. 336. 26 Pierre Janet (1886). Notes sur quelques phénomènes de somnambulisme. In Revue philosophique de la France et de l’étranger 11, XXI, pp. 190-198; id. (1886). Les actes inconscients et le dédoublement de la personnalité pendant le somnambulisme provoqué. In Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, 22, 577-592 ; id. (1888). Les actes inconscients et la mémoire pendant le somnambulisme. In Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, 25, pp. 238-279 ; id., (1897). L’influence somnambulique et le besoin de direction. In Revue Philosophique de la France et de l’Etranger, 43, pp. 113-143; id., (1908). Un cas de délire somnambulique avec retour à l’enfance. In Journal de Psychologie Normale et Pathologique, 5, p. 336. Both the psychoanalyst Sandor Ferenczi (1873-1933) and the Canadian psychiatrist Colin Ross (1950) claim that multiple personality disorders, whether or not trauma-induced, are often accompanied by extraordinary perceptions. See Donald Kalsched (1995). The Inner World of Trauma. Archetypal Defenses of the Personal Spirit. London & New York: Routledge, p. 120, 135; Sándor Ferenczi (1899). Le spiritisme. In Sándor Ferenczi (1994). Les écrits de Budapest. Paris: E.P.E.L., pp. 35-41.

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pathological – on the contrary. Nor do I want to suggest that all forms of alleged clairvoyance are the same; leaving aside the so many reports of ‘ordinary’ clairvoyant experiences, I am only interested here in those forms of clairvoyance – or increased awareness – which sometimes accompany inner growth processes and which may be enhanced by crisis experiences or health issues. During such processes, thresholds seem to be lifted. When it comes to giving explanations for the existence of thresholds at all, I would like to point out that those are most rare. Freud would interpret them as forms of resistance (Verdrängung), which in my view is rather a redescription than an explanation. But even when refusing the term ‘resistance,’ we could at least infer from Freud’s interpretation that somehow a danger is involved in the enhancement of consciousness. I believe that a warning of such a danger is at the root of inner thresholds. On the nature of this danger, we can only speculate. I venture to say that any form of enlarged or deepened consciousness creates a threat for the person bearing it; as if such an expanded consciousness, to be adequately processed, requires an equivalent mental and moral disposition. Without such a disposition, the expanded consciousness may turn against its possessor and become self-destructive. Could it be that the patients examined by psychiatrists like Janet, who pathologise the ‘dissociative’ phenomena, are examples of those patients’ failing capacity of adequately processing what they are experiencing? On a side-note, Freud would make a distinction between original repression (Urverdrängung) and repression proper (eigentliche Verdrängung).27 The latter can be lifted (by the therapist), the former cannot; it creates an insurmountable barrier. Original repression presumably conceals the Oedipus complex, whose contentious character is the reason why critical, postmodern thinkers such as Lacan, Deleuze, Guattari, and Derrida rejected the notion of ‘original’ repression and an ‘originally’ repressed content (e.g., an Oedipus complex). Thereby, they unintentionally paved the way for assuming that the unconscious (the soul) has no ultimate, only provisional limits. True, this does not entail for them the possibility that consciousness can cumulatively expand, as our 19th-century advocates of the soul seemed to believe. Each newly acquired conscious content on the one 27 Freud, Die Verdrängung. In Gesammelte Schriften X, pp. 248-261. The Freudian perspective, however fertile in itself, would narrow our scope, to the extent that it interprets philosophy, art and religion negatively as forms of sublimation (and therefore, of repression), rather than positively as an unleashing of libidinous energy and as forms of increasing inner awareness.

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hand, so they would argue, cannot fail to produce a loss on the other. Therefore, whatever their philosophical-historical stance, these critics of Freud somehow corroborate my hypothesis concerning the compatibility of the two soul conceptions discussed so far (as consciousness or as the unconscious).

Inwardness beyond the ego We have already seen that any question as to the ‘existence’ of a soul must be countered with an unmasking of such a question’s wrong assumptions. The most damaging of these assumptions regards the prejudice according to which anything that exists must have substance character. This prejudice does not only deny the existence of anything that does not meet the standards of substantiality, but it is also identical to this denial itself. It rests upon the premise of a remote, neutral subject which issues ontological or moral decrees on everything outside of it without taking itself into account. Should it do that, it would immediately collapse by the very act of this taking-into-account.28 Since the majority of the intellectual traditions of Western thinking is more or less affected by this prejudice, it is most difficult to circumvent it. The precondition of giving an account of the soul is introspection and acknowledgement of inwardness. However, once this quest is undertaken, one cannot recede, at pains of being unmasked as a ‘Trojan horse’ that seeks to conquer rather than get in touch with what it is out for. For an example, one may think here of the attitude by which (according to Michel Foucault) priests or psychoanalysts often endeavoured themselves into the souls of their flock. They were out for power and control rather than for an encounter with the other. Their treatises may well testify to a few sincere steps inside taken by their authors. Still, all too soon, appalled at whichever inner discovery, they went into reverse and relinquished control to rational subjectivity.29

28

Cf Musil: “‘Alle Sätze der Moral’ bestätigte Ulrich, ‘bezeichnen eine Art Traumzustand, der aus den Regeln, in die man ihn fasst, bereits entflohen ist!’” Musil, 1997, p. 762. 29 For a major example one can think here of Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia sexualis. Eine klinisch-forensische Studie (1886), when compared to Freud’s Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie (1905); whereas the former is determined by a will to control its subject matter (i.e., the variety of psychic perversions), the latter is more open and lacks a moral perspective.

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Why is it important to heed attitudes, albeit by noticing the outcome of their enactment? I think that journeys ‘into’ the soul – which is probably a pleonasm – can be damaged by inadequate considerations. Exploring the creative resources of the soul – whether as a psychoanalyst, an artist, or a philosopher – in order to control, subject or suppress, instead betrays a mental position that loses what it searches. One does not have to share in full all the details of Ludwig Klages’ magnificent Charakterkunde (Science of character) to see that a personality whose basic drive is towards egopreservation – rather than towards surrender to life – will finally distort its vital talents; such a personality’s ultimate telos being the establishment and conservation of an illusionary, will-based construct (i.e., the ego), its vital energies will sooner or later be drained: they will flow in the wrong direction. The implication is that only basic human drives (instincts, talents, and other proclivities) reconnect the human being to life, whereas egos create an interruption of life: “But it is clear from this that there are other kinds of possession besides that which is denoted by the Greek Enthusiasm – possession not in the sense of domination of a vital force which bursts the Ego, but of utter servitude to the tyrannical despotism of a single driving force [Triebfeder]. And here we reflect that, if it is certain that passions [Leidenschaften] are apt to turn into servitudes, it is equally certain that it is not the element of devotion [Hingebung] in the passion by the violence of the will of the Ego with which it awakens, which gives to the goal of the passion the powers of a despot, bearing the form of an Ego, to whom the being of the victim of the passion is surrendered unresisting. […] In ‘Passion’ [Sucht] the craving [Leidenschaft] has become an affair of the egoistic will, and the will has become a fanatic, having one goal, and one goal only in mind.” (Klages, 1936, p. 198f; trans., p. 150)30

How, if at all, could enthusiast agency ultimately based on egoity be distinguished from the enthusiasm that originates in life, and merely permeates the ‘agent’ in order to return to life? In terms of our chapter, how could ‘soul,’ rather than rationality or prudence, become translucent in someone’s acting? Or, more concretely, how to distinguish Hitler’s enthusiasm from Martin Luther King’s? True, Klages argues, all characters, to some extent, need approval (Beifall) or recognition (Anerkennung). Some agents, however, seem to be almost immune against it: not only “extremely 30 Also see Rico Sneller (2020). Ludwig Klages. Persoonlijkheid tussen zelfhandhaving en zelfovergave. In Timo Slootweg & Claudia Bouteligier, Eds. Rechtvaardigheid en creativiteit. Personalisme in recht en politiek. Antwerpen: Gompel & Svacina, pp. 117-134.

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blasé persons” but also grosse Pathiker and grosse Besessene (‘those who are pathic or possessed on the grand scale’). As examples, Klages mentions those who follow a (real or imaginary) mission, those who are passionately captivated by something or feel charged with a particular job. In general, Klages concludes, the human inclination towards sociability is incremental to their need for approval and recognition.31 Even if I believe that such a conclusion is exaggerated – as I think sociability can, though need not, prompt egoity –, these remarks can help us focus on the soul character of an action. While ego-drivenness and wilful behaviour may damage activities and obfuscate soul, the latter will instead light up when mediators are removed. The soul, I think, is that which connects the inner and outer world and covers the latter with the former’s intimacy. To prevent that this understanding of the soul will be misinterpreted as an attempt to spread solipsism, it will be crucial that the soul is not confused with property or self-consciousness. The depth of the soul may be unfathomable.32 This insight comes from the Neo-Platonic tradition and is repeated by thinkers as Carl du Prel on almost every page of their writings. In his Philosophie der Mystik, Du Prel argues, “the like relation exists between consciousness and the world, and between self-consciousness and the Ego. Self-consciousness may be as inadequate to the Ego, as consciousness to the world; or the Ego may as much exceed [über … hinausragen] self-consciousness as the world exceeds consciousness.” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 10; trans., p. 12)

In other words, the I [not to be confused with Klages’ ego, RS] transcends self-consciousness, just as the world transcends consciousness.33 When 31

Klages, 1936, p. 202f, trans., p. 152. Also cf. “da denn die Folgen dessen für den Träger verschieden ausfallen, je nachdem sein Schwerpunkt im Ich oder im Es angesetzt werden muss. Ist, was uns beschäftigt, jenes der Fall, so verliert die Ichseite mehr und mehr den Charakter des Eigenichs, und es tritt an die Stelle die Herrschaft des Geistes selbst,” L. Klages (1928). Persönlichkeit. Einführung in die Charakterkunde. Potsdam: Müller & Kiepenheuer Verlag/Zürich: Orell Füssli Verlag, p. 115. 32 Cf Carl du Prel: “Die Geschichte der Wissenschaften ist demnach viel weniger eine Aufklärung über das Welträtsel, als vielmehr ein sich steigerndes Bewusstwerdens dieses Rätsels.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 14. 33 Irrespective of the difference in philosophical framework, the same point is made by Jacques Derrida, when he repeatedly insists on “the other in me” (l’autre en moi), for example, when ‘accounting’ for a decision to be made. Interestingly, many somnambulists have the feeling that someone is inside or behind them, whispering what to say. Cf. W.H.C. Tenhaeff (1979). Ontmoetingen met paragnosten. Utrecht:

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describing the soul in terms of inwardness or intimacy, we should include in these an alterity that compensates for the semblance of possession, property, ownership or self-consciousness. A thorough exploration of inwardness will lead to the discovery of its abysmal character and its beingrooted in deeper vital layers. One could even go further and speculate about the ensuing immortality of the soul, in light of its connection with those layers. Many Romantics, from Schelling to Fechner, Du Prel and Frederic Myers, set up a similar argument about human survival after death. In the final chapter, I will come back to the subject of death in relation to the soul. I will hypothesise that death consists of enhanced subliminality.34

Codes How to access the soul? This question becomes more urgent if we realise that the concepts of ‘inwardness’ and ‘intimacy’ erroneously refer to space.35 If we want to understand the act of self-penetration more adequately, it must refer to something non-spatial and yet intelligible. I propose to identify at least three different ‘codes’ that could enable us to discover and experience ‘inwardness’: (1) a way of life, (2) overcoming fixations, and (3) concentration. It will be my claim that using these codes allows for more ‘direct’ soul access, as opposed to the largely ‘indirect’ access offered by considering the soul’s outward manifestation which I will discuss subsequently. However, as we will see, a revision of the customary concept of ‘space’ will gradually blur the line between an inside and an Bijleveld, p. 59. For a semi-autobiographical example see Thomas Wolfe (2016, 1929). Look Homeward, Angel. New York: Penguin Books. 34 Cf Fechner: “öffnet sich uns die Aussicht, dass, auch, wenn unser ganzer Leib der Zerstörung anheimfällt, unsere Seele nicht sterben, ja nicht leiden wird, indem der größere Leib, des unser Leib ein Teil, wie unsere Seele ein Teil der Seele dieses Leibes, auch Mittel der Vertretung zu ihrer Erhaltung haben wird, und das dies das letzte, in der Natur der Dinge vorgesehene, Mittel sein wird, allen Schaden des Alters und der Krankheit zu zerstören.” Gustav Theodor Fechner (1907, 1861). Über die Seelenfrage: ein Gang durch die sichtbare Welt, um die unsichtbare zu finden. Hamburg/Leipzig: Leopold Voss, p. 121. Also see Frederic W.H. Myers (1918, 1906). Human Personality and its Survival of Bodily Death. London: Green and Co., esp. Ch. ‘Phantasms of the dead’. 35 “A within implies a without, and we are not entitled to say that anything is without or outside consciousness.” T.H. Green (2003, 1883). Prolegomena to Ethics. Oxford: Clarendon Press, p. 69. Also cf. Musil: “Man lernt das Wechselspiel zwischen Innen und Außen kennen, und gerade durch das Verständnis für das Unpersönliche am Menschen ist man dem Persönlichen auf neue Spuren gekommen”. Musil, 1997, p. 252.

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outside perspective on the soul. If I still draw this line here, it will only be for didactic purposes. 1. Way of life It is highly unusual for Western students of philosophy to reflect on the way of life which philosophers adopt to reach more insight. Think for example of Heidegger’s famously concise introduction to Aristotle in his Freiburg lectures (“Aristotle was born, he worked, and he died. Let us now continue to study his text.”). And yet, to give an inquisitive eye to the ‘biographical’ would not be irrelevant, even less so as some Western philosophers themselves put great emphasis on their inward turn. The majority of the philosophers I am talking about here emanates from the PlatonicAugustinian tradition. Augustine’s Confessiones, Bonaventure’s Itinerarium mentis in Deum, Descartes’ Meditationes and Rouseau’s Emile can all be read as biographical accounts that prescribe how to live in order to reach insight. The same can be said of the Stoic tradition: Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Montaigne, Spinoza, Nietzsche, etc. Unfortunately, philosophical ‘methodology’ has withered away from a comprehensive life itinerary into a limited intellectual itinerary. From Descartes’ Discours de la méthode onwards (the father of Modernity is highly ambiguous) to the empiricist, the Neo-Kantian or the phenomenological ‘method,’ the way through life prior to the philosophical endeavour has increasingly lost importance. This development one-sidedly favoured intellectual rigour over moral (‘soul’) enhancement. It may have been one of the reasons why the Austrian philosopher Paul Feyerabend wrote his Against Method36, and Gadamer his Wahrheit und Methode (which was meant as an alternative, viz., truth or method). In his Science et méthode, the French mathematician Henri Poincaré suggested that the non-method of conscious inactivity may be indispensable to reach (mathematical) truth.37 It is highly telling that, after twenty-five centuries of Western philosophy, Western intellectuals like Feyerabend, Gadamer, and Poincaré can only describe the ‘logic’ of discovery in negative terms. For a more explicit philosophical reflection on, and introduction to, an allembracing methodology, we could turn towards the Indian Vedanta tradition or to the Buddhist Pali canon. In Patañjali’s Yoga-sutras we find an extensive description of the preparation needed to reach samadhi (inner completion, full accomplishment, self-realisation). Putting forward an 36 37

Cf. Hein van Dongen (1999). Geen gemene maat. Budel: Damon, p. 50f. Henri Poincaré (1920). Science et méthode. Paris: Flammarion, p. 50f.

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outline of the essence of yoga straight from the beginning (“the stilling of the changing states of the mind,” citta-vrtti-nirodhah)38, Patañjali introduces the student to the famous prerequisites for inner growth: the socalled yamas (‘abstentions’) and niyamas (‘observances’): forms of otherand self-related constraint, such as non-harming of others, or training the senses. Reading Patañjali’s Yoga-sutras, one often wonders if not Spinoza studied them, too, when writing his Ethica or his Tractatus de Intellectus Emendatione. However, Spinoza does not seem to follow Patañjali where the latter continues his description of the inward journey. The yamas and nyamas only condition the realisation of bodily postures (asana), breath control (pranayama), withdrawal of the senses (pratyahara), concentration (dharana), meditation (dhyana), and absorption (samadhayah) (II, 29). As regards the latter (samadhayah absorption, accomplishment), we will see in the next chapter that Ludwig Klages’ view of ‘ecstasy’ comes dramatically close to it – albeit that Patañjali and Klages uphold a different cosmology. It is undoubtedly indicative of the poverty of our common conceptual language that it seems to lack the subtle distinctions implied by Patañjali’s anthropology. Patañjali makes a distinction between, on the one hand, concentration – “the fixing of the mind in one place” III, 139– and, on the other hand, meditation (dhyana) – “the one-pointedness of the mind on one image” III, 240 – and absorption (samadhayah) – “when that same dhyana shines forth as the object alone and [the mind] is devoid of its own [reflective] nature” III, 341. Breath control and withdrawal of the senses precede these three final stages as if meant to prevent that “the fixing of the mind in one place” deteriorate into the upsurge of an idée fixe (see below). As the Sanskrit bandhaĞ is cognate with the English ‘bind’ or ‘bond,’ one could equally speak of a league or a ligament of the mind which reattunes it. The “one-pointedness of the mind on one image” (eka-tƗnatƗ) in meditation can be explained as having a succession of identical, reattuned states-of-mind.42

38

The Yoga-Snjtra’s of Patañjali, I, 2; trans. Edwin F. Bryant (2009). New York: North Point Press, p. 10. 39 deĞa-bandhaĞ cittasya dhƗranƗ. 40 tatra pratyayaika-tƗnatƗ dhyƗnam. 41 tad evƗrtha-mƗra-nirbhƗsam svarnjpa-Ğnjnyam iva samƗdhih. 42 Cf Stephen Parker (2017). Clearing the Path: The Yoga Way to Clear and Pleasant Mind. Patanjali, Neuroscience, and Emotion. Minneapolis: Ahymsa Publishers, index.

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The yamas and nyamas roughly comprise what is called ‘ethics’ since Aristotle, or ‘morality’ since Cicero. But, whereas what is called ‘ethics’ in Aristotle would still be a match for Patañjali’s spiritual propaedeutic, this is not the case anymore with the rationalistic ‘ethics’ of the Enlightenment, most notably its proceduralist distortions in Rawls or Habermas. Even though the latter may be indispensable in pluralist societies, it would be misleading to pretend that they give a full account of human life. The soul is not exhausted by free decision-making procedures, and the arbitrariness of ‘free’ choice – celebrated in Western democracies – often conceals subconsciously suppressed base interests. 2. Overcoming fixation “For the first time I understood that the fixed and tearless gaze [ce regard fixe et sans pleurs] […] that she had worn since my grandmother’s death had been arrested by that incomprehensible contradiction of memory [souvenir] and nonexistence [néant]. —Marcel Proust43

A second code that should be respected if one wants to access the soul entails the overcoming of internal fixations. This is implied by the idea, common in most Eastern spiritual traditions, that attachment is a burden that blinds people. Fixation is an attachment to a way of seeing or thinking, a disposition or a predisposition which narrows the mind. It was the aforementioned Pierre Janet who first clinically studied what he called “subconscious fixed ideas”. Such ideas, he believed, lay at the basis of uncontrolled behaviour (fits, attacks, outbursts, paralyses, etc.) and are often due to traumatic youth experiences. They are not, Janet contends, restricted to our mere intellectual, but also our emotional life, or our personality structure as such.44 It should be noted here that Janet’s notion of 43 Marcel Proust (1922). Sodome et Gomorrhe. In Marcel Proust (1999). A la recherche du temps perdu. Paris: Gallimard, p. 1336; trans. Cities of the Plain by C. K. Scott Moncrieff. 44 “Il ne s’agit pas uniquement d’idées obsédantes d’ordre intellectuel, mais d’états émotifs persistants, d’états de la personnalité qui restent immuables, en un mot, d’états psychologiques qui une fois constitués persistent indéfiniment et ne se modifient plus suffisamment pour s’adapter aux conditions variables du milieu environnant.” Pierre Janet (1898). Névroses et idées fixes I. Paris: Félix Alcan, p. 3. Also see Binswanger: “Der Verschrobene hört nicht auf die ‘Natur der Sache,’ er will nur, was er, als dieser Einzelne, ‘sich in den Kopf gesetzt hat,’ ohne Rücksicht nicht nur auf die Sache selbst, sondern auch auf die mit demselben ‘Zeug’ umgehenden Andern.” Ludwig Binswanger (1956). Drei Formen missglückten

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subconscious fixed ideas does not exhaust psychopathology, on the contrary. However, this notion turned out to be extremely fertile for Janet’s successors, most particularly Freud and Jung, but also French psychiatry (Lacan, Baruk, Ey, Delay; cf Ellenberger, 1970, p. 407) and philosophy of inwardness (Michel Henry). Since “fixed ideas” has become a root concept, which has afterwards been more and more refined, I believe it can still be helpful when trying to describe a significant obstacle to the enhancement of inwardness, or soul access.45 What Hermann Friedmann calls an “optic” approach would be an approach that has liberated itself as much as possible from subconscious fixed ideas, to be free towards its objects of contemplation.46 Being liberated and reattuned, an optic mindset shares crucial features with dharana or concentration – “the fixing of the mind in one place,” or rather (since fixed ideas are excluded), “the enleaguing of the mind with one place,” “unique mental ligament”. Janet makes a distinction between hysterical and asthenic fixed ideas, according to their decreasing level of consciousness. In all cases, he claims, fixed ideas are the result of psychical weakness and impoverished soul functions. To disinter them, attention should be paid to their phenomenal side: dreams, attacks, somnambulist states, automatic writing, etc. (Janet, 1898, p. 225) Interestingly, Janet ascribes asthenia (psychical weakness) not only to his hysterical patients but equally to so-called ‘normal’ people: those who are always searching for a company, who cannot amuse themselves and who, when alone, are struck by boredom (Janet, 1898, p. 478f) – the majority of people, I would add. If Janet is right, this will imply that many ‘normal’ people today are potentially hysterical, and only need a stimulus to exhibit hysteria.47

Daseins. Verstiegenheit, Verschrobenheit, Manieriertheit. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, p. 86. 45 Unless if one acknowledges the partial, distorted truth which fixed ideas often cannot fail to bring. Cf “Denn dauernd vermögen bloß Narren, Geistesgestörte und Menschen mit fixen Ideen, im Feuer der Beseeltheit auszuharren; der gesunde Mensch muss sich damit begnügen, die Erklärung abzugeben, dass ihm ohne eine Flocke dieses geheimnisvollen Feuers das Leben nicht lebenswert vorkäme.” Musil, 1997, p. 186. 46 Cf Binswanger: “Was wir Psychotherapie nennen, ist im Grunde nichts anderes als den Kranken dahin zu bringen, dass er zu ‘sehen’ vermag, wie die Gesamtstruktur des menschlichen Daseins oder ‘In-der-Welt-seins’ beschaffen ist, und an welchem Punkt derselben er sich verstiegen hat.” Binswanger, 1956, p. 8. 47 This is confirmed by Jaspers who is otherwise reticent towards Janet’s notion of ‘dissociation’.

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How to unsettle fixed ideas, or, in terms of Friedmann, how to develop an “optic” approach and bring about a “unique mental ligament”? Psychoanalysis attempts to bring fixed ideas back to consciousness. Janet, however, would argue that such a procedure is not necessarily healing since it merely transforms a subconscious into a conscious fixation. A more integral approach seems requisite, therefore, which somehow affects the unconscious. Therapies which aim at doing this abound today, most notably in the Jungian tradition. They range from dreamwork to creative or sportive activities, sand play, etc. Other possibilities are massage, rebirthing, acupuncture, aromatherapy, ayahuasca, kundalini yoga, etc. In the next chapter, we will see how the experience of ‘ecstasy,’ as highlighted mainly by Ludwig Klages but also by Robert Musil and I.H. Fichte, could help articulate what is requisite to overcome internal fixation – whether on the individual level or the collective level of a society or even a culture. For indeed, whereas the fixed ideas which Janet addresses are primarily contingent upon his patients’ traumatic experiences, it is essential to consider the possibility that fixed ideas determine more comprehensive mindsets in general, such as prevail in religions or in political ideologies. However, though any idea or perception is susceptible to becoming an object of obsessive fixation, it would be disingenuous to solely reproach religious people or partisans of a political party for having idées fixes. Perceptual or intellectual fixations can likewise govern science, philosophy, and even art. It is highly telling that the German psychiatrist and philosopher Karl Jaspers, only a few years after writing his Allgemeine Psychopathologie (trans.: General Psychopathology), surprised his philosophical audience with a Psychologie der Weltanschauungen (trans.: Psychology of Worldviews)48; as if worldviews (encompassing philosophies, religions, scientific and mystical approaches alike) are equally capable of being ‘diagnosed,’ rather than – as is done most often – assessed according to their truth value. In his Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, Jaspers ranges worldviews according to their Einstellung (‘mindset’). His tripartite division comprises an objectifying (gegenständliche), a self-reflective (selbstreflektierte) and an enthusiast (enthusiastische) mindset, each of these leading to a different worldview. Irrespective of Jaspers’ exact classification, it makes sense, I believe, to consider the inner disposition as from which a worldview (whether ‘scientific,’ ‘religious’ or ‘philosophical’) is conceived. Such a disposition equals a fixation which, despite its incontestable advantages, obscures 48 Jaspers 1959 (1913); id. (1925/1919). Psychologie der Weltanschauungen. Berlin: J. Springer.

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alternative attitudes; let alone that such fixations blind those who have them to the incommensurability between worldviews based on different mindsets, as a result of which mutual critique often becomes meaningless. On the other hand, highlighting the mindset (fixed ideas) governing worldviews does not necessarily come down to giving an exhaustive account of them. True, original traumas may indeed produce internal fixations, both on the individual and on the general level (e.g., it can be maintained that the disappearance of imam Ali gave rise to Shi’a Islam, and the public execution of rabbi Jesus to Christianity). However, this does not exclude that, beyond the incontestable presence of a ground-breaking traumatic experience, a liberating idea that expressly disrupted previous fixations is operative. Criticising sciences, philosophies or religions for being possessed by fixed ideas should not ignore that an unsettling idea hides behind the ostensive fixation. It should even not be excluded that, beyond its susceptibility to fixations, trauma itself may induce sensitivity to a liberating idea.49 3. Concentration We have seen that the methodology outlined in Patañjali’s Yoga-sutras entails ‘concentration’ (dharana) as one of its stages. It is defined as “the fixing (bandhas: ‘leaguing’) of the mind in one place (deĞa)” (III,1).50 Patañjali distinguishes concentration from meditation (dhyana) – “the onepointedness of the mind on one image” – and absorption (samadhayah) – “when that same dhyana shines forth as the object alone and [the mind] is devoid of its own [reflective] nature”. Particularly in light of the phenomenological tradition of Western philosophy, with its emphasis on the purification of perception (‘eidetic reduction’), I propose to take ‘concentration’ 49

This is at least how Bergson argues for two sources of morality and religion: a dynamic and a static source. Cf H. Bergson (1932). Les deux sources de la morale et de la religion. Paris: PUF. Also cf Dilthey: “Gerade die Personen, welche die treibenden Kräfte, gewissermaßen die großen Sprungfedern im Räderwerk der Geschichte ausmachen, sind beinahe alle psychologische Probleme. Die Menschen, die am Anfange großer Entwicklungen stehen, sind vielfältig und von dunkler Tiefe wie die Vorstellungswelt, die sie bewegt”. W. Dilthey (1970). Gesammelte Schriften XV. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, p. 173. 50 DeĞa-bandhaĞ cittasya dhƗranƗ. Also see the Buddha’s sermon Mahasatipatthana Sutta: “And what is right concentration [sammƗsamƗdhi]? […] With the stilling of directed thoughts and evaluations, he enters and remains in the second jhana [‘meditative state’]: rapture and pleasure born of composure, unification of awareness [ekodi·bhƗvaۨ] free from directed thought and evaluation – internal assurance.” Furthermore, see the Satipatthana Sutta.

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as a separate code that might give inner access to the soul, albeit as a precondition and not as an end-state. Further on in this chapter, I will argue that “one-pointedness of the mind” and “fixing-leaguing of the mind” should not be interpreted as if there were one unitary or uniform object to which the mind should be attached; the mind should rather be brought in a particular state. This state paradoxically re-enleagues the mind with reality, though not reality as an infinite series of separate objects but as a synchronising flux. Excessive meditative self-immersion might still be obsessed with an inner ‘object’ (idée fixe) and become morbid as a result. Successful concentration and meditation will somehow reattune with, and re-engage in, daily life, thereby preventing psychosis.51 In chapter 3, I will further elaborate on the notion of ‘synchronicity’. A particular advantage of the notion of ‘concentration’ is that it could help overcome the apparent gap between the two conceptions of the soul mentioned earlier, one identifying it with (supraliminal) consciousness, and the other with the unconscious (or subliminal consciousness). Provided that consciousness is taken as layered and susceptible of being intensified, what is seen as ‘conscious’ and ‘unconscious’ may be categories which are rather mutually approximative and interlocking than mutually exclusive. Only a rigid conception of the unconscious as wholly inaccessible (as in Freud) would imply a sharp demarcation line (threshold, limen); such a conception would equally limit the revelatory impact of ‘concentration’ when compared to a more flexible boundary between consciousness and unconscious. However, when the unconscious is merely blocked by impediments – for example, what Carl du Prel calls a ‘threshold of sensibility’ –, concentration could in principle overcome these. It would require that anything which distracts the mind is abandoned.52 In the Vedanta tradition, the attempt to withdraw the senses and to focus on pure consciousness is typical. Yet, a withdrawal of the senses need not be the only available option for concentration proper. One could equally claim that an intensification of sense perception – an activity which likewise demands abandonment, 51

Cf Jared R. Lindahl etc (2019). Challenging and Adverse Meditation Experiences: Toward a Person-Centered Approach. In Miguel Farias, David Brazier, and Mansur Lalljee, Eds. The Oxford Handbook of Meditation (online); id. (2017). The Varieties of Contemplative Experience: A Mixed-Method Study of Meditation-Related Challenges in Western Buddhists. PLOS ONE/PLoS ONE 12 (5) pp. 1-32. 52 Cf Bhagavad gita II, 55: “Arjuna, when one thoroughly dismisses all cravings of the mind, and is satisfied in the self through (the joy of) the self (Ɨtmany evƗtmanƗ), then he is called stable of mind (sthita-prajñas).” Trans. Jayadayal Goyandka (1993/1969). Gita Press: Gorakhpur.

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concentration and focus – produces the desired effect of soul access. A contemporary example of techniques to train the senses and to synthesise the soul through these techniques can be found in the work of the Italian psychotherapist Roberto Assagioli.53 Interestingly, during the inner trajectory set out by Patañjali, unusual faculties may ensue. In the third book of the Yoga-sutras Patañjali suggests that, when concentration, meditation and absorption are enhanced, the soulsearcher will develop knowledge of past and future (III, 16), including previous incarnations (III, 18); they will become susceptible to reading the mind of the other (III, 19), or their own body (III, 30); they can quench thirst and still hunger (III, 31). They can even become capable, Patañjali continues, of self-levitation (III, 40), or of moving through space without impediment (III, 43). It is of utmost importance, though, not to become attached to these unusual faculties, at pains of relapsing into lower states of consciousness (III, 51). We find similar injunctions in the Buddha’s teachings, and it seems as if the unusual faculties just mentioned are in themselves neutral and not indicative of spiritual growth per se.54 In lieu of rashly denying the existence of such faculties as mere fraud or illusion, it may be worth noting two things. First, the unusual faculties purportedly develop in proportion to inner retreat; therefore, those practising it may not be willing to share their powers randomly amongst just anybody. Second, these faculties are intrinsically exceptional, uncommon; they cannot be brought under experimental control. The mindset of the sceptical researcher itself may be a primary obstacle to experiencing them on wish. By making these remarks, I certainly do not want to endorse credulity. The only thing we need to realise is that the claimed ‘impossibility’ of occult powers rests upon unquestioned premises concerning matter, time and space. It seems as if modern physics rediscovers what several philosophers,

53 Cf Roberto Assagioli (2012, 1965). Psychosynthesis. A Collection of Basic Writings. Amherst, MA: The Synthesis Center, Ch. IV. 54 Cf the SiূsapƗvana Sutta (Saۨyutta NikƗya): “In the same way, monks, those things that I have known with direct knowledge but have not taught are far more numerous [than what I have taught]. And why haven’t I taught them? Because they are not connected with the goal [or: they are not profitable], do not relate to the rudiments of the holy life, and do not lead to disenchantment, to dispassion, to cessation, to calm, to direct knowledge, to self-awakening, to Unbinding. That is why I have not taught them.” It is a matter of debate whether reported unusual faculties are an atavism (remnant of ancient times) or indicators of spiritual growth, or both. Also see Tenhaeff, 1979, p. 23, p. 217 n.33.

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thoughtlessly called ‘mystical,’ had already stated centuries before.

Illusion of inwardness? Can the account of inwardness given above be taken for granted so quickly? We have seen that this is already questionable in light of psychopathology, which demonstrates that self-deception is always around the corner. It is also doubtful for modern philosophy. Heidegger, Levinas, and most emphatically Derrida, sharply criticised the notion of immediate selfawareness or free self-access. In his analysis of Husserl’s concept of the Ego, for example, Derrida has pointed out that one can only get access to Self by making a detour over the outer world and its inherent sign structure. This detour inevitably introduces non-Self into Selfhood, thereby ‘polluting’ Self with Otherness. However, such critique exclusively regards Husserl’s claim of self-access through soliloquy, that is, addressing the self by the self: “Taking auto-affection as the exercise of the voice,” Derrida states, “auto-affection supposed that a pure difference comes to divide selfpresence. In this pure difference is rooted the possibility of everything we think we can exclude from auto-affection: space, the outside, the world, the body, etc.”55 It seems as if Derrida disregards, or at least underestimates, original self-experience as an experience which precedes the Ego. It was the French phenomenologist Michel Henry who explicitly tried to give expression to this original self-experience, by unearthing (what he termed) ‘self-affection’ as the root experience of any experience of Self (and Other). “If we do not have an idea of the soul,” he writes, “it is because the soul is not separated from the self.”56 Henry’s thought, which is familiar with both Eckhart and Advaita Vedanta, offers a possible philosophical avenue towards inwardness. However, its conceptual rigour prevents it from endeavouring into describing ‘deeper’ states of consciousness. Henry’s phenomenological robustness is detrimental to the extent of his inner explorations. Yet, it testifies to the philosophical credits which a discourse on inwardness, however tentative, can still claim. Should philosophy want to go further – which would be the entire point and purpose of this book –, it would be firmly in need of continuous input from 55 Cf. J. Derrida 1989 (1967). La voix et le phénomène. Paris: PUF, p. 92; trans. D.B. Allison & Newton Garver (1973). Speech and Phenomena, and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs. Evanston: Northwestern University Press, p. 82. 56 Michel Henry (2003/1963). L’essence de la manifestation. Paris: PUF, p. 530; trans. The Essence of Manifestation, by Girard Etzkorn (1973). Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, p. 423.

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art, spirituality, and literature.57 I therefore wholeheartedly agree with Martha Nussbaum when she warns us that “[t]he clinical literature repeatedly emphasises that intellectual gifts create a particular danger for people at risk for hypertrophy of the false self. A good intellect can create a very powerful and competent false self, which takes people quite far in life and is then further reinforced by its own successes. Increasingly as life goes on, it produces a dissociation between intellectual activity and a sense of one’s emotions and weaknesses. The clinical literature emphasises, by contrast, the importance of an education that includes poetry and that cultivates pleasure in the inner world.”58 In other words, psychopathology not only threatens the alleged purity of self-access and inwardness; it no less weakens philosophical criticisms questioning the possibility of that purity. The threat being on both sides, one should – already logically – give claims about veracity and sincerity of inwardness the benefit of the doubt.

Soul as an outer phenomenon “The artist’s greatest difficulty is to make [the artwork] stand up on its own [le fasse tenir debout tout seul]. Sometimes this requires what is, from the viewpoint of an implicit model, from the viewpoint of lived perceptions and affections, great geometrical improbability, physical imperfection, and organic abnormality. But these sublime errors accede to the necessity of art if they are internal means of standing up (or sitting or lying).” —Deleuze/Guattari59

I have started defining ‘inwardness’ in terms of direct soul access, thereby implying that ‘outwardness’ involves a certain degree of indirectness. 57

Cf Proust: “ce rôle des croyances, il est vrai que quelque chose en moi le savait, c’était la volonté, mais elle le sait en vain si l’intelligence, la sensibilité continuent à l’ignorer”. Marcel Proust (1919). A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. In Proust, 1999, p. 673. Also see “Mehr ist’s wahrlich, dass aus eignem Brande die eigne Lehre kommt!” Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra II, Von den Priestern. 58 Martha Nussbaum (2004). Hiding from Humanity. Disgust, Shame, and the Law. Princeton/Oxford: Princeton University Press, p. 196. 59 G. Deleuze/F. Guattari (1991). Qu’est-ce que la philosophie? Paris: Minuit, p. 155; trans. H. Tomlinson & G. Burchell (1994). What is Philosophy? New York: Columbia University Press, p. 164. In Le côté de Guermantes the narrator, contemplating a photo of his admired Mme de Guermantes, writes that “Ces lignes qu’il me semblait presque défendu de regarder, je pourrais les étudier là comme dans un traité de la seule géométrie qui eût de la valeur pour moi.” Marcel Proust (192021). Le côté de Guermantes I. In Proust, 1999, p. 807. Roberto Assagioli notes that lines, curves, and forms can have a therapeutic use. R. Assagioli, 2012, p. 250f.

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Having attempted to give an account of soul as inwardness or immediate accessibility, and having proposed ways towards it, I will now turn to the soul as an external, more indirect phenomenon; one might wish to say: as a mode of manifestation inherent to ‘bodies’. I think it is of utmost importance to root the metaphysical in the physical, to prevent it from atrophying.60 Yet, I have already suggested that my use of the terms ‘inwardness’ and ‘exteriority’ cannot fail to imply a misleading notion of ‘space’. Therefore, they should not be taken at face value. Let me first make some preliminary remarks. That soul is not ‘inside’ a body the same way as a car is in the garage, is evident; psychic ‘inwardness’ is only spatial in a metaphorical sense. It will be more challenging to understand how psychic ‘exteriority,’ even though it manifests itself in three-dimensional space, is fundamentally not geometrical either. With soul as an ‘outer’ phenomenon, I will henceforth mean the manifestation of something spatial that cannot be reduced to its geometrical manifestation in space; its spatial character concerns the degree of indirectness in our seizing of it. It should be noted, though, that, the more the notion of ‘space’ will be nuanced, and deprived of geometricity, the more we will be redirected to what I have hitherto called ‘inwardness’. However, offering a description of the soul as an outer phenomenon, albeit ultimately in a non-geometrical sense, compensates for the average scholar’s reluctance to introspection. In what follows, I will argue that the notion of ‘space’ runs two risks. Firstly, the risk of being neutralised by Cartesian-Newtonian realism; it issues in a reduction of space to geometrical three-dimensionality. The second risk is to be absorbed by consciousness in philosophical Idealism; this risk results in a notion of a space that only exists in our mind. Either way, space will be dispossessed of alterity. This means that space cannot be adequately experienced or, reversely, that our proper experience of space must be imaginary.

60 Cf H. Friedmann: “Der strikte Ausschluss der Sinnlichkeit aus der Metaphysik raubt ihr, die […] immer nur, gerade auch von den Religionen […] als Sinnwerdung von Sensibilien verstanden wird, die Systemverbundenheit mit dem niederen sinnlichen Erfahrungsbereich – von dem sie sich ja nicht nur nicht stören lassen, nein, den sie auch erleuchten soll.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 457.

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Absolute versus intimate space “figure, magnitude, situation, number, etc., are not entities really distinct from space, matter, and motion but are merely properties brought about within space, matter, motion, and their parts by a supervening mind [découpées par l’intervention de l’esprit].” —G.-W. Leibniz61

Let me start to outline the first risk briefly. As said, the concept of ‘space’ which I try to keep aloof from soul manifestation is the reductionist Cartesian-Newtonian concept of absolute space. The main naïveté of this concept, in my view, rests on the abstraction it makes of consciousness as a constituent of space. It precipitately ascribes an objective existence to space which supposedly relies on its measurable, self-identical characteristics. The objectivist concept of ‘space’ cannot but draw on an equally reductionist conception of ‘matter,’ which identifies matter with absolute and indivisible particles.62 Still upholding these naive objectivist premises seems philosophically untenable, at least after Kant. How to conceive of ‘space’ differently, in other words, how to reconceive of the soul’s outwardness through using less naïve conceptions; conceptions, that is, which take consciousness into account? How to free outwardness and space from geometry? I cannot go further here than to give some preparatory hints. I am inspired here by the artistic visions of Francesca Woodman, especially her selfportraits, and Lygia Clark. My point is that consciousness or soul both allow for space and disequilibrate its three-dimensionality. What is commonly called ‘geometry’ pretends to be the indispensable ‘correction’ and ‘neutralisation’ of affectively experienced agency and mobility. As if geometry were a ‘remake,’ a purported ‘enhancer’ and even ‘facilitator’ which transforms agency into action and mobility into (loco)motion – if not in reality, at least in our mathematical imagination and associated wishful thinking. The insertion of vital, experiential elements in the measuring 61

G.-W. Leibniz. Lettre à Thomasius 20-30 avril 1669. In G.-W. Leibniz (1940). Œuvres choisies. Ed. L. Prenant. Paris: Garnier Frères, p. 18 ; trans. Leroy E. Loemker (1989) Philosophical Papers and Letters. Dordrecht/Boston/London: Kluwer, p. 100. 62 Cf Fechner: “Der Materialist rühmt sich, nur auf Erfahrung zu stehen; und wo ist denn die Erfahrung, die ihn etwas vom Dasein einer Materie hinter, außer, ohne Bewusstsein, unabhängig vom Bewusstsein lehrt? Was er von der Materie erfahrungsmäßig hat und weiß, ist Sache des Bewusstseins.” Fechner, 1907, p. 209.

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process, though, disturbs the latter’s ‘purity’ while invigorating its reliability. For, what if ‘imprecision’ – which is usually a derogatory term – belonged to reality itself? What if Being were fundamentally indistinct? Would that not come down to containing a residue of alterity or otherness that can perhaps be ‘incorporated’ but that cannot be ‘digested’ by consciousness? For a preliminary artistic confirmation of these unlikely suggestions, I will now turn to Francesca Woodman and Lygia Clark. The former demonstrates the relativity of three-dimensional space, or ‘geometry’; the latter illustrates the cross-correspondence between inside and outside, which equally comes down to challenging geometry.

Francesca Woodman’s interior geometries Woodman’s photography instantly shows what a philosophical text takes great pains to express elaborately. The title of the only book which Woodman published during her lifetime is exciting for our context: Some Disordered Interior Geometries.63 This title refers to an inside and outside, interiority and exteriority. It remarkably applies an external measuring principle (geometry) to an internal reality (the body). The book – of which only 500 copies circulate, mostly diffused at Woodman’s premature funeral – can be compared to a medieval palimpsest. Both the text and the photos are printed upon an Italian geometry notebook. One of the pictures is meaningfully entitled ‘Almost a Square’. The photo shows the artist standing before a wall while hiding her face with her hands as if ashamed. A similar picture is entitled ‘Another Almost a Square’ – it shows the artist almost naked, and her face practically erased. As a whole, Woodman’s artbook seems to exemplify a life-or-death struggle between art (i.e., life, inwardness) and geometry; almost-squares challenge squares. Shame seems to be all-pervasive. Some Disordered Interior Geometries is an ambiguous title, in different ways. It can mean at least two things. Firstly, it can refer to a presentation of interior geometries in a disordered way, to a ‘bunch’ of interior geometries. Disorder, then, would not affect the interior geometries; it would only regard the mode of presentation. The sole yet nonnegligible tension would be located in the unusual word set ‘interior geometries’. But secondly, Some Disordered Interior Geometries could also mean a (well63

Francisca Woodman (1980-81). Some Disordered Interior Geometries. Artist’s book with 16 gelatin silver prints, 22.9 x 16.5 cm. New York: Courtesy George and Betty Woodman.

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arranged, ordered) array of disordered, disarranged interior geometries. If the second meaning applies, we are faced with an even sharper tension, ‘aggravated’ by a contradiction in terms. Disordered geometries conspicuously ‘confuses’ inside and outside – not even to mention the odd plural. Emphasising that only interior geometries are at stake here partly solves the issue; it buys meaning at the price of revealing a tautology – which comes down to a hermeneutical Pyrrhic victory. For, does not the sheer subjectivity of unruly inwardness and inner life, notably when highlighted by geometry, always equal disorder? Would not a correct geometry, a geometry which deserves its name, at all times be the exact opposite of disordered inner subjectivity? An interior geometry, one might say, cannot be a geometry at all since ‘geometry’ and ‘inwardness’ are mutually exclusive. Unless in the unlikely case that Woodman’s ‘inwardness’ is to be taken in the sense of a Kantian transcendental consciousness, but that would, in turn, make its ‘disordered’ character unintelligible. Is not the transcendental intelligibly ordered by definition and is it not exempt from being pluralised? Therefore, a Kantian interpretation makes no sense here. The inescapable consequence is that the optic approach of Woodman’s pictorial work confronts us with a geometry which is virtually moribund or finite. Geometry would survive neither internalisation nor pluralisation. Once internalised, geometry will be affected by rule-less unpredictability and disorder; a multiplicity of geometries deletes standardised measurability. ‘Almost a square’ equals ‘not a square at all,’ and ‘Another Almost a Square’ suggests that squares are ultimately inexistent whatsoever. The question becomes urgent if not, beyond Woodman’s photography, geometry as such – that is, geometry the way we usually conceive it – is susceptible to internalisation and pluralisation. Would not already this possibility give a mortal blow to geometry’s ontological pretensions? What if ‘geometry,’ despite its neutral outlook, ultimately rooted in imaginary constructions? What if its measuring units were violently imposed upon an intrinsically irregular flux of life – whether by the (‘impure’) inwardness of a will to power (as Schopenhauer or Nietzsche might claim) or by a wholly nihilistic, life-destructive principle (i.e., what Klages calls ‘Spirit’/Geist)? When thinking about forms of psychic outwardness which do not subvert the soul to geometry, it might be helpful to imagine how inwardness, interiority, or even intimacy could affect space. Once swallowed, space will be metabolised and – mirabile dictu – endowed with inwardness. Ingested space will become an intimate space. Intimate space, I will argue, is space which is ‘curbed’ by pressure. This pressure can take the form of compression or decompression. Both compression and decompression

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subdue oppression. As we will further see in the next chapter, the latter translates as anxiety. Compression and decompression are more promising forms of ‘spatial pressure,’ though they will necessarily be accompanied by shame. Intimacy, shame and anxiety are recurrent themes in Woodman’s photography. In the next chapter, when considering the intrinsic relation between shame and inspiration, I will come back to Francisca Woodman. Also in chapter 2, I will further dwell on the notions of ‘compression’ and ‘decompression,’ the former being equivalent to the orgasmic experience, the latter to the experience of inspiration.

Swallowing the rectangle: Lygia Clark For an illustration of the cross-correspondence between inside and outside which is strikingly similar to Woodman’s interior geometries, I would now like to turn to the work of Lygia Clark, more in particular her manifestos. Clark’s work often explores and displays inside and outside as reversible categories. Like Woodman, Clark swallows geometry and interiorises what is or seems to be outside. See for example her sculpture from 1960 Bicho Pássaro do Espaço (Creature Passing through Space). In the same year, Clark writes a manifesto with the significant title A Morte do Plano (The death of the Plane). Like Woodman, Clark rejects the square and announces the death of the plane in which the square originates. The manifesto, which was written twenty years before Woodman’s Some Disordered Interior Geometries, can be seen as an anticipatory reading of the latter, especially of the ‘Almost a square’-pictures. “The plane is a concept created by man for practical purposes: to satisfy his need for balance. The square, which is an abstract creation, is a product of the plane. By arbitrarily defining the limits of space, the square has given man a totally false and rational sense of his own reality [uma idéia enteiramente falsa e racional de sua própria realidade]. This is what has led to conflicting concepts such as high and low, back and front – all of which have helped to destroy man’s sense of the whole [destruir no homem o sentiment da totalidade]. It is also how man projected the transcendent part of his nature, giving it the name of God. Man, therefore, addressed the issue of his existence by inventing a mirror [o espelho] of his own spirituality.”64

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Accessed on 18 April 2019. Note the indirect allusions to Feuerbach. In an epistolary exchange with Hélio Ochicico she writes “É curioso – você encontra novos relacionamentos

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However, she continues, “Upon becoming aware that one is dealing with a poetics of the self projected outward, it is understood at the same time the necessity of reintegrating those poetics as an indivisible part of one’s own self [parte indivisível de sua propria pessoa].”

As a result of this ‘reintegration’ or ‘introjection’ of the outwardly projected self, geometry, or more precisely, the “pictorial rectangle,” will explode: “It was also this same introjection that caused the pictorial rectangle to explode. This rectangle in shatters: we swallowed it [engolimos], we absorbed it. Before, when the artist situated herself in front of the rectangle [quando o artista se situavadiante do retângulo], she projected herself onto it [projetava-se sobre ele], and in this projection, she charged [carregava] the surface with transcendence. To demolish the plane as a medium of expression is to become aware [tomar consciência] of unity as an organic and living whole.”65

One wonders if not Francesca Woodman, author of ‘Almost a Square’ and ‘Another Almost a Square,’ projected herself onto the square or rectangle, charged its surface with transcendence, yet without properly taking transcendence back into herself, or recharging herself with the transcendence that she had so keenly observed?

entre os corpos através de novas percepções de espaços.” Lygia Clark & Hélio Oiticica, 1998, p. 213. 65 Cf Feuerbach, “Der Gegenstand des Menschen ist nichts anderes als sein gegenständliches Wesen selbst. […] Das Bewusstsein Gottes ist das Selbstbewusstsein des Menschen, die Erkenntnis Gottes die Selbsterkenntnis des Menschen. […] Gott ist das offenbar Innere, das ausgesprochene Selbst des Menschen; die Religion die feierliche Enthüllung des verborgenen Schätze des Menschen, das Eingeständnis seiner innersten Gedanken, das öffentliche Bekenntnis seiner Liebesgeheime.” Ludwig Feuerbach (1904, 1841). Das Wesen des Christentums. Leipzig: Reclam, p. 68.

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Idealist versus ‘facial’ space “Interpreting the reality of space as a mere fact of consciousness comes down to de-realising it or to grounding it on the reality of geometrical figures, which solely represents real space conceptually.” —Ludwig Klages66 “an interval, distance, spacing [espacement], must be produced between the elements other, and be produced with a certain perseverance in repetition” —Jacques Derrida67

We have seen that the first risk when addressing the soul’s exterior presence is to use a naïvely realistic notion of space. This notion issues in a reduction of space to geometrical three-dimensionality. I have suggested that visual artists such as Woodman or Clark testify to an alternative conception, or rather, experience, of space. Following their views, I argued, it becomes more difficult to maintain the secure boundaries of three-dimensionality as an ultimate underpinning of geometrical space. I will now proceed to discuss a second risk: the absorption of space by consciousness in philosophical Idealism. This risk results in the notion of a space that only exists in our mind. This would entail that space cannot be experienced or, reversely, that our alleged experience of space must be imaginary. It was philosophical Idealism that tried to incorporate space in thinking and thereby to eliminate it as an original, independent experience. Since the notion of ‘matter’ is closely related to the notion of ‘space,’ as I have noted earlier, we are justified in assuming that both space and matter suffer a similar fate in Idealism: they are explained away insofar as intellectual consciousness is seen as their ultimate ontological basis. Whereas Idealism rightly emphasises that consciousness is a constituent of space and, concomitantly, of matter, it risks promoting notions of space and matter that only have a mental extension; in other words, no extension at all (which interestingly leads to contradictory, self-refuting notions of ‘space’ and ‘matter’ in Idealism, i.e., a space-without-extension). The implication of Idealism would be a conception of space dispossessed of the slightest alterity. The Idealist experience of space and matter is extremely short66 “Die Wirklichkeit des Raumes für eine Bewußtseinstatsache erklären, heißt nämlich, sie entwirklichen oder ihr die nur in Begriffen davon bestehende Wirklichkeit geometrischer Figuren unterschieben.” Klages, 1981, p. 148; my trans. 67 Jacques Derrida, La différance. In Jacques Derrida (1972), p. 8; trans. Alan Bass (1982). Differance. In Margins of Philosophy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p. 8. Also see J. Derrida (1967). De la grammatologie. Paris: Minuit, p. 103.

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lived, as it immediately suffers from being sublated by thinking. In Hegel, for example, space is defined as “the abstract universality of being-outsideitself” (die abstracte Allgemeinheit ihres Aussersichseins). (Hegel, 1906, §254) It is originally indifference (Gleichgültigkeit), undetermined threedimensionality (ganz bestimmungslosen drei Dimensionen). (Hegel, 1906, §255) For Schelling, space is concomitant with the “infinite force of expansion” (unendliche Expanzivkraft) of unleashed matter not yet bridled by the activity of consciousness.68 In both, space represents a challenge for thinking rather than for experiencing. Its fundamental indeterminacy asks for being impregnated (‘determined’) by the mind. It can easily be demonstrated that matter comes off as badly. For, other than Spirit (Geist) and thinking, Hegel argues, ‘matter’ (Materie) is composite and lacks a centre. Matter primarily consists of a ‘search’ for a centre.69 Hegel draws on Schelling who had argued that, abandoned to itself, matter would come down to infinite expansion; the creative and productive force of gravity completes matter by imposing a form on it.70 In other words, ‘matter,’ for Hegel and Schelling, equals chaos-in-need-of-order. Matter is disorder, or disordered disorder in need of order. As such, it does not exist, just as little as Aristotle’s Matter (੢ȜȘ) exists without Form (İੇįȠȢ). But what if space and matter affected consciousness immediately; that is, not just as a challenge for thinking but as a direct trigger for doing its most original job: receiving, contemplating, and perhaps even extending and reaching out? Let us take a closer look. Whereas Hegel and Schelling identify the essence of consciousness with rational thinking – thereby reducing ‘space’ and ‘matter’ to intellectual constructs –, one could rightfully ask if not unmediated (‘irrational’) experience should be taken more seriously. This would mean concretely that both space and matter 68

“Diese unendliche Expansivkraft, welche im Produkt concentrirt ist, würde nun, sich selbst überlassen, sich ins Unendliche ausbreiten. Dass sie also in einem endlichen Produkt zusammengehalten wird, ist nur durch eine entgegengesetzte negative, hemmende Kraft zu begreifen, welche als das Entsprechende der begrenzenden Thätigkeit des Ichs im gemeinschaftlichen Produkt sich gleichfalls muss aufzeigen lassen.” Schelling (1800). System des transzendentalen Idealismus. In F.W.J. Schelling (2003/1985). Ausgewählte Schriften I/3. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 509. 69 Cf “der Körper ist als schwer dies, seinen Mittelpunkt außer sich zu setzen und zu haben.” Hegel (1906/1817). Enzyklopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften. Ed. G.J.P.J. Bolland. Leiden: A.H. Adriani, § 266. 70 “Durch die Schwerkraft erst, die eigentlich produktive und schöpferische, wird die Construktion der Materie vollendet”. Schelling, 2003, p. 512.

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reassume their original character of alterity. Idealism, I think, has rightfully refuted naive materialist realism. However, has it not thrown the baby out with the bathwater by subordinating space and matter to thinking instead of leaving them the character of otherness and unpredictability? Only as beingother can space and matter be both accessible to and different from consciousness – which seems a reasonable requirement for acts of consciousness, I would say. The gain which Idealism had brought by inserting consciousness into the physical is made undone by its experiential poverty. It was Ludwig Klages who was one of the first to defend a breath-taking theory of space as an immediate yet pre-reflective affectation of consciousness. For Klages, ‘sensuous space’ (Sinnenraum) is the space into which the contemplating soul (rather than matter) can extend itself, as a precondition for its subsequently having limited experiences of concrete, tangible things at precise locations. Sensuous space (not to be confused with the ‘object space’-Sachraum of physics) even embraces time, as its depth extension. True, its particular nature only allows for a type of confirmation which, rather than just on arguing, entirely relies on self-immersion. A turn inward is required to discover this peculiar form of outwardness in the first place. Instead of resorting to a Kantian transcendental deduction or a Husserlian phenomenological reduction – both of which still identify consciousness with thinking or observation –, Klages unsettles the alleged unity of consciousness itself. This inaugurates an approach which can only inspire feelings of uneasiness in rationalist philosophies, let alone ‘empirical’ sciences, who are not likely to question the structure of subjectivity upon which they are based. Let us take a look at Klages’ alternative concept of space. “In the viewed image of space [Im Gesichtsbild des Raumes],” Klages writes, “a Now becomes demonstratively present [anschaulich gegenwärtig] which expands itself into duration.”71 The Now or Present visibly present itself through duration. Duration is nothing but the prolongation and persistent excavation (rather than exhumation) of this Now. To the extent that this always-extending Now consists of an unfathomable self-mirroring, it equally comes down to the paradox of an externalised self-immersion. It would be enticing to suggest that it anticipates death. I will have to explain myself on this. In chapter 4, I will argue that death, insofar as it ‘enhances’ subliminality, remarkably combines compression and decompression of selfhood (which as we will see occurs in the orgasmic experience and 71

“Im Gesichtsbild des Raumes wird uns anschaulich gegenwärtig das sich zur Dauer dehnende Jetzt.” Klages, 1981, p. 331; my trans.

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inspiration, respectively). This paradoxical connection of opposite moves may well repeat (if not merge) with the foundational space experience which Klages describes. When continuing to examine Klages’ curious description of space as viewed space, we can unearth another instructive insight. Sensuous space, or so it seems, can be conceived as the equivalent of an original synesthetic awareness of the human soul; that is, as a form of awareness prior to the distribution of conscious perception over the five senses, and before any other form of categorisation and objectification. It even precedes time or time consciousness. It represents an absolute Now, which is not only infinitely distant but simultaneously infinitely accessible despite, or rather, by virtue of its distance: “The perceptible Now non-perceptibly embraces a past, and each actual appearance of space embraces a marker indicating that the appearing space forms the cross-section of a longitudinal space which extends into the remote past.”72 The visible Now is inhabited by an invisible and yet traceable past (‘passed-ness’). The more one is immersed in the visible Now, the more the past will reveal itself as its depth structure; but the more the past reveals itself by opening the abyss of the Now, and the more the contemplating soul enters it, the more this soul is simultaneously redirected inwardly. The more intense the extraversion, the more intense will be the corresponding introversion. Space will be experienced as intimacy rather than as a neutral, predictable environment. In the words of Lygia Clark: “To demolish the plane as a medium of expression is to become aware [tomar consciência] of unity as an organic and living whole.” For an analogy, one can perhaps think here of the Chinese notion of Dao, which on its turn functioned as a paradigm for C.G. Jung’s concept of ‘synchronicity’. In sum, sensuous space is “a present which can be experienced” (erlebbare Gegenwart).73 In the next chapter, I will explain that a still more radical conception of alterity prevents me from fully siding with Klages when he believes in an original plenitude of life. Doing justice to this alterity, I will argue, implies being open to the possible incompleteness of life as well. I would say that ‘space’ is another word for the alterity which the Now so to speak exhales. In terms of physics, the law 72 “So muss dem anschaulichen Jetzt unanschaulich ein Vergangensein innewohnen oder der je gegenwärtigen Raumerscheinung ein Anzeichen davon, dass sie den Querschnitt des in die Vergangenheitsferne reichenden ‘Längsraums’ bildet.” Klages, 1981, p. 325; my trans. 73 Klages, 1981, p. 321. William James is similarly developing a notion of erlebbare Gegenwart, see William James (1950, 1898). The Principles of Psychology II. New York: Dover Publications, Ch. XX.

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of conservation of energy is flawed to the extent that it can only logically yet never ontologically assure itself of a closed system. Closed systems only exist in our imagination. What is the upshot of this interlude on space for our attempt to articulate the soul’s outer manifestation? If ‘matter’ is interpreted as a category of consciousness which represents ultimate unpredictability, and ‘space’ equally as a category of consciousness which represents depth, our perception of the ‘outer’ world will be enriched with a degree of unfathomableness or transcendence. Unfathomableness and transcendence are not the rational outcome of a dialectical argument nor, conversely, a sign of ultimate intellectual confusion or despair. They will be part and parcel of immediate, ordinary experience if they are but acknowledged as always looming around the corner of purported ‘self-evidence’. If they are, how would that not mitigate the boundaries between the inner and outer manifestation of the soul? Once it turns out that the soul is ‘involved’ in matter or space, investing them with transcendence, the implication becomes inevitable that these soul phenomena can nonetheless be accessed in space. Intimacy or inwardness can be outwardly experienced. ‘Space,’ then, could be defined as soul-immersed depth, or as unfathomable depth invested with transcendence. “True space,” already I.H. Fichte says, entirely in line with Klages, “does not exclude but includes the continuity and interweaving of spatial entities [das Ineinanderwirken des räumlich Realen]; what forms an absolute barrier to our common sense perception is solved and loosened in conditions of ecstasy. The Spirit will attain increased spatial existence once a full analogy is reached between its working outside and inside its body [indem er auch außer seinem Leibe völlig analog wie in demselben wirkt]; that is, as a power which defeats space [raumüberwindende] and permeates the spatial isolation of the body parts [das Aussereinander der Körpertheile durchdringende Macht].” (I.H. Fichte, 1876, p. 443; my trans.) For now, it suffices to underline that a more appropriate conception of space and matter espouses consciousness. Other than both Realism and Idealism, Klages’ and I.H. Fichte’s notion of space has the advantage of being open to experience. True, ‘experience’ in a sense in which we hardly use this term anymore, due to the predominance of materialist realism. Whereas the latter identifies ‘experience’ with the ‘evidence’ of concrete, measurable sense data, Klages argues that such an identification blindly draws on the prerogative of tangibility; it completely overlooks that each perceived content presupposes an ultimate, perceivable horizon within which it can first appear. This horizon appeals to the depth of human consciousness as such (Klages calls this depth: Seele, ‘soul’) which tinges each particular

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perception and instils a depth structure in it. If hereafter I will keep to a division between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ soul access, it will be for reasons of order and presentation. The ensouled nature of the external world cannot merely be promulgated as a matter of fact; it requires an alteration of one’s overall mindset, if not mental maturation (which I will discuss in the third chapter). In the next chapter, when shortly dwelling on Lygia Clark’s conception of self, I will suggest that there is a dimension of selfhood which, while still reliant on space, also exempts soul from space. This dimension, I will interpret as original anxiety that roots in birth trauma. Anxiety, I will argue, is one of the components of self and inspiration. It is my claim that the presence or absence of the soul is not merely a matter of to-be-or-not-to-be; it is not merely evident, nor does it rely upon evidence. I am inclined to see the growing awareness of the soul as a process of ‘maturing’. This ever-increasing awareness, however, should not be confused with discovering what-was-always-already-there; instead, the awareness itself equals soul; it is self-engendering. “To demolish the plane as a medium of expression is to become aware of unity as an organic and living whole.” In Chapter 4, I will add to my definition of maturing that it also entails commemorative spectatorship of images; image-contemplation or even imagination, I will argue, enhances visual and visible maturity at once.

Soul phenomena “[T]he beauty that takes you by surprise and bowls you over as if you were seeing it for the first time in your life is really something you have known an sought forever, an image your eyes have long since anticipated [davon war immer ein Vorglanz in deinen Augen], which now comes into full daylight, as it were.” —Robert Musil74 “[T]he aesthetic history of the idea of the beautiful is probably no more than a reflection of the changes in the idea of the soul under the influence of increasing knowledge.” —Otto Rank75

Above, I have tried to show that the notion of ‘space’ runs two risks. The first is a risk of neutralisation, which reduces space to geometrical three74

Musil, 1997, p. 378; trans. Wilkins, Ch. 85. Otto Rank (2000, 1932). Kunst und Künstler. Studien zur Genese und Entwicklung des Schaffensdranges. Giessen: Psychosozial-Verlag, p. 54; trans. Charles Francis Atkinson (1975). Art and Artist. Creative Urge and Personality Development. New York: Agathon Press, p. 12. 75

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dimensionality. The second is the risk of being absorbed by rational thinking, which makes it impossible to experience space. In both cases, space is deprived of alterity. This deprivation entails that space cannot be genuinely experienced or, reversely, that our genuine experience of space will always be illusory for actual thinking. In the following, I will list several phenomena which may be seen as outward manifestations of the soul. The first phenomenon I partly draw from psychopathology and partly from vitalistic biology. It concerns a subliminal or unconscious ‘steering’ of bodily behaviour. As regards psychopathology, I am referring here to the phenomena of mental dissociation and the concomitant physical ‘ideation’: unconscious or subliminal bodily projections that impede agency. Despite their disintegrating tendencies, these projections imply a ‘soul protest’. One could say that they are indicative of the soul through the negative. Frederic Myers points at the occurrence of anaesthetic bodily patches or ‘ideations,’ which he interprets as meaningful yet unconscious dissociations. Vitalistic biology, on the other hand, introduces the notion of ‘entelechy’; it becomes a common denominator for a metaphysical steering principle which controls morphogenesis in the embryo, and healing processes in the subsequent organism. Other than psychopathological ideation, entelechy works through the positive, as we will see. The second outward manifestation of the soul can perhaps be discerned in the ‘production of kin,’ or ‘procreation’. Beyond the mere mechanisticbiological dimensions of this phenomenon – usually called ‘reproduction’ or, worse, ‘replication’ – kin production concerns the proliferation of soul. Proliferation can be seen as a proper mode of soul. I will argue that, insofar as soul resists objectification, procreation does not so much multiply the soul as it reveals its inner intensity. Once linear temporality is mitigated by what I have called (with a term from Hermann Friedmann) an ‘optic approach,’ it may become clear that procreation does not subdivide, let alone fragment, the soul. It had better be taken as its extraversion. The third outward manifestation of the soul is the phenomenon of organic ‘self-relatedness’ or ‘selfhood,’ witness everything alive. As self or selfhood consists of self-relatedness, ‘self-relatedness’ is a pleonastic term. It adumbrates the abysmal nature of selfhood. The self cannot be defined, as it is no object but an enigmatic structure. It presupposes the stratification of consciousness I have started to map out in this chapter. The structured nature of selfhood enables me to talk about compression and decompression

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of self in chapter 2. The final form of external soul manifestation I will be mentioning here is the production of ‘repetitive constellations’ or ‘cultural artefacts’. While being strikingly similar to kin production (as, e.g., Plato suggests in the Symposium, see below), they also differ: cultural artefacts require being perceived and processed by living human beings. Their repetitiveness and cluster-formation are mediated. Drawing on God’s creation of Eve from Adam’s bone, and Adam’s reaction to it (ʭʔˆ˝य़ʔ ʔʤ ʺʠʖ ʦ४ /zot happa’am: ‘this once more,’ ‘this again’), I will argue that their origin is oneiric: synchronicity. Obviously, with this list of outward manifestations of the soul, I do not pretend to be exhaustive. In the third chapter, I will additionally introduce the phenomenon of ‘physiognomy’ as an example of a soul phenomenon that reconciles inside and outside perspectives. The contemplation of a face as an external phenomenon may nonetheless include soul awareness.

I. Soul as ideation Anaesthetic patches “No one understands disintegration better than me.” “I am in a state of decline.” —Saul Leiter76

Departing from the provisional (albeit limited) validity of the distinction between an insider’s and an outsider’s perspective on the soul, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to a fascinating observation made by Frederic Myers. Myers’ observation regarded several medical reports on the disease of hysteria, for example, Pierre Janet’s l’Etat mental des hystériques (1893). In this study, Janet distinguishes different kinds of “mental stigmata,” such as partial catalepsy or local anaesthesia: particular regions of the body do not function properly anymore and are withdrawn from conscious mental control. In addition to the many examples already given by Janet and Myers themselves, we can think of those firm religious believers whose bodies physically display the stigmata of Jesus’ sufferings (cf Therese Neumann of Konnersreuth, 1898-1962). Myers explains that in such cases divisions of the body (e.g., paralysed parts) do not follow – as a strictly mechanical 76

Ingo Taubhorn & Brigitte Woischnik (2019). Retrospektive. Saul Leiter. Hamburg: Haus der Photographie, Deichtorhallen, p. 28.

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account of the body would seem to imply – “local innervation” (i.e., nerve patterns) but rather “ideation (however incoherent)”. The patient’s mind, then, subliminally projects ideas as patches upon body zones. (Myers, 1918, p. 46) Myers continues saying that “the fragments of perceptive power over which the hysteric has lost control [are] by no means really extinguished, but rather exist[…] immediately beneath the threshold, in the custody, so to say, of a dreamlike or hypnotic stratum of the subliminal self, which has selected them for reasons sometimes explicable as the result of past suggestions, sometimes to us inexplicable.” (Ibid.) True, such bodily ‘ideations’ need not become outwardly visible, ‘illustrating’ the soul accordingly as an outer phenomenon. Nor do they imply the steering by what Myers calls ‘supraliminal’ consciousness. Instead, the steering issues from what should be termed as ‘subliminal’ consciousness, or simply, the ‘unconscious’. Yet, bodily ideations or “anaesthetic patches” (Myers, 1918, p. 164) indicate that a non-mechanical, i.e., a non-innervated body-mind relation is possible; such a connection would foil the concomitant dualisms with which we have become familiar since Descartes. Could it be that pictorial representations of the human body, whether in painting, photography or even in sculpture, bear testimony to such (subliminal) ‘ideations’? Impressionist, but even more expressionist art crosses the boundaries of innervation anatomy. In pictures of Saul Leiter, a lack of sharpness pervades the portrayed figures and invites the spectator to reimagine (Clark: “become aware of,” tomar consciência) their unity, albeit on their behalf or in their stead.77 The highly controversial work of Nobuyohsi Araki, which often focuses on Eros and bondage and which inversely reflects Francesca Woodman’s, might suggest an alternative ‘innervation’ of the body than the regular neurological.78 It perhaps illustrates what Antonin Artaud had termed corps sans organes (body without organs). As is well-known, this term was picked up by the postmodern philosophers Deleuze and Guattari. They define body-withoutorgans as “the unproductive, the unconsumable, [which] serves as a surface

77 Cf Sante de Sanctis: “Eine sich auf zahlreiche Individuen erstreckende, vergleichende Beobachtung und die Anwendung der Photographie und Kinematographie leisten meiner Meinung nach mehr als irgend welches Experiment, weil dieses die Personen unter künstliche und vereinbarte Bedingungen stellt.” Sante de Sanctis, 1906, p. 10. 78 I am indebted to the Dutch literary author Willem du Gardijn, who drew my attention to these photographers.

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for the recording of the entire process of production of desire”.79 And they continue stating that, “The body without organs is not God, quite the contrary. But the energy that sweeps through it [qui le parcourt] is divine, when it attracts to itself [attire] the entire process of production and serves as its miraculate, enchanted surface, inscribing it in each and every one of its disjunctions.” (Deleuze/Guattari, 1972, p. 19; trans. p. 13) Even though I think that the “energy” that “sweeps through” the body is de-personalised here to too large an extent (as feminist criticism of Nobuyohsi Araki’s bondage scenes might similarly concede), the notion of a body without organs remains very interesting. It could open our eyes for a trans-mechanist or metaanatomical account of the human, in other words, of soul. Such an account could even go beyond a reconsideration of the sole human bodies and equally detect soul in nature, as happens for example in the work of the Russian painter Nikolay Roerich (1874-1947), particularly in his mountain paintings.80 If the examples mentioned above of the soul as an outer phenomenon make sense it all, it should be kept in mind that their persuasiveness is of a different kind. Unlike a cogent syllogistic argument, they presuppose immediate witness and first-person perspective. The exteriority of the soul is neither susceptible to generalisation nor to objectification. If there is persuasion at all, it will only be a lenis suasio. Soul as entelechy “A reflective discussion of anything supra-personal seems to suggest that a whole – in a completely enigmatic fragmentary form mixed up with coincidence – must somehow pervade a material and temporal manifestation, as if developing itself through ‘stages’.” —Hans Driesch81

Let us try to further ‘analyse’ the outer appearance of the soul in terms of ‘ideation,’ that is, steering by subliminal consciousness. Other than in the 79

Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari (1972). l’Anti-Œdipe. Capitalisme et schizophrénie. Paris: Minuit, p. 17; trans. R. Hurley, M. Seem, and H.R. Lane (1983). Anti-Oedipus, Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. 11. 80 I am indebted here to the Russian philosopher Tatjana Kochetkova, who drew my attention to this painter-philosopher. 81 “Die denkhafte Behandlung alles Überpersönliche erweckt den Anschein, als müsse ein Ganzes in völlig rätselhafter einzelhafter Zerspaltung und mit Zufall sich vermengend durch eine stofflich-zeitliche Ausprägung wie durch eine ‘Stufe’ werdend hindurch.” Driesch, 1917, p. 312 ; my trans.

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preceding, I will now adduce a positive testimony of this steering. I will be drawing here on a constructive notion which I found in the work of Hans Driesch, the notion of ‘entelechy’. Entelechy, I would suggest, is an animating, ensouled inversion of the “anaesthetic patches” discussed above, just as the psychopathology of the latter can be seen as a protest of the soul. Driesch reintroduced the time-honoured Aristotelian concept of ‘entelechy’ to explain morphogenesis (i.e., the growth and development of organisms).82 Entelechy, Driesch argued, is a living organism’s focus on becoming a whole (Ganzheit), that is, a spontaneous, self-contained actor. But other than Aristotle, Driesch interestingly claimed that this whole regards object wholeness (Sachganzheit), not conceptual wholeness (Begriffsganzheit); an organism will only be complete insofar as it can act as a unity, not insofar as I have a full mental concept of this unity. That would be over-asking experience, especially in light of the ongoing evolutionary development. Organisms do not correspond to eternal definable essences; they develop over generations. Individual organisms achieve a temporal unity which is stable and which can be experienced. This temporal unity represents a continual inner drive of the organism and its efforts, not its eternal essence. The whole-relatedness of the organism, its Ganzheitsbezogenheit, will always be perspicuous through its actions. (Driesch, 1921, p. 540f) Organisms are no ready-mades, nor will they ever be ready or finished. Therefore, one should not confuse finite living organisms with finished human artefacts (as Aristotle seemed to do). ‘Entelechy’ is supposed to designate a teleology of life, not just of any entity irrespectively. In the next chapter, I will discuss this teleology of life in terms of a non-temporal drift of life, which may ultimately issue in an ongoing inner ecstatic-inspirational awareness. Aristotle had erroneously subsumed animate and inanimate alike under the common, intellectual denominator of ‘teleology,’ and so cut off access to life itself. But Kant, Driesch stated, had made another mistake. Not only had Kant unjustly excluded ‘wholeness’ from his table of categories. He had also misapprehended the category of teleology as a mere regulative category. Kant had claimed that goal-orientedness does not constitute an organism in real. To make sense of our experience of the organism, he had 82

It was Leibniz who transmitted the concept of ‘entelechy’ to Modernity: “On pourrait donner le nom d’éntéléchies à toutes les substances simples, ou monades créées, car elles ont en elles une certaine perfection (਩ȤȠȣıȚ IJઁ ਥȞIJİȜȑȢ), il y a une suffisance (Į੝IJȐȡțİȚĮ) qui les rend sources de leurs actions internes et pour ainsi dire des automates incorporels.” La monadologie. In Leibniz, 1940, p. 302.

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argued, we must approach an organism as if it were goal-oriented. But, Driesch objected, this would be a reductive approach of life. It does not correspond to a real experience. For, he continued, we can immediately experience a living organism as a meaningful, living whole; there is no need only to anticipate this wholeness or to hypothesise about it, as would be the implication in Kant. (Driesch, 1921, p. 542) In sum, both Aristotle and Kant cannot account for life as they reduce experience to intellectual understanding and conceptualising. The reintroduction of a purified conception of ‘entelechy’ must compensate for this intellectualisation. The discovery of DNA, which Driesch did not live to see as he died in 1941, may have rendered his notion of organic ‘entelechy’ less convincing to the scientific community of biologists – even more so since entelechy is supposed to control morphogenesis while being itself ‘outside’ space and time. Subsequent DNA research seems to confirm the views of those who maintain that life is ultimately a chemical process, which can in principle be reproduced. ‘Vitalistic’ scholars such as Rupert Sheldrake or Hans Jonas, intent on preserving the specificity of life, have mitigated the transcendent nature of life’s principle (such as Driesch’ ‘entelechy’) to make their views acceptable to academic biology. We should not ignore, though, that, once the latter’s premises are justifiably put into question and deprived of cogency, there is no need to avoid metaphysical notions such as ‘entelechy’. I am thinking here in particular of the standard conceptions of space, matter, and time as supposedly measurable, external categories. We have already seen that subliminal consciousness – should it be meaningful indeed – points out the contingent, derivative nature of such categories. Drawing on Einstein’s theory of relativity, which conflates spatio-temporality and matter, Hermann Friedmann, for example, tried to show that mechanicalbiological theories of inheritance are severely affected by this conflation. These theories, Friedmann argued, erroneously identify the taxonomy of species with the succession of the temporal order.83 However, an optic approach – of which Driesch’ concept of entelechy would be an example – tends to associate vision of the image with an immanent idea.84 To do justice to the taxonomy of species, Friedmann eloquently suggests, the biologist 83 “bis zum fundamentalen Fehler der mechanistischen Deszendenztheorie, die Systemordnung mit dem haptisch begriffenen Zeitkontinuum schlechthin zu identifizieren.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 174. Also cf. “die Maßbestimmung auf der Ereignisebene ist nicht identisch mit der Maßbestimmung auf der Bildebene”. Ibid., p. 186. 84 “dass Ähnlichkeit, ihrer tiefsten Bedeutung nach, die Beziehung des Bildes auf eine ihm immanente Idee ist.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 302.

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should, like the artist, paint the surmised fruit into the blossom (“in die Blüte die Ahnung der Frucht hineinmalen”). (Friedmann, 1930, p. 287) Only thus would the intellectualist essentialism of Aristotle and Kant be precluded. In the third chapter, when discussing physiognomy as an example of synchronicity, we will see that what Driesch calls ‘entelechy’ involves the notions of ‘maturity’ and ‘maturing’; accordingly, entelechy is better accessed through an ‘optic’ than a ‘haptic’ approach.85 One of the most fertile descriptions Driesch offers of the entelechy principle is that it is multifarious in thought, but simple as a natural agent. In other words, entelechy (or, to use terms that better serve our context, soul-as-anouter-phenomenon) is an intensive plurality (intensive Mannigfaltigkeit), that is, a plurality ordered in a non-spatial or a non-temporal way. (Driesch, 1921, p. 452)86 As such, it is opposed to machines, which are rather an example of extensive plurality, even though the size of for example microprocessors or logic chips is in an inverted proportion to the multiplicity of functions they incorporate. The multifariousness of entelechy (or soul) entails an original synthesis which, when analysed, immediately loses its original synthetic nature. The implicit equation of explanation and analysis, characteristic of contemporary science, is likely to destroy access to this original synthesis from the outset.87 Yet, its synthetic nature is most essential to entelechy. The multifariousness of soul acts as one. The vital agency is a condensation of plurality into simplicity.88

85 Cf Max Picard: “Im Raum allein, im Raum ohne die Zeit, vermag sich das Wesen des Menschen nicht deutlich zu machen. Der Mensch braucht die Zeit. Der Mensch ist in den Raum gestellt, ja – aber der Sinn dieser Stellung wird erst durch die Zeit erkannt. Der Mensch entfaltet sich im Raum durch die Zeit, und dies, dass einer sich entfaltet im Raume durch die Zeit, dies ist die Bahn des Menschen.” Picard, 1947, p. 158f. 86 An “unraumhafte Ganzheit presst sich bei ihm in den Stoff ein,” Driesch states elsewhere. See Driesch, 1917, p. 322. 87 In terms of Friedmann: “in den entscheidenden Sieg der Haptik, die innerhalb des Weltbegriffes dem optischen Ähnlichkeitsproblem überhaupt den Akzent geraubt und ihn auf die physiologische, mechanistisch verstandene Vererbung verlegt hat.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 284. 88 I think Friedmann’s critique of the vitalistic concept of entelechy – as if it were a haptic agent, similar to the Demiurge – is unjust, even if the concept is vulnerable to such a critique. Cf Friedmann, 1930, p. 53. On the other hand, “[ü]ber Teleologie unterrichten heute am tiefsten und vielseitigsten die logischen Untersuchungen Drieschs in seinen zahlreichen Werken.” Ibid., p. 303 n. 1.

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At this point, one might raise an objection. At the beginning of this section, I have suggested that both psychopathology and entelechy bear witness to the soul’s outward appearance, albeit inversely. Whereas the latter, I argued, gives a positive testimony, the former rather testifies through the negative – as if it were a protest of the soul. Provided that the ‘multifariousness’ of entelechy corresponds to an ultimate simplicity, as Driesch claims, does not then – so one could ask – the dissociated behaviour of neurotic or psychotic patients refute, if not the ultimate simplicity of their ‘multifariousness,’ at least their endowment with soul? What is more, insofar as dissociation extends beyond psychopathology and is even characteristic of ‘normal’ people, does that not refute ensouled synthesis or ultimate simplicity at large? My reply would be that it only does if dissociation were irretrievable and beyond repair. It is more convincing, though, to see dissociation against the backdrop of a unitary, ‘entelechial’ defence ‘mechanism,’ either a mechanism that protects the agent against the further intrusion of traumatic memories, or a mechanism that is bent on the reintegration of such memories. Is not the whole point and purpose of psychological and psychiatric practice – let alone of ‘normal’ social life – to approach the other as someone who may be increasingly losing a uniform outbound agency, but who nevertheless ought to be addressed as uniform or simple (cf Kant); or even more, whom we cannot fail to address as such despite ambiguous or involuntary signs on both sides? Addressing the other, however dissociated their behaviour may be, and however obscure our address itself may be, still presupposes a singularity, both in the addressor and in the addressee. Despite the undeniable equi- or plurivocity of any address, the address itself anticipates a unity on either side. As if ‘soul’ were another name for a disguised unity, the outward appearance of which represents a struggle to both domesticate and intensify plurality. At this point, I am inclined to seeing therapy as a form of meditation on behalf of the patient. While Patañjali defines meditation (dhyana) as “the one-pointedness of the mind on one image (eka-tƗnatƗ),” the therapist does the same in the patient’s stead, hoping that the patient will one day be capable of re-engaging that “one-pointedness” in daily life. Saul Leiter, who used to emphasise his ongoing state of disintegration (see above), was once called on the telephone by his friend Adam Harrison Levy. “‘Hello,’ he answers softly.” “Hi Saul. How are you?,” Levy asks him. “I’m in a state of decline,” the artist sighs. At which point his friend replies: “Can I come over and see you?” “Ok.” (Taubhorn & Woischnik, 2019, p. 28) In light of simultaneous domestication and intensification of plurality, one can understand that Driesch defines entelechy as an attempt to overcome

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inorganic nature in virtue of a differentiating process within the organic. In Driesch’s own words, “Entelechy, though not capable of enlarging the amount of the diversity of composition of a given system, is capable of augmenting its diversity of distribution in a regulatory manner, and it does so by transforming a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed.” (Driesch, 1908, p.192; Driesch’ italics)89 The German text specifies that entelechy is capable of enlarging the diversity of distribution “nach Bauart und Stufen” (‘of construction type and level’). In other words, entelechy warrants a possible and yet physically improbable diversification of reality. Entelechy acts upon what biologists call a ‘harmonic-equipotential’ system, by differentiating it and by distributing its elementary constituents into always new ‘unstable equilibriums’ (i.e., living beings). It transforms a ‘homogeneous’ distribution of given elements and possible reactions into a ‘heterogeneous’ distribution of effects. It does so by ‘interacting’ with the estimators of physical likelihood (e.g., gravitation, entropy, etc.). However, throughout this process, diversification is controlled by entelechy, so that the enacted plurality will never be absolute. Whereas crystallisation processes can go on infinitely, vital processes have inner limits, albeit in degrees (ranging from expansive rhizomification in vegetal life to individualising mammalian reproduction).90 It is my claim that the pathological stratification of human behaviour (neurotic, psychotic, or other) may be seen as entelechy (or soul) at work, even if – as in many patients – it sadly seems to come off worst. Addressing struggling patients as uniform persons in therapeutic practice – ‘concentrating’ or ‘meditating’ in their stead – is the primary, yet not the sole condition for a unification. Such a unification must finally be entrusted to entelechy itself; it cannot be imposed from the outside. Maybe this unification cannot even be assigned to the inner effort, for, similar to Patañjali’s “fixing of the mind on one image (eka-tƗnatƗ)” in meditation, the desired result is not humanmade but rather like a gift. In chapter 4, I will come back to this point and 89

The (later) German text slightly differs: “Entelechie ist zwar nicht imstande, den Grad der Mannigfaltigkeit nach Zahl in einem gegebenen System zu erhöhen, wohl aber kann sie, regulatorisch, den Grad seiner Mannigfaltigkeit nach Bauart und Stufen vermehren; und zwar tut sie letzteres, indem sie ein System gleich verteilter Möglichkeiten in ein System höchst ungleich verteilter Wirklichkeiten verwandelt, ein Geschehnis, für das eben ein anderer zureichender Grund als ihr Wirken nicht auffindbar ist.” Driesch, 1921, p. 447 (no italics in German text). 90 Also see Adolf Portmann (1967). Ursprung und Entwicklung als Problem der Biologie. In Eranos Jahrbuch 1966. Schöpfung und Gestaltung. Bd. XXXV. Zürich: Rhein Verlag, pp. 411-437.

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discuss ‘memory’ as the enigmatic faculty whose main job seems to be the unification of the human agent. I will also explain the discontinuity of memory due to the stratification of consciousness.

II. Production of Kin For a second external manifestation of the soul, we can yet again consult Driesch’ concept of ‘entelechy’. It is of crucial importance to entelechy, Driesch argues, that it is involved in building an “essential form”. This building process, Formbildung, combines being and becoming. The proliferation of life by procreation, I would add, should be seen as an integral part of this process. It is a proper mode of the soul. Whereas from a ‘haptic’ viewpoint, procreation ceaselessly multiplies living beings, an ‘optic’ approach rather highlights an incessant, self-affirming inner intensity. Once this optic approach mitigates linear temporality, it may become clear that procreation does not subdivide, let alone fragment, the soul. It had better be interpreted as its extraversion. Let us take a closer look. Imagination It seems as if each living being, rather than just with itself, coincides with a continuous attempt, iterated over generations. Once more, it is of utmost importance to avoid reintegrating such an attempt in the realm of objective facts. If to reveal this attempt Schopenhauer resorts to our “imagination” concerning “man of genius,” this is undoubtedly not to minimise but to maximise the ontological weight of that revelation: “the man of genius requires imagination [Phantasie] in order to see in things, not that which Nature has actually made [wirklich gebildet hat], but that which she endeavoured to make [was sie zu bilden sich bemühte].”91 Resorting to imagination has the double advantage of not only appealing to a more subtle type of perception but also of avoiding (‘haptic’) fixation of the perceived. It would indeed be dangerous, harmful and (so I would add) morally wrong to identify particular samples of living beings with their innate beauty, health or strength while reducing those who are apparently ‘deprived’ of such qualities to nature’s collateral damage. Emphasising the tentative character of entelechy dynamises perception by enriching it with a promise. 91 Schopenhauer, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung I, §36 (trans. R. B. Haldane & J. Kemp). Cf. Carl du Prel, “Das Genie bringt also Leben in die von der Naturwissenschaft aufgehäuften Tatsachen, die verborgenen Beziehungen werden aufgedeckt und das ungeordnete Aggregat ordnet sich systematisch” and “Das Genie ist der eigentliche Pfadfinder der Wirklichkeit.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 61.

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‘Imagination’ or ‘fantasy’ are indeed categories of perception which would not have been ill-chosen in any account of ‘entelechy’ as a life-marker. I think that a Schopenhauerian update of such an account (that is, one that introduces imagination) would have a twofold benefit. It would dodge Aristotelian determinism or essentialism on the one hand (entelechy-as-ablueprint), and the pure indeterminism of Deleuze’s and Guattari’s bodywithout-organs, on the other. Creation Disseminating itself, entelechy – or soul – ‘produces’ kin. This is what biology calls ‘procreation’92, or, with a less fortunate term, ‘reproduction’. Unfortunately, biology – as, generally speaking, all sciences – is blindly following the impoverished causality principle that has become prevalent with Modernity; causality has been reduced to mere efficient causality. In the third chapter, I will come back to this highly complex issue. It should suffice here to remind ourselves that efficient causality, logically cogent though it seems, unjustly hypostasises ‘agent’ and ‘effect’ as separate entities. Thomas Aquinas felt compelled to terminate the infinite series of ‘causes’ of motion by introducing a final cause (God); God was the putative primary cause, who not only conditioned motion and agency but even causality as such. Without God seen as a primary cause, ‘subsequent’ causality would lose its ultimate force. It was David Hume who first denounced this flawed view and deprived causality of its necessitarian character (defining causality as mere “constant conjunction”). Entelechial production of kin would be better understood if the prevalent causality principle (which tends to confuse causal relations with necessary relations) is put into question. Entelechial production or reproduction, instead of being taken as a nexus of cause and effect, had better be seen as ‘creation’. Offspring is created rather than produced. Why? Precisely because in offspring, parents do not cause but rather condition procreation. In humans, voluntary agency – should such a thing exist at all – at most affects the condition, but never the cause of procreation. Procreation, conceived as entelechial ‘production’ of kin, poses a significant challenge to the causality principle at large. It puts into question intellectualist prejudices regarding ‘free will,’ ‘determinability of agency,’ ‘identifiability of any act’s initiator and consequence,’ etc.93 It might even be suggested 92

In Portuguese, criança (child) is cognate with criação (creation). Cf Wilhelm Reich: “Die Eiteilung, wie die Zellteilung überhaupt, ist ein orgastischer Vorgang. Sie wird von der Spannungs-Ladungs-Funktion beherrscht.” 93

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that it puts into question ‘time,’ usually interpreted as the empty space between ‘cause’ and ‘effect’. Could it be that ‘time’ only exists for those who have not yet ‘imagined’ (cf Schopenhauer) the simultaneity between, if not the inner unity of, entelechy and its pro-creativity, and that ‘time’ equals ‘generation’?94 For this re-conception of time, it would be necessary to interpret it as originally ‘anachronistic,’ however difficult it may be to understand this. I will come back to this original anachronicity repeatedly throughout this book. For an illuminating analogy, I would like to refer at this point to Carl du Prel and his conception of the performances of the genius. Du Prel points out that, “Just as I only become conscious of the activity of my inner organs when they are diseased, it is in the nature of ingenious performances that they do not become conscious in their process character but only in their result; therefore, it is in a sense a disease if ingenious intuition is replaced by conscious reflection”. (Carl du Prel, 1888, p. 85; my trans.) In other words, and applied to entelechial procreation: a causal analysis of its core distorts the picture it creates. If Du Prel is right, an artist and the creator of the universe – and, I would add, parents – have a lot in common.

III. Self-relatedness in organic life Whereas the creation of form is on the one hand connected to the production of kin, it is on the other hand, and perhaps even primarily, an expression of self-relatedness. How would it not, since kin production as procreation of selfhood somehow ‘insists’ on the value of the latter; lethal viruses, however, despite being self-replicating, insist on nothing but their destructiveness, in other words, on nothing at all. Varieties of consciousness I take the abysmal phenomenon of self-relatedness as an outer manifestation of the soul. To identify self-relatedness as an external phenomenon, the existence of different ‘forms’ of selves is a precondition; for only then can a self be distinguished as a self. These selves must be sufficiently distinct to be mutually clarifying, but also sufficiently equal to give meaning to the “Die Dehnung wird mit Kontraktion beantwortet.” Wilhelm Reich (2014, 1942). Die Funktion des Orgasmus. Sexualökonomische Grundprobleme der biologischen Energie. Die Entdeckung des Orgons. Köln: Kiepenheuer & Witsch, p. 213. 94 Jewish Biblical exegesis repeatedly insists on the fact that man was not created after but in the image of God (ʭʩʤʬʠ ʭʬʶʡ).

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concept of ‘self’. I am thinking here of the different selves which exist in the variety of natural organisms: not only of human beings, but also of animals and plants, and even of hybrid forms of life. Without pretending that plants and animals can claim a self which is similar to a human beings’, I contend that we can attribute selfhood to them by way of analogy. Elucidating this contention has the double advantage of not only revealing self-relatedness – and therefore, consciousness – in any form of organic life, but also of further corroborating the occurrence of selfhood in human life forms. Without this analogy, the notion of ‘human selfhood’ might well become a meaningless tautology. Without due explanation, the notion of ‘self-relatedness’ runs the risk of being merely pleonastic. For, being-a-self amounts to relating-to-this-self. Or, as Heidegger put it in Sein und Zeit, “in its very being [human’s] own being is an issue for it”. Since the ‘self’ to which a living being relates is not an object, but again relationality, the structure of selfhood is profoundly abysmal.95 And yet, taken in splendid isolation, without other, non-human selfhoods, human selfhood would not only be incomprehensible but perhaps even impossible. How can selfhood in organic life be detected at large? At this point, the 19thcentury philosopher-psychologist Gustav Fechner introduces the argument from analogy. (Fechner, 1907) Refusing to see animal and human life forms as a continual extension of vegetal life – as if the evolution from plant to animal to human being were a sole matter of developing new organs –, Fechner argues that evolution consists of enhanced nexus formation and network complexification. Still, basic organic life forms (such as plants and animals) have their own independent and self-reliant forms of consciousness. They are not defective, but they just represent distinct varieties of consciousness. These varieties of consciousness can analogically be deduced from the way organisms relate to their properties. Focusing on a single life form (e.g., vegetal) would not suffice to detect this relation, a comparison between different life forms is indispensable. Interestingly, the analogical argument based upon a comparison of relation to properties enables Fechner to conclude that the availability of a nervous system is no prerequisite for consciousness (as vegetal life could show); it entails a different variety of consciousness. How to establish an analogy between life forms in property-relation? Let us 95 “Nach dem Plane der Schöpfung ist meine eigene Erscheinung mir selbst transzendent.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 469.

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take a brief look at Fechner’s argument. This argument consists of a series of sub-arguments, of which I will only mention a few here, pars pro toto. The first sub-argument rests on analogy in the strictest sense. Formalised, it goes as follows: “if A (animal or human) visibly possesses property a, then we can infer that B (plant) invisibly possesses property b, provided that B in essential respects resembles A.” (Fechner, 1907, p. 64; author’s trans.)

What are these essential respects shared by humans, animals and plants? Fechner notes that they entail for example (1) a uniform, individual life- and organisation plan, (2) a moment of awakening after an embryonal stage, and (3) a state of being-awake or consciousness. (Ibid., p. 63). In other words, given the basic overall similarities between animals and humans on the one hand, and plants, on the other hand, it is likely that they all have the supporting properties for those similarities. The next sub-argument Fechner presents, the argument of complementation, is more complicated. It departs from the observation that plant life inversely reflects animal and human life: whereas the latter is mainly spontaneous, the former is primarily receptive; whereas the latter mostly develops to the inside (intestines), the former develops more to the outside (petals, stamens, pollen); and whereas the latter covers a broader range of action combined with a more limited way of pervading that range, the former covers a more limited range of action combined with a more extended mode of saturating it. The argument runs as follows: “if A (animal or human) is in an inverted complementarity to B (plant), and if A both reflects and possesses the a, whose opposite b is reflected by B, then it can be assumed that B also possesses b.” (ibid., p. 79)

This argument is fascinating, as it makes any sharp distinction relative between humans and animals on the one hand and plants on the other. It implies that the opposition does not regard an increasing vitality, but only a difference in orientation. In line with this, it entails no absence of soul or consciousness in plants, but a difference in expression (Ausprägung). The distinction between humans, animals and plants is not absolute but relative. Fechner comes to a total of six sub-arguments which, true, do not strictly prove the existence of the soul in vegetal life but make it probable. Yet, this

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non-cogent argument is as attractive as it is subtle.96 It does not rest upon similarity (‘just as humans have arms or as birds have wings, plants have leaves’) but on the analogy of relation to properties (‘just as humans and animals relate to their property a, plants similarly relate to their property b’). In other words, Fechner tries to make a case for self-relatedness as a life- or soul-determining characteristic. Drawing on Fechner, my claim is that the presence of self-relatedness in whichever form of organic life testifies to the soul. This presence of the soul, then, is outwardly attested when individual life forms are contextualised, or when they are situated against the backdrop of nature as a whole, as a concatenation of self-relations. This contextualisation is essential for my overall argument concerning the outward appearance of the soul. The mediacy implied by analogical reasoning does not diminish the phenomenal nature of self-relatedness, insofar as analogies are already perceived before they are rationally accounted for. Fechner is intelligently stating the obvious. The abysmal nature of selfhood, which I think is based on the stratified nature of consciousness, will enable me to introduce the metaphors of ‘compression’ and ‘decompression’ of selfhood in the next chapter. I will argue that the former takes place in the orgasmic experience, and the latter in the experience of inspiration. I will even claim that these experiences have an ongoing subliminal extension. In the words of the British Idealist T.H. Green: “there is a consciousness for which the relations of fact, that form the object of our gradually attained knowledge, already and eternally exist; and that the growing knowledge of the individual is a progress towards this consciousness.” (Green, 2003, p. 80) In the fourth chapter, I will suggest that death paradoxically combines the opposite movements of compression and decompression.

96 Modifying the more simplistic Lockean argument for God’s existence, Fechner’s argument is a “Schluss[…] von dem, was in der Erfahrung liegt, auf das, was über der Erfahrung liegt,” p. 110. It aims at following the tendency of what is given in experience. Note that this argument cannot be refuted by Kantian logic, not only because it does not claim to cogency, but, more interestingly, because it altogether rejects both Kant’s and Hegel’s identification of the mind with rationality. The mind, in Fechner, is basically soul.

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IV. Repetitive Constellations “if, among future generations, the works of men are to shine, there must first of all be men. If certain kinds of animals hold out longer against the invading chill, when there are no longer any men, and if we suppose Bergotte’s fame to have lasted so long, suddenly it will be extinguished for all time. It will not be the last animals that will read him”. —Marcel Proust97 “And the man said: ‘This is now [ʭʔˆ˝य़ʔ ʔʤ ʺʠʖ ʦ४ /zot happa’am: ‘this once more,’ ‘this again’] bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.’ —Genesis 2, 23

Re-reading the Biblical narrative about the first woman, Eve, one could ask if she was the result of a creative or a pro-creative act? Or perhaps both? The woman may be akin to Adam (“bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh”), though certainly not due to some pro-creative act of his. But she is just as much divine handicraft: “And the LORD God,” the preceding verse reads, “caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the place with flesh instead thereof. And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from the man, made He (ʯ ʓʡ ʑ˕ʔʥ, wayyiven: ‘he built’) a woman, and brought her unto the man.” (Gen. 2, 21-22; trans. JPS Tanakh 1917) The passage blurs clear-cut boundaries between praxis (procreation) and poiesis (creative production), thereby suggesting that production of kin, on the one hand, and art production, on the other, despite being different have a celestial overlap. This celestial overlap is strikingly highlighted insofar as my fourth characteristic of the soul’s outer manifestation concerns repetitive constellations exemplified by art, craft, technological inventions, and a fortiori the symbolic creations of morality, religion and philosophy. I am referring here to the obscure words pronounced by Adam after first seeing Eve: “ʭʔˆ˝य़ʔ ʔʤ ʺʠʖ ʦ४ /zot happa’am: ‘this once more,’ ‘this again’. As if Eve’s creation were already a repetition, spinning Adam in the synchronistic web in which art, artefacts and symbols always root. The production of repetitive constellations indeed dramatically resembles the kin production discussed above. Meaningful multiplication takes place on either side. Viable and fecund, ‘ensouled’ progeny is occasioned both by parents (offspring) and artists (symbolic artefacts). Nonetheless, there is a 97 Marcel Proust (1923). La prisonnière. In Proust, 1999, p. 1741; trans. The Captive, by C. K. Scott Moncrieff.

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story about Leibniz which, if true, would testify to the contrary. Reportedly, toward the end of his life the philosopher plunked down on the ground in front of his bookcase, burst out in tears exclaiming that, having written so many books, he would rather have had a child. Leibniz may have found some consolation by studying, in the same period, the old theological doctrine of the apokatastasis pantoon (‘the resurrection of all people,’ or, as Leibniz himself translated the Greek: ‘the restitution of all things,’ sic). The Latin words inclinata resurget (‘the line that declines will rise again’) written on his coffin could even indicate that ultimately despair did not overpower him.98 For, if the belief in a future resurrection of the dead holds true, human artefacts might share in this promise. Just as humans, they can equally show fecundity and disseminate. However, the weeping Leibniz could warn us that there is a nonnegligible difference between offspring and artefacts, between procreation and artisticsymbolic creativity. As already the Proust quotation on top of this section illustrates, other than the procreation of life, artefact creation remains dependent on animated ‘receptacles’ for their multiplication. These ‘receptacles’ may be living artists, whose inner imagination is stirred by artworks of their predecessors. Still, they could also be moral agents, who act on the sublime examples of moral trendsetters. I think it is utterly confusing when Plato subordinates childbirth to virtuous agency: “Remember,” he makes Socrates quote Diotima, “how in that communion only, beholding beauty with the eye of the mind (੒ȡ૵ȞIJȚ મ ੒ȡĮIJઁȞ IJઁ țĮȜȩȞ: ‘as he sees the beautiful through that which makes it visible’), he will be enabled to bring forth, not images of beauty, but realities – for he has hold not of an image but of a reality (Ƞ੝ț İ੅įȦȜĮ ਕȡİIJોȢ… ਕȜȜ੹ ਕȜȘșો) –, and bringing forth and nourishing true virtue to become the friend of God and be immortal, if mortal man may.” (Symp. 212a) However valuable cultural artefacts may be, they lack the potency – in Driesch’ terms – to spontaneously “augment” the “diversity of distribution of a given system” and cannot by themselves “transform a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”. Culture, however divine or immortal the paradigm it follows, can only multiply itself when aided by human agents. Even if we assume that Homer’s Iliad or Thomas à Kempis’ imitatio Christi are “not images of beauty, but realities (ਕȜȘșો),” the fecundity of both is conditioned by living human beings whose soul is capable of reflecting, and responding to, these ‘realities’. Being indeed reminiscent to embryonic nidation, beauty and truth need psychic 98

Maria Rosa Antognazza (2009). Leibniz. An Intellectual Biography. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 541-543.

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processing and digestion, lest the ‘realities’ they represent and give rise to become extinct.99 If a certain repetitiveness of human creations is indicative of the soul, a repetitiveness which structurally differs from the family resemblance brought about by procreation, what exactly is repeated? If it is plausible at all here to speak of a replicated ‘entity’ – which is highly doubtful –, this ‘entity’ will be both trans-empirical (beyond the senses) and transdialectical (beyond rule-governed, retrievable thought patterns). This can be explained as follows. On the one hand, the various expressions of art and culture, even though soul-based, do not empirically resemble each other; what is more, they do not even resemble themselves (there exists an infinite number of for example paintings). On the other hand, the repetitive process cannot be intellectually isolated and dialectically mastered. As Rosenzweig puts it in his Stern der Erlösung: “All the ideas, the inspirations, the creations of a Beethoven, a Goethe, a Rembrandt constitute, after all, a kind of ‘family’ among themselves, a family likeness connects them regardless of the fact that they are not outwardly united into the unity of a single opus.” (Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 166; trans. Hallo, p. 149f)100 But again, what is the nature of the repeated if it cannot reasonably be identified with something empirical or intellectual? How to assess a semblance which can neither be experienced as a uniform entity through the regular senses, nor conceived as such by thinking? How to imagine a suprasensuous unity, which likewise challenges rational thought? A promising step towards what I am trying to articulate was set by intuitionism, a theory in metaethics. To define the ‘morally good,’ thinkers such as G.E. Moore or Henry Sidgwick101 distinguished ‘non-natural properties’ in human actions or virtues; these non-natural properties, they 99 Even Benjamin’s remarkable insistence on the inner maturation process of artworks (“Denn kein Gedicht gilt dem Leser, kein Bild dem Beschauer, keine Symphonie der Hörerschaft.”) cannot ignore this verity. Walter Benjamin, Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers. In Walter Benjamin (1991). Gesammelte Schriften IV.1. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 9. 100 Also see Cassirer: “gegenüber der Vielheit der Äußerungen des Geistes die Einheit seines Wesens zu erweisen,” and “die Mannigfaltigkeit seiner Produkte der Einheit seines Produzierens keinen Eintrag tut”. Ernst Cassirer (1956/1923). Philosophie der symbolischen Formen I. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, p. 51f. 101 G.E. Moore (1988/1902). Principia Ethica. New York: Prometheus Books; Henry Sidgwick (1962/1874). The Methods of Ethics. London: MacMillan.

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argued, can neither be empirically described nor dialectically mastered but only intuitively grasped. Although such properties, along with the alleged ‘faculty’ capable of detecting them, were soon ostracised by rationalist moral philosophers for being too vague to be of any use in moral practice102, I am nonetheless fascinated by the intuitionist approach. At the heart of rationalist analytical philosophy, intuitionism represents a rare example of an attempt to differentiate between states of consciousness. Yet, since I have started to put into question an all too rigid barrier between ‘natural’ and ‘non-natural,’ I propose to interpret the ‘unity’-repeated-byhuman-culture, or -by-cultural-artefacts, in wholly different terms. What is repeated is neither an entity nor a unity, let alone a uniform object. The repetition rather regards ‘clusters’ or even ‘synchronicities’; so much so, that clusters and synchronicities are not only repeated but also themselves repeating. Repetition and the repeated merge, and synchronicity always extends without having an identifiable origin. “Single-mindedness [Eindeutigkeit],” Musil writes, “ist he law of all waking thought [das Gesetz des wachen Denkens und Handelns] […]” However, he immediately adds, “[m]etaphor [Das Gleichnis] is like the image that fuses several meanings in a dream [die Verbindung der Vorstellungen, die im Traum herrscht]; it is the gliding logic of the soul [die gleitende Logik der Seele], corresponding to the way things relate to each other in the intuitions of art and religion”. (Musil, 1997, p. 593; trans. Wilkins; Ch. 116) The oneiric logic of the soul, blurring any clear-cut distinctions between repetition and repeated, governs artefactual and symbolic creativity. This concretely means that there is neither an identifiable progenitor nor a primordial artwork. Even the socalled ‘founders’ of world religions and global worldviews found themselves amidst age-old traditions which they perpetuated by enhancing them.103 In this respect, it is interesting to note that Adam had fallen asleep when Eve was created out of his rib: “And the LORD God caused a deep sleep [ʤʮॣ ʕ ʒːʸʍ ʔˢ, tardƝma] to fall [॰ ʬ˝ʒ ˕ʔ ʥʔ , wayyappƝl] upon the man, and he slept [ʯˇʩ ख़ ʕ ʑ˕ʔʥ, wayyishƗn]”. It was perhaps the “the image that fuses several meanings in a dream,” “the gliding logic of the soul” which, upon his awakening, made him exclaim: ʭʔˆ˝य़ʔ ʔʤ ʺʠʖ ʦ४ /zot happa’am: ‘this once more,’ ‘this again’! Adam was re-visited by what he had previously been dreaming of.

102

Cf. A. MacIntyre (1998/1966). A Short History of Ethics. London: Routledge, Ch. 18. 103 Cf Karl Jaspers (1964). Die maßgebenden Menschen: Sokrates, Buddha, Konfuzius, Jesus. München: Piper & Co Verlag.

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Being both repeated and repeating, the clusterings or synchronicities are revealed at the level of (1) artefact producers (geniuses) and (2) the ‘ensouled’ artefacts themselves. I would go as far as surmising that the repeated-repeating cluster of the soul’s outer manifestation is analogous to the inner ligament which Patañjali seems to have in mind when discussing ‘concentration’ (“the fixing of the mind in one place [deĞa]),” or even meditation (“the one-pointedness of the mind [pratyaya] on one image [ekatƗnatƗ]”). My suggestion would be that the inner link inherent to human culture is not so much to be logically deduced or empirically perceived, as it is to be ‘apperceived’: in a way which is comparable to yogic meditation. Whether one is listening to Brahms symphonies, admiring novels written by Thomas Wolfe, Marcel Proust, or Robert Musil, or relishing poetry by Richard Berengarten. Looking back on his youth, D.H. Lawrence once wrote: “That’s why I could never ‘draw’ at school. One was supposed to draw what one stared at. The only thing one can look into, stare into, and see only vision, is the vision itself: the visionary image.”104 This vision or visionary image, I argue, is a synchronistic cluster which links ‘subject’ and ‘object’. For reasons of clarity, I will provisionally keep to this distinction between a ‘subject’ and an ‘object’ side of repetitive constellations, even though it will ultimately be misleading. The subject side may be identified with the initiators of artefacts, that is, artistic (and a fortiori religious or intellectual) geniuses. Their output (art, inventions, ideas, etc.) can be seen as the object side of repetitive constellations. I will first discuss the artefact initiators, who noticeably often appear in clusters. Next, I will dwell on their ‘products,’ making use of two categories to describe them: ‘dialogue’ and ‘forgiveness’. Clusterings of geniuses Concerning artefact producers or geniuses as being an outer, repeated and repeating manifestation of soul (1), an observation made by the 20th-century American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber is particularly helpful. Kroeber focuses on culture-producing geniuses, emphasising that such geniuses “appear in history, on the whole, prevailingly in clusters”.105 Kroeber 104

D.H. Lawrence, Making Pictures. In B. Ghiselin (1985, 1952). The Creative Process. Reflections on Invention in the Arts and Sciences. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, p. 65. 105 A.J. Kroeber (1963/1944). Configurations of Culture Growth. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press, p. 10; my italics.

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interestingly observes that culture is “the part of environment giving rise to uneven distribution or clusterings of the appearance of genius.” Kroeber continues saying that “[t]he type of phenomenon included under the term ‘culture’ in this connection is illustrated by the frequency of simultaneous but independent discoveries and inventions. This simultaneity may now well be considered as well established.” (Kroeber, 1963, p. 12; author’s italics) It reminds us of Driesch’ definition of entelechy: a power which “transforms a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed” – as if a cluster of geniuses represented an immediate entelechial influx comparable to organic growth and development. It is my claim that – similar to vital ‘entelechy’ (Driesch) – the clusterings of geniuses, in time or space, are a distinguishing ‘outer’ characteristic of the activity of the soul. A grouping of geniuses does not necessarily imply, as one might precipitately believe, ‘moral goodness’ (provided that such a de-temporalised concept is plausible at all). Greek and Roman civilisation entailed slavery, Inca culture human sacrifices, early Confucianism was coeval to the terror of warring states, and Hebrew prophecy to the moral injustice of Israelite kings and priests. Instead of intrinsically connecting the (‘entelechial’) clustering of geniuses to morality – as it has been done all too often – I would propose to connect it extrinsically; any cultural renewal in history does not offer indubitable moral answers by itself but invites people to re-engage with morality or goodness. Cultural artefacts Turning to the outer manifestation of the soul in ensouled, cultural artefacts themselves (2), I believe that the question as to their inner ligament should be addressed similarly. Rather than trying to define this ligament conceptually or describe it empirically, it had better be approached in terms of fertile, repetitive multiplicity; in such a way, that is, that “a system of equally distributed potentialities [is transformed] into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”. How to imagine such a ‘system’ or ‘cluster’? I suggest to approach it in terms of (I) ‘dialogue’ and (II) ‘forgiveness’. Using these terms, I intend to do justice to two apparently incompatible characteristics simultaneously: otherness and repetition. Both characteristics may serve to further outline the repeating-repetitive, synchronising clusters, which I proposed as a fourth outer soul phenomenon.

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As I have already started doing above, I will from now on reserve the term ‘artefact’ mainly for cultural artefacts: paintings, sculptures, music, literature, etc., and a fortiori ideas or inventions. I do not deny that it could partly also apply to utensils. However, the increasing industrial mass production of utensils, I believe, is detrimental to their ensouled character.106 That does not exclude, however, that some utensils can assume soul character through exceptional ‘cathexis’ by their users: Schopenhauer’s cane (posthumously acquired by the 20th-century philosopher Theodor Lessing, a friend to Klages), Freud’s and Churchill’s cigars, Jung’s pipe collection, Heidegger’s forest cabin, etc. The discipline which studies this phenomenon – that is, the presence of soul in utensils – is called ‘psychometry’. “Things accrue sediment / of memories. Then / they, or we, die.”107 I will not discuss it any further here.108 I will not consider either what the 19th-century German philosopher Ernst Kapp had called ‘organ projection’: inventors of tools, utensils, or machines unconsciously or subliminally project human bodily structures onto the phenomenal world, in such a way as to create parallel devices whose inner structure morphologically corresponds to the human physiological paradigm: the telegraph reflects the nervous system, railway system and steam engine reflect the blood circulation and bridge construction reflects the human skeleton.109 What might be interesting for our context, though, is the fact that human morphology is unconsciously projected. This is telling as regards human body awareness. If Kapp’s thesis is right, then to some 106

Cf Friedmann: “Solange Türgriffe, Schlösser, Gehänge, Uhren, Instrumente, Möbel nicht dem Gedanken der reinen Nutzindustrie anheimgefallen sind, ist die Technik noch morphologisch.” As mere commodities, they “entspringen aus einer Gesinnung. […] vor allem Macht.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 492. 107 Richard Berengarten (2011). Elsewheres. In Under Balkan Light. Bristol: Shearsman Books, p. 62. 108 Cf. J.R. Buchanan (1893). Manual of Psychometry: The Dawn of a New Civilization. Boston: F.H. Hodges; Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich (1924). Die philosophische Bedeutung der mediumistischen Phänomene. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, pp. 9-11; id. (1921). Der Okkultismus im modernen Weltbild. Dresden: Sibyllen Verlag, pp. 7-71. For an illustration of object cathexis see for example Colline’s solo in Puccini’s La bohème, where Colline sells his greatcoat (zimarra): “Vecchia zimarra, senti, Io resto al pian, tu ascendere. Il sacro monte or devi. Le mie grazie ricevi. Mai non curvasti il logoro dorso ai ricchi ed ai potenti. Passar nelle tue tasche come in antri tranquilli filosofi e poeti. Ora che i giorni lieti fuggir, ti dico addio, fedele amico mio. Addio.” 109 Ernst Kapp (2015/1877). Grundlinien einer Philosophie der Technik. Hamburg: Meiner Verlag. Kapp is drawing on Hegel and even more on Feuerbach, who introduces the term ‘projection’.

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extent, this body awareness will be immediate, that is, not mediated by the senses. Merleau-Ponty will even go as far as making this immediate body awareness the centre of his philosophy. But let us return to cultural artefacts and how they might reflect the soul: through dialogue and forgiveness. Dialogue For any cultural artefact to be justifiably taken as ensouled, I would argue that it should be capable of dialogue. This could appear from its selfperpetuation in cultural traditions, whether oral or written (cf the Iliad, the Bible). Dialogue, in my view, necessarily belongs to ‘interpretation,’ as it implies an irreducible otherness of the interpreted, its right to ‘disagree’ with the given interpretation. It might be objected at this point that artefacts are mute, and defenceless against the hermeneutical violence perpetrated by malevolent or narrow-minded interpreters. However, this defencelessness may equally represent a strength; this strength – a force of resistance against interpretative violence – is dialogical. That such a dialogical vigour of ensouled artefacts does not necessarily lie in verbal articulation can easily be illustrated: spiritual-symbolic texts such as the Bible, the Qur’an, or the Bhagavad-Gita, and even philosophical texts such as Marx’ or Nietzsche’s, oddly seem to be more vulnerable to flagrant hermeneutic abuse than any form of pictorial or sculptural art. In other words: the dialogical resilience of ensouled artefacts does not necessarily coincide with performing speech acts, but rather with an enigmatic, nonverbal capability to answer or respond. “I try to remember that painting at its best is a form of communication,” the American painter Julian Levi (1900-1980) writes in 1940, “that is constantly reaching out to find response from an ideal and sympathetic audience”.110 And the English poet Stephen Spender (1909-1995) adds, “I suspect that every writer is secretly writing for someone, probably for a parent or teacher who did not believe in him in childhood.”111 True, Spender primarily refers here to the poet and not to the artwork; nevertheless, the artwork itself, for that matter, cannot be denied any communicative qualities; not even when, as the American author Henry Miller (1891-1980) contends, it is “inevitably […] obscure, except to the very few, to those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries. Communication then is secondary: it is perpetuation which is

110 111

Julian Levi, Before Paris and After. In Ghiselin, 1985, p. 57. Stephen Spender, The Making of a Poem. In Ghiselin, 1985, p. 126.

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important. For this only one good reader is necessary.”112 To those who would object here that, if it were true that language need not be vociferous, one could equally uphold that trees or even stones can speak, I would retort, without denying their claim, that stones and trees speak another language than human artefacts. I am inclined to associate the property of human language, whether directly spoken or through artefacts, with its entitlement to otherness. Being different from the language of trees and stones, which remarkably will always be more ‘familiar’ (humans are just as natural as trees and stones), the language of human artefacts – let alone of human beings – represents an inexhaustible, enhanced otherness. In Driesch’ terms, the dialogical character of artefacts may appear in reception history as “a system of equally distributed potentialities [transformed] into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”. Whereas the familiarity of nature is often concealed by apparent otherness, the otherness of human artefacts is often hidden by apparent familiarity. It is only the latter which introduces a notion of history, or more precisely, of future. The following terms, I think, are fundamentally interconnected: ‘culture,’ ‘otherness,’ ‘history,’ and ‘future’. What is repeated in human artefacts is ‘dialogue with otherness’ – a term which (similar to ‘selfrelatedness’) risks being pleonastic. They represent “the ethos of the human eye that is living-towards a light which becomes form in heaven.”113 Some readers may be reminded here of Walter Benjamin’s famous essay Das Kunstwerk im Zeitalter seiner technischen Reproduzierbarkeit (‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’). In this text, Benjamin suggests that an essential part of a work of art, its Echtheit (‘authenticity’) cannot be reproduced. This ‘authenticity’ is defined as “the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning [alles von Ursprung her an ihr Tradierbaren], ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced [geschichtlichen

112

Henry Miller, Reflections on Writing. In Ghiselin, 1985, p. 187. This is not necessarily contradicted by Benjamin, when in his essay Die Aufgabe des Übersetzers he states that, “Nirgends erweist sich einem Kunstwerk oder einer Kunstform gegenüber die Rücksicht auf den Aufnehmenden für deren Erkenntnis fruchtbar. […] Denn kein Gedicht gilt dem Leser, kein Bild dem Beschauer, keine Symphonie der Hörerschaft.” Walter Benjamin GS IV/1, p. 9. Even if an audience does not count (gelten), art cannot fail to address it. 113 “das Ethos des dem Lichte, das im Himmel Form wird, entgegenlebenden Menschenauges.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 499; my trans.

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Zeugenschaft]”.114 It is also defined as ‘aura’ (Aura). Benjamin intends to express by this daunting explanation an artwork’s here-and-now-, its onceand-for-all-character. Art’s technical reproducibility inaugurates its political (rather than its ritual or even religious) role in the Modern era.115 In light of my discussion of the outer appearance of the soul in repetitive constellations (artefacts or artworks), I would make two comments on Benjamin’s historical analysis. My first comment is that technical reproducibility is indeed not identical to repeatability, as Benjamin rightly remarks. Technology can do a lot, but as technology it is incapable of mastering the dialogue opened or continued by human artefacts. The dialogical consists of an always unique call or an address, which it is not in the power of technology to reproduce on wish. My second comment, however, is that the valued ‘authenticity’ (Echtheit) or ‘aura’ is not identical to the artefacts’ or artworks’ dialogical nature. Therefore, however thoughtprovoking Benjamin’s categories of ‘authenticity’ or ‘aura’ are, I do not think that they represent the essence of cultural artefacts or artworks. My claim would rather be that the ‘political’ enactment of which the artwork is capable – despite potential abuse – comes much closer to the dialogical dimension which I am addressing here. Benjamin’s famous artwork essay does not necessarily contradict my thesis. Just as repetition differs from reproduction, dialogue differs from authenticity. Forgiveness The other characteristic of the soul’s outer manifestation, next to the dialogical character of artworks or artefacts, is connected to the temporal structure introduced by dialogue. It draws on what the artwork’s repetitiveness might exemplify, especially when compared to the production of kin discussed earlier: incessant renewal or recommencement. Inspired at this point by Levinas, I would call this characteristic ‘forgiveness’ or ‘pardon’ (pardon). Instead of introducing this notion of forgiveness as a religious dogma, I would instead focus on a phenomenological dimension, albeit one that risks blurring the boundaries between subject and object of the intentional act of consciousness. 114 Walter Benjamin GS I/2, p. 477; trans. Harry Zohn (1969). Illuminations. New York: Schocken Books, p. 4. 115 “In dem Augenblick aber, da der Maßstab der Echtheit an der Kunstproduktion versagt, hat sich auch die gesamte soziale Funktion der Kunst umgewälzt. An die Stelle ihrer Fundierung aufs Ritual tritt ihre Fundierung auf eine andere Praxis: nämlich ihre Fundierung auf Politik.” GS I/2, p. 482; trans. p. 6 (italics by Benjamin).

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Exploiting both the English and the French prefix (for, par), I argue that in what can be called ‘forgiveness’ something is given in a slightly indirect way. Maybe we can even say that something is given or revealed in virtue of the fact that something else is taken away. What is precisely given or revealed can perhaps only be noticed (if at all) after something else will have been removed. If this explanation is plausible, one could also argue that forgiveness amounts to revelation. What, then, if in forgiveness, time is taken away? Or, if time is taken away along with what is immediately taken away (e.g., something past)? What is usually called ‘time’ would at that point – instead of an incessant continuity of instants – rather represent a discontinuity, susceptible to hosting another ‘temporality’ far more insistent or pressing. In Totalité et infini, Levinas puts it as follows: “The discontinuous time of fecundity makes possible an absolute youth and recommencement, while leaving recommencement a relation with the recommenced past in a free return to that past (free with a freedom other than that of memory), and in a free interpretation and free choice in an existence as entirely pardoned. This recommencement of the instant, this triumph of the time of fecundity over the becoming of the mortal and aging being, is a pardon (pardon: ‘forgiveness’), the very work of time.”116

My point is that it belongs to the soul as an outer phenomenon, accessible in artefacts, to not only initiate dialogue but also to renew or recommence the past. This recommencement takes place by the removal of something past and the opening of a window onto something hitherto unseen. Applied to artefacts or artworks, their ensouled nature might appear through their forgiving or pardoning of predecessors. One could, for example, say that Saul Leiter ‘forgives’ or ‘pardons’ the photographic work of his sources of inspiration, such as William Klein and Robert Frank. He gives them “an absolute youth and recommencement”. Nobuyohsi Araki’s work, one could add, is on its turn ‘forgiven’ by Kayo Ume, who was inspired by Araki and who “free[ly] return[ed] to that past […], in a free interpretation and free choice in an existence as entirely pardoned”. To the extent that pictorial art (painting, photography) primarily appeals to the optic and vision, it might serve as a paradigmatic example to illustrate the revelatory virtue of forgiveness (provided that the notion of ‘revelation’ – which I used to 116

E. Levinas (1984/1961). Totalité et infini. Essai sur l’extériorité. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, p. 259; trans. Alphonso Lingis (1979). Totality and Infinity. Essay on Exteriority. Den Haag: Martinus Nijhoff, p. 282.

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qualify ‘forgiveness’ – equally draws on the optic and the visual). When forgiving influences and forerunners, it re-vises their vices and “makes possible an absolute youth and recommencement”. To slightly vary on Walter Benjamin in his famous essay on photography: “Is it not the task of the photographer – descendant of the augurs and the haruspices – to uncover guilt and name the guilty in [his predecessor’s] pictures?”117 Thus conceived, art and artefacts are continuous attempts to recommence, rather than pure incarnations. So far, I have suggested that human artefacts are an example of the outer manifestation of the soul, and that dialogue and forgiveness are constitutive of these artefacts. But how could that be phenomenologically accounted for? In other words, how does that show? For it seems as if dialogue and forgiveness were first and foremost abstractions which solely rely on inductive interpretation. While that could partly be the case, dialogue and forgiveness may, in addition, have a deeper phenomenal dimension, even if that dimension requires a surrender of the subject position (in other words, of mental stability or, in more technical terms, of a reflective equilibrium). Above, I have quoted Hermann Friedmann, who said that cultural phenomena represent “the ethos of the human eye that is living-towards a light which becomes form in heaven.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 499) This dense statement suggests that these phenomena hold a double promise: for one thing, the promise of prospective illumination, and for another, the promise of a future transformation of this light into form. Once the prospective illumination has received a celestial form, it will be adequately in-formed, prospectively informative. The corresponding ethos (which I have interpreted in terms of dialogue and forgiveness) is an ethos which anticipates this future transformation and is justified by it. Insofar as both dialogue and forgiveness are endeavours into obscured otherness, always recommencing and always bringing to light the incessantly new, they are eminently phenomenological, even if the phenomenological underpinning of ‘intentional subjectivity’ is lacking.118 When Henry Miller says that an 117 Benjamin argues that the photographer should uncover guilt on their own pictures. See Kleine Geschichte der Photographie. In Walter Benjamin, GS II.1, p. 385: “Hat nicht jeder Photograph – Nachfahr der Augurn und der Haruspexe – die Schuld auf seinen Bildern aufzudecken und den Schuldigen zu bezeichnen?” (A Short History of Photography, trans. Stanley Mitchell, p. 25). 118 “Un pardon littéraire ou fictif, est-ce un pardon?,” Derrida critically asks. But he immediately continues saying that “À moins que l’expérience la plus effective, l’endurance concrète du pardon demandé ou accordé, dès lors qu’elle aurait partie liée avec la postulation du secret, n’ait sa destinée gagée dans le don cryptique du

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artwork is “inevitably […] obscure,” he duly excludes “the very few, […] those who like the author himself are initiated into the mysteries.” I take this to imply that dialogue can never be gratuitous. It needs exercise or even initiation. Particularly to the extent that obscured otherness perpetuates itself in the putatively ‘obscure’ artwork. If some forms of art are deemed to be ‘hermetic’ and ‘idiosyncratic,’ this only reflects the state of alienation in which society finds itself. Accosting artworks as interview subjects – inter-viewing them – comes down to doing one’s phenomenological propaedeutic; albeit at the price of temporarily losing one’s mind or reflective equilibrium. Dialoguing with them re-engages the forgiveness and recommencement they exemplify as artworks, and how would that not affect the ‘subject’ of intentionality? If, other than Voltaire assumed, forgiving is primarily incumbent on artists (and on God only inasmuch as he is an artist119), art consumers will always become wholly involved in this process. In the next chapter, I will further elaborate on artefactual dialogue and forgiveness by associating it with the phenomena of shame and anxiety. As we will see, both are primordial human experiences in which self-protection and self-abandonment, in other words, a domestic and an outbound drive, coalesce.

Illusion of Outwardness? Up to now, I have discussed four possible outer manifestations of the soul: (1) ideation (in relation to entelechy), (2) production of kin or procreation, (3) self-relatedness or selfhood, and (4) repetitive constellations. I have argued that, for these manifestations to be adequately perceived (apperceived), mental involvement is indispensable; this excludes the fully disengaged subjectivity which prevails in scientific methodology. Insofar as the mind extends into the outer world or vice versa, one could have the impression that outer or inner manifestation of the soul hardly makes a difference, if at all. When in this chapter, I nonetheless departed from such a distinction, I intended to attribute a degree of indirectness to the outer manifestation of the soul. Failing to make a division between ‘inside’ and ‘outside,’ however closely both are connected (‘enleagued’), runs the risk poème, dans le corps de la crypte littéraire”. Jacques Derrida (1999). Donner la mort. Paris: Galilée, p. 192. 119 Cf Derrida: “Dieu, ici, demanderait virtuellement pardon à sa création, à sa créature comme à lui-même pour la faute qu’il a commise en créant des hommes mauvais dans leur cœur”. Derrida, 1999, p. 196.

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of blindfolding oneself concerning the external world’s irretrievable otherness or alterity. Still, failing to adequately distinguish inwardness as such runs the risk of reducing it to something external. It entails the peril of self-alienation; since the outer world will not benefit from the latter, overlooking inwardness is likely to eradicate access to reality, both from within and from without. The discovery of the soul as an outer phenomenon could lead to a renewed exploration of inwardness. To be honest, such an exploration need not be the outcome of a sweet and appealing trajectory. Not only may this trajectory be characterised by suffering; it can also confront the spectator painfully with inner obstacles, whether neurotic or psychotic, which can be traced back to confusions and distortions from the past. The latter impede, eventually even block, soul access. Concentration, for example, consists of “the enleaguing of the mind with one place” or “unique mental ligament” (Patañjali); it is likely to be accompanied by meticulous attention and perceptive enhancement. However, excessive self-immersion may, in the end, turn out to be drawing on an outwardly perceived inner ‘object’ (idée fixe) and become morbid as a result. It could lead to psychopathology. Neurosis and psychosis are partly distortive of the same perception, which practising concentration is meant to enhance. The possibility of this unintended outcome of concentrating is all the more confusing since, despite its pathological, inside/outside-inverting nature, neurosis and psychosis still contain grains of truth. We cannot deny that neurotic perception has not only a real perception but also a most penetrating awareness of what it perceives. Still, without fully excluding that neurosis might ever offer veridical soul access120, it seems more sensible to try to generally disentangle neurotic and revelatory perception. If it is true that, as Myers claims, “supernormal vital phenomena will manifest themselves as far as possible through the same channels as abnormal or morbid vital phenomena,” and that “the partition of the primary and the secondary self will lie along some plane of cleavage which the morbid dissociations of our psychical synergies have already shown themselves to follow” (Myers, 1918, p. 252), then such a disentanglement becomes more acute.

120

If “an enlargement of human powers” is achieved, then, Myers argues, “with whatever morbid activities the psychosis may have been intertwined, it contains indications of an evolutionary nisus as well.” Myers, 1918, p. 254.

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Neurosis (Bergotte between Patañjali, Myers and Janet) ‘The profundity of truth varies with the seeing power of the spirit which seeks it.” Ludwig Klages121

One way of proceeding here is to apply Janet’s concept of ‘fixed ideas’ and Myers’ related notion of ‘ideation’ (“anaesthetic patches”). We have seen in Janet that neurotic perception, due to the narrowing of the mind caused by internal fixations, re-enacts an antecedent trauma and re-organises actual vision accordingly. Drawing on Janet, Myers observes that subconscious ideation can anaesthetise bodily parts whose form is not determined by the logic of musculature or nerve patterns, as they represent “irrational selfsuggestions of the hypnotic stratum”. (Myers, 1918, p. 164) On the other hand, revelatory perception, insofar as it is open to the alterity of the perceived, slightly broadens the mind. I certainly do not want to imply that neurotic and revelatory perception can always be distinguished, and it may well be that a certain degree of neurosis is sometimes even a precondition for enhanced, revelatory awareness (and consequently, for soul access).122 Janet argues that veridical attention, or concentration, also entails recontextualisation and processing of its object, rather than directly staring at it: “Attention is not limited to continually keeping in mind an actual image; it also tries to combine this image with other images, to create syntheses which will later become the starting point of a new automatism.” (Janet, 1898, p. 107; my trans.)123 If we remember that Patañjali defines meditation (dhyana) as “the one-pointedness of the mind on one image (eka-tƗnatƗ),” we should be careful, I think, not to confuse this image with a ‘fixed idea’ since the contemplative mind is supposed to have emancipated itself from such fixations. An emancipated mind will only be free once it has reattuned itself with reality; ‘reality’ not conceived as an infinite number of objects but as a synchronising or clustering movement which takes hold of the soul to upbuild itself. What I mean with this should gradually become apparent in the course of this book. For an example of a spontaneous unsettlement of a fixed idea due to intensified attention, and of the ensuing unhappy ending, one could think of 121

“Die Wahrheit vertieft sich gemäß der Sehkraft des wahrheitssuchenden Geistes.” Klages, 1936, p. 10; trans., p. 18. 122 “the inhibition may involve latent dynamogeny, and the perturbation may mask evolution.” Myers, 1918, p. 253. 123 Also see Sante de Sanctis (1929). Psicologia sperimentale Vol. I. Roma: Alberto Stock, Ch. VI.

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the following. In his novel La prisonnière, Marcel Proust describes the sudden collapse of one of its characters, the novelist Bergotte. Bergotte visits an art gallery, where he is struck by Vermeer’s painting Vue sur Delft (‘View on Delft’). Inspecting the painting accurately, Bergotte realises that it contains what his own literary work lacks: multiple layers. “‘That is how I ought to have written,’ he said. ‘My last books are too dry, I ought to have gone over them with several coats of paint [plusieurs couches de couleur], made my language exquisite in itself, like this little patch of yellow wall [petit pan de mur jaune].’”124

The “little patch of yellow wall” deceptively resembles the “place” (deĞa) or the “one image” (eka-tƗnatƗ) where, in Patañjali, the concentrated mind is “fixed” or “leagued” (bandhaĞ) – albeit this time accessed through use of the senses (“he remarked for the first time some small figures in blue, that the ground was pink, and finally the precious substance of the tiny patch of yellow wall”). It also resembles Francesca Woodman’s ‘almost-a-square’ in her Some Disordered Interior Geometries. On closer examination, the layers in Vermeer’s painting reveal the flatness of his own life and consciousness: “In a celestial balance there appeared to him, upon one of its scales [chargeant l’un des plateaux], his own life, while the other contained the little patch of wall so beautifully painted in yellow. He felt that he had rashly surrendered the former for the latter.”

In other words, focusing on “the little patch of yellow wall” (petit pan de mur jaune) effectuates two things simultaneously: it gives access both to the layered structure of the painting and the arid flatness (inner obstacle) of his being. The outside mirrors what is wrong or immature on the inside.125 In terms of Hermann Friedmann who, in another context, comments upon the inspection of form: “One shell [Hülle] after another will drop [abfallen] from the image, one sensuous-spiritual content after another will manifest itself, the image (or the eye) will develop itself, it will mature [reifen]; we say: ‘image’ or ‘eye’ – since all intention which had creatively penetrated the image will now successively become intelligible to the eye.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 425; my trans.) 124 Marcel Proust (1923). La prisonnière. In Proust, 1999, p. 1743 ; trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff. 125 For a discussion of similar breakthrough experiences in Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu, see R.C. Zaehner (1957). Mysticism, Sacred and Profane: An Inquiry into Some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

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In an as-yet-unpublished seminar, the French philosopher Jacques Derrida explicitly dwells on this passage, especially on Bergotte’s first noticing the “little patch of yellow wall”. He observes that this “little patch,” which is only a detail of the painting, absorbs its contemplator (Bergotte) to such an extent that it starts comprising a whole (i.e., a life). The part becomes more prominent than the whole and includes that whole within itself. Contemplation, then, is swallowed by this mise en abyme and cannot but lead to the contemplator’s (i.e., the subject’s) death.126 This analysis could show that concentrated contemplation (whether, as in Patañjali, by withdrawing the senses, or, as in Proust, by using them) enigmatically connects, albeit for the moment, what is generally seen as ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. The implied genitive in what I have called ‘soul access’ might well be equivocal, meaning both access to and by the soul. This equivocality will only be a contradiction for those who either deny any relevance to the soul or rashly interpret it as a kind of object. Meanwhile, having inspected the “little patch of yellow wall,” Bergotte suddenly collapses to the floor. It should be noted that the introduction to the scene already mentions his “attack of uraemia” (crise d’urémie) – which may well anticipate the “yellow patch”127 – and the “giddiness” (étourdissements) coming over him upon entering the museum. While trying to focus on the “precious little patch of wall” (“he fixed his eyes [attachait son regard], like a child upon a yellow butterfly which it is trying to catch [saisir], upon the precious little patch of wall.”), his giddiness increases to such an extent that he faints and dies. It should also be noted that several pages earlier, the author had related that “[f]or years past Bergotte had ceased to go out of doors,” and that he had started suffering from insomnia and terrible nightmares, which seemed to be “proceeding from somewhere outside himself”. In these nightmares, he was paralysed and unable to move (“A stunning giddiness glued him to his seat,” “Un vertige foudroyant le clouait sur sa banquette.”)128 126

Quoted in J. Hillis Miller. Derrida and Literature. In Tom Cohen, Ed. (2001). Derrida and the Humanities. A Critical Reader. New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 77. 127 Roberto Assagioli underlines the strong effect colours can have and the possible therapeutic use one can make of them. Cf Assagioli, 2012, p. 251f. 128 Cf Jung “Das Psychische ist eine Großmacht, die alle Mächte der Erde um ein Vielfaches übersteigt. Die Aufklärung, welch die Natur und die menschlichen Institutionen entgöttert hart, hat den einen Gott des Schreckens, der in der Seele wohnt, übersehen.” C.G. Jung, Vom Werden der Persönlichkeit. In C.G. Jung (1947). Wirklichkeit der Seele. Anwendungen und Fortschritte der neueren

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I hypothesise that, during his visit to the museum and his inspection of Vermeer’s painting, Bergotte rediscovers in the ‘outer’ world a reflection of his inner crisis, exemplified by the “little patch of yellow wall”. I would suggest that this patch both represents and unsettles an internal fixation which is too hard for him to endure. “Self-suggestion, and no mere physiological nexus,” Myers wrote several years before La prisonnière was published, “is responsible for the sleep or the hysterical access which follows the touch. The anaesthetic patches are here a direct, but a capriciously chosen avenue to the subliminal being”. (Myers, 1918, p. 164.) Remarkably, the word which Myers uses to indicate the anaesthetised body parts (“patch”) is the same as the English translators chose to render the French pan in Proust (petit pan de mur jaune). As can be verified in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague, where Vermeer’s painting can be admired, this pan (or ‘patch’) is indeed literally almost a square. Other than Francesca Woodman, however, who had turned her back at the almostsquare, Bergotte is almost absorbed by it. When viewing visual art, how to deny “that image and form, far from being impotent or inoperative, are rather the true, the unique causa efficiens in the most real world which we know, in the world of human actions and deeds.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 53; my trans.)129 Elsewhere, Myers equally confirms my hypothesis that Bergotte’s focus on the “patch” reflects an unconscious inner crisis. “[M]an’s ocular vision,” Myers says in his discussion of hallucination, “is but a special and privileged case of visual power, of which power his inner vision affords a more extensive example.” And he continues saying that “[o]cular vision is the perception of material objects, in accordance with optical laws, from a definite point in space. Our view of hallucinations has already removed two of these limitations.” (Myers, 1918, p. 175) As we have seen, Bergotte was overwhelmed by “giddiness” (étourdissements) when he entered the Psychologie. Zürich: Rascher Verlag, p. 197; my italics. And “So ist die Neurose ein Schutz gegen die objektive innere Tätigkeit der Seele oder ein etwas teuer bezahlter Versuch, sich der innern Stimme und damit der Bestimmung zu entziehen. Denn diese ‘Wucherung’ ist jene objektive, von bewusster Willkür unabhängige Tätigkeit der Seele die mit der innern Stimme zum Bewusstsein sprechen möchte, um den Menschen seine Ganzheit zuzuführen.” Ibid., p. 205f; my italics. 129 Dieter E. Zimmer, whose reading differs from mine, suggests that the petit pan de mur jaune (‘eine kleine Fläche gelben Mauerwerks mit einem Vordach’) does not even occur on Vermeer’s painting and has been invented by Proust. Zimmer also points at autobiographical elements in Proust’s description of Bergotte. See Dieter E. Zimmer. Auf der Suche nach dem gelben Mauerstück Wie Marcel Proust bei Vermeer etwas sah, das gar nicht da ist. In Süddeutsche Zeitung, 24. Dezember 1996.

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museum. His intense focus on the little patch of yellow wall may have been intentional: to find a last resort or stronghold that could prevent him from collapsing. However, as he inwardly lacked “a definite point in space,” his nightmare – in which “[a] stunning giddiness [un vertige foudroyant] glued him to his seat” – came out inversely: his fixation on the little patch made him stumble and fall. Note that the translator confusingly used the words ‘giddiness’ twice, where the French text has two different terms (étourdissements and vertige). Interestingly, in the preceding novel Le côté de Guermantes II, Proust already anticipates the pan de mur mentioned in La prisonnière and suggests that it may give us an illusion of depth (mirage de profondeur): “a rectangular patch of wall [pan de mur] with a bright light falling on it, which has given us the mirage of depth.”. And his conclusion in that other context is even more remarkable in light of my discussion of patches, fixed ideas and self-revelatory experiences: “is it not logical […] to represent one thing by that other for which, in the flash [l’éclair] of a first illusion, we mistook it? Surfaces and volumes are in reality independent of the names of objects which our memory [mémoire] imposes on them after we have recognised them.”130 The crisis which Bergotte experienced upon contemplating the “little patch of yellow wall” is perhaps repeated in the emotional outbursts of contemporary admirers of Mark Rothko’s ‘patch-work’. Rothko once affirmed: “I am not interested in the relationships of color or form or anything else… I’m interested only in expressing basic human emotions – tragedy, ecstasy, doom and so on – and the fact that a lot of people break down and cry when confronted with my pictures shows that I communicate those basic human emotions… The people who weep before my pictures are having the same religious experience I had when I painted them. And if you, as you say, are moved only by their color relationships, then you miss 130

Marcel Proust (1920-21). Le côté de Guermantes II. In Proust, 1999, 1069f; trans. The Guermantes Way, by C. K. Scott Moncrieff. Also cf “Est-ce que parce que nous ne revivons pas nos années dans leur suite continue jour par jour, mais dans le souvenir figé dans la fraîcheur ou l’insolation d’une matinée ou d’un soir,” there being “d’immenses pans d’oubli” in between them. Ibid., p. 1053. Proust’s other hero, Swann, almost collapses when he loses himself for a second upon seeing a lady’s cleavage: “dès que Swann eut, en serrant la main de la marquise, vu sa gorge de tout près et de haut, il plongea un regard attentif, sérieux, absorbé, presque soucieux, dans les profondeurs du corsage, et ses narines, que le parfum de la femme grisait, palpitèrent comme un papillon prêt à aller se poser sur la fleur entrevue. Brusquement il s’arracha au vertige qui l’ avait saisi”. Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe. In Proust, 1999, p. 1290. The immediate context miraculously refers again to Ver Meer, “le maître de Delft”.

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the point!”131 Neurosis unsettlement need not supervene upon the inspection of visible patches. As Freud has shown, such patches can also be audible. One of Freud’s patients, the famous ‘rat-man,’ suffered from panic attacks and compulsive behaviour. His pathology was prompted by a terrible story he was told in the army about a cruel punishment, in which rats played a crucial role. Freud found out that ‘rat’ (Ratte) was a verbal node (Komplexreizwort) which triggered the symptoms; apart from the dirt with which the animal ‘rat’ is often associated, the German word Ratte turned out to contain references to several important biographical issues the patient was struggling with (Spielratte, Rate, raten, heiraten, etc.).132 One could say that ‘rat,’ both the signified (the animal) and the signifier (the word ‘Ratte’), functions similarly as the “little patch of yellow wall”; they trigger the neurosis. They can also trigger fantasy – which is not unrelated to neurosis. In Le côté de Guermantes, the narrator describes how the name Guermantes used to condensate for him all that was beautiful and mysterious, and, should someone listening to the name ‘Madame de Guermantes’ be speaking, her voice would at least (so Proust writes) need to reflect the colour of amaranth (amarante) – which contains the same end syllable (Guermantes-amarante).133 Fantasy and neurosis are very close to each other, and often difficult to distinguish. Psychosis (Des Esseintes between De Waelhens and Rank) Bergotte, the emotional Rothko admirers, the rat-man, and perhaps Proust’s narrator, are neurotic. In them, “[s]uggestion from without must for the most part resolve itself into suggestion from within.” (Myers, 1918, p. 167)134 131

Miguel López-Remiro, Ed. (2006). Writings on Art: Mark Rothko. New York/London: Yale University Press, p. 119. Also cf Deleuze & Guattari: “la sensation n’est pas colorée, elle est colorante,” and “celui qui n’est rien que peintre est aussi plus que peintre, parce qu’il ‘fait venir devant nous, en avant de la toile fixe,’ non pas la ressemblance, mais la pure sensation”. Deleuze/Guattari, 1991, p. 157. 132 Cf. S. Freud (1999). Bemerkungen über einen Fall von Zwangsneurose. In: Gesammelte Werke VII. Werke aus den Jahren 1906-1909. Frankfurt: Fischer, pp. 421-438. 133 Marcel Proust (1920-21). Le côté de Guermantes I. In Proust, 1999, p. 906. 134 Cf. “Les lieux fixes, contemporains d’années différentes, c’est en nous-même qu’il vaut mieux les trouver. C’est à quoi peuvent, dans une certaine mesure, nous servir une grande fatigue que suit une bonne nuit.” Marcel Proust (1920-21). Le côté de Guermantes I. Proust, 1999, p. 815f.

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The unravelling of their neurosis can be painful, or even, as in Bergotte’s case, lethal. But as I already mentioned above, there is another risk inherent to enhanced perception, however revelatory the latter may continue to be: psychosis. Interestingly, the Belgian psychoanalyst Alphonse De Waelhens (1911-1981) claims that schizophrenia (which is a particular form of psychosis) is characterised by several markers open enough to allow both for pathology and enhanced perception or inspiration: 1) fragmented body experience, 2) incapability to understand the social (‘symbolic’) order, its norms and values, 3) disturbed Oedipus complex, 4) blurred gender experience, and 5) identification of life and death.135 It would go too far here even to pretend to settle the complex issue of psychosis as an enhancer, despite its undeniable disfiguring of perception, of inner and outer awareness. Yet, my thesis is that the boundary between neurosis, psychosis and soul awareness is fluid and flexible. In the next chapter, I will introduce the Austrian psychoanalyst Otto Rank, the great theorist of birth trauma and life anxiety. In his Kunst und Künstler Rank interestingly associates ‘creation’ (Schöpfung) with ‘exhaustion’ (Er-Schöpfung): “Only through the will-to-self-immortalisation [Willen zur Selbstverewigung], which rises from the fear of life [Lebensangst], can we understand the interdependence of production [Schaffen] and suffering [Krankheit] and the definite influence of this on positive experience. This does not preclude production being a creative development of a neurosis in objective form; and, on the other hand, a neurotic collapse may follow as a reaction after production, owing either to a sort of exhaustion [Er-Schöpfung] or to a sense of guilt arising from the power of creative masterfulness as something arrogant [angemaßten Schöpferherrlichkeit].” (Rank, 2000, p. 77f.; trans. p. 43) For a telling example of Rank’s connection of artistic creativity and mental exhaustion, I will refer here to another literary work, J.-K. Huysmans’ finde-siècle novel A rebours (1884). The risk of psychotic perception, which intensifies awareness to such a degree that perception is exhausted and even disfigured, is clearly illustrated at several levels in the narrative of this novel. This narrative describes the decadent portrayals of Salomé by the French painter Gustave Moreau. The main character of A rebours is Des Esseintes. He is the depraved, yet aesthetically refined protagonist who sits each night in meditative contemplation in front of the Moreau paintings which he had purchased and attached to his compartment wall. It may not 135

Alphonse De Waelhens (1982/1972). La psychose. Essai d’interprétation analytique et existentiale, Louvain/Brussels: Nauwelaerts, pp. 134f. Also see Wouter Kusters (2016). Philosophy and Madness. Radical Turns in the Natural Attitude to Life. In Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology, Vol. 23, 2.

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be by accident that one of those paintings that blow his mind is called l’Apparition. This work displays a naked (i.e., unveiled) Salomé who witnesses the apparition of John the Baptist’s head (which at her cruel request had previously been severed by one of her father’s servants). Des Esseintes’ visionary experience described by Huysmans strikingly resembles Bergotte’s in Proust: “Des Esseintes thought that never before had a water color attained such magnificent coloring; never before had the poverty of colors been able to force jeweled corruscations from paper, gleams like stained glass windows touched by rays of sunlight, splendors of tissue and flesh [de tissus et de chairs] so fabulous and dazzling. Lost in contemplation, he sought to discover the origins of this great artist and mystic pagan [i.e., Gustave Moreau], this visionary who succeeded in removing himself from the world sufficiently to behold, here in Paris, the splendor of these cruel visions and the enchanting sublimation of past ages.”136

Throughout Huysmans’ entire description of the scene, a strong emphasis is put on revelation by intense contemplation. Not only are Des Esseintes’ contemplative experiences highlighted; even Moreau’s characters, neglecting the immediate or that which is at hand, suddenly noticed what they had not seen before: “With a tense concentration [Concentrée], with the fixed gaze [les yeux fixes] of a somnambulist [semblable à une somnambule], [Salomé] beholds neither the trembling Tetrarch [Herod, her father, whose “face was the color of yellow parchment”], nor her mother, the fierce Herodias who watches her, nor the hermaphrodite, nor the eunuch who sits, sword in hand, at the foot of the throne — a terrible figure, veiled to his eyes, whose breasts droop like gourds under his orange-checkered tunic.”

One cannot escape the impression that Salomé’s vision is almost psychotic, and at least driven by ‘subconscious fixed ideas’ (Janet). Her general awareness shrinks, and she only sees the horrific vision of a severed head. And not only Salomé’s vision, but perhaps also king Herod’s, her father’s, in whom Salomé arouses a sexual desire “by a perverted twisting [torsion corrompue] of her loins” and becomes to him “the goddess of immortal Hysteria”; her mother’s (“Herodias,’ musing on her finally consummated revenge”), and even Moreau’s, the painter’s, or Des Esseintes,’ the spectator’s. On Moreau, Huysmans writes: “The painter, moreover, seems to have wished to affirm his desire of remaining outside the centuries, 136 Joris-Karl Huysmans (1884, 1977). A rebours. Paris: Gallimard, Ch. V; trans. John Howard, Against the Grain.

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scorning to designate the origin, nation and epoch, by placing his Salome in this extraordinary palace with its confused and imposing style, in clothing her with sumptuous and chimerical robes, in crowning her with a fantastic mitre shaped like a Phoenician tower, such as Salammbo bore, and placing in her hand the sceptre of Isis, the tall lotus, sacred flower of Egypt and India”. And on Des Esseintes: “Des Esseintes sought the sense of this emblem. Had it that phallic significance which the primitive cults of India gave it? Did it enunciate an oblation of virginity to the senile Herod, an exchange of blood, an impure and voluntary wound, offered under the express stipulation of a monstrous sin? Or did it represent the allegory of fecundity, the Hindoo myth of life, an existence held between the hands of woman, distorted and trampled by the palpitant hands of man whom a fit of madness seizes [qu’une démence envahit], seduced [égare] by a convulsion of the flesh?”. Further analysis of these breath-taking literary passages would distract from my overall argument. My claim here is twofold. On the one hand, concentration, or the enhancement of perception, equally affects the seer and the seen. On the other hand, psychotic perception, which I propose to define here in terms of subconscious fixed ideas, has a penchant towards problematic self-insulation. Its degree of concentration only corroborates its fixation, thereby depriving it of any relatedness, and consequently, of selfhood. Obstinate fixation is likely to lead to self-severance and decontextualisation. John the Baptist’s head, severed (de-contextualised) from the body, fixates Salomé’s (and Des Esseintes’) gaze and erroneously substitutes it for the whole. In contrast, “the little patch of yellow wall” in Proust’s description of Vermeer’s View on Delft – which also represents a fragment, almost a square – reveals a subconscious fixed idea to its spectator, Bergotte. Bergotte is endowed with a view (regard), which enables him to view the painting (entitled Vue [sic] sur Delft) as an outer reflection of his inner life. In Huysmans, on the contrary, Des Esseintes’ gaze is confined to the visual restrictions of Salomé’s gaze (les yeux fixes), which is in its turn immobilised by the severed head. I hypothesise that Salomé’s fixation of the eyes complies with Patañjali’s definition of ‘concentration’ (“the fixing of the mind in one place”) or ‘meditation’ (“the one-pointedness of the mind on one image”) even less than Bergotte’s viewing of the “little patch” – unless one interprets the ensuing relapse into neurosis or psychosis as a necessary prerequisite for enhanced concentration. In that case, the precipitately enhanced concentration and its concomitant disasters and pains at least remind metaphysical daredevils of the following: neglecting or

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skipping the preparatory stages of concentration and the ensuing need of reengagement (enleaguing, ligament) with ordinary life, will probably rather prompt than prevent pathological perception. Progressing on the scale of inwardness requires that subconscious ideas are first made conscious, even if that is painful. Stephen Spender says that “I dread writing poetry, for, I suppose, the following reasons: a poem is a terrible journey, a painful effort of concentrating the imagination; […] above all, the writing of a poem brings one face to face with one’s own personality with all its familiar and clumsy limitations.”137 Spiritual sufferings? Before concluding this chapter, I would like to raise the following question: could it be that what we call ‘mental diseases’ sometimes come down to a spontaneous, not therapeutically induced unsettlement of fixed ideas? As of Novalis, the Romantic tradition allows for such ‘creative illnesses’. Examples abound, not only of private individuals but also of creative thinkers. Gustav Fechner developed his ideas on the consciousness of vegetal life after recovering from severe depression and eye problems; his ensuing books Nanna, oder über das Seelenleben der Pflanzen and Zendavesta, oder über die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits are a direct result of his recovery.138 Nietzsche’s recurrent migraine attacks each time led to new insights that found their way to publications; Lou Andreas Salomé even suggested that these migraine attacks were the painful birth pangs of the subsequent famous teaching of the ‘eternal recurrence of the same’. (Ellenberger, 1970, p. 276) We know that the hospitalisation of William James and the mental breakdown of Jung preceded a renewal of their thinking; and we can speculate about the relation between depression and philosophical creativity in Rousseau, Kierkegaard, Althusser, Benjamin, or Cioran. Without trying to underestimate the severe mental suffering of many, I hypothesise that more often than is commonly assumed, mental diseases inaugurate a spiritual discovery.139 Comparable to the practice of

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Stephen Spender, The Making of a Poem. In Ghiselin, 1985, p. 125. Cf Michael Heidelberger (2004/1993). Gustav Theodor Fechner and His Psychophysical Worldview, trans. by Cynthia Klohr. Pittsburgh: Un. of Pittsburgh Press, pp. 47-50. 139 Cf. “Sie las in ihrem Leiden viel und entdeckte, dass ihr etwas verlorengegangen war, von dessen Besitz sie vordem nicht viel gewusst hatte: eine Seele.” Musil, 1997, p. 103. 138

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hypnotism, Myers notes, “the inhibition may involve latent dynamogeny, and the perturbation may mask evolution. The hypnotised subject may pass through a lethargic state before he wakes into a state in which he has gained community of sensation with the operator; somewhat as the silkworm (to use the oldest and the most suggestive of all illustrations) passes through the apparent torpor of the cocoon-stage before evolving into the moth. Again, the automatist’s hand […] is apt to pass through a stage of inco-ordinated movements, which might almost be taken for choreic before it acquires the power of ready and intelligent writing. Similarly the development, for instance, of a tooth may be preceded by a stage of indefinite aching, which might be ascribed to the formation of an abscess, did not the new tooth ultimately show itself. And still more striking cases of a perturbation which masks evolution might be drawn from the history of the human organism as it develops into its own maturity, or prepares for the appearance of the fresh human organism which is to succeed it.” (Myers, 1918, p. 253)

Two things should be noted, though. First, connecting diseases to creativity does not imply any causal relation. In the third chapter, we will see how synchronicity experiences aggravate the breakdown of causality as an allgoverning principle – a breakdown that started with Hume’s depriving causality of its necessitarian nature, and that was continued in the philosophies of Hegel, Schopenhauer, Klages, and Jung. Second, if associating diseases to creativity seems arbitrary and unfounded in the eyes of most scientists today, this must be attributed mainly to an unquestioned mind-body split. The association will become plausible on the condition of 1) putting the prevalent mind-body split into question, and of 2) taking the soul as a category sui generis rather than as a projection of the body or even an external phenomenon among others. I would like to remind the reader that no materialistic worldview has ever been capable of acknowledging the concept and the phenomenon of ‘creativity’ as such, let alone that it can give meaning to the assumption of creativity-inducing illnesses. In the conclusion of this discussion, I would again like to refer to the art of Lygia Clark. Clark’s focus is not so much on the work of art as an object which randomly mediates an artistic expression towards a neutral spectator. Instead, her artwork attempts to activate the spectator’s intimacy so that it will lead to enhanced bodily awareness. Clark’s early interest in psychoanalysis and her attempts to use her art for psychic healing purposes may have played a role here. Using what she called ‘Relational Objects’ she tried to establish a non-verbal contact with experiences encapsulated or

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locked in someone’s bodily memory. This method of treating patients was later also used by her friend, the Brazilian psychotherapist Lulu Wanderley.140 I would add here that the term ‘Relational object’ is interestingly not only a contradiction in terms (insofar as objects as objects pretend to be independent and object-ive) but also pleonastic (insofar as objects can only be an object for a subject). In the next chapter, when considering the phenomenon of inspiration, we will see that art somehow bridges the gulf between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ experience of the soul discussed in this chapter. It does this to the extent that it reflects two primary affects, shame and anxiety, in which an inbound and an outbound drive (self-protection and self-abandonment) coalesce.

140

Cf Guy Brett (1994). Lygia Clark: In Search of the Body. In Art in America. Sacramento: State University of California. Retrieved online on 22 March 2019.

CHAPTER 2 INSPIRATION

“We pursue reality. But by dint of allowing it to escape we end by noticing that, after all those vain endeavours which have led to nothing [où on a trouvé le néant], something solid subsists, which is what we have been seeking. —Marcel Proust1

Introduction Akiane Kramarik is an American paintress and poet who already at the age of four, started making sketches, soon followed by portraits, landscapes and fantasy scenes. Prodigy child, she amazed everybody, to start with her parents, both by the extraordinary quality of her paintings and by their spiritual content. Born and raised in a poor and non-religious family, she told about having heavenly visions of sounds and colours coming to her spontaneously (“all of a sudden I started seeing the words and images right inside my head.”2). These visions, she added, continued to inspire her artistic work, which not only consists of paintings but also of poems. Akiane is completely autodidactic; she managed to paint everything all by herself, only following the inner visions she received and without relying on any contribution made by thinking. She is invited at multiple American TVshows while her paintings are currently sold for millions of dollars (a large part of which is invested in charity funds). On YouTube, some of her TVinterviews can be found. One need not like Akiane’s paintings to at least be amazed about her exceptional skill. Interestingly, Akiane’s case invites us to reconsider Du Prel’s conception of an impervious boundary between waking consciousness and subliminal consciousness (Empfindungsschwelle). Akiane seems somehow able to ‘cross’ this boundary and to stay in immediate contact with the source of 1 Marcel Proust (1920-21). Le côté de Guermantes II. In Proust, 1999, p. 1045. (Trans. Moncrieff) 2 Akiane and Foreli Kramarik (2006). Akiane. Her Life, Her Art, Her Poetry. Nashville etc.: Thomas Nelson, p. 18.

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her inspiration. In interviews she told that her inspiration is an always ongoing process, even at midnight, letting her work six days a week.3 In a personal account, her mother writes that “with the passing of time, Akiane felt more and more compelled to write, remaining completely oblivious to the maturity of her compositions.” (Kramarik, 2006, p. 19) How to interpret this? Should we indeed envision the possibility of a continuous flux enabling one to ‘live out’ one’s subliminal consciousness? Or should we instead suppose the boundary to be intact while the ‘vestiges’ of crossing it are more persistent? Can inspiration be continual, or is it only continuous? These are two different, although related, possibilities among which we cannot decide. Following the first possibility, it could be surmised that Du Prel’s watershed between the two forms of consciousness is not always to be drawn so straight. Artistic inspiration, provided that it originates in what Du Prel terms ‘transcendental consciousness,’ may continue uninterruptedly. It need not suffer from being intermittent or spasmodic, as seems to be the case for Baudelaire in his famous poem La muse malade (‘The sick muse’). In it, the poet complains about his muse staying away from him: “My poor muse, alas! what’s the matter this morning?” In the third stanza, he expresses his desire to have a regular, ‘rhythmic’ influx of strong ideas instead: “I would that, exhaling the odour of good health, / Your breast were always frequented by strong thoughts, / And that your Christian blood flow in rhythmic waves”.4 But the second possibility is equally attractive since less ‘mystical’. In his Monistische Seelenlehre, Du Prel argues that what we tend to see as ‘premonitions’ (Ahnungen) could very well be mitigated memories of fullblown ‘revelatory’ experiences. The latter may have left a trace in our mind, which we cannot always follow back to its origin.5 However, the artistic 3

See for example here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cYDzUTZys8g#t=614.736196385, accessed on December 24, 2016. 4 Trans. John Tidball (https://baudelairepoet.wordpress.com/2016/01/15/translatingbaudelaires-la-muse-malade/). 5 “die Abschwächung scheint nicht an der Halbheit des Gelingens zu liegen, sondern an der Halbheit der Erinnerung, also erst nachträglich einzutreten, indem ein im Traum vollständig eingetretenes Ferngesicht beim Übergang ins Tagesbewusstsein verdunkelt wird oder auch als Vision vollständig verloren geht, aber in der Gefühlssphäre eine dunkle Spur hinterlässt.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 333. In his Philosophie der Mystik, Du Prel quotes a highly illustrative poem by Lenau, Frage:

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product issuing from it may creatively restore it. Granted, Du Prel’s interpretation of premonitions is not directly addressing our case of continuous creative inspiration. Still, it seems applicable here. Akiane’s mother writes that Akiane “was never in any hypnotic state – it was obvious that she was not channelling or sleep talking – she was awake and alert, focused and mentally involved. Most of the time her eyes stayed wide open”. (Kramarik, 2006, p. 24)6 Two portraits of Jesus take a central place in Akiane’s oeuvre. They were made when she was only eight years old. One is entitled The Prince of Peace; the other Father Forgive Them. These two paintings seem to represent a stage in Akiane’s development that does not seem to have been surpassed afterwards. As I write this, no serious psychic study of Akiane Kramarik has been undertaken yet. I will refrain here from ‘exploiting’ Akiane’s case beyond what can be positively substantiated, to avoid speculation. I only take advantage of it to consider the possibility of a porous boundary between ‘ordinary,’ ‘supraliminal’ consciousness, and a deeper consciousness which functions as a source of inspiration. Does not the very concept of ‘inspiration’ itself presuppose a (continual or continuous) alternation between a regular and an ‘illumined’ mindset? We cannot exclude this so that the possibility might be considered that inspired artists, thinkers or politicians should be put on the same footing as the prophets of times immemorial.7

“Bist du noch nie beim Morgenschein erwacht / Mit schwerem Herzen, traurig und beklommen, / Und wußtest nicht, wie du auch nachgedacht, /Woher ins Herz der Gram dir war gekommen? / Du fühltest nur: ein Traum wars in der Nacht; / Des Traumes Bilder waren dir verschwommen, / Doch hat nachwirkend ihre dunkle Macht /Dich, daß du weinen mußtest, übernommen.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 325. 6 Curiously, the 19th century Wisconsin governor Nathaniel Tallmadge (1795-1864) had a daughter who at the age of 13 was capable of composing music and playing piano without ever having learnt it. The city where the Tallmadge family lived, Font du Lac, is not too far away from Akiane’s birthplace Mount Morris, Illinois. Cf. John W. Edmonds and George T. Dexter (1853). Spiritualism, with an appendix by Nathaniel P. Tallmadge. New York: Partridge & Brittan Publishers, p. 35; Carl du Prel (2012, 1893). Der Spiritismus. Paderborn: Sarastro (Repr. Leipzig: Reclam), p. 56f. 7 Cf. Derrida: “alors que la littérature hérite, certes, d’une histoire sainte dont le moment abrahamique reste le secret essentiel (et qui niera que la littérature reste un reste de religion, un lien et un relais de sacro-sainteté dans une société sans Dieu?),

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Inspiration as primordial experience of self “[A]nd she, she herself, shines out of the artist’s soul, the idea given form and life – the idea itself – his love!” —E.T.A. Hoffmann8

In the previous chapter, we have seen that the notion of soul makes it difficult to oppose ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ – the soul is not inside the body as a car is in a garage. Realising this opens a new perspective on ‘inspiration’: the experience of receiving creative input that can help overcome obstacles or renew life conditions. Traditionally, ‘inspiration’ is seen as a phenomenon which presupposes an external perspective: whether a divine sphere – for example, as in medieval Islam, the ϝΎΜϤϟ΍ Ϣϟ΃/alam al mitƗl – or the unfathomable depth of a genius soul. However, these regions cannot be positioned in physical space, since neither a divine realm nor a genius mind can be located appropriately. This makes the concept of ‘inspiration’ so difficult to interpret. Another difficulty is closely related to the previous one: who or what inspires? Even those who claim that any form of inspiration has a divine source are faced with the problem that, without a simple notion of space, a celestial influx can hardly be understood as an influx. What is more – and this brings us back at the previous difficulty – the clear demarcation between an animated receiver of that influx and its divine source becomes problematic if this boundary is not characterised by distance, in other words, by space. How to conceive of inspiration without space? Interestingly, the German word selig (‘blessed,’ ‘blissful’) is cognate with Seele, just as the Dutch word zalig with ziel. In the following, I will try to make plausible that ‘inspiration’ and ‘ecstasy’ are analytically implied by the notion of ‘soul’ which I have started defending in the preceding chapter (the soul as intimacy, inwardness, selfhood etc.). ‘Inspiration,’ I venture to say, consists of clairvoyance of one’s own soul. I am drawing on a remark made by Carl du Prel in his Philosophie der Mystik: “The hypothesis of clairvoyance of one’s own psyche [Hellsehens der eigenen Psyche] was more acceptable than the hypothesis of inspiration; it is simpler while mais elle renie aussi cette histoire, cette appartenance, cet héritage.” Jacques Derrida, 1999, p. 208. 8 “aus der Seele des Künstlers leuchtet die zum Leben gestaltete Ahnung – sie selbst – seine Liebe hervor!” E.T.A. Hoffmann (2006, 1819). Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr. Düsseldorf: Artemis & Winkler; trans. Anthea Bell. The Life and Opinions of the Tomcat Murr. London: Penguin Classics, Ch. 3.

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having the same purpose and scope of explanation [Erklärungsumfang]. Not even a dramatised clairvoyance would push these limits of an acceptable explanation further away.” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 300; my trans.) If I continue to use the concept of ‘inspiration,’ it will be in line with the caveat Du Prel is raising: mythical explanations are less satisfactory than explanations which rely on inner experience which is somehow within reach. To avoid relapsing into the problematic conception of space, matter and time addressed in the previous chapter (viz., as neutral, quantitative categories), I will make no ultimate distinction between the process of inspiration and its outcome (the artwork, the discovery, the book, the problem solution, etc.). Both are correlative, and the artists remain connected to their work. In his ‘Reflections on Writing’ from 1941 Henry Miller writes that “[e]very line and word is vitally connected with my life, my life only, be it in the form of deed, event, fact, thought, emotion, desire, evasion, frustration, dream, revery, vagary, even the unfinished nothings which float listlessly in the brain like the snapped filaments of a spider’s web.” He adds that he “was driven to write because it proved to be the only outlet open to me, the only task worthy of my powers.” Not as an escape: “on the contrary, it meant a still deeper plunge into the brackish pool – a plunge to the source where the waters were constantly being renewed, where there was perpetual movement and stir.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 190) To be clear, I take the ‘self’ or the alleged subject of inspiration (“my life”) in the sense of ‘soul,’ if not even in terms of an intermittently accessed subliminal selfhood. From what has been stated in the previous chapter we can infer that the sphere of the subliminal is inherently anachronistic and, despite its simultaneity with supraliminal consciousness, not equitemporal or isochronous with it. Therefore, it is hard to say if this subliminal self, including its ‘object’ (the artwork etc.), represents for the inspired subject an eternal, fated past or an everlasting future yet to be realised. The only thing that can be said from the viewpoint of supraliminal chronology, I would suggest, is that it interrupts any regular temporal order. I am aware that different accounts of ‘inspiration’ can be given – other than clairvoyance of one’s soul – which all more or less make sense, depending on the context. My account will further develop some insights presented earlier. The view which I would like to defend most definitely is that inspiration is not an exceptional experience – even though it can be rare – but a root experience. The problem with identifying human root experiences, even for a phenomenologist, is that any attempt to justify or refute them already presupposes that root experience. They affect the

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subject position which tries to define it, albeit unconsciously. Arguments in favour of whichever root experience, therefore, must in particular pay attention to decisive interruptions of daily experience. Existentialist thinkers have pointed at the ground-breaking significance of anxiety, which may disrupt our peaceful daily existence in groups or collectives. Rather than of the human subject’s anxiety, Emmanuel Levinas preferred to speak of its primordial restlessness (inquiétude), which he believes to be beyond average enjoyment (jouissance). Both notions should be taken seriously, I think. To the extent that the inspired person is the only one who has, or has had, access to their self or soul, any corroboration of my claims cannot come from ‘hetero-spection’ (i.e., speculating about the other’s mind). I prefer to substantiate them by often resorting to autobiographical testimonies. It will be vain to expect these testimonies to offer a full confirmation of what I have stated before. At best, they can introduce us to ‘family resemblances’ between various artistic accounts of inspiration. In what follows I will refer to accounts of D.H. Lawrence (British author and poet, 1885-1930), Stephen Spender (British novelist, poet and essayist, 1909-1995), Henry Miller (American author, 1891-1980), Julian Levi (American painter, 1900-1982), Brewster Ghiselin (American poet, 1903-2002), Thomas Wolfe (American novelist, 1900-1938), Friedrich Nietzsche, Marcel Proust and finally Lygia Clark. Apart from Proust’s and Clark’s, these accounts are collected in the famous florilegia The Creative Process. Reflections on Invention in the Arts and Sciences, edited by Brewster Ghiselin. By referring to these accounts, I do not mean to ‘verify’ my claims; not only because verification itself can never be exhaustive (as Popper has shown), but also – more importantly – because it is not my intention to ‘prove’ anything. Strictly speaking, ‘proof’ only applies to mathematics or logic and never to experience. “Life’s truth is a knowledge without beginning, and the facts of real life are not obtained by proof,” we read in Robert Musil’s novel Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften; “who lives and suffers has them in himself as the mysterious force of higher demands and as the living meaning of his self!”9 And also: “Life’s deepest truths are not arrived at in debate, as Plato already said. Man hears them as the living meaning [lebendige Deutung] and fulfilment of his self [Erfüllung seiner selbst].” (Musil, 1997, p. 970; trans. Wilkins, Ch. 31)

9

“Die Lebenswahrheit ist ein anfangloses Wissen, und die Tatsachen des wahren Lebens werden nicht durch Beweis vermittelt: wer lebt und leidet, hat sie in sich selbst als die geheimnisvolle Macht höherer Ansprüche und als die lebendige Deutung seiner selbst!” Musil II (Nachlass), 1996, p. 1073f; my trans.

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For my theoretical argument itself, I will rely on several thinkers whose ideas proved helpful: Gabriel Marcel’s notion of an inner call or vocation, Otto Rank’s theory of birth trauma and life anxiety, the approaches of shame in Max Scheler and Martha Nussbaum, and Wilhelm Reich’s account of the orgasmic experience. Also, Ludwig Klages’ and, to a lesser degree, Georges Bataille’s theories of self-abandonment will be relevant; that is, to counter the typical evolutionistic reduction of human nature to mere self-protection. Human nature, I will argue, consists of a continuous interplay between selfprotection and self-abandonment. The latter, I claim, originates in an anxiety which prevents one from continually orbiting around one’s (real or imaginary) self and from being always in search of the protection or preservation of that self. For the moment, I will define ‘anxiety’ as the experience of a void and negativity – pure indeterminacy –, resulting in a feeling of inner oppression. As what we call ‘freedom’ presupposes at least some degree of indeterminacy, one can reasonably expect that freedom and anxiety are interrelated. Further on in this chapter, I will suggest that, in addition, anxiety also consists of the experience of an inner clash between self-abandonment and self-protection; therefore, the anxiety affect will always be internally ambiguous. Anxiety differs from fear, which is less ambiguous since it faces a plenitude or a concrete positivity. If a philosopher of life such as Ludwig Klages, as we will see below, neglects or ignores anxiety in his account of inspiration, this may be for two reasons. Either he overemphasises the inner drive while overlooking its ‘birth-ground,’ or he does not seem to recognise the anxiety component inherent to the drive. In the following, I will interpret ‘inspiration’ as an original experience of the soul. To outline my argument, I will construe inspiration more concretely in terms of (1) a vocation or a call, (2) a drive, and (3) ecstasy.

I Vocation Let me start by quoting three artists speaking about their artistic vocation experience: Stephen Spender, Marcel Proust, and Hermann Hesse. True, these quotes could be multiplied with similar quotes from others. But at least, the following testimonies give us a hint. “The poet’s faith,” Stephen Spender writes in 1946, “is therefore, firstly, a mystique of vocation, secondly, a faith in his own truth, combined with a devotion to a task. There can really be no greater faith than the confidence that one is doing one’s utmost to fulfil one’s high vocation, and it is this that has inspired all the greatest poets.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 124)

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Such a “confidence” may have to pass the test of apparently ‘losing’ one’s time until the vocation cannot be overheard anymore, as is suggested by Proust: “I felt […] an enthusiasm which might have borne fruit [qui aurait pu être fécond] had I been left alone and would then have saved me the unnecessary round of many wasted years through which I was yet to pass before there was revealed to me that invisible vocation [avant que se déclarât la vocation invisible] of which these volumes are the history.10 To this ‘waste of time,’ Hesse’s glass bead game master Josef Knecht seems to allude when he says that “[t]his time the call [Ruf] does not find me deaf; it finds me more alert [wacher] than I have ever been, because it does not really surprise me. It does not come to me as something alien, something from outside which I may or may not respond to, as I please. Rather, it comes out of myself [wie aus mir selber]; it is the twin to a very powerful and insistent desire, to a need [Not] and a longing [Sehnsucht] within myself.”11 Not just artists speak about vocation. We also find the subject discussed by philosophers. How would it not, as the vocation experience does not confine itself to artists alone? However, the subject of vocation or call is not ubiquitous in philosophy. This is due to its particularising nature. Beyond Levinas (who made it central to his entire thinking), the subject of an experienced vocation, of being called from within, receives particular attention in the existentialist tradition of philosophy. A case in point here is the philosophy of the French thinker Gabriel Marcel. Marcel, struggling with the typically existentialist problem of qualifying the human root experience, explicitly labels inner experience as a ‘call’: “however unexpected such calls might be, I ought to respond to them with such strength and skill as I possess”.12 Other than in Levinas, however, in Marcel, this call corresponds to our deepest self. This self even originates in it: “This self [Ce moi-même] to which I have to be true is perhaps merely the cry that comes out to me from my own depths [du plus profond du moi] – the appeal [appel] to me to become that which, literally and apparently, I now am not.” 10

Marcel Proust (1920-21). Le côté de Guermantes II. In Proust, 1999, p. 1053. (Trans. Moncrieff) 11 Hermann Hesse (1979, 1943). Das Glasperlenspiel. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp; trans. Richard and Clara Winston (2002). The Glass Bead Game, Ch. 9 (ebook). 12 Gabriel Marcel (1950). The Mystery of Being. I Reflection and Mystery. Chicago, Il: Henry Regnery Company, p. 2. The French edition reads: “à tout appel, si inattendu qu’il puisse être, je devais répondre d’une façon conforme à mes aptitudes et à mes forces”. Gabriel Marcel (1997). Le mystère de l’être. Nouvelle Edition. Paris: Association Présence de Gabriel Marcel, p. 8.

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(Marcel, 1950, p. 143; 1997, p. 158) How to read these lines? While the call is not my possession, it still belongs to me. I am inclined to interpret it in line with what Du Prel had termed a Hellsehen der eigenen Psyche, as a breakthrough of inner ecstasy The call, Marcel contends, corresponds to our self (moi-même). It speaks to us from our deepest self, or even from our self’s inner depth (du plus profond du moi). The content of what is ‘spoken’ to us concerns a call to become what we are not (yet). We encounter here an echo of the notions of ‘soul,’ ‘selfhood’ or ‘self’ discussed in the previous chapter. Neither soul nor selfhood is equal to an object or a thing. Instead, they had better be seen as a depth structure or a ‘space’ of infinite reverberation. It consists of a deep, most intense and most intimate receptivity to a call which I feel is being addressed to me. Neither the embracing I or self nor the call can ever be qualified as an object. It lacks concreteness since it cannot be delimited. It belongs to the nature of the call that I try to live it out while continuously examining it. True, to do this, creativity is required (créativité, Marcel, 1997, p. 158). In other words: neither selfhood nor call are self-contained phenomena, they represent a relentless task or even a mission.13 But Marcel goes further and alludes to a subject which will continue to concern us in chapter 3, the question of freedom as an inner necessity. “it is in the name of such a vocation,” he says, “which imposes itself on me not as a fate, not as the mask of dire necessity, but rather as an appeal [appel] to me that I may be led to condemn a life which is the very life which, up to the present, I have actually been leading.” (Marcel, 1950, p. 137; 1997, p. 152)14 This quotation adds a feature to the call which subtracts it to the substance ontology we have become acquainted with in European history: freedom as a necessity.15 ‘Freedom,’ according to Marcel, is not an abstract category that can or cannot be attributed to human agency in general; it is slightly identical with the condition that coincides with an inwardly experienced mission. This mission calls on me to live out what I feel is urging me from within and to make the intimate ex-timate. If freedom rather 13

In chapter 4, I will additionally associate selfhood with ‘presence’. Cf Robert Musil: “Man nennt etwas, das weder eine Wahrheit noch eine Subjektivität ist, zuweilen eine Forderung.” Musil, 1997, p. 254. 15 Jung equally insists on the inner vocation as a soul-determining characteristic. In the following quotation, however, he emphasises inner necessity more than Marcel seems to do: “Das Psychische ist eine Großmacht, die alle Mächte der Erde um ein Vielfaches übersteigt. Die Aufklärung, welch die Natur und die menschlichen Institutionen entgöttert hart, hat den einen Gott des Schreckens, der in der Seele wohnt, übersehen.” Jung, 1947, p.197. 14

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than fate is to be associated with the experience of a call, this means that this experience is felt as liberating or setting free. The advantage of such a concept of freedom is not only that it is in principle accessible to experience but also that it is armed against arid rational suspicion and conceptual doubt. Free will discussions and even free will defence tend to be restricted to rational argument rather than to inner experience. Indeed, I may, as a rule, be unfree in my daily desires, choices and decisions, but at least the intimate, pre-rational experience of being called upon confirms me that I can be free. To vary upon Kant’s dictum: I am called so I must be free. Or even more: I am called, I am free (without the conclusive ‘so’). A loud echo of this call can perhaps be heard in the following testimony of Henry Miller: “Writing, like life itself, is a voyage of discovery. The adventure is a metaphysical one: it is a way of approaching life indirectly, of acquiring a total rather than a partial view of the universe. The writer lives between the upper and lower worlds: he takes the path in order eventually to become the path himself. I began in absolute darkness, in a bog or swamp of ideas and emotions and experiences. […] I began from scratch, throwing everything overboard, even those whom I most loved. Immediately I heard my own voice I was enchanted: the fact that it was a separate, distinct, unique voice sustained me.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 184, 185) This passage demonstrates that what Marcel terms a ‘call’ may confusingly coincide with one’s own voice. In terms of Heidegger, it is not ontically different, but only ontologically: it is not a separate entity but another way of being. The appropriate mental disposition to access it would rather be inner enchantment (Miller), or confidence and faith (cf Spender) than an attempt to catch up sounds with one’s ear. Miller continues as follows: “The great writer is the very symbol of life, of the non-perfect. He moves effortlessly, giving the illusion of perfection from some unknown center, a center connected with the rhythm of the whole universe and consequently as sound, solid, unshakable, as durable, defiant, anarchic, purposeless, as the universe itself.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 187)16

16 Miller’s and Marcel’s accounts closely resemble each other and make a comparative reading highly promising. Cf for example Marcel’s discussion of “ma vie” and “le sens de ‘ma vie’” in Le mystère de l’être (8ième & 9ième leçon). Also cf Hermann Hesse’s novel Das Glasperlenspiel (1943), which contains interesting reflections on vocation as inner awakening (Erwachen).

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II Drive “Eros alone can fulfil life; knowledge, never. Only Eros makes sense; knowledge is empty infinity”. Cioran17

Still, a call or vocation without an inherent proclivity may always fade away in languor or even go awry. An inner drive towards an as yet unspecific outer goal is part of the experience of inspiration. “Poets,” Stephen Spender observes, “speak of the necessity of writing poetry rather than of a liking for doing it. It is spiritual compulsion, a straining of the mind to attain heights surrounded by abysses”. (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 115)18 What is the nature of this “compulsion” or “necessity”? My claim is that it is a drive to self-revelation or even self-denudation: self-revelation as selfdenudation. Is not a self always naked, by definition? But what, then, is revelation? I think that it belongs to the nature of revelation that something is revealed or unveiled that either cannot or should not be revealed. Otherwise, the notion of ‘revelation’ would become meaningless. ‘Denudation’ better expresses what I believe ‘revelation’ entails. Inspiration is partly constituted by a drive to denudate. Interestingly, the theological concept of ‘revelation’ does not at all occur in the Hebrew Bible, at least not as a theological concept. The root of the concept is the verb ʤʬʢ/galah, which means ‘to unveil,’ ‘to denudate’ (cf. Exodus 20, 22: “And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness [˃ʺʕʍ ʥʸʓʍ ˆ/‘erwotcha: ‘your shame’] be not exposed [ʤʓʬˏʕ ʺʑ /tigalèh] on it.”) Commenting on the occurrences of galah in the Hebrew Bible, Jacques Derrida notes that the Biblical text sometimes seems to be more wary about denudation than about the ensuing intercourse. For example in Leviticus 20, 11: “If a man lies with his father’s wife, he has uncovered [ʤʕ˘ ʑˏ/gillƗh] his father’s nakedness [ʺʔʥʸʓʍ ˆ/‘erwat: ‘shame’]; both of them

17

“L’Éros seul peut remplir une vie; jamais la connaissance. Seul l’Éros donne un contenu; la connaissance est une infinité vide.” Cioran (1936). Le livre des leurres. In Cioran, 1996, p. 217. Trans. Camelia Elias. In Hyperion V/1, May 2010, p. 76. 18 These “abysses” can be fatal, as appears from this quote by Cioran: “Dès qu’on fait appel au plus intime de soi, et qu’on se met à œuvrer et à se manifester, on s’attribue des dons, on devient insensible à ses propres lacunes. Nul n’est à même d’admettre que ce qui surgit de ses profondeurs pourrait ne rien valoir.” Cioran (1973). De l’inconvénient d’être né. In Cioran, 1995, p. 1292.

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shall surely be put to death; their blood is upon them.”19 As if revelation or denudation were an infringement of intimacy or selfhood. How would a drive which is a drive towards self-revelation or self-denudation not be accompanied by guilty pleasure, vacillating between shame and exhibitionism? Shame, then, reminds the inspired subject of some unknown or perhaps even unknowable prohibition to expose, whereas the exhibitory drive points at a miraculous tendency to simultaneously infringe that prohibition. It reflects an ‘ontological’ ambiguity of something (i.e., ‘intimacy,’ ‘selfhood’) that may and may not be revealed. At this point, three questions arise. The first question is, how to anthropologically substantiate the existence of such an outbound drive for self-revelation or self-denudation? The second question concerns the nature of the drive. For answering that question, I will dwell on Ludwig Klages, who argues for an innate human inclination to ‘self-abandonment,’ beyond mere self-protection. The third question regards the drive’s origin. Here I will rely on the heterodox psychoanalyst Otto Rank who, as already announced in the introduction to this book, closely associates human creativity with anxiety to live and a tendency to self-immortalisation. At the end of the discussion, I will briefly elaborate on the incommensurability between Klages’ and Rank’s worldviews; while Klages takes life as complete, Rank claims that it is inherently imperfect and always in need of completion. I will explain why I follow Rank’s account of the incompleteness of being while recognising Klages’ notion of vital force (Eros) throughout. Existence and nature of the drive Concerning the first question, about the existence of a fundamental inner drive allegedly linked to perceiving an internal call or vocation: I think we should take seriously here dimensions of human agency that go beyond mere biological self-preservation, sometimes even against it. I am thinking of human culture and art as such. I interpret culture and art here as condensation or compression of human activities in general (e.g., economy, 19

Also see Jacques Derrida (1983). D’un ton apocalyptique adopté naguère en philosophie. Paris: Galilée, pp. 14-16. In the Kabbalah, the relation between revelation and denudation is more explicit. Cf: “the Shekhinah [i.e. the personification of God’s presence among humans, RS] is identified as the corona of the penis. Seeing God amounts to seeing that aspect of the phallus that reveals what is veiled.” Elliot R. Wolfson (1997, 1994). Through a Speculum that Shines. Vision and Imagination in Medieval Jewish Mysticism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 359.

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politics, education, religion, entertainment, etc.); or, reversely, the latter may well be a gradual unfolding of cultural or artistic performances. I am inclined to distinguish between ‘artistic’ or ‘cultural’ behaviour on the one hand, and ‘labour’ on the other, as unproductive versus productive agency.20 To compensate for the negativity of the term ‘unproductive,’ I would remind the reader of the two more positive features of artefacts outlined in the previous chapter: dialogue and forgiveness. Obviously, ‘politics,’ ‘education,’ ‘religion’ and ‘entertainment’ cannot fail to waver between these extremes, being sometimes focused on production and sometimes on its opposite. It is remarkable that socio-biologists tend to interpret human culture and art on the sole basis of the idea of self-preservation, or even of assumed selfish genes (albeit sometimes in the slightly modified form of ‘memes,’ cf R. Dawkins or D. Dennett). Compensating for the poverty of reductive naturalistic and evolutionist anthropologies, Max Scheler argues that, compared to processes of self-preservation, organic unfolding and development are not merely epiphenomena. Instead, he states, preservation (Erhaltung) is already an indicative of life’s withering away (Absterben) and of lassitude; fixating vital functions, it adapts them to the inanimate.21 On his turn, Ludwig Klages insists on the importance for human nature of Selbsthingebung, ‘self-giving without restriction,’ ‘self-abandonment’. (The current English translation ‘devotion’ lacks the reference to giving, surrender, rendition, offering.) This self-giving, Klages adds, is intrinsically connected to an innate Gestaltungsdrang, a ‘drive to build or create’.22 Without the acknowledgement of a self-abandoning drive issuing in selfrevelatory creativity, no picture of human nature will be complete, let alone that the phenomenon of inspiration will ever be understood. Human nature without an account of self-abandonment will lack spirit, or rather – in terms of the previous chapter – soul. In Hermann Friedmann (Friedmann, p. 33f), 20

Cf Georges Bataille (1976, 1949). La part maudite. In Œuvres complètes VII. Paris: Gallimard. 21 Max Scheler (1933). Über Scham und Schamgefühl. In Schriften aus dem Nachlass Bd. 1. Berlin: Der neue Geist Verlag, p. 125. Scheler affirmatively refers here to Bergson’s l’Evolution créatrice. 22 Bataille, who recognises this Selbsthingabe when speaking of a dépense improductive, a don de la vie, and even sacrifice (Bataille, OC VII, pp. 195ff, 235ff, 261ff), seems to ignore this associated Gestaltungsdrang as the positive side of the Selbsthingabe. Friedmann associates it with sheer ‘objectivity,’ as it entails a maximum of self-surrender to the object: “ist der Optiker, der Distanz zu den Dingen hat, ihnen selbstvergessen hingegeben; sein Bewusstsein ist Objektgewissheit, sein Verhalten, weil seine ganze Seele am Objekte hängt, höchste Objektivität”. Friedmann, 1930, p. 34.

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or in the French philosopher Georges Bataille (Bataille, 1976), for example, one can find similar thoughts on the innate human proclivity to selfabandonment. In what follows, I will interpret Du Prel’s account of inspiration as a “clairvoyance of one’s own soul” in light of this proclivity. It should be noted with emphasis that the availability of two basic drives rather than one cannot fail to prompt either adaptive release or interaction. As a rule, however, human behaviour is characterised by their interplay rather than by their alternation. I will come back to this point below, when discussing inspiration as a decompression self, opposed to an orgasmic experience consisting of a compression of self. Would it be preposterous to follow Klages in his distinction of a human drive towards self-abandonment, in addition to a drive towards selfpreservation? Does not the latter invite science to explain the former away? I do not think so, even though the drive towards self-abandonment is habitually overlooked. According to Klages, this may be due to two different causes, an inner and an outer cause. Both of these causes are still valid in my view. On the one hand, Klages says, self-preservation and a corresponding sense of honour, self-esteem or even self-enjoyment often make people hide intimate feelings or psychic processes: “Every animal being, and man in particular, has an interest in not showing certain mental processes [gewisse Seelenvorgänge nicht zu zeigen].” (Klages, 1936, p. 122; trans., p. 96) On the other hand, a lack of a deeply felt sense of embeddedness in original life experience can equally hamper creativity. Such a lack could ultimately lead to sheer impotence of formative power. (Ohnmacht der Gestaltungskraft). (Klages, 1936, p. 137; trans., p. 107) This impediment is not so much due to the presence of an obstacle (e.g., shame or social pressure) but to the absence of a pulling force. In combination with an irresistible inner upsurge, this absence of pull may in some instances even lead to hysteria, Klages concludes. Hysteria, then, can be taken as a setback; it is the creativity’s rejoinder to a felt experiential dearth (Rückschlag des Darstellungsdranges gegen das Gefühl des Erlebnisunvermögens, ‘the reaction of the desire to represent against the feeling of impotence to experience’; Klages, 1936, p. 144, trans., p. 112). The outbound, centrifugal human tendency finds no ‘inspiring’ fuel to create adequately.23

23 Interestingly, Rank sees a danger in the uninhibited unleashing of creativity (das völlige Aufgezehrtwerden im Schaffensprozess). As an antidote (eine der Schutzvorrichtungen des Künstlers), Rank argues, knowledge can be beneficial. The basic conflict in the artist is one between beauty and truth. Cf Rank, 2000, p. 328.

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Despite these two possible grounds on which a drive towards selfabandonment is often ignored, some might still prefer to deny its existence. As regards the first ground, they could simply refuse to acknowledge that inner urges can ultimately be kept secret by human agents; worse, they could even be unable to recognise inspired, outbound drives in themselves. As regards the second, they may, for example, object that hysteria rests on an obsolete diagnosis and that it cannot prove any suppressed original creativity. Klages only wrote his Grundlagen der Charakterkunde in 1910, they could add, in an age in which it was still a medically recognised pathology consisting of somatisation of psychical issues. (The reader may remember that in the previous chapter reference was made to Frederic Myers and his notion of ‘ideation’: the subliminal projection upon the body of inner obsessions.) Nowadays, hysteria is not listed anymore in the DSM as a psychical disease. Nonetheless, not only is the descriptive content of the DSM often attacked today for being too narrow, both in light of the possibility of veridic spiritual experiences and of other, non-dualistic cultural traditions on the human being. What is more, several contemporary authors argue against mainstream psychiatry that, what was once termed ‘hysteria,’ is still alive today, albeit in the different form of what is currently called ‘burnout’ or ‘chronic fatigue syndrome’.24 The latter are as widespread in the modern Western world as hysteria was in fin de siècle Europe. Since burnout and chronic fatigue often lack a clear physiological basis, they must – just as hysteria – one way or another consist of (what psychoanalysis tags as) ‘conversion’ or ‘somatisation,’ that is, of the formation of physical symptoms that represent mental content. It is my hypothesis that – similar to hysteria – these modern diseases are primarily due to a Rückschlag des Darstellungsdranges gegen das Gefühl des Erlebnisunvermögens. Materialist psychology or psychiatry, which are exclusively based on the evolutionist dogma of self-preservation, have incapacitated themselves to diagnose hysteria or any of its contemporary avatars adequately. Therefore, if my assumption is correct that burnout and chronic fatigue syndrome are contemporary equivalents of hysteria, it follows that the current spread of these modern psychical diseases could make positively acceptable the existence of a human drive which partly makes up for inspiration.

24 Elaine Showalter (1998). Hystories. Hysterical Epidemics and Modern Media. New York: Columbia University Press; Sander L. Gilman a.o. (1993). Hysteria Beyond Freud. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press; Jef Dehing, red. (2006). Hysterie en psychoanalyse. Springlevend ondanks onrustwekkende verdwijning. Antwerpen/Apeldoorn: Garant.

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Origin of the drive “We do not run towards death, we escape the catastrophe of birth”. Cioran25

Based on the above account of fundamental inner drives, I make two further claims. One claim regards anxiety, the other shame. My first claim is that the drive towards self-abandonment – which is centrifugal or rests upon expulsion of the self from itself – is fuelled by anxiety. I have defined ‘anxiety’ as the experience of inner oppression, which I hitherto attributed to a confrontation with the indeterminacy of negativity or emptiness. It seems as if pure self-coincidence or selfcomplacency (that is, self-identification) were always interrupted by anxiety. In this section, I will go further and argue that anxiety does not necessarily paralyse the anxiety-ridden self; it also prevents the self from continually orbiting around itself and interrupting ongoing development. One could say that in anxiety, both the self-protective and the selfabandoning drive meet and clash. I am inspired at this point by Otto Rank’s notions of birth trauma and life anxiety, to which I will come back. Klages would at all costs reject the legitimacy of these notions, in favour of an overemphasis on the power of inner drives. My second claim concerns shame. Similar to anxiety, shame can be seen as a meeting-place of the drive towards self-abandonment and the drive towards self-preservation. Both drives coalesce in the experience of shame. This seems contradictory, but I define shame as the simultaneous desire to conceal and to reveal. Just like anxiety, shame partakes of the fundamental ambiguity in human nature which combines centripetalism (selfpreservation) and centrifugalism (self-abandonment). It expresses an ambiguous form of human self-relatedness, which both prompts and forbids revelation. Another word for this fundamental ambiguity is intimacy or even soul. ‘Soul’ consists of a double bind: to both protect and reveal itself. Shame and anxiety are translations of this double bind. To quote Max Scheler in his famous text on shame: “In shame, feelings of self-worth make it closely related to pride; of love and devotion [Hingabetendenz], to humility [Demut].” (Max Scheler, 1933, p. 73; my trans.)

25 “Nous ne courons pas vers la mort, nous fuyons la catastrophe de la naissance”. Cioran (1973) De l’inconvénient d’être né. In Cioran, 1995, p. 1271, my trans.

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But let us first take a quick look at the origin of the alleged drive of selfabandonment. Whereas I think that the existence of a drive towards selfabandonment – issuing in creativity and inspiration – could be inferred from the phenomenon of human culture (rather than from that of the human pursuit of profit and economy), for an account of its origin we had better resort to psychoanalytical insights. It was Rank who, as one of the first, analysed the inner, artistic impetus to create. Already before Jung, Rank tried to save a creative human drive from mere sexualisation. He developed the exciting theory that art ambiguously roots both in a widespread belief in immortality and in the anxiety to live. “For the creative impulse in the artist,” Rank argues, “springing from the tendency to immortalise himself [Selbstverewigungstendenz], is so powerful that he is always seeking to protect himself against the transient experience, which eats up his ego [sein Ich aufzehrt und verbraucht]. The artist takes refuge, with all his own experience only from the life of actuality, which for him spells mortality and decay, whereas the experience to which he has given shape [das von ihm gestaltete Erleben] imposes itself on him as a creation, which he in fact seeks to turn into a work.” (Rank, 2000, p. 74; trans., p. 38f) The focus on creativity is no coincidence, in light of Ranks earlier groundbreaking theories about the trauma of birth.26 These theories paved the way for a whole new strand in psychoanalytical thinking which gave particular weight to the pre-oedipal stage in child development. This move enabled those who made it (e.g., Melanie Klein, Deleuze & Guattari) to escape the pressure of over-oedipialisation and to give independent ‘birthright’ to innate human tendencies. Especially art ‘benefitted’ from this emphasis on pre-oedipal experience, insofar as it would not have to be explained away anymore as a sublimated longing for the mother. Rank claimed for example that artists, even more than any other human being, are permeated by birth trauma and concomitant anxiety to live – both of which are as non-specific and undetermined as they are open to all kinds of direction. “It is as if every child corresponds to a uterine fold,” Lygia Clark writes, “where they were generated, but separated, though in the same womb!”27 This remark is particularly interesting in light of her announced ‘abandonment’ of art in 1977 – which in 2014 inspired two curators of the New York Museum of Modern Art to initiate a retrospective exhibition under the title ‘The 26 Otto Rank (2007, 1924). Das Trauma der Geburt und seine Bedeutung für die Psychoanalyse. Gießen: Psychosozial Verlag. 27 “é como se cada filho correspondesse a uma dobra uterina onde foram gerados, mas separados, embora no mesmo útero!” Clark, 1998, p. 210 (trans. Alexandre Dung).

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Abandonment of Art’.28 The ambiguity of this title is telling. True – and Lygia Clark would be the first to admit this –, pathological dimensions will not be alien to the artistic mindset. Still, despite, or better, by virtue of birth trauma and life anxiety, creativity is set free to compete with this anxiety and to build an eternal self (Selbstverewigungstendenz). Anxiety and creativity, Rank argues, are twins. Anxiety forms a mobile for creativity. “This bright thing, the core of him, his Stranger,” Thomas Wolfe writes about his protagonist and alter ego Eugene Gant, “kept twisting its head about, unable to look at horror, until at length it gazed steadfastly, as if under a dreadful hypnosis, into the eyes of death and darkness. And his soul plunged downward drowning in that deep pit: he felt that he could never again escape from this smothering flood of pain and ugliness, from the eclipsing horror and pity of it all. And as he walked, he twisted his own neck about and beat the air with his arm like a wing, as if he had received a blow in his kidneys. He felt that he might be clean and free if he could only escape into a single burning passion – hard, and hot, and glittering – of love, hatred, terror or disgust.” (Wolfe, 2016, p. 490; my italics, RS)29 In the fourth chapter, we will see that what is called death may constitute the ultimate attempt to process trauma once and for all. On a side-note, I think that Heidegger’s description of the human being in terms of a geworfener Entwurf (‘thrown projection’) is not so alien at all to Rank’s account, apart from that it pretends (sic) to go deeper. If someone were capable of undermining Heidegger’s ‘fundamental ontology’ and unmask it as being mostly ontic-empirical, it would probably greatly benefit from it. It could join the ranks of pre-oedipal thinkers and invigorate their concern.

28

Cornelia Butler and Luis Pérez-Oramas (2014). Lygia Clark: The Abandonment of Art, 1948–1988. New York: Museum of Modern Art. 29 Also see “den inneren Lebenstrieb, der freilich immer noch wie ein eingeschlossenes Feuer wirkt, aber weil die eigentliche Erhebung nicht mehr möglich ist, als ein Feuer der Pein und Angst, das nach allen Seiten seinen Ausweg sucht.” F.W.J. Schelling (2009, 1810). Clara. Über den Zusammenhang der Natur mit der Geisterwelt. Königsdorf: Königsdorfer Verlag, p. 75.

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Anxiety, shame and exhibitionism “The history of creative production becomes the history of self-presentation.” —Hermann Friedmann30 “For the victim of anxiety, there is no difference between success and fiasco. His reaction to the one is the same as to the other: both trouble him equally.” —Cioran31

Let us assume with Rank that there exists a drive towards self-abandonment – the root cause of creativity and inspiration – and that this drive originates in an anxiety which, beyond just paralysing the self, prevents one from continually orbiting around one’s (real or imaginary) self or from seeking to protect or preserve that self. At this point, one could ask if such anxiety is real, and what would be the presuppositions of its existence. I already mentioned that Rank, other than Klages, departs from the idea that life is deficient in itself. Creativity is mobilised in order to compensate for this deficiency, or more precisely, for the shame and anxiety that reflect it.32 What is called ‘inspiration’ can be seen as a constant rivalry with shame and anxiety. In his monography on Sabbetai Sevi, the 16th century Messiah claimant, Gershom Scholem writes that Sevi was repeatedly harassed by terrible anxiety and depression. Scholem suggests that he probably suffered from (what is called today) a ‘manic-depressive psychosis’. As soon as this anxiety and depression disappeared, he adds, Sabbetai took up his studies with great joy and even with ecstasy, and his face burnt like fire just as Moses’ upon his descent from the mountain. However, when being in a ‘normal,’ that is, an inbetween state, during which he was not illumined anymore, Sabbetai was even ashamed about his acts and deeds, and he regretted them.33 I will leave aside here the complex issue as to whether Sabbetai was indeed inspired, or rather ‘possessed’. At the end of this chapter, I will dwell on the notion of ‘possession’ and define it as inspiration’s caricature.

30

Friedmann, 1930, p. 470 ; my trans. “Pour l’anxieux, il n’existe pas de différence entre succès et fiasco. Sa réaction à l’égard de l’un et de l’autre est la même. Les deux le dérangent également.” Cioran (1973). De l’inconvénient d’être né. In Cioran, 1995, p. 1342. (Trans. Richard Howard) 32 In their account of Ulysses, Horkheimer and Adorno associate this anxiety with (‘unmask’ it as) something Jewish: “Udeis, der zwangshaft sich als Odysseus einbekennt, trägt bereits die Züge des Juden, der noch in der Todesangst auf die Überlegenheit pocht, die aus der Todesangst stammt”. Horkheimer & Adorno, 1988, p. 76. 33 Gershom Scholem (1992/1957). Sabbatai Zwi. Der mystische Messias. Frankfurt: Jüdischer Verlag, p. 154, 156f, 161. 31

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As regards the affect of anxiety, I will mostly follow Rank (who associates it with birth trauma and the ensuing life anxiety); I will also briefly refer to Kierkegaard, whose Concept of Anxiety was ground-breaking for almost all accounts of anxiety in its aftermath. As regards the affect of shame, I will instead rely on Max Scheler, and partly also on Martha Nussbaum. When I connect anxiety with shame in my study of inspiration, it is because I believe that both affects introduce a notion which is crucial for me: alterity. Alterity or otherness, in my view, make up for the aforementioned ‘lack’ or ‘deficit’ of life. This lack or deficit produces anxiety while simultaneously fuelling attempts to replenish it creatively. Rank’s interpretation of the nature of creativity hinges on the actual existence of a life anxiety. Such an original anxiety would imply that life is neither selfcontained nor a plenitude but that a lack somehow characterises it. Thinkers as Klages would deny the existence of this lack. They would defend the position that life is complete in itself and that any anxiety must be derived from illusory, ‘spirit’-bound perceptions (i.e., illicit rationalisations or intellectualisations of life). If I am inclined here to prefer Rank’s conception of life as a lack to Klages’ of life as an original autarchic plenitude, it will be in light of the alterity which – as we have seen in the previous chapter – I attribute both to the I or inwardness, and to matter or outwardness. Though Klages may well be right in rejecting spirit as distortive exteriority, I believe he is wrong if this rejection entails a rejection of alterity as such.34 Anxiety “[O]nly those will liberate themselves from anxiety who abandon themselves in devotion [wer sich hingibt] and become a creator of beauty and form; only those will win themselves whose soul and eye lost themselves to the others.” —Hermann Friedmann35 “[T]here is always less egoism in pure imagination than in recollection [souvenir]” —Marcel Proust36

When we remind ourselves of the similarities, discussed in the previous chapter, between the creative (artefacts) and the procreative (children) act 34 In his book Das Inzest-Motiv in Dichtung und Sage. Grundzüge einer Psychologie des dichterischen Schaffens (Leipzig/Wien: Deuticke, 1912, p. 20), Rank tries to convince the reader that Klages’ rejection of spirit is compatible with his own call for an increase of science and knowledge. 35 Friedmann, 1930, p. 471; my trans. 36 Marcel Proust (1922). Sodome et Gomorrhe. In Proust, 1999, 1325f (trans. Moncrieff).

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(both are ‘ensouled’), we may better understand how someone like Kierkegaard can associate anxiety with sexual intercourse and childbirth. Both intercourse and childbirth are, just as the artistic act, an endeavour into the absolutely indeterminate or unfathomable (another word for this would be ‘future’): “In the moment of conception,” Kierkegaard writes, “spirit is furthest away, and therefore the anxiety is the greatest. In this anxiety the new individual comes into being. In the moment of birth, anxiety culminates a second time in the woman, and in this moment the new individual comes into the world. […] Therefore the spirit trembles, for in this moment it does not have its task, it is as if it were suspended.”37 Even if the anxiety Kierkegaard mentions is partly due to a loss of control (‘suspension of the spirit’), I want to emphasise that a primordial relation to a space of pure indeterminacy is addressed here. Besides, I would like to underline that a simultaneous presence or involvement of spirit during factual intercourse or childbirth – a presence that tends to intellectualise the act or event – cannot fail to overwhelm anxiety with multiple rational interpretations: ‘we will be making a baby,’ ‘we will do what lovers usually do or even have to do,’ or ‘childbirth is so common,’ ‘I will survive this,’ etc. In this respect I think that Klages is right that the sexual drive (Geschlechtstrieb) is not identical with a ‘drive to reproduction’ (“Fortpflanzungstrieb”), for the latter, he argues, does not exist at all as a drive; it is a spirit-based rationalisation and distortion of an ensouled drive.38 To complement Klages’ assessment of the sexual drive as a real drive versus the drive for reproduction as a flawed rationalisation, I would add that the same distinction can be applied to artistic creativity. To the extent that art production becomes a regular job, with associated societal activities and expectations, the original creative drive – let alone the accompanying anxiety – may become invisible or even

37 Kierkegaard (1980, 1844). The Concept of Anxiety. A Simple Psychologically Orienting Deliberation on the Dogmatic Issue of Hereditary Sin. Ed. and trans. Reidar Thomte & Albert B. Anderson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, p. 72. 38 “dass es grundverkehrt und eine Verfälschung wäre, ihn einen ‘Fortpflanzungstrieb’ zu nennen. Wiederum nämlich ist die Fortpflanzung zwar eine mögliche Folge sexueller Betätigung, liegt aber nicht als Zielvorstellung im Erlebnis geschlechtlicher Erregung darin. Es weiß davon nicht das Tier, sondern ausschließlich der Mensch.” Ludwig Klages (1974). Vom kosmogonischen Eros. In Sämtliche Werke Bd. 3. Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, p. 371. Also see Wilhelm Reich, who states that “[m]an verkehrt nicht geschlechtlich, ‘um Kinder zu zeugen’. […] Es steht also nicht die ‘Sexualität im Dienst der Fortpflanzung,’ sondern die Fortpflanzung ist ein fast zufälliges Ergebnis des Spannungs-Ladungs-Vorgangs im Gebiete der Genitalien.” Reich, 2014, p. 212.

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extinct.39 “Let me reach the bright day, the high chair, the plain desk,” Stephen Spender writes in a prose poem, “where my hand at last controls the words, where anxiety no longer undermines me. If I don’t reach these I’m thrown to the wolves, I’m a restless animal wandering from place to place, from experience to experience.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 124) Drawing on Rank and Kierkegaard, I think that anxiety – defined as inner oppression – should be associated with the experience or even the implicit awareness of a deficit or a lack. The existence of this lack cannot be ‘proven’; only the existence or non-existence of things or objects can be proven, and an original ontological ‘lack’ is not a thing or an object. To argue for it entails both introspective mindfulness and an empathic study in accounts of creativity and inspiration. Before further considering life-as-a-lack and shame and anxiety as its mirrors, let us first dwell on Rank’s analysis of art as a creation of self. Interestingly, this analysis elaborates on several topics which I have addressed in the previous chapter on the soul as inwardness. Moreover, it gives a sound picture of the nature of art as an attempt to primarily render (‘externalise’) soul instead of whichever object from the outer world. “[T]he beauty that takes you by surprise and bowls you over as if you were seeing it for the first time in your life,” I quoted in Musil in the previous chapter when discussing external soul phenomena, “is really something you have known an sought forever, an image your eyes have long since anticipated [davon war immer ein Vorglanz in deinen Augen], which now comes into full daylight, as it were.” (Musil, 1997, p. 378; trans. Wilkins, Ch. 85) If we can still agree with this statement, it will not be unlikely that we can equally agree with Rank’s claim, also quoted in chapter 1, that any outline of art history, from the primitive peoples until today, consists of an overview of the changing conceptions of soul. “[T]he aesthetic history of the idea of the beautiful is probably no more than a reflection of the changes in the idea of the soul under the influence of increasing knowledge.” (Rank, 2000, p. 54; trans., p. 12) An always more penetrating or, if so preferred, historically altering experience of self or soul (which I would not go as far as identifying with ‘knowledge,’ as Rank does) will likewise entail different artistic conceptions of beauty. But whether or not one speaks of ‘cogent knowledge’ (as Rank does) or of ‘experience’ (which I would prefer) of soul, somehow the historically 39 One could go even further and say the same about science and academic scholarship. Cf Max Weber’s famous text Wissenschaft als Beruf.

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altering encounter with self or soul reflects an (always different) confrontation with shame and anxiety. Interestingly, insofar as art mirrors shame and anxiety, it cannot fail to bridge somehow the gulf between the inner and outer experience of soul discussed in the previous chapter. It is strikingly illustrated in Marcel Proust’s description of the painter Elstir, in the novel A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. The ideal which inspired Elstir – to render the beauty becoming translucent in his wife, Gabrielle Elstir – came simultaneously down to “the most intimate part of himself [la partie la plus intime de lui-même]”. (Proust, 1999, p. 668) In terms of Musil, Elstir’s wife merely invigorated the Vorglanz in the painter’s own eyes. If it is true that, as Rank contends, aesthetic enterprises partly root in a strong need for self-expression or self-externalisation (Selbstentäußerung), this ironically confirms Klages’ position. We have seen that Klages, too, distinguished an innate human need for Selbsthingabe, a devout or dedicated giving of oneself. Yet, he made this distinction on the fully different premise that life is an original plenitude and that one can safely give in to it. In Rank, self-externalisation or self-abandonment is an escape; an escape from anxiety and an attempt to build an eternal self beyond time. This escape entails not just “a simple repetition of the trauma of birth,” but also “the attempt of the individual [Lösungsversuch des Individuums] to gain a freedom from dependence of any sort upon a state from which it has grown”. And not only this, it entails even “the victory […] won over a part of one’s own ego”. (Rank, 2000, p. 318; trans., pp. 374, 375)40 Beyond Rank, we can even surmise that this escape is partly fuelled by shame: shame for the imperfection and lack of self with which deficient life has infected us. Insofar as an imperfect self, despite all efforts to draw from its deepest and most intimate sources, will only reiterate imperfection, shame is likely to lurk around the corner each time the self externalises itself in its creative output. Driven by anxiety, the imperfect self is confronted with the task of self-recreation to prevent shame; yet, as this re-creation will inexorably be finite and flawed on its turn, shame will not fail to resurge. 40 Which underlines that self-creation is an infinite task to find a future match. Anxiety may be diminished inasmuch as this match, despite its to be-character, is found. Cf Hesse: “Es ist dort, wo die Leidenschaftlichkeit herrscht, nicht ein Plus an Kraft des Begehrens vorhanden, sondern sie ist auf ein vereinzeltes und falsches Ziel gerichtet, daher die Spannung und Schwüle in der Atmosphäre. Wer die höchste Kraft des Begehrens ins Zentrum richtet, gegen das wahre Sein hin, gegen das Vollkommene, der scheint ruhiger als der Leidenschaftliche”. Hesse, 1979, p. 84f. And also: “Du sollst dich auch gar nicht nach einer vollkommenen Lehre sehnen, Freund, sondern nach Vervollkommnung deiner selbst.” Ibid., p. 85.

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Inspiration entails a felt need to denudate and exhibit oneself (or rather, one’s self), both in spite and in virtue of shame. The felt need for selfexhibition ultimately originates in anxiety (which, therefore, is not just paralysing). When Rank writes that the so-called ‘exhibitionist’ is characterised by a desire to return to the paradisiacal, prenatal state of nakedness (Rank, 2007, p. 34), I would add that, insofar as the exhibiting artist is likewise an exhibitionist, they manifest a desire to another nakedness, one that is rather to be situated in the future. “I do not protect my ideas, I expose them,” Georges Braque wrote in his notebook.41 Ultimately, if, and to the extent that, art expresses soul and intimacy, art will equally divest the ‘outer’ world of its defence mechanisms and lay bare its nudity. Since the artwork unveils both the artist and the world, shame is to be found on either side: the side of the artist and the side of the world. Revelation, provided there is any, prompts shame.42 Shame “All one can do is to achieve nakedness, to be what one is with all one’s faculties and perceptions, strengthened by all the skill which one can acquire, and then to stand before the judgment of time.” —Stephen Spender43 “Naked and alone we came into exile. In her dark womb we did not know our mother’s face; from the prison of her flesh have we come into the unspeakable and incommunicable prison of this earth.” —Thomas Wolfe44

In a letter to her friend, the Brazilian artist Hélio Oiticica, Lygia Clark writes: “Without anything to control – here is the contradiction – I reconstruct myself, I make my own biography. I see myself today, rather than as a work projected outside me dividing person and thing, as a single

41

“Je ne protège pas mes idées, je les expose”. Georges Braque (1952). Le jour et la nuit. Cahiers de Georges Braque 1917-1952. Paris: Gallimard, p. 32; my trans. 42 Which, as Ferenczi rightly remarks, can deter (and not just children!): “…muss man sich denn noch die Frage stellen, ob die Nacktheit wirklich ein geeignetes Mittel zum Abschrecken überhaupt oder zum Erschrecken eines Kindes sein kann. Und diese Frage kann bejahend beantwortet werden.” Sándor Ferenczi (1919). Die Nacktheit als Schreckmittel. In Sándor Ferenczi (1970). Schriften zur Psychoanalyse I. Gießen: Psychosozial-Verlag, p. 286. 43 Ghiselin, 1985, p. 124. 44 Wolfe, 2016, p. 2.

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identity!”45 This quotation demonstrates that, at least for her, the intimacy of selfhood is externalised in the artwork. What does this entail concerning ‘shame’? Let me further elaborate on the notion of ‘shame’. Shame, I will argue, entails (1) an awareness of the other, (2) a dialectic of veiling and unveiling intimacy, and (3) a desire to be acknowledged. Melanie Klein and Martha Nussbaum may well be right in taking shame partly as a primitive experience closely related to our earliest infancy. Yet, I think that ‘shame’ and ‘self’ are mutually implicative to the extent that a third party (i.e., different from (1) one’s outward appearance and (2) one’s inner self) is involved. I would qualify this third party in terms of the socalled generalised other: a society, a group, a community, etc. The presence of that other coheres with what in the previous chapter, in my description of cultural artefacts, I have called ‘dialogue’ and ‘forgiveness’. I stated that the outer manifestation of the soul in animated, cultural artefacts should be seen as the transformation of “a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed,” and I suggested that art ‘communicates’ while ‘forgiving’ its predecessors. Doing this, I concluded, its animated, ensouled character becomes manifest. Here, I want to underline what is implied in these two features (i.e., dialogue and forgiveness): the virtually relentless eye of the other, and consequently, shame. Even when the other is physically absent, they can be vividly present in the subject’s imagination and accordingly arouse shame. Yet, the eye of the other need not be relentless; it can also be stimulating and acknowledging. Between these two possibilities shame hovers. I will take a closer look at the effect of these simultaneous possibilities. I suggested that shame entails an upcoming cognisance of one’s finitude and particularity in light of a nascent awareness of another person. As Scheler puts it, shame occurs when – in the tension between generality and specificity – I experience the gaze of the other as having a reverse orientation from my own: for example, if a woman who usually sells her body is suddenly observed by someone who sees her a unique individual being, or even as a prospective partner, instead of as only ‘street meat’.46 As 45 “Sem nada controlar, eis a contradição, me reconstruo, faço minha biografia, eisme qual obra antes projetada para fora dividindo pessoa e coisa, hoje uma só identidade.” Clark, 1998, p. 251 (trans. Alexandre Dung). 46 “wenn die eigene Intention und die erlebte Gegenintention hinsichtlich dieses Unterschiedes nicht gleiche, sondern entgegengesetzte Richtung haben.” Scheler,

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such, Scheler argues, shame is the precondition for the formation of a sexual drive at large. (Scheler, 1933, p. 106). Often, though not exclusively (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 18647), shame is associated with the genitals. Not exclusively, since, as a rule, any dimension of a person that categorically expresses particularity or intimacy can become an object of shame. Shame is related to the appearance into the open of something previously kept hidden and yet deeply connected to someone’s innermost (conscious or unconscious) experience of self. Shame reveals at the level of (un)conscious cathexis that which we are insolubly connected with – be it ‘desirable’ (such as physical beauty) or ‘undesirable’ (e.g., physical deformities). Scheler argues that even veils (the clothes that the usually naked indigenous woman puts on at the command of the missionary) can arouse shame: they bring under the other’s special attention what goes commonly unnoticed. “The negress, who does not cover her private parts [Schamteile], rather has a very pronounced sense of shame [ausgeprägtes Schamgefühl]; this is demonstrated by the fact that, once advised by the missionary to cover her private parts, she vehemently refuses to do this while clearly manifesting natural expressions of shame; and that, when she instead unwillingly obeys, walks away and hides behind the bushes or in the cabin, she cannot be persuaded initially to show herself openly with the piece of clothing. This is a simple consequence of the fact that she experiences her skin as her cloth, the pubic hair as her apron, and that she feels compelled to consider the entrusted apron and the skirt as something which particularly attracts the public attention to her private parts [gerade die öffentliche Beachtung auf ihre Schamteile lenkt] – which is obviously the case with regard to the men of her tribe to whose form of attention she is psychically compliant [an deren Beachtungsform sie seelisch angepasst ist]. (Scheler, 1933, p. 66; my trans.) I think it will be superfluous here to illustrate this point any further, e.g., by referring to our contemporary, sophisticated and stylish fashion outfits, especially female. The slogan ‘dress less to impress’ of lingerie brand Sapph is telling in this respect. Cultures may differ; shame remains the same. Sapph’s ‘impressive’ lingerie plays with that shame. Scheler’s ‘indigenous’ woman would not want to wear lingerie for the same

1933, p. 69. The inversion from mere spectatorship to, what Gabriel Marcel calls, contemplation might easily lead to shame in the unprepared subject of contemplation: “La contemplation ne serait-elle pas une introversion de la connaissance externe”. Cf Marcel, 1997, p. 142. 47 Also see Martha C. Nussbaum (2003, 2001). Upheavals of Thought. The Intelligence of Emotions. New York: Cambridge University Press, pp. 190-200.

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reason as a contemporary ‘civilised’ woman wants to wear it. The dialectics of veiling-unveiling in fashion brings us to what I believe is equally essential to shame. It does not just express an awareness of one’s finitude, particularity and intimacy; this awareness, I would say, struggles with a simultaneous call for acknowledgement and recognition of that finitude and particularity. It reflects a tension between a fearfulness to show and a wish to be accepted the way one shows oneself.48 In shame, the tendencies towards self-preservation (unwillingness to show) and selfabandonment (want to be approved) coincide. To extinguish shame would imply that one give up any proclivity towards self-abandonment and find protective shelter in sheer objectivity; besides, it would involve the impossible task of suppressing the anxiety that propels one out of one’s orbit and inspires self-exhibition. Yet, the gaze of another person whose intention goes opposite to the one who, for lack of self-esteem, has ‘run out of shame’ – a gaze which is particularising rather than generalising – might always remind one of a remaining subjectivity or sense of self. This gaze simultaneously ignites anxiety and shame. One can think here of Jesus calling Zacchaeus, the tax collector, out of the tree where he was hiding (Luke 19, 1-10); or, for a reverse example, one can also think of Anastasia Steele, when she is greedily observed by Christian Grey (E.L. James, Fifty Shades of Grey). Evolutionist theories that entirely ignore self-abandonment will equally ignore shame, anxiety, intimacy and selfhood; at best, they reduce shame to a sophisticated form of self-protection. To summarise with the words of Scheler: “Shame is therefore not a form of self-deception, but rather a force of its sublation [Kraft ihrer Aufhebung]. It paves the way towards ‘our self’ [Sie ist die Wegbahnerin zu ‘uns selbst’]. (Scheler, 1933, p. 110; my trans.)49 It belongs to “the sphere of feelings of self [die Sphäre der Selbst-Gefühle]”. (Ibid., p. 68; my trans.) And Nussbaum adds: “The vulnerability to shame is part of the exposure of self that is involved in intimacy.” (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 216) Zacchaeus, usually seen as the tax collector, is anxious about, and ashamed for, being approached as a particular self or soul; on the other hand, Anastasia Steel is ashamed and anxious to the extent that, while she thinks she is appreciated 48 “hat das Widerstreben der Scham stets eine starke Unterströmung von Anziehung an die Sache, gegen die in ihr widerstrebt wird, zur Voraussetzung.” Scheler, 1933, p. 75. 49 It does not surprise that Scheler sees shame as the Wurzel und Keimpunkt aller Moral. Scheler, 1933, p. 142. Also see for this thesis Bernard Williams (2008, 1993). Shame and Necessity. Berkeley/Los Angeles: University of California Press.

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as a person, she is approached as an impenetrable object instead. If shame and anxiety indeed pave the way towards ourselves (or, towards our self50), it cannot be a coincidence that Martha Nussbaum, the great theorist of emotions, associates it with the original experience of infancy. “Shame,” she argues, is “connected primarily to the more primitive longing for wholeness and the sense that one ought rightly to be whole.” (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 186; my italics, RS) “Ought rightly,” that is, ought to be what I am not: whole. Now, if (1) human nature is indeed based both on self-protection and on self-abandonment, as I have suggested above, and if (2) shame and anxiety are primordial experiences induced by cognisance-of-finitude and other-awareness, then the implication would be twofold. On the one hand, self-protective, centripetal behaviour can perhaps be attributed to shame (a reluctance to reveal) and anxiety. As we saw in Klages, “[e]very animal being, and man in particular, has an interest in not showing certain mental processes.” True, there could be other concerns than just shame or even anxiety when inner processes are silenced. Yet, insofar as our intimacy or particularity (‘soul’) is at stake, any reluctance to reveal is duly called ‘shame’. The modern preoccupation with ‘privacy’ is a significant example of self-protective shame; an exclusive focus on ‘economy,’ the social-political conduit for self-interest, would be an example of self-protective anxiety, and perhaps indirectly also of shame.51 But there is one more implication of the intrinsic ambivalence in human nature combined with the primordial character of shame and anxiety. For, on the other hand, any form of self-abandoning, centrifugal, or outbound human behaviour (i.e., art, culture) is equally expressive of shame and anxiety, albeit on different grounds than the self-protective side. Whereas self-protective shame wants to keep out of sight, self-abandoning shame wants to exhibit; that is, the cultural artefacts that exemplify it somehow compete for the spectator’s particularising gaze and their acknowledgement. Art and culture are ‘shameful’; they are ‘ashamed’ of the exposed self that they simultaneously would like to exhibit. In terms of Scheler, this shame will always be in reverse proportion to the intention of the spectator; their generalising glance increases shame, whereas their particularising shame 50 If not, as in Michel Henry, towards Being or presence: “Que l’essence originelle de la présence se retienne hors du monde et se trouve par principe absente de celuici, c’est là ce qui fait sa pudeur.” Henry, 2003, p. 480. 51 Freud suggested that the prudish Americans had substituted capitalism for sexuality.

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decreases it. But, since a spectator’s glances are usually generalising and particularising at the same time, they tend to perpetuate art’s shamefulness. The ineradicable ambivalence of their gaze makes the spectator (cf Bergotte, Des Esseintes) complicit of art production. In my view, shame and anxiety are condensed root experiences that precede, or at least combine, self-protection and self-abandonment. They are inherent to self-protection insofar as they trigger self-concealment; they are intrinsic to self-abandonment insofar as they enhance self-exhibition. Therefore, I disagree with Martha Nussbaum if she states that original, primitive shame “is a threat to all possibility of morality and community, and indeed to a creative inner life.” (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 208) Without denying that this can be true – primarily if shame itself is fuelled by narcissism –, I tend to see shame as an exciting emotional tension that can propel intimacy in the form of art. I think that Nussbaum’s definition of shame as “a painful emotion responding to a sense of failure to attain some ideal state” (Nussbaum, 2004, p. 184) is highly exaggerated. Self-abandonment is never wholly without self-protection, and vice versa. This is clearly, albeit involuntarily, illustrated in Rank. Rank argues that human creativity roots in the artist’s ‘anxious’ attempt to compensate for their finitude (self-protection) by making art (self-abandonment, selfexposure). In a headlong rush, the trauma of birth is transformed into art, as a Selbstverewigungstendenz. I found an exciting confirmation of this tendency in Thomas Wolfe and Henry Miller. In a biographical account, Wolfe writes that “in a man’s work there are contained not only the seeds of life, but the seeds of death, and […] the power of creation which sustains us will also destroy us like a leprosy if we let it rot stillborn in our vitals. I had to get it out of me somehow.52 […] And now for the first time a terrible doubt began to creep into my mind that I might not live long enough to get it out of me, that I had created a labor so large and so impossible that the energy of a dozen lifetimes would not suffice for its accomplishment.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 199) And he continues: “it seemed that despair itself was the very goad that urged me on, that made me write even when I had no belief that I would ever finish.” (Ibid., p. 200) Wolfe would die two years later.

52 Cf Cioran: “Des grains de lèpre lèvent en toi. Dans ta chair rongé par l’insomnie, bouillent des puanteurs qui font vomir aux bourgeons la douce sève de leur croissance et la transforment en rictus croupissant.” Cioran (1941-44). Bréviaire des vaincus. In Cioran, 1996, p. 556.

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On the other hand, Henry Miller writes that “[t]he great writer is the very symbol of life, of the non-perfect. He moves effortlessly, giving the illusion of perfection, from some unknown center which is certainly not the brain but which is definitely a center, a center connected with the rhythm of the whole universe […]. […] Art teaches nothing, except the significance of life.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 187) Now, if we accept Rank’s theory of art as a transformation of birth trauma, and if we subsequently put creativity in the perspective of the witnessing ‘other’ (ecce homo), then not just anxiety but also shame will be part and parcel of art. When shame arose, paradise came to an end, and history took off, maximising the ambiguity that shame stands for.53 “The actual clothes are only a crystallisation of shame and its symbolisation in artificially fabricated bodies [künstlich hergestellten Körpern].” (Scheler, 1933, p. 78; my trans.) The difference between a cultural art product (artefact) and industrial manufacture, I would say, lays in the degree to which it is expressive of anxiety and shame – the spectator’s intention having been taken into account.54 Besides, if Ernst Kapp is right in assuming that inventors of tools, utensils, or machines unconsciously or subliminally project human bodily structures, creating parallel systems whose inner 53

It would be thrilling to speculate about a connection between shame, nakedness and the snake in the Genesis narrative: 2, 25: “And the man and his wife were both naked (ʭʩ˙˒ʸʏ ʑ ˆ/‘arumim) and were not ashamed (˒ˇ ʕˇ ʖˎʺʍ ʑʩ ʠʖ ʬ ʍʥ/lo yitboshƗshu).” 3, 1: “Now the serpent (ʹ ʕʧʕ˚ ʔʤ/hanƗchƗsh) was more crafty (ʭ˒ʸʕˆ/‘arum: ‘naked’) than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made.” André Chouraqui translates here: “Le serpent était nu, plus que tout vivant du champs qu’avait fait IHVH Elohîm”. 3,7: “Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked (ʭ˙ʑ ʗʸʩʒˆ/‘Ɲrumim). And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths (ʺ ʖʸ ʖʢʏʧ/chagorot).” 3, 10-11: “And [Adam] said, ‘I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked (ʭ ʖʸʩʒˆ/‘Ɲrǀm), and I hid myself.’ [The Lord] said, ‘Who told you that you were naked (ʭ ʖʸʩʒˆ/‘Ɲrǀm)? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’” 3,21: “And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins (ʸˣʲ ʺˣʰʺʕʍ ˗/kotnǀt ǀr) and clothed them.” The entire chapter closely associates nakedness, shame, craft/cunning, labour and childbirth. On the relation between ‘snake’ and ‘penetration’ in the kundalini experience see Lilian Silburn (1983). La Kundalini ou L’énergie des profondeurs. Études d’ensemble d’après les textes du ĝivaïsme non dualiste du KaĞmir. Paris: Les Deux Océans, p. 119 (Bhujangaveda, percée dite du serpent). 54 “Was Kultur […] allein hervorbringt und mit recht hervorbringt, das ist niemals eine Verminderung des Schamgefühls, sondern allein ein langsamer Übergang des sitten- und brauchhaften Schamausdrucks von gewaltsameren in beweglicheren Formen und von mehr leiblichen Schamausdrucksformen in mehr seelische.” Scheler, 1933, p. 129.

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structure morphologically corresponds to the physiological human paradigm, then perhaps an exception should be made for tools or utensils at the stage of their invention. However, once they enter the arena of mechanical reproduction, and when they gradually lose the particularising spectator gaze, shame is increasingly suppressed. It requires artists of ready-mades such as Marcel Duchamps, Guillaume Bijl or Daniel Spoerri to remind commodity users of the primordial shame factor of commodities. For a visual illustration of the proximity of shame, art and finitude, I would like to refer once more to the work of the photographer Francesca Woodman. Coincidentally, Duchamps was among her inspiring examples whose ready-mades, in my terms, she ‘forgave’ him through her work. At the age of 22, Woodman sadly died by committing suicide: she jumped out of the window of a tall building in New York. Interestingly, her pictographic work mostly consists of self-portraits in which she displays the vulnerability of her naked body. In light of Francesca Woodman’s premature death, I am particularly appalled by several photos which show her fragile nudity lying immobile on the ground. On one of these pictures (from the Eel Series, Rome, May 1977 – August 1978) we not only see her motionless, naked body lying in a semi-prone position but also a winding eel in a bowl. The spectator is immediately reminded of the naked snake in paradise. Note that in Genesis 3 the Hebrew word for ‘naked’ (ʭ ʖʸʩʒˆ/‘Ɲrǀm), applied to the first human and his wife, only differs by one vowel from the epithet given to the snake (ʭ˒ʸʕˆ/‘arum: usually translated as ‘crafty’). One could say that the snake was ‘snaked’ or ‘sneaky’.55 Reportedly, Woodman had noted that “[m]e and Francis Bacon and all those Baroques are all concerned with making something soft wiggle and snake around a hard architectural outline.”56 It seems as if Woodman’s artwork both confirmed and denied its maker’s physical finitude. “[I]t was as if the shame of it should outlive him

55 Cf Ludwig Klages: “Als Schleichendes ist die Schlange Darstellungsform eines Wesens, das bei tausend Gelegenheiten zur Darstellung kommt, bald dingartig, bald eigenschaftsartig, bald zustandsartig und dergestalt durch irgendeinen Verwandtschaftszug verknüpfbar wird z. B. mit dem menschlichen (‘Schleicher’ und den ihm dienenden ‘Schlichen’!)” Klages, 1981, p. 382. 56 Peter Davison (May, 2000). Girl, Seeming to Disappear. In The Atlantic Monthly, p. 110. Davison quotes from a conversation with Woodman. Quoted in Alison Dunhill (2012). Almost A Square: The Photographic Books of Francesca Woodman and Their Relationship to Surrealism. University of Essex, Ch. 4. Cf “die Gestalt der Wirklichkeit ist immer reicher als die Linienführung der Grundsätze.” Musil, 1997, p. 640.

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[Es war, als sollte der Scham [sie] überleben.]” (Kafka, Der Prozess)57 I hypothesise that, had Francesca Woodman been more reliant on the vigour of her inspiration as an antidote against anxiety’s oppressiveness, or even, had she been more inspired by anxiety, she might have dealt with the snake (her nakedness and vulnerability) more effectively. Being reminiscent of the idea voiced by Scheler that “[t]he actual clothes are only a crystallisation of shame and its symbolisation in artificially fabricated bodies,” she might have integrated it by transforming, that is, externalising it. Cf the Genesis narrative: “[The Lord] said, ‘Who told you that you were naked (ʭ ʖʸʩʒˆ/‘Ɲrǀm)? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?’ […] And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins (ʸˣʲ ʺˣʰʺʕʍ ˗/kotnǀt ǀr) and clothed them.” Genesis 3, 9.21) If we compare Francesca Woodman’s dealing with her (s)nakedness to Lygia Clark’s in the following fragment, it strikes that Clark integrates the snake; this may ultimately even bring about her productivity (‘procreativity’). In her letter to Hélio Oiticico, Clark recounts one of her animal fantasies: “In the serpentine phase [Na fase da serpente], I created [criei] a fable: A little bird made a nest on a branch of a tree without knowing that the snake had left its lair and gone for a walk. The snake left its nest and gathered the two eggs [os dois ovos], entering my vagina, which I called a lair, and made two ovaries [os dois ovários]. The little bird made another nest and laid two more eggs. The snake came out [sai] of my vagina and gathered two more eggs. The bird, which had two pockets, put them inside (testicles [culhões]), and began the fight of the two snakes, a life-or-death struggle; notice that the bird was already a penis with two testicles.” (Clark, 1998, p. 247; trans. Sergio Fernandez & Jeff Lloyd).

The bird-penis was substituted for the snake. The exit of the snake is compensated for by the entry of the bird. This entry, however, is not an easy one, as a life-or-death struggle accompanies it. Maybe this is the essence of art and creativity: a life-or-death struggle with one’s vulnerability.

57 In a speech at Gilles Deleuze’s funeral Derrida quotes a passage from Deleuze’s Logique du sens (1969), in which Deleuze speaks of “une sorte de saut sur place de tout le corps”. Just as Woodman, Deleuze committed suicide by jumping from his apartment. Cf. Jacques Derrida (2003). Chaque fois unique, la fin du monde. Paris: Galilée, p. 235.

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Orgasmic experience and inspiration; compression and decompression of self “And if suddenly […] we cease to be uneasy, to suffer pain [d’avoir de l’angoisse], since it is this pain that is the whole of our love, it seems to us as though love had abruptly vanished at the moment when at length we grasp the prey to whose value we had not given enough thought before.” —Marcel Proust58

I will now set a final step to conclude my discussion of shame and anxiety. Shame and anxiety, I argued, combine self-protection and self-abandonment; therefore, they are ambiguous affects, leading to both self-concealment and self-exhibition, or even self-exposure. The psychotherapist Wilhelm Reich (1897-1957), on whom I will partly draw in this section, opposes sexuality and anxiety: “‘Sexuality’ could be nothing other than the biological function of expansion ‘out of the self’ [Streckung ‘aus sich heraus’] from the center toward the periphery. In turn, anxiety could be nothing but the reversed direction, i.e., from the periphery to the center, ‘back into the self.’ [‘in sich zurück’]”).59 Other than Reich, however, I will argue that the sexual, especially the orgasmic experience, is not alien to anxiety but permeated by it. Yet, Reich could teach us that what I called ‘anxiety’ (the experience of inner oppression) is perhaps more than a confrontation with the unfathomable (alterity); it may partly consist of an energetic outbound drive which Reich and other psychoanalysts call ‘libido,’ but which I would instead interpret as the ongoing clash between self-protection and selfabandonment. If this is true, then the libido is not a single drive but in itself already divided by its constituents. This would explain the inner pressure or oppression by which anxiety experiences are so often accompanied.60 Henry Miller’s description is very illustrative here. Miller writes that he “entered [the world of art] without any apparent talent, a thorough novice, incapable, awkward, tongue-tied, almost paralysed by fear and apprehensiveness.” 58

Marcel Proust (1919). A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. In Proust, 1999, p. 673; trans. Scott Moncrieff, Within a Budding Grove. 59 Reich, 2014, p. 200; trans. (1973) The Function of the Orgasm, by Vincent R. Carfagno. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, p. 267. 60 It seems as if Reich is too simplistically opposing orgasm and anxiety, e.g. when he states, “Würde man [eine künstliche Blase] an einer Stelle zusammenpressen, so würden sofort an einer anderen Überspannung und Überladung eintreten. Würde man sie gar an der gesamten Oberfläche zusammengepresst halten, ihr die Ausdehnung bei fortschreitender innerer Energieproduktion unterbinden, dann hätte sie dauernd Angst, das heißt ein Gefühl der Beklemmung und Enge.” Reich, 2014, p. 209.

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Yet, he concludes, “[w]hatever there be of progress in life comes not through adaptation but through daring, through obeying the blind urge. […] The whole logic of the universe is contained in daring, i.e., in creating from the flimsiest, slenderest support. In the beginning this daring is mistaken for will, but with the time the will drops away and the automatic process takes its place, which again has to be broken or dropped and a new certitude established which has nothing to do with knowledge, skill, technique or faith. By daring one arrives at the mysterious X position of the artist, and it is this anchorage which no one can describe in words but yet subsists and exudes from every line that is written.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 190f) In chapter 4, I further elaborate on the expansion ‘out of the self’ from the centre toward the periphery allegedly concurrent with the sexual (as Reich claims) while instead being attributable, as I will then argue, to death. To start, I will present two hypotheses to bring this discussion further. My first hypothesis is that the ambiguity inherent to shame and anxiety is most essentially accessed in the human orgasmic experience. My second hypothesis is that the orgasmic experience is the most intense or condensed experience of selfhood. Together, these two hypotheses already entail that the orgasmic experience itself encompasses the ambiguity involved in selfhood. Let us see what would be the implication of these hypotheses in light of what was stated in the previous sections, viz., that intimacy/selfhood is pervaded (constituted?) by an anxiety that not just paralyses the self but also expels it from its orbit, ultimately towards an artistic recreation of self; and that self-expulsion, insofar as it occasions the gaze of the other, simultaneously prompts shame (owing to the particularity/generality dialectic). Let us also be reminded here of my definition of ‘inspiration’: clairvoyance of one’s own soul. The implication, then, is twofold. Firstly, the orgasmic experience, as a core experience of self61, consists of compression of anxiety and shame. (This does not exclude but – typically – includes pleasure, albeit a pleasure that dramatically differs from other delights as it is intimately linked to our innermost self.) Secondly, since the orgasmic experience is compressing, one could reasonably surmise that 61

Reich argues that it has “Wirkungen für den Gesamtorganismus. Als Musterbeispiel dafür darf die orgastische Zuckung der Genitalmuskulatur gelten, die so kräftig ist, dass sie sich auf den Gesamtorganismus überträgt.” Reich, 2014, p. 211. Also see Scheler, “Faktisch aber ist die Geschlechtsliebe nicht eine Funktion des Lebens unter anderen Funktionen, sondern das Leben selbst in seiner höchsten Potenzierung und Verdichtung”. Scheler, 1933, p. 124.

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decompression should also be possible. The ensuing conclusion would be that the phenomenon of inspiration entails a decompression of selfhood. If this conclusion is plausible, and if inspiration is indeed a reversal of the orgasmic experience, both must have a lot in common. Apart from pleasure, they also share the underlying emotions of anxiety and shame. (Earlier I spoke of ‘guilty’ pleasure.) The ambiguity of the self – due to the coexistence in it of two opposite drives, a self-protective and a selfabandoning – affects the experiences of inspiration and orgasm. I will further examine this ambiguity in inspiration and only resort to the orgasmic experience if necessary to elucidate the former. Let us first consider inspiration as a decompression. As said, I interpret decompression as a reversal of the orgasmic experience’s compression of self in which essential, albeit opposite, drives merge. By speaking of decompression, I intend to give a particular ‘extension’ to the process (as opposed to the intension or intensity of com-pressed orgasmic selfexperience). Associating this extension with ‘time’ (temporal extension) – for example, by pointing at the development of inspiration from creative input toward (until) concrete output – may only be slightly helpful. It would ultimately be misleading, though, since ‘time’ is generally conceived as an external, measurable order rather than as an internal sequence inherent to the inspirational process itself. The decompression of self-experience in inspiration creates its own qualitative time. This qualitative time is distinct from quantitative time in that it amalgamates the inspired ‘subject’ and its environment. In the next chapter, I will discuss this amalgamation in terms of synchronicity experience. I stated that inspiration is decompression of selfhood. I take this definition as an elaboration of Du Prel’s “clairvoyance of one’s own psyche” (Hellsehen der eigenen Psyche). It means that the experienced input or influx is somehow already at one’s disposal. Not, however, in the sense of immediate and neutral availability (like the keyboard and mouse of my computer, or the pencil at my desk), but rather in the non-neutral sense of being or having been disposed to me. See for example what Thomas Wolfe writes about his protagonist in the autobiographical novel Look Homeward, Angel: “He heard the ghostly ticking of his life; his powerful clairvoyance, the wild Scotch gift of [his mother] Eliza, burned inward back across the phantom years”. (Wolfe, 2016, p. 187) Somehow, the inspired content regards or concerns the subject of inspiration. This could appear from the individual quest that often preceded inspiration, if not already from the subject’s innate, lifelong fascination (for musical composition, for

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prehistory, for numbers, or images). Selfhood, I think, is inherently related to inspiration, that is, to inner decompression. To avoid a misunderstanding: when I defined ‘inspiration’ as a decompression, I did not oppose it to ‘ordinary life’ (as if that necessarily lacked inspiration). Instead, I intended to oppose it to the condensation or compression characteristic of the orgasmic experience. What is called ‘ordinary life’ preferably forms a bridge between these two poles (paraphrasing Hegel’s assertion that ‘nature’ forms a bridge between ‘logic’ and ‘idea’). In inspiration, something gains qualitative extension that remained implicit or hardly perceptible in its opposite pole (i.e., in the orgasmic experience). I am hinting here at a contradiction characteristic of inspiration; the contradiction of (1) an urge to reveal which is simultaneously countered by (2) an urge to cover, or of the continuous transgression (1) of an inner law (2). On the one hand, the orgasmic experience is mainly characterised by this characteristic insofar as it entirely ‘contradicts’ its immediate environment (i.e., reality, the world) out of which the subject is momentarily drawn but wherein it still knows itself to be throughout.62 To once more paraphrase a Hegelian definition, this time his definition of Geist/Spirit (as Sichwissen im Anderen seiner selbst): the subject of the said orgasmic experience knows itself as being-present in its other (i.e., reality, the world), and perhaps even thrives on this presence-in-otherness. Self-enjoyment is ‘thwarted’ by the inhospitable environment of reality into which, however, the self is nevertheless ejected or propelled. To the extent that self-enjoyment is tainted by the corresponding self-protection, and that propulsion is tainted by a corresponding self-abandonment, one could say that in the orgasmic experience the former is ‘thwarted’ by the latter; concretely, that selfenjoyment is contaminated or even spoilt by self-abandonment. If this is true, one could even surmise that the disappointing orgasmic ‘anti-climax,’ which tarnishes the climax itself, is unjustly called so; to the extent, that is, that the anti-climax could well belong to the inner flow of self-abandonment and propulsion which makes the subject ‘relapse’ – or, less pejoratively,

62 Franz Rosenzweig meaningfully describes a human being’s meeting with Eros (their “first birthday”) as their “dying away of one’s personality in the genus” (“Das Selbst also wird an einem bestimmten Tag im Menschen geboren. Welcher Tag ist das ? Der gleiche, an dem die Persönlichkeit, das Individuum, den Tod in die Gattung stirbt. Eben dieser Tag lässt das Selbst geboren werden.”). Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 77.

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lapse – into the inhospitable environment of reality. Thereby, it so to speak reconnects outwardness to inwardness, as an ‘intimation’ of immortality. It is only in virtue of this reconnection that Cioran can associate the relief of orgasm’s immediate aftermath with the relief of never ever having to embrace whichever (religious, philosophical, social, etc.) cause: “The number of fanatics [exaltés], extremists [détraqués], and degenerates I have been able to admire. A relief bordering on orgasm [Soulagement voisin de l’orgasme] at the notion that one will never again embrace a cause, any cause…”63 Yet, it is also in virtue of this reconnection (since in- and outwardness entail incompleteness or otherness), that Derrida – memorising his own circumcision in his earliest infancy – can associate orgasm and circumcision: “imagine the loved woman herself circumcising (me), as the mother did in the biblical narrative, slowly provoking ejaculation in her mouth just as she swallows the crown of bleeding skin with the sperm as a sign of exultant alliance”.64 I believe that, on the other hand, we can track and trace this orgasmic contradiction or interplay-between-opposites (i.e., between self-protection and self-abandonment) in the decompression both undergo in inspiration. The artwork, or whichever other outcomes of the inspirational process, seems to perpetuate in itself a conflict between concealment (selfprotection) and revelation (self-abandonment). In this conflict, too, the former may be ‘thwarted’ by the latter; for, one might say, an exhaustive revelation would drain the artwork, while this same artwork takes great pains to conceal (if not enjoy) itself. Concerning the creator of the artwork, a similar logic may apply. Elstir, the painter in Proust’s novel A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs, runs out of inspiration once he finds beauty fully incarnate (in his wife, in the life which he has organised around himself): “How comforting [Quel repos], moreover, to let his lips rest upon that Beauty which hitherto he had been obliged with so great labour to extract from within himself, whereas now, mysteriously incarnate, it offered itself to him in a series of communions, filled with saving grace [s’offrait à lui

63 Cioran (1973). De l’inconvénient d’être né. In Cioran, 1995, p. 1369. Trans. Richard Howard. 64 J. Derrida (1991). Circonfession. In G. Bennington et Jacques Derrida (1991). Jacques Derrida. Paris: Seuil, p. 202f; trans. Geoffrey Bennington (1999). Jacques Derrida. Chicago/London: University of Chicago Press, p. 217f. NB author’s italics, as the passage quotes a personal diary note written in 1977.

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pour une suite de communions efficaces!].”65 Inevitably, meeting with beauty brings Elstir to a gradual loss of beauty: “And thus the beauty of life, a phase that has to some extent lost its meaning [mot en quelque sorte dépourvu de signification], a stage beyond the boundaries of art […], was that also which, by a slackening of the creative ardour [ralentissement du génie créateur], idolatry of the forms which had inspired [favorisé] it, desire to avoid effort [désir du moindre effort], must ultimately arrest [rétrograder] an Elstir’s progress.”66 On a side-note, it could be argued that Elstir resembles Akiane Kramarik, the juvenile paintress I mentioned at the beginning of this chapter. It seems as if Akiane, after having painted two Jesus portraits, did not undergo any subsequent substantial development. It is as if having reached the top already at eight years old, she can only make paintings that are at best a postlude – which is of course, not a critique. Whether revelation outrivals concealment or vice versa may be assessed each time differently. It largely depends on the spectator. There are no objective standards here that determine to what extent either revelation or concealment has been victorious. It would be simplistic to exclusively point at pictorial or sculptural nudes (e.g., Botticelli’s Birth of Venus or Michelangelo’s David) as would-be examples of a successful revelation, facing which monochromic paintings (e.g., Yves Klein’s Monochrome bleu or Mark Rothko’s Black-form paintings) were concealing instead. Simplistic, for two reasons at least. In the first place, real revelation reveals the soul rather than something allegedly ‘physical’. In the second place, a true revelation not only reveals (‘unveils’) an ‘object’ but also a ‘subject’: a spectator. The ‘prudish’ indigenous woman in Scheler’s example cited above may have had a better sense of revelation than the missionary commanding her to dress appropriately. “In a portrait, it is not only the manner the woman then had of dressing that dates it, there is also the manner the artist had of painting.” (Proust, A l’ombre, p. 677; trans. Moncrieff)67 Or, I would add, write a poem about it, such as Brewster Ghiselin’s Bath of Aphrodite: “She rises among boulders. Naked, alone, / In freshets of the seacliff wind she stands”. The gist of this poem is that the real revelation of Aphrodite is finally made undone, for at the end of the poem “she leans and swims / Folded into a hissing slope of foam: /The sea receives the shape that once it gave: / Her gold and roses to its dazzle of waves, / The shadow of 65

Proust (1919). A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. In Proust, 1999, p. 668. Trans. Moncrieff. 66 Ibid., p. 669; trans. Moncrieff. Also cf “ich schäme mich, dass ich noch Dichter sein muss! –” Nietzsche, Also sprach Zarathustra III Von alten und neuen Tafeln. 67 Also cf Lygia Clark: “A meu ver é a nudez vestida”. Clark, 1998, p. 251.

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all her secrets to its shade.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 131f) It would not be too difficult to show that anxiety and shame are equally constitutive of inspiration. Both ‘subject’ and ‘object’ of inspiration may display these affects. Anxiety, I said, pervades consciousness. It represents the original nothingness with which the self unwillingly has become acquainted at birth. As Rank taught, it forms the ultimate ground for the artist’s quest in search of a new, recreated self. Shame, we have seen, comes into the picture when this recreated self or externalised intimacy meets the eye of the other. How do anxiety and shame become manifest in inspiration (clairvoyance of one’s own soul)? Maybe as follows. If it is true that the soul – the alleged soil out of which inspiration germinates – is not identical to the solid ground of ‘matter’; if its surface cannot be delineated nor its bottom fathomed; then it is likely that anything accruing from it is both familiar and unknown. It is familiar insofar as it has been disposed to me or as it has chosen me as its ‘womb’; it is unknown insofar as it will also be new, unheard of, original (ab origine). The latter generates anxiety, whereas the former brings quiescence. The curious interplay between these two opposites determines inspiration. As it is simultaneous with quiescence, the anxiety will never be pure. The more the inspired subject is familiar with itself, self-conversant, the less anxiety is likely to appear. The more the subject is alien to itself and reluctant to introspection, the more anxiety is likely to become manifest. I guess that painters as Goya or Munch, or composers as Mahler, are not so familiar with themselves, as could appear from their work. Instead, Caspar David Friedrich’s paintings, for all their mysteriousness, seem to reflect a higher degree of selfconversance.68 Shame, on the other hand, concerns the intimacy put on display in the artwork. It may arise once the spectator is unwilling or unable to identify what is ‘intimate’ in it. The shame factor may be at its highest at the precise moment that the generalising gaze shifts into a particularising gaze. Nietzsche was utterly ashamed when communicating his doctrine of the eternal recurrence to Lou Andreas Salomé. And Leo Strauss, though not 68

“Je reçus cette dispense d’effort que nous accordent seules les choses dont nous avons un long usage, quand je posais mes pieds pour la première fois sur ces marches, familières avant d’être connues, comme si elles possédaient, peut-être déposée, incorporée en elles par les maîtres d’autrefois qu’elles accueillaient chaque jour, la douceur anticipée d’habitudes que je n’avais pas contractées encore et qui même ne pourraient que s’affaiblir quand elles seraient devenues miennes.” Marcel Proust (1987). Le côté de Guermantes I. Paris: Flammarion, p. 151f; my italics.

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mainly attributing it to shame but instead to fear or concern, claimed that several significant philosophers (Plato, Maimonides, Spinoza – caute – ) hid their proper doctrine inside their writings, only to give some secret hermeneutical hints to their innermost circle of disciples in whom no misunderstanding could arise. “I believe that man,” Georges Bataille writes in an essay about Baudelaire, “is necessarily put up against himself and that he cannot recognise himself and love himself to the end unless he is condemned [s’il n’est pas l’objet d’une condemnation].”69 In chapter 4, I will argue that compression and decompression of self, or the orgasmic and the inspirational, paradoxically coalesce in death. I will interpret ‘death’ as the enhancement of subliminality. Death reconciles what in the orgasmic experience, on the one hand, and in ecstatic inspiration, on the other, is still distinct.

Testimony: Lygia Clark’s intimate letters “the sensation of emptiness [vazio] and death when, once the work is done, we fall into this abysmal space [espaço abismal]; and also the orgasm that tastes like death [o orgasmo com gosto de morte] and also the web of this emptiness that constructs the jouissance we later fall into. Is that not infernal?” —Lygia Clark70

As a conclusive example of the views presented above, I will quote here several passages from the direct and intimate correspondence between Lygia Clark and Hélio Oiticico (letter of 6-11-1974). Clark’s remarks are particularly interesting as they connect birth, life anxiety, art-creation-asrebirthing, orgasm, and intimacy. After having memorised her juvenile discovery of gender and sexual difference, and her subsequent attempt to integrate male and female, Lygia Clark reminisces her relapse: “Also later I experienced ‘a separation’ from the mother’s body [‘a separação’ em relação ao corpo da mãe]. I discovered that I had been swallowing [engolido] this external space [espaço] because I could not endure a separation, a fundamental space, through which we formulate creation [criação], weaving it as a bridge to the world. And hence the reason

69 Georges Bataille (1979, 1955). La littérature et le mal. In Œuvres complètes IX. Paris: Gallimard, p. 193 ; trans. 2012. Literature and Evil, by Alastair Hamilton. London: Penguin Classics (ebook). 70 Clark, 1998, p. 246 (trans. Sergio Fernandez and Jeff Lloyd).

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of the sensation of emptiness [vazio] and death when, once the work is done, we fall into this abysmal space [espaço abismal]; and also the orgasm that tastes like death [o orgasmo com gosto de morte] and also the web of this emptiness that constructs the jouissance we later fall into. Is that not infernal?” (Clark, 1998, p. 246; trans. Sergio Fernandez and Jeff Lloyd).

This quotation not only draws on orgasmic experience in relation to selfhood. It starts by addressing original space as internalised vacancy and anxiety, thereby interestingly inverting what I have suggested in the previous chapter about space as soul-immersed depth. Here, space is primarily experienced as exempt from the soul. The ‘self’ which issues from this primordial vacation will henceforth consist of these two constituents: vacancy and anxiety. Creation (criação), then, compensates for the separation (separação) from the mother’s body and the simultaneous vacancy and anxiety. We find an echo of this creative compensation for the separation from the mother in Jacques Derrida who lets us know in an autobiographical text that he writes for his mother.71 Another echo can be found in Jean-Paul Sartre’s description of free choice – which in Sartre is not only creative and full of joy; it is also arising out of the dark night of nothingness.72 It is only when the work will have been completed that this original separation is reactivated; the great abyss (espaço abismal) reopens its mouth, both inside and outside the self. Still, similar to the artwork, the orgasmic experience replenishes the abysmal space (vazio) of death. Death unites both – the artistic and the orgasmic – in their mutual roaming of an ontological, ‘postnatal’ vacuum. Both art and orgasm (jouissance), albeit inversely, seem to endeavour an Icarus flight restlessly. On a side-note, Clark’s description at this point dramatically resembles the Kabbalistic narrative of creation, most notably in the version of the 16thcentury Jewish mystic Isaac Luria. This narrative interprets God’s creation not in terms of production out of nothing, but rather as a procedure of inner 71

“le lecteur aura pu comprendre que j’écris pour ma mère”. J. Derrida (1991), p. 26. Note that throughout this text, Derrida not only draws close parallels between his own mother relation and Augustin’s, but also between a juvenile fear due to the absence of his mother (“l’enfant peureux qui jusqu’à la puberté appelait ‘Maman j’ai peur’ toutes les nuits jusqu’à ce qu’on le laisse dormir sur un divan près des parents”. Ibid., p. 114f.) 72 “Ainsi l’homme se trouve hériter de la mission du Dieu mort: tirer l’Etre de son effondrement perpétuel dans l’absolue indistinction de la nuit.” J.-P. Sartre (1980). Cahiers pour une morale. Paris: Gallimard, p. 510. And Musil writes: “Ideale und Moral sind das beste Mittel, um das große Loch zu füllen, das man Seele nennt,” Musil, 1997, p. 185.

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self-withdrawal, the ensuing vacant space being only subsequently replenished by divine radiation. The latter is creation proper, whereas the self-withdrawal is its preamble.73 Clark continues her account as follows: “And the movement of the penis, which enters and exits, thus confirming the separation in the possible connection [a separação na ligação possível] between two beings up to a complete jouissance … So many discoveries that you cannot even try to measure everything. One day I will have to write a book where this analysis unites art, creation and life [arte, criação e vida] in one single experience.” (Clark, 1998, p. 246; trans. Sergio Fernandez and Jeff Lloyd).

The movement (movimento) of the male member expresses the ongoing connection between inside and outside, which are usually separate. Only separation (separação) makes possible the link (ligação). Yet, separation presupposes the frightening vacuum of the ontological abyss, which has to be crossed time and again. Art (arte), creation (criação) and life (vida) are just as many attempts to cross this bridge. Finally, a relation is established between outside (a abóbada do céu, the firmament of heaven) and inside (grande vagina with grandes orgasmos). In the following quote, Clark narrates one of her inner, phantasmagorical journey’s, in a language that closely resembles the apostle John’s in the Book of Revelations: “The great vagina was the dome of the sky [céu]. The world stood still, half in the light and half in the shade. The sun and moon also stopped, until the great vagina began to have great orgasms [grandes orgasmos], and the rain that fell on the Earth set them in motion [em movimento], the Sun and the Moon began to move [se movimentar] and the volcanoes began to move [se movimentar] tearing the womb of fear [o ventre do medo] (deep inside myself [no fundo … eu mesma]); from the fire men were born and from the sea enormous pieces of female bodies appeared, covered in gelatine, making themselves, composing themselves: it was disturbing. I even lost my sense of balance and could see nothing; everything was movement [movimento] and I was afraid [tive medo] to fall backwards [de cair para trás] like the world…” (Ibid., p. 247; trans. Sergio Fernandez and Jeff Lloyd).

73

Lawrence Fine (2003). Physician of the Soul, Healer of the Cosmos. Isaac Luria and His Kabbalistic Fellowship. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

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The movement (movimento) related in the second quote (i.e., of the male member connecting inside and outside) is mentioned four times here (movimento2, se movimentar2); this time, however, it is a movement issuing from the former and comprising everything: inside and outside, heaven and earth, self and other. As a result of this movement, anxiety (medo) comes out of the innermost place (no fundo … eu mesma). It not only comes out due to the orgasmic spasms, it even accompanies them in the form of an anxiety to relapse (tive medo de cair para trás). In a letter of 11-11-1974 we find yet another link between inside and outside, orgasm and inspiration, art and vulnerability or intimacy: “The final phase of the mother was beautiful: I saw myself as a huge tiger eating Fedida [Clark’s psychoanalyst, RS] and then I saw this giant tiger vomit with great spasms a pink mass and I realised, by the movements [movimentos] of the vomiting and the noises, that it was a real orgasm [verdadeiro orgasmo] that I was seeing. I lay like a woman on the couch, naked, and a rain of rose petals fell until covering the entire room. The scent of the roses was astonishing; suddenly the window opened with a crash, a huge wind [vento enorme] invaded the space, blowing the petals out – the real – and they turned into butterflies. After I saw myself naked [nua], standing [em pé], and I felt the space as a body, an embodied space [espaço corporificado], and I rubbed against it feeling like I was rubbing against a man’s body…” (Ibid., p. 255f; trans. Sergio Fernandez and Jeff Lloyd).

Fedida, Clark’s psychoanalyst, is swallowed by the tiger (orgasm, verdadeiro orgasmo) only to be thrown up immediately after. As if the analytical input functioned as an incentive for the creative phase Clark experienced subsequently. Lying naked (nua) on the couch, the artist sees herself surrounded by beauty: rose petals covering the room. Abruptly, a strong wind (vento enorme) invades (‘in-spires’) the room and transforms the rose petals in butterflies. Immediately, the artist is standing on her feet (em pé), naked (nua), surrounded by a space which is not only a space but which is simultaneously experienced as a body (espaço corporificado). Suddenly, space has become ensouled, in virtue of its intimate tangibility.

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III Ecstasy “Then, descend! I might as easily say rise! It’s all the same.” —Goethe74 “There is an ecstasy [Entzückung] so great that the immense strain of it is sometimes relaxed by a flood of tears, during which one’s steps now involuntarily rush and anon involuntarily lag. There is the feeling that one is utterly out of hand [ein vollkommnes Ausser-sich-sein], with the very distinct consciousness of an endless number of fine thrills and titillations descending to one’s very toes; – there is a depth of happiness in which the most painful and gloomy parts do not act as antitheses to the rest, but are produced and required as necessary shades of colour in such an overflow of light.” —Nietzsche75

Introduction So far, I have discussed two dimensions of inspiration: its constitution by a call or a vocation experience on the one hand, and a drive on the other. I have interpreted the inner drive as being fuelled by shame and anxiety. Shame represents the rising awareness of one’s finitude and particularity in light of an incipient awareness of another person. It expresses an ambiguous form of human self-relatedness which both prompts and forbids revelation, thereby installing a double bind at the heart of the phenomenon. A double bind similarly characterises anxiety; it is the affective embodiment of clashing selfprotection and self-abandonment released in creativity. This creativity, once exteriorised, will inevitably exhibit the anxiety and shame that gave rise to it. At this point, it could be asked if this account is sufficient to do justice to the genesis of the drive. Human beings, especially artists, may indeed experience an urge to ‘rival’ with their finitude and to creatively replenish the post-natal, daunting void (vazio, espaço) life confronts them with. Yet, anxiety is a bad counsellor, and without the slightest notion of any prospective ‘satisfaction’ (a word that we will see needs clarification), it can hardly be imagined that any creative undertaking will ever be accomplished. Neither can it be comprehended that – in Kantian ethics – an agent acts in conformity to the moral law out of mere respect for that law, nor can the outbound nature of inspired agency be understood without appealing to the foretaste of a ‘horizon’ completing that agency. I argue that this foretaste 74 75

Faust II, 15; trans. (2003) by A. S. Kline. Nietzsche, KSA 6, p. 339.

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can be qualified as ‘ecstasy’. Herrmann Friedmann – whose ‘optic approach’ I am continuously exploring throughout this book – complains that the power and significance of visions (Schauungen) and ecstasies (Ekstasen) have weakened under the pressure of four centuries of empiricism in the natural sciences. (Friedmann, 1930, p. 22) Interestingly, Friedmann does not in the least deny the ongoing availability of visions, ecstasies, and idea generation; he only regrets the always aggravating vacuum in which they manifest themselves. Sadly, Friedmann adds, we are currently pervading a vacuum of ideas (Ideenvakuum).76 Just as Lygia Clark, he associates ecstasy with a void (vazio, Vakuum); but whereas Friedmann suggests that ecstasy may become powerless through this void, Clark instead insists on the void’s liberating nature. Since Ludwig Klages is the leading thinker of ecstasy, that is, of that state of mind which represents the predominant pull factor of inspiration, it will prove fruitful to resort to his ideas here. Rather than Georges Bataille – who iteratively insists on the failure of ecstasy (at least of philosophically accessing it)77 –, or than the majority of mystical thinkers – who emphasise receptivity while mostly ignoring the ensuing production of art or ideas –, Klages accounts for a positive input that enriches (replenishes, accomplishes) the inspired soul. Should we follow Klages’ argument, we must first remove several possible misunderstandings that could make us relapse into simplification. Firstly, the mentioned ‘positivity’ or ‘input’ allegedly prompted by ecstasy should not be reified; for that would quickly lead to an analogous reification of the receptive consciousness itself and a distorted, objectifying conception of the revealed ‘content’. Secondly, drawing from the informative references to the ‘subliminal’ or the ‘unconscious’ (cf Du Prel, Janet, Myers), we should be reminiscent that these notions entail an altogether different temporal framework. Though it may undoubtedly happen that overwhelming, creativity-inducing experiences can be sharply pinpointed in time and space (primary example: Pascal’s Mémorial), the essence of these experiences, I think, is interruptive and rather ana- or synchronistic than chronological.

76 “also durch ein Ideenvakuum gegenwärtig hindurchgehen.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 22 (italics in Friedmann). 77 See Georges Bataille (1973). L’expérience intérieure. In Œuvres complètes V. La somme athéologique. Paris: Gallimard, pp. 130-149.

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Thirdly, in what preceded, I have explained on what grounds I disagree with Klages’ conception of life as an original plenitude, and why I preferred Rank’s position, which highlights a fundamental ontological lack. This alleged lack, we have seen, is primordially experienced at birth; the resulting birth trauma is not only reverberated in all subsequent traumas and anxieties in life, it is also revelatory of a possible deficit of being itself. Properly speaking, birth trauma ultimately makes any philosophical ontology inconclusive, if not impossible altogether. If in the present account of inspiration I will be drawing on Klages’ notion of ecstasy, I will have to make sure that the gist of this notion is not overstretched. In other words, ecstatic experience, despite its potentially veridic and revelatory qualities, should not be confused with some absolute or divine viewpoint. The ‘outside position’ designated by the Greek preposition ek does not necessarily imply an absolute, absolutely absolved outside; it can just as well refer to a position which is just or only outside the regular. The ecstasy which I am discussing here reconciles the incompatible opposites of the preliminary or anticipatory (just-outside), on the one hand, and the extreme (absolutely outside), on the other. It is this impossible possibility, I believe, which prevents ecstasy from exhaustion and which makes it a continuously triggering constituent of inspiration. What is ecstasy? In line with Du Prel’s description of inspiration as a clairvoyance of one’s own soul, I would define ecstasy as the experience of clearly seeing one’s own soul, albeit that this experience – for being selfoblivious – excludes intentionality.78 With this definition, I intend to keep together two different components: self-abandonment and self-experience. One-sidedly emphasising self-abandonment – as Klages seems to do – might lead to overlooking that ecstasy could equally be seen as selfassertive or self-seeking, and therefore, as individualising. A self-asserting dimension of ecstasy would entail a confrontation with one’s self as 78 “dass nicht die Ekstase an und für sich schon seherisch ist. In ihrer Vollendung am ehesten ähnlich der Selbstvergessenheit des vollkommen Glückberauschten führt sie vorübergehend zum Erlöschen des Bewusstseins überhaupt in einer Brandung von grundaus aufgewühlter Lebenswogen, den Ergriffenen mit einem Bildermeer überflutend, das ihn jeder Besinnung darauf beraubt. Weil sie aber, um solches an einer Person zu leisten, die Schale des Ichs erst sprengen muss, so geht sie mit einer Erschütterung des bewusstseinsfähigen Erlebens einher, die sich entfernt dem Ausbruch heftigster Leidenschaften vergleichen lässt (worüber alsbald genaueres), und diese Erschütterung ist es, die unter besonderen Bedingungen im jähen Strahl des mantisch vordeutenden Bewusstseins erstirbt.” Klages, 1981, p. 260f. While seemingly excluding ecstasy’s visionary virtues, Klages in fact implies that ecstasy is non-intentional.

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unknown and yet familiar. Granted, an excessive focus on self-experience is likely to ignore that the ecstatic event takes place at the expense of the Ego; that is, of that entity which solely consists of identification and appropriation. The experience of ‘possession’ (on which I will come back below), though remarkably resembling ecstasy, should preferably be taken as its caricature. Possession, I will argue, relies on excessive identification. Hitler’s speeches, in my view, are among the clearest contemporary examples of possession, whereas Proust’s hypersensitive musings in the Recherche may give a good picture of inspired ecstasy. Still, the risk of Ego-fixation or, ultimately, of possession, does not exclude the discovery of a veridic self beyond the Ego; that is, of a dimension that does not need appropriation but that can be found, if at all, upon the Ego’s dismantlement. Ecstasy, I argue, implies a self-renewal which is subsequent upon Ego-dissolution. The discovered novelty, though, cannot be absolute, for that would involve a complete personality shift. It instead creates a radical interruption which highlights past, albeit often ignored, personality dimensions that now come to full disclosure. In this respect, it is telling that the ecstatic inspiration which I attributed to Proust seems to originate in the author’s ponderings over his youth experiences. The same can be said about Walter Benjamin’s remarkable youth memories attested in his Berliner Kindheit um neunzehnhundert, which I believe forms a perfect counterpart to Proust’s; both bear testimony to the birth of inspiration out of youth impressions. It is my surmise that the ecstatic part of inspiration is usually triggered by psychical ‘stumbling blocks’ of undigested childhood experiences. “I have made an effort,” Walter Benjamin writes in the preface to his Berliner Kindheit, “to get hold of the images in which the experience of the big city is precipitated in a child of the middle class.” And he continues: “I believe it possible that a fate expressly theirs is held in reserve for such images.” Instead, he concludes, “the images of my metropolitan childhood perhaps are capable, at their core, of preforming later historical experience.”79

79

Walter Benjamin (1987). Berliner Kindheit um neunzehnhundert. Fassung letzter Hand. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, p. 9; trans. Howard Eiland (2006). Berlin Childhood Around 1900. Cambridge, MA/London: Harvard University Press, p. 38. Other example: Jacques Derrida writing about his youth in Algeria, see his Circonfession. This autobiographical sketch particularly emphasises his proclivity to crying (= selfabandonment) and writing. “je parjure comme je respire, dont la multitude se coule dans les larmes”. In G. Bennington et Jacques Derrida (1991), p. 98. Also see J. Derrida (1996). Le monolinguisme de l’autre. Paris: Galilée, pp. 63-114.

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The said youth experiences can, though need not, consist of events. Yet, if they do – as also appears from the Benjamin fragment – not their event character is decisive but rather the inspired subject’s ‘hospitality’ or ‘susceptibility’ to those events. Not every person with memorable childhood experiences becomes a talented, inspired artist or philosopher. As I already mentioned, I consider Ludwig Klages as the primordial philosopher of ecstasy. His treatise Vom kosmogonischen Eros (1921) can be read as a study in ecstasy. It is one of the first of his texts which has been fully translated into English. In it, Klages interprets ecstasy as the soul’s self-liberation from spirit. (Klages, 1974, p. 390) Interestingly, he does not interpret it, as is often done, as a self-liberation from the body. As we will also see in the next chapter, Klages’ anthropology does not endow the body with object character – which would indeed lead to an altogether different conception of ecstasy, if not to its outright annihilation. In Klages, the body is an expression of the soul. In ecstasy, the ensouled body deprives itself of the ongoing infringement of spirit (reason, will) and yields to life. Life, in Klages, primarily consists of original images or constellations (in lieu of objects or things). These images or constellations trigger the human drives – which operate unconsciously. Only when the conscious mind is eclipsed will the human being ecstatically resituate itself in the animated environment of living nature. It is there, at the heart of life, that a force can be experienced which Klages calls ‘Eros’. Nature, or life, he argues, is permeated by Eros: a vital power which is not identical with, but rather precedes, the sexual. Whereas the latter, Klages argues, leads to union, Eros needs inexorable distance (Ferne). It should be noted here that, jointly with Klages although for precisely the opposite reason, Levinas argues that the sexual relation is not ecstatic because it is dualistic: “in sexuality the subject enters into relation with what is absolutely other […], with what remains other in the relation and is never converted into ‘mine,’ and that nonetheless this relation has nothing ecstatic about it, for the pathos of voluptuosity is made of duality.” (Levinas, 1984, p. 254; trans., p. 276) To be clear, Levinas’ dualism is stronger than Klages’ polarity and therefore prevents ecstasy; Klages’ polarity is weaker than Levinas’ dualism and thus allows for ecstasy.80 80

See Dick van Biemen. Mystic Undertones in Levinas’ Metaphysics of Ethics. In Mahmoud Masaeli and Rico Sneller, Eds (2020). Responses of Mysticism to Religious Terrorism. Sufism and Beyond. Antwerpen: Gompel & Svacina, pp. 155175.

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Confusingly, Erotic ‘distance’ in Klages is not at a distance but inescapably inheres to human nature – and precisely for this reason, against the grain of Klages’ own logic, Levinas would probably agree that it enables ecstasy rather than sexuality: “there is not only solitary frenzy [Rausch], solitary drunkenness, solitary blissfulness [Seligkeit], but rather ekstasis is originally always perfect solitary solitariness because it is a state of being perfectly fulfilled, that – beyond any half-ness [Hälftenhaftigkeit] – carries within itself the complementary pole.” (Klages, 1974, p. 399; trans., p. 126f) “The erotic connection is not intermixing: it connects the poles without annulling them. [Die erotische Verknüpfung ist nicht Vermischung: sie verbindet die Pole, ohne sie aufzuheben.]” (Ibid., p. 407; trans., p. 136)81

Whereas Levinas seems to rank sexuality higher than ecstasy, in virtue of the sexual relation’s innate radical duality and alterity, Klages does the opposite. He puts ecstasy before sexuality in virtue of ecstasy’s intrinsic polarity, albeit that this polarity is weaker than Levinas’ alterity insofar as it inheres to human nature. As I think that reality is incomplete and that it will therefore always instil sparks of anxiety in the subject, I would agree with Levinas that any ecstatic relation is susceptible to being superseded or disturbed. This does not exclude, however, the genuinely decisive character of ecstasy that Klages attributes to it. It seems as if each disturbance of ecstasy by alterity or anxiety contains a promise; a promise that ecstasy will be brought on a still higher level. But let us return to the quoted passage. The conception of ecstasy that the quotation conveys implies solitary self-accomplishment. Without for that matter necessarily sexualising it, this self-accomplishment can sometimes be inspired by other persons. So far, I share Klages’ views, and I would like to note that they closely resemble Patañjali’s views of samadhi referred to in the previous chapter. I even agree with Klages’ conception of the stimulating role of the other in ecstatic inspiration. In his personal life, Klages was immensely inspired by his muse, the disinherited countess Francesca zu Reventlow (1871-1918) (just as the Biblical Barak was by Deborah, Rousseau by Sophie d’Houdetot, Nietzsche by Lou Salomé, Franz Rosenzweig by Margrit Rosenstock-Huessy, Heidegger by Hannah Arendt, Rodin by Camille Claudel, Otto Rank by Anaïs Nin, or Benjamin by Asja LƗcis). It is intriguing to see, however, that Klages does not attribute any individual character to the otherness of this inspiring, beloved other. 81

Cf Cioran: “La sexualité n’a d’autre sens que de vaincre l’infini de l’Éros.” Cioran (1936) Le livre des leurres. In Cioran, 1996, p. 221.

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Instead, he takes this other to be an (impersonal) ‘figure’ (Gestalt): “For the experience [Erleben] of the lover, though he scarcely knows it, does not at all apply to the lasting person that is the beloved, instead it applies to their image that flows with the passing of time. […] [E]ach time it is the same person that wanders through all these appearances but the appearances themselves are vastly different from each other; and the entirety of Eros hangs only on the image and not on the sameness of a separate thing!” (Klages, 1974, p. 422; trans., p. 155f)82 Ecstasy connects the inspired subject to a magnetic pole that issues a pull. Klages does not seem to take into account that ecstasy is susceptible to being disturbed by another person. In my view, however, this does not diminish its validity. A final element in Klages’ conception of ecstasy needs to be singled out here: the dissolution of the fact world. Only if this fact world is dissolved will another, imagery-world, appear: “[W]hen someone shatters the form of personhood in ecstasy, the world of facts also perishes at the same moment, and there arises the world of images for him with an irresistible force of reality that replaces everything. […] From out of the polar touching [Berührung] of internal and external is born relentlessly the self-ensouled image [das selber beseelte Bild] (= unceasing birthing [unaufhörliche Ausgeburt]). The external begets, the internal receives, and from out of the embrace of both breaks forth the singing fiery torrent of images from the All, the ‘dancing star’ of chaos arranged into the cosmos.” (Klages, 1974, p. 417; trans., p. 149) The alienating character of Klages’ account of ecstasy for common sense logic is equally typical for our subject at large (i.e., the soul, inspiration, life, etc.). To confirm this account, we cannot rely anymore on distant observation or empirical verification; these are put into question for being radically restrictive and sometimes even distortive procedures. For those who are not willing to engage in experiments on the position of selfhood with which they have familiarised themselves over time, a corroboration of Klages’ account can be brought about in at least two ways. For one thing, it should be made convincingly clear that the prevailing scientific mindset is restrictive and that it excludes veridic dimensions of reality. For another thing, accounts and narratives written by reliable authors should be produced as favourable evidence. Unfortunately, the average, mediocre scientist merely follows a predefined trajectory based upon a maximisation 82

Also cf “Die Freudianer finden die Grundtendenz des ‘Erotischen’ in der Richtung auf das Nächste, das Vertrauteste: die Mutter; wir in der Richtung auf das Fernste: die ‘Unbekannte’”. Friedmann, 1950, p. 75.

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of the self-imposed restrictions at stake here; it is, therefore, unlikely that they can ever be satisfied, since their subject position is institutionally enmeshed and acknowledged. At best, root experiences by innovative scientists (rather than philosophers or artists) can open the average scientist’s mind to the theoretical possibility that its self-restrictions may not always be useful, especially when it comes to accounting for ultimate settings within which scientifically collected ‘sense data’ function. Therefore, instead of merely taking over Klages’ account of ecstasy, I prefer to suspend its truth character and derive three points from it. (1) Ecstasy presupposes a pole to which the ecstatic subject reaches out; this pole is somehow inside, that is, it inheres to our consciousness or soul. (2) Similar to soul or consciousness, this pole does not have any object character; preferably, it consists of original images or constellations. (3) To open ourselves to this image world, the predominant world of facts and objects should previously be destroyed; as long as this world holds sway, any alternative conception will always necessarily lose ground to this fact world. 1. Polarity “The unification between soul and event is accomplished at the temporal pole of experience, the splitting at the subsequent spatial pole; therefore, to the mystics of Antiquity this splitting meant the birth of the image.” —Ludwig Klages83

With his notion of ‘pole’ Klages succeeds in settling two issues regarding ecstasy. First, he demonstrates that, when trying to give a fuller account of human agency, pull factors should be distinguished next to push factors. In the next chapter, I will come back to this point by showing that the reduction of Aristotle’s doctrine of fourfold causality by Modern science needs to be reversed, to give way to ‘synchronicity’. What Aristotle had called the final cause – redundant though it seemed in the eyes of natural scientists who focussed on mere efficient causality – may well play a nonnegligible role. We may but have to widen our scope and take into account (as several 19th and 20th-century philosophers started to do) an unconscious that reflects human ‘awareness’ of that final cause.

83

“Am Zeitpol des Erlebens vollzieht sich zwischen Seele und Geschehen die Einswerdung, am darauffolgenden Raumpol die Zweiwerdung, die deshalb dem Mysten des Altertums Ausgeburt des Bildes bedeutete.” Klages, 1981, p. 849; my trans.

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The second issue regarding ecstasy that Klages settles with his notion of ‘pole’ is related to the former. When claiming that this attracting pole inheres to the subject’s consciousness (“a state of being perfectly fulfilled, that – beyond any half-ness – carries within itself the complementary pole”), he tackles the puzzle of its relation to space. Instead of an object located in space, the ecstasy-eliciting pole is part and parcel of our consciousness itself, albeit as its depth structure: it includes distance. In light of the previous chapter, we could conclude that this conception of polarity as internal might help us reconceive space: not as an absolute but as a quality that immediately affects the soul. (Kammerer, 1919, Ch. VII) Likewise, it might prevent us from interpreting ‘inspiration’ in terms of an absolute, absolutely external, input or influx without any immediate relation to soul itself. Instead, inspiration had better be taken in terms of a clairvoyance of one’s own soul (Du Prel), and ecstasy accordingly as the (non-intentional) experience of this clairvoyance (below, I will make a distinction between a conscious and an unconscious sample of this experience). Yet, the prevalent substance or object ontology which governs the overall worldviews today (both scientific and vulgar) obfuscates an adequate perception of realities that resist objectification. One need not go all the way with Klages to appreciate the two solutions mentioned above. Several times already, I have stated that I disagree with Klages’ conception of life as an original plenitude, in favour of Rank’s description of life as a lack. The distinction between fulness and lack is essential, as it is necessarily reflected in the way any conceivable polarity is experienced: either as directly familiar or as a paradoxical combination of familiarity and alienation. In anticipation of the next section (in which the nature of the pole will be outlined as ‘imaged’ or ‘imagin-ary’), one could say that, to those who are profoundly longing for e.g. the sea (esp. seamen), this sea is experienced differently according to how the polarity is framed. On the one hand, Klages would point at the contemplating subject’s intense familiarity with what comes up unconsciously when contemplating the sea. On the other hand, Rank (in the unlikely case that he would attribute any ultimate pole character at all to natural phenomena) would conceive of such a deeply sensed familiarity as fraught with alterity, in other words, with anxiety as its ineradicable concomitant. If I continue to draw on Klages here, despite my preference for Rank’s conception of life as incomplete, it will be in virtue of the enthralling paradox which is characteristic, in my view, of ecstasy: it unites the ultimate and the preliminary, familiarity and alterity,

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satisfaction and anxiety.84 In light of this paradox, I think that Klages unjustly rejects the orgasmic experience (for being fusional) in favour of an Eros of distance (Eros der Ferne). Had he been capable of acknowledging space or spatialisation in it, he would have been able to rank it under the possibly ecstatic experiences with a revelatory potential. At risk of psychoanalysing too much, I hypothesise that Klages, for refusing his prematurely deceased mother to ever be replaced by any substitute, unjustly deprived conjugality of ecstatic qualities, reducing them to mere fusion while ignoring its inbuilt distance. Had he been able to attribute any familiarity to anxiety experiences (as predominantly Kierkegaard did), he would not have relegated the sexual to a mere melting experience, and he would not have anxiously refrained from it in favour of an always receding ‘Erotic’ horizon. The same holds, incidentally, for Rousseau. Both Klages and Rousseau lost their mother early, both ascribed ultimate, maternal (or even divine) qualities to nature as a combined inward and outward reality, capable of eliciting ecstasy in a way that concrete, personal mother-substitutes would never be.85 “I was, therefore, dying for love without an object [J’étais donc brulant d’amour sans objet],” we read in his Confessions in a reflection on his impossible love for his lover-protector Mme de Warens (also called Maman), “and this state, perhaps, is, of all others, the most dangerous [et c’est peut-être ainsi qu’il épuise le plus].”86 It seems to be perfect anticipation to Klages’ ‘Eros of distance’ when, a few lines earlier, Rousseau writes on women: “My senses, for instance, were at ease with one woman, but my heart never was, and the necessities of love consumed me in the very bosom of happiness [jouissance].” The sad conclusion, then, is 84 “Vertrautheits- und Fremdheitsbewusstsein sind die beiden Pole jeglichen Erlebens”. Friedmann, 1930, p. 118. 85 Cf. Jung “Je ferner und unwirklicher die persönliche Mutter, desto tiefer greift die Sehnsucht des Sohnes in die Tiefen der Seele und erweckt jenes urtümliche und ewige Bild der Mutter, um dessentwillen alles Umfassende, Hegende, Nährende und Hilfreiche uns Muttergestalt annimmt”. Quoted in M.-L. von Frantz (1952). Der Traum des Descartes. In Zeitlose Dokumente der Seele. Studien aus dem C.G.-Jung Institut. Zürich: Rascher Verlag, p. 71. Also see C.G. Jung (2011, 1995). Aion. Beiträge zur Symbolik des Selbst. Ostfildern: Patmos Verlag, p. 20. Interestingly, Marcel Proust found another way of dealing with his lost mother. Benjamin writes that “Proust, dieses greises Kind, hat, tief ermüdet, sich an den Busen der Natur zurückfallen lassen, nicht, um an ihm zu saugen, sondern um bei ihrem Herzschlag zu träumen.” Benjamin, 1991, p. 322. 86 Rousseau (1959). Confessions I, v. In Œuvres complètes I, éd. de la Pléiade. Paris: Gallimard, p. 219; trans. 1903. Confessions of Jean Jacques Rousseau. Privately Printed for the Members of the Aldus Society. London, book V.

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as follows: “But is it possible for man to taste, in their utmost extent, the delights of love [Jouir? Ce sort est-il fait pour l’homme]? I cannot tell, but I am persuaded my frail existence would have sunk under the weight of them. [Ah si jamais une seul fois en ma vie j’avais goûté dans leur plénitude toutes les délices de l’amour, je n’imagine pas que ma frêle existence y eut pu suffire; je serais mort sur le fait.]” (Ibid.) Interestingly, also in light of Rank’s account of art as a struggle with birth trauma, Rousseau’s creative work seems to have brought him closer to the satisfaction or even ecstasy than his love life ever could. The public performance of his opera Le devin du village aroused him sexually due to female presence: “However, I am certain the voluptuousness of the sex was more predominant than the vanity of the author, and had none but men been present, I certainly should not have had the incessant desire I felt of catching on my lips the delicious tears I had caused to flow. I have known pieces excite more lively admiration, but I never saw so complete, delightful, and affecting an intoxication of the senses [une ivresse aussi pleine aussi douce aussi touchante] reign, during a whole representation, especially at court, and at a first performance.” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 379; trans. Aldus Society, book VIII.) It is even more interesting, however, – particularly at the background of Rank’s insistence on the ontological deficit of life (as opposed to Klages’ on life’s fulness) – to read that Rousseau’s ecstatic experience of his opera’s enthusiast reception was followed by anxiety: “Will it be believed that the night of so brilliant a day was for me a night of anguish and perplexity?” (Ibid.) 2. Images “ that image and form, far from being impotent or inoperative, are rather the true, the unique causa efficiens in the most real world which we know, in the world of human actions and deeds.” —Hermann Friedmann87 “The involuntary nature of the figures [des Bildes] and similes [des Gleichnisses] is the most remarkable thing; one loses all perception of what is imagery [Bild] and metaphor [Gleichniss]; everything seems to present itself as the readiest, the truest, and simplest means of expression.” —Nietzsche88

A next point colouring ecstasy, according to Klages, is an experience or hallucination of images (Bilder, Urbilder). In the example above, Klages 87 88

Friedmann, 1930, p. 53; my trans. Nietzsche, KSA 6, p. 340.

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refers to the image, rather than the individual person, of the beloved. For it is this image, he claims, which attracts the lover. In the same way, one could add, the seaman is attracted, not by the North Sea or the Baltic Sea, but by the sea-like which becomes perspicuous in any sea irrespectively. It would go too far here to dwell at length on Klages’ fascinating theories about original images – which are of crucial importance in his main work Der Geist als Widersacher der Seele, and which inspired both subsequent Gestalt psychology and Jung’s theory of the archetypes. What is essential for my focus here on ecstasy as a constituent of inspiration is that substance or object ontology is flawed. Rather than original entities, ‘objects’ or ‘things’ may well be the product of a (pre-)formative process in the mind; in lieu of transmitting their original way of being, this process perhaps reflects a drive to gain power over phenomena. Schopenhauer, who as one of the first modern thinkers raised suspicion over the reliability of ‘objects’ by insisting on the role of will, grounded the ‘objects’ of direct experience on ideas, which are only accessible for art; Klages, on his turn, grounds them on original constellations or patterns (Urbilder) which first ‘reveal’ themselves to our instincts or drives, but ultimately, and overwhelmingly, to ecstatic experience. “The tenacious habit of seeing basically things instead of living beings, and of interpreting everything that happens out there by analogy with push or pull” (Klages, 1981, pp. 827f; my trans.), is highly problematic. It neglects what is crucial: life. Life consists of hallucinated original images, which are somehow perennial: “Should miracle overcome him with such violence that it would instantly change him through and through, the temporal distance would have awakened in him [so wäre in ihm die Zeitenferne erwacht], and that which is actually present to him would not consist of things, it would consist of the reality of the images, which goes back to the beginningless in endless concatenation [die endlos verkettet zurückreicht ins Anbeginnlose]. ‘Original images are appearing souls of the past’ [Urbilder sind erscheinende Vergangenheitsseelen]’.” (Klages, 1981, p. 846; my trans.)89 As I said, the nature and essence of what Klages calls ‘images’ deserves a separate study. (cf Friedmann, 1930, pp. 288-302) For our context, it 89 Koestler mentions the physicists Cyril Burt and Whately Carington who introduced the term ‘psychon’ as a substitute for particle. Psychons have configurational rather than particle character. See Arthur Koestler (1972). The Roots of Coincidence. London: Hutchinson, p. 64. “both in Einstein’s cosmos and the subatomic micro-cosmos, the non-substantial aspects dominate; in both, matter dissolves into energy, energy into shifting configurations of something unknown.” Ibid., p. 59.

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suffices to note that images are patterns of original resemblances, which can be better described using adjectives, rather than nouns. These images precede ‘objects’ in such a way as to reduce the latter to mere artificial constructs; they are no original entities, despite appearances.90 Images, Klages argues, are primarily illumined in a state of rapture and ecstasy. How? “The unification between soul and event is accomplished at the temporal pole of experience, the splitting at the subsequent spatial pole; therefore, to the mystics of Antiquity this splitting meant the birth of the image.” (Klages, 1981, p. 849; my trans.) In other words, the manifestation of images requires a prior state of contemplation and associated unification. Those who, like animals, focus on the immediately tangible and concrete, will end up construing reality as an object world or as ‘object-ivity’. This object world is static and, strictly speaking, not open for experience: an emphasis on tangibility is ultimately an emphasis on outer, corporeal resistance which, once radicalised, excludes experiential access. Contemplation, on the other hand, presupposes that reality is accessed in the first place. But, as is already suggested by the last quotation, contemplative unification is always followed by a relapse or a splitting (Zweiwerdung). It is at this moment that images are born. The image originates in the differentiation between contemplative unification and splitting relapse. In other words, its birth roots are located in the connectivity between soul and life. Images are the repercussion or reflection upon the soul of the soul’s preceding unification with life. In fact, however original they are, they also represent the first alienation from life: “because in the ensouled pulse rate of contemplation an alienating phase is subsequent upon the phase of fusion. This is the only real unio mystica which exists, and its illumination still glows in the shower of transience [Vergänglichkeitsschauer] which interweaves him who knows in the fleeting [Verfluten] of reality.” (Klages, 1981, p. 849; my trans.) At this point, it should be reminisced that for Klages, who treats life as a comprehensive whole, contemplative unification is supposedly a unification 90 Proust, discussing the narrator’s “confrontation d’images empreintes de beauté” in a romantic moment with Albertine, describes how “la femme vraie s’était détachée du faisceau lumineux, elle était venue à moi, mais simplement pour que je pusse m’apercevoir qu’elle n’avait nullement, dans le monde réel, cette facilité amoureuse qu’on lui supposait empreinte dans le tableau magique.” Marcel Proust (1987). Le côté de Guermantes II. Paris: Flammarion, p. 107.

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with that comprehensive whole. To the extent, however, that any incompleteness (or alterity) is acknowledged (as in Rank91), not only the contemplative unification must be taken as substantially affected by preliminarity or provisionality; also, the ensuing ‘imagin-ary’ repercussion must be seen as impacted by this preliminarity or provisionality – provided, that is, that (1) a unifying experience is accepted as such, and (2) a subsequent imaged or image-like repercussion of unification is acknowledged. As I disagree with Klages’ conception of life as a complete whole, I can only conditionally accept the examples he gives of ecstasyensuing images (dawn, sunrise, thunderstorm, lightning, waterfall, earthquake, evening forest, moonlight). These images should not only be approached as contingent and exchangeable, but also as at all times provisional. Another element that seems to be ignored by Klages, or that is at least hardly emphasised, is related to the previous point. It concerns the possibility that ecstatic images are bewildering. As regards natural images, this possibility is vaguely alluded to. The Vergänglichkeitsschauer of which Klages speaks in the quotation above slightly yet insufficiently refers to bewilderment (Schauer = ‘shower,’ ‘shiver,’ ‘shudder,’ ‘awe’). Social images, such as a human face, are even more likely to be bewildering. Klages completely ignores the occurrence of social images, whereas there is no reason for this neglect. Levinas, who significantly speaks of an “epiphany of the face” (my italics), claims that “prophetic speech essentially responds to this epiphany”; that is, it responds to how the face puts into question and exhorts (‘bewilders’) its addressee. (Levinas, 1984, p. 188) If we assume with Levinas not only that the face or countenance opens a metaphysical relation by eminence, but also that this relation inheres any social relation92, this entails that ecstasy virtually inhabits our social world and is less alien to modern human beings than our denaturalised urban lives seem to imply. One might even, with Nikolay Roerich, assume the presence of the face in 91

Or Derrida: “Dès que la crise trouve sa bonne forme suspendue, c’est l’extase, la jouissance comme sortie hors de soi.” Extase, crise. Entretien avec Valerio Adami et Roger Lesgards. In Jacques Derrida (2013). Penser à ne pas voir. Écrits sur les arts du visible 1979-2004. Paris: Ed. de la différence, p. 216. 92 “Toute relation sociale, comme une dérivée, remonte à la présentation de l’Autre au Même, sans aucun intermédiaire d’image ou de signe, par la seule expression du visage.” (Levinas, 1984, p. 188) Despite Levinas’ reluctance on mysticism, I permit myself to associate the “metaphysical relation” with what I have hitherto called ‘ecstasy,’ in light of Levinas’ descriptions of the (disturbing, bewildering) aftermath of the confrontation with (the face of) the other.

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natural scenery; this could appear, for example, from his mountain paintings. ‘Healthy’ and ‘unhealthy’ images “Having arrived at this in his meditation, [he] found his way from a world of images [Bilderwelt] to tranquillity, and after long absorption [Versenkung], returned strengthened and serenely cheerful [heiter].” Hermann Hesse93

At this point, I will briefly address a burning issue concerning the reliability of the hallucinated images in ecstasy. For, as experience sadly teaches, they can utterly mislead the ecstatic subject, to the point of killing others or oneself. I am unable, though, to go further than giving a few hints as to a useful demarcation line between ‘healthy’ (reliable) and ‘unhealthy’ (unreliable) images, in other words, between ‘veridical’ and ‘deceptive’ hallucinations. I must admit that the distinction itself is flawed, for I do not believe that images can be unhealthy or deceptive in any absolute sense. Nor do I think that the bewildering character of an image (e.g., John the Baptist’s severed head) is intrinsically indicative of its insalubrious or deceiving nature. On the contrary, I would instead argue that an ecstatic subject’s imperturbability facing disturbing images is far more likely to be unhealthy – the hallucinated image itself remaining veridical throughout. What I mean is that the attitude towards contemplated images themselves tends to be pivotal. Henceforth, I will take ‘unhealthy’ in the sense of the ‘incapability of contextualising hallucinated images, of putting them into a wider, moreembracing perspective’. This incapability – inadequate responsivity – is paradigmatically exemplified by the myopia of the sedentary Cyclops Polyphemus in the Odyssey, and contrasted by the itinerancy of Ulysses, who has been travelling over the world’s vast seas. The Cyclops’ monocularity encapsulated him in a vortex of tenacious obsessiveness and unresponsive vengefulness: “The cruel wretch [ȞȘȜȑȚ șȣȝ૶: ‘with a ruthless, merciless mind’] vouchsafed me not one word of answer [੒ įȑ ȝૃȠ੝į੻Ȟ ਕȝİȓȕİIJȠ: ‘he did not exchange (a word) with me’], but with a sudden clutch he gripped up two of my men at once and dashed them down upon the ground as though they had been puppies.” (Odyssey 9, 287) My argument here runs as follows. There are two possibilities. When faced with ecstatic images, the hallucinator (1) can be frightened and bewildered, 93

Hesse, 1979, p. 239; trans. Winston, Ch. 6.

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but also (2) wholly indifferent and untouched. In either case, there are two corresponding options. I. Images and Bewilderment One possibility is that the image hallucinator is bewildered (which seems reasonable since ecstatic images are unusual). This could, in turn, mean two things. Either the hallucinator is immature and not capable of (though not necessarily reluctant to) adequately processing the contemplated visions and responding to them accordingly. Or the bewilderment – irrespective of the subject’s mental maturity94 – reflects something ‘objective’. What could that ‘objectivity’ be? Drawing on Rank’s account of birth anxiety, I venture to suggest that bewilderment may also reverberate an essential nonaccomplishment of reality, reality’s provisional nature.95 Reality’s structural incompleteness reminds (re-minds) the ecstatic subject of ‘innate’ anxiety which only creativity can dissolve. Disturbing or bewildering images connect the subject to the Ultimate by investing themselves with fringes of nothingness. Conceptions of the incompleteness of Being and corresponding anxiety are not so unusual in philosophy at large; they characterise Modern philosophy as such and existentialist or post-modern thinking in particular. If the second option applies (anxiety based on Reality’s incompleteness), there is no reason to attribute any unhealthy or pathological mindset to the bewildered subject of ecstatic hallucination. On the contrary. I would go as far as saying that, in this case, the contemplated or hallucinated images qualify as ‘healthy,’ since any ultimate ‘ontological’ ground that would disqualify them as ‘unhealthy’ is lacking. Because an incompleteness of Being is my overall thesis in this book, I believe that a certain degree of bewilderment due to ecstatic images is inevitable; regardless whether the bewilderment affects an otherwise healthy-minded and mentally mature prophet or a paranoid patient. If bewilderment determines both prophecy and lunacy, then, at least in the eyes of the average observer, both categories 94

In the next chapter, I will define ‘maturity’ as ‘soul adequacy’ or as ‘adequate image-processing’. Adequacy can be ‘measured’ in terms of increasing anxietyreduction. 95 Cf Levinas : “Si le sujet capable d’objectivité n’est pas encore complètement, ce ‘pas encore,’ cet état de puissance par rapport à l’acte, ne désigne pas un moins que l’être, mais le temps.” This ‘pas encore’ (not yet) “ne peut se tenir éloigné à la fois de l’être et de la mort que comme inépuisable futur de l’infini”. Levinas, 1984, p. 185; my italics.

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are mutually approximating. Let us take a look at two forms of ecstatic bewilderment most likely to be healthy (since affecting qualified men) despite their mind-blowing character. I am thinking of images seen by prophets during their alleged revelation experiences. The cases I will be mentioning below (but they could be multiplied) both relate bewilderment and disturbance as ingredients of the ecstatic visions. The first example I present here is the famous eleventh chapter of the Bhagavad gita in which Krishna reveals his entire beauty to Arjuna: “Then, bewildered and astonished [vismaya-Ɨvi‫ܒ܈‬a‫]ۊ‬, his hair standing on end [hrstaroma], Dhanañjaya [= Arjuna] bowed his head to offer obeisances and with folded hands began to pray to the Supreme Lord. Arjuna said: My dear Lord K৚ৢ৆a, I see [paĞyƗmi] assembled in Your body all the demigods and various other living entities. I see BrahmƗ sitting on the lotus Àower, as well as Lord ĝiva and all the sages and divine serpents. O Lord of the universe [viĞva-ƯĞvara], O universal form [viĞva-rnjpa], I see in Your body many, many arms, bellies, mouths and eyes, expanded everywhere, without limit. I see in You no end, no middle and no beginning.” (XI, 14-16)

It is interesting to see that the Sanskrit text, instead of mentioning the proper name ‘Arjuna,’ uses the hero’s surname ‘Dhanañjaya,’ which means ‘conqueror of riches’. While already the epithet hrstaroma (‘his hair standing on end’) evokes profusion (i.e., hair), the connotation of abundance is exceeded by the honorary name ‘Dhanañjaya,’ meaning ‘conqueror of riches’ (of which, presumably, there had been many, who owned much). Arjuna, the effulgent, abounding warrior spirit, is overwhelmed by the Lord’s manifoldness. As if both sides rivalled in plurality, or even, as if plurality rivalled with itself, in an ever-increasing attempt to overcome (and complete?) itself. The primary reason why Arjuna is bewildered, when seeing the ecstatic images of Krishna, is that his plurality is by far outrivalled by Krishna’s. One could, therefore, argue that he is not mature enough. However, one could equally state that Arjuna’s bewilderment is aggravated by a certain provisionality of the images (which are as though contained in the process of endless self-multiplication and selfimprovement). My second example comes from the Biblical book of Daniel. The prophet Daniel receives nocturnal visions which scare him:

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“In my vision at night I looked [ʺʩʒʥʤʏ ʤʒʦ ʕʧ/chazƝ hewƝth], and there before me was one like a son of man [ˇʕʰʠʎ ʸ ʔʡ ʍ˗/kevar enƗsh], coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his presence. […] “I, Daniel, was troubled in spirit [ʩʧ˒ʸ ʑ ʺʔ˕ʸʑ ʍ˗ʺʍ ʓʠ/ètkeriyat ruhi], and the visions that passed through my mind [ʩˇʠ ʑ ʸʒ ʩʒʥʦʍ ʓʧ/hezwƝ rƝshi] disturbed me [ʩ ʑʰʔ˚ʬʗ ʤʏ ʔʡ ʍʩ/yevahelunnani]. (Daniel 7, 13, 15)

Even more explicitly than the Bhagavad gita, Daniel’s account reflects nonaccomplishment (cf the plurality of visions), event (cf the verbs ‘coming,’ ‘approached,’ ‘was led’), and confusion (cf ‘one like a son of man’). The two revelation narratives share a focus on the mental and physical impact which the experiences make on the recipient. Neither Arjuna nor Daniel – both hallucinating subjects – seem to be ready for what they are seeing; but also, neither Krishna nor the son of man – both hallucinated objects – seem to be ready for themselves, despite their inner effulgence. As if both sides, thriving on their mutual incompleteness, were still ‘preparing’ themselves for their other. It is impossible to ground one’s views on the completeness or incompleteness of Being solely on these single narratives. However, if one has reason to give credence to reported ecstatic-revelatory experiences (‘veridical hallucinations’) – for example, if they belong to an age-old spiritual tradition, Jewish or Hindu –, the bewilderment they arouse in the hallucinating subject may well be an index of the incompleteness or nonaccomplishment of the experienced content: the higher the bewilderment, the bigger the incompleteness rate. If the bewilderment is tempered, this may be due to the hallucinating prophet’s increasing maturity. But it will be complicated to evidence mature image-hallucinating. II. From Bewilderment to Non-Bewilderment The other possibility regarding ecstatic images is that the hallucinator is hardly disturbed by the visions, if at all. This could again mean two things. Firstly, the hallucinator may be mature and fairly capable of processing what is seen. As I just said, it is almost impossible to evidence when or where this possibility occurs. What is more, it is not altogether evident that witnesses are available who are willing to give credence to the revelatory qualities of the ecstatic hallucinator’s visions. For – and this would be a second option – the hallucinator may equally be mad and psychopathic. In the latter case, we are justified in speaking of ‘unhealthy’ images. The pathological subject of hallucination is unable or even reluctant to put the

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hallucinated visions into a broader perspective. It should be emphasised once more, though, that even ‘unhealthy’ images need not be fake or false in themselves. However obsessed or deranged the psychopathic hallucinations are, they are no illusions. At best, they are delusions, which, being intrinsically veridical, lead the hallucinator fully astray. Psychopathy, then, does not disqualify the hallucinated images; it merely regards the hallucinator’s incapability to adequately process them. The psychopath is someone who is not capable of contextualising ecstatic visions. How to identify unhealthy images, or, to put it more precisely, unhealthy attitudes to appearing images? How to distinguish morbidity from mere immaturity? In the previous chapter, I have discussed two literary examples of image obsessions, the neurotic and the psychotic. As an example of a neurotic image obsession, I mentioned the literary character Bergotte in Proust’s novel La prisonnière. We have seen that the author Bergotte was obsessed by the enigmatic, multi-layered yellowness of Vermeer’s “little patch of yellow wall,” which he wanted to see at all costs (“In a celestial balance there appeared to [Bergotte], upon one of its scales, his own life, while the other contained the little patch of wall so beautifully painted in yellow. He felt that he had rashly surrendered the former for the latter”96). Already upon entering the Parisian museum, Bergotte was bewildered and upset. He was overwhelmed by “giddiness” (étourdissements). True, intentionality was not wholly alien to his image-obsession, as we have seen (“he fixed his eyes [attachait son regard: ‘he attached his gaze’], like a child upon a yellow butterfly which it is trying to catch, upon the precious little patch of wall.”). Still, Bergotte’s intentionality was transcended by nonintentional, ecstatic revelation (“In a celestial balance there appeared to [Bergotte] his own life”); not even to mention that the “little patch of yellow wall” unsettled his internal fixations, which may have first prepared him for receiving revelatory content (“his own life”). It is difficult to tell if Bergotte’s bewilderment is unhealthy (morbid), or just immature; in other words, if Bergotte is altogether unable to contextualise ecstatic images, or only unable up to now. Probably both. Unhealthiness or morbidity is suggested by the arid, flat writing style in his recent past (“‘That is how I ought to have written,’ he said. ‘My last books are too dry, I ought to have gone over them with several coats of paint [plusieurs couches de couleur], made my language exquisite in itself, like this little patch of yellow wall.’)” (Ibid.) The Austrian biologist Paul Kammerer, the 96 Proust (1923). La prisonnière. In Proust, 1999, p. 1743 (Trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff).

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theorist of seriality or synchronicity, would have commented that Bergotte was paralysed by a ‘series of repose’ (Ruheserie): “Ranking among the unfavourable serial conditions, into which one could see one’s workforce irretrievably embroiled, is the so-called ‘dead point’: one toils as much as one can, tackling things head-on, without any progress.”97 Mere immaturity, instead, could appear from the “giddiness” and the obstinacy with which Vermeer’s painting is contemplated. Should immaturity be tantamount to inchoate maturity, as I am inclined to believe, Bergotte’s final collapse can be seen as the result of a precipitate, premature maturing process. On a side note, I hypothesise that Bergotte’s example can be generalised and applied to ‘real-life’ cases, ranging from Rimbaud, Nietzsche, Hölderlin, and Artaud to 20th-century artists like Rick James, Michael Jackson, or Prince. A more explicitly unhealthy example of ecstatic image hallucination I believe having identified in Huysmans’ novel A rebours. Just as Proust’s Bergotte, the example is susceptible to generalisation; this makes it worth discussing it, after all. We have seen in the previous chapter how Huysmans describes the literary character Des Esseintes, inspecting Moreau’s painting of princess Salomé, who in turn is inspecting the severed head of John the Baptist (“Lost in contemplation, [Des Esseintes] sought to discover the origins of this great artist and mystic pagan [Gustave Moreau], this visionary who succeeded in removing himself from the world sufficiently to behold, here in Paris, the splendor of these cruel visions and the enchanting sublimation of past ages.”98) The morbidity of the example is confirmed by the series of obsessed de-contextualisations: Des Esseintes is “lost in contemplation”; the painter (Moreau, the “mystic pagan”) “succeeded in removing himself from the world sufficiently”; and Salomé herself, “[w]ith a tense concentration, with the fixed gaze of a somnambulist, beholds neither the trembling Tetrarch, nor her mother […], nor the hermaphrodite, nor the eunuch who sits […] veiled to his eyes”. Of Herod, it is said that he is a “man whom a fit of madness seizes [qu’une démence envahit: ‘whom madness invades’], seduced [égare] by a convulsion of the flesh”. (Ibid.) How not to be reminded here of the abovementioned Cyclops who, ȞȘȜȑȚ șȣȝ૶, “with a ruthless, merciless mind, […] with a sudden clutch gripped up two of my men at once and 97

“Zu den ungünstigen Serialsituationen, in die man seine Arbeitskraft rettungslos verwickeln kann, gehört noch der sogenannte ‘tote Punkt’: man plagt sich, wie man kann, fasst an, wo man will, es geht nicht vorwärts.” Kammerer, 1919, p. 365 (author’s translation). 98 Joris-Karl Huysmans, A rebours (Against the Grain, trans. John Howard, eBook), ch. V.

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dashed them down upon the ground as though they had been puppies.” Perhaps the most promising, or the least decrepit of these obsessed characters is Des Esseintes (if not the author himself), who at least considers a plurality of meanings of Salomé’s sceptre of Isis to re-contextualise it (“Des Esseintes sought the sense of this emblem. Had it that phallic significance which the primitive cults of India gave it? Did it enunciate an oblation of virginity to the senile Herod, an exchange of blood, an impure and voluntary wound, offered under the express stipulation of a monstrous sin? Or did it represent the allegory of fecundity, the Hindoo myth of life, […]?”) (Ibid.) 3. Destruction of facts “The more sensibility the soul of a contemplative man possesses, the more it gives in to the ecstasies excited by this concord [plus il se livre aux extases qu’excite en lui cet accord]: a pleasing and profound reverie takes possession of his senses, being lost in the delicious intoxication [délicieuse ivresse] and immensity of this charming system, with which he feels himself so intimately connected. Detached objects make no more impression on him [tous les objets particuliers lui échappent], he only sees and feels the whole [il ne voit et ne sent rien que dans le tout] —J.-J. Rousseau99

Having discussed two components of ecstasy according to Klages, i.e., polarity and hallucinated imagery, let me turn to a third component: the destruction of the fact world. Just as subject and object of ecstatic experience are connected (such as to make an ecstatic subject’s anxiety and bewilderment indicative of the incompleteness of ecstasy’s object), the fact world is conditioned by a subjectivity structure which supports and maintains this fact world’s facts. However, “ “[W]hen someone shatters the form of personhood in ecstasy, the world of facts also perishes at the same moment, and there arises the world of images for him with an irresistible force of reality that replaces everything.” (Klages, 1974, p. 417; my trans.) Klages writes these words in an age in which science is already primarily governed by positivism. Generally speaking, this is still the case today. Positivism, from Comte to Wittgenstein and beyond, presupposes a specific structure of consciousness which organises experience and transforms it 99 J.-J. Rousseau. Rêveries du promeneur solitaire. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1959).

Œuvres complètes I. Paris: Gallimard; anonymous trans. (1796). Reveries of the Solitary Walker.

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into manageable facts. It seems as if contemporary debates about ‘fake news’ and ‘manipulation of facts’ are the necessary outcome – like they were their shadow – of the original construction of facts as putatively objective historical or natural entities. Already historians know that objective facts do not exist and that facts always betray the historian’s interest. Each epoch designs its own history. Quantum physicists are making similar claims on the level of ‘non-human’ nature. Klages interprets ‘facts’ in analogy to ‘objects’ or ‘things’. These have in common a complete isolation from any meaningful context; this isolation makes them ready for whatever use, despite the explicit wish to keep objects aloof from interest. A fact world is a world ruled by meaningless facts and objects, whose inner “flesh, bones, marrow, and entrails” has already been swallowed. In this world, the so-called ‘rational’ subject that constitutes facts and objects gradually conforms itself to them. It soon becomes an impersonal object itself, which is inaccessible for experience or at least is unable to digest it. Eventually, it is obscure how this object-subject can perceive (i.e., distinguish objects) at all. One is quickly reminded here of the de-contextualising (morbid) proclivities in the neurotic or even psychotic subjects discussed above. When it is said in the Odyssey that the Cyclops Polyphemus, “reeled [ਕȞĮțȜȚȞșİ੿Ȣ] and fell upon his back [ʌȑıİȞ ੢ʌIJȚȠȢ], and lay there with his thick neck bent aslant, and sleep, that conquers all [ʌĮȞįĮȝȐIJȦȡ], laid hold on him” (Odyssey, 9, 371-373), one thing is sure: his sleep was not ecstatic. For “from his gullet came forth wine and bits of human flesh [ȥȦȝȠȓ IJૃਕȞįȡȩȝİȠȚ], and he vomited in his drunken sleep [ȠੁȞȠȕĮȡİȓȦȞ].” (Ibid., 373-375) If there is something like an ecstatic vision at all in the cruel Homeric narrative, it can be found on the side of the spectators, i.e., Ulysses and his mates (“As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to heaven [ਕȞİıȤȑșȠȝİȞ ǻȚ੿ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ: ‘to Zeus/God’] on seeing such a horrid sight [ıȤȑIJȜȚĮ ਩ȡȖૃ ੒ȡȩȦȞIJİȢ], for we did not know what else to do [ਕȝȘȤĮȞȓȘ įૃ ਩Ȥİ șȣȝȩȞ]”; 9, 294f). Klages’ critical examination of subject-based fact construction – in light of its undermining by ecstatic experience – gives rise to the following question: is not the ‘subject,’ supposedly at the basis of ‘objective’ perception and/or reflection, an ideal-typical construct which does not exist at all? On the other hand, the alleged ‘subject’ that does exist and that collects, lists and researches ‘facts,’ may be highly, though subconsciously, interested, namely, in gaining control. This interest can only go unnoticed to the extent that, due to particular epochal social-political developments, a desire to control has become so widespread and common that nobody is even aware of it. It would require a confrontation with its extreme opposite,

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i.e. philosophical occasionalism (as defended by, e.g. the medieval Islamic Ash’arite school, Malebranche, or Berkeley) to first realise the contingency and arrogant presuppositions of control-driven fact construction. Occasionalism attributes every single event to arbitrary divine interference. It cannot be my aim here to offer occasionalism as an acceptable substitute for positivistic hypocrisy, for the occasionalist keenness on resorting to divine omni-causality may ultimately suffer from the same flaw: arbitrariness, hypocrisy and blindness to personal involvement. To unmask both extremes, we need to realise that only the so-called ‘ecstatic’ experience may carry us further, insofar as it disrupts a tenacious, inflexible overall mindset. In terms of the previous chapter, subconscious fixed ideas are set into motion, even if these ideas are collective rather than individual. We will see in the next chapter which experiences the Cycloptic ‘hapticism’ must go through before it can develop a more promising ‘optic’ approach. The Permanence of Ecstasy “[T]here is a consciousness for which the relations of fact, that form the object of our gradually attained knowledge, already and eternally exist; and that the growing knowledge of the individual is a progress towards this consciousness.” —T.H. Green100

At the beginning of this chapter, I reminded that selig and Seele, just as zalig and ziel, are cognates. I suggested that inspiration – of which ecstasy is a constituent – is analytically implied by the notion of soul. For this suggestion to be meaningful, a stratified consciousness should be postulated, of which the average, typically uninspired stratum is unaware about its own deeper layers. Drawing on Carl du Prel, I defined ‘inspiration’ in terms of clairvoyance of one’s own soul; ecstasy, I defined as the (non-intentional) experience of this clairvoyance. Undeniably, the latter definition is still vague, insofar as ‘experience’ could always assume two forms: conscious and unconscious experience. Let us take a closer look at this odd distinction. For one thing, inspiration and ecstasy could designate an eruption of unconscious layers into (supraliminal) consciousness. This would be the more common conception of both terms. It may well be –, and it is even very likely – that the inspired subject neither controls nor understands the source of the input and that it can only bear testimony to it in the subsequent output. We could even make a division between having more or less contact with the source of input, and oppose for example Akiane Kramarik and 100

T.H. Green, 2003, p. 80.

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Arjuna to Lygia Clark and Daniel. The latter seem to be more anxious and bewildered. For another thing, inspiration and the associated ecstasy can also be located at the unconscious or subliminal level itself. “[I]t is not intended that the powers, senses and passions should continually enjoy this peace [están siempre en esta paz],” Theresa of Avila writes in her Castillo Interior (The Inner Castle). Yet, “[t]he soul does so [el alma sí]”. However, it would be tough, if not altogether impossible, to assess the soul’s ongoing enjoyment of peace accordingly. The restrictive, supraliminal position which is reliant upon ‘chrono-logical’ time and which, if at all, enables the assessment of inspiration or ecstasy, solely allows for witnessing (alleged) ana-chronisms or syn-chronicities, that is, events or phenomena which seem to be internally confused or ‘out of joint’. In his book Spectres de Marx, Jacques Derrida repeatedly refers to this famous expression in Shakespeare’s Hamlet (“the time is out of joint”) to account for the (primarily ‘moral’) experience of decision-making; the real decision – which, as Derrida argues, should never be a mere calculus – will always face utter incalculability and anachronicity. It is one of my aims in this book to show that any form of inspiration – not just moral but also intellectual, religious or aesthetic – implies a temporal structure which is thoroughly out of joint. Despite the inescapable difficulties in assessing it, we should nonetheless take into account an unconscious awareness of inspiration. If true, it should emphatically not be ignored that, from the standard supraliminal viewpoint, such an unconscious awareness can only be ranked as a phenomenal or temporal anomaly or, as I said at the beginning of this chapter, as a radical interruption. Any description of it is likely to suffer from inadequacy since it will be drawing on categories which are alien to it. In the next chapter, I will further dwell on synchronicity experiences as ‘outward’ appearances of ‘inner’ processes, if not as original connectivity of inside and outside in general. Whether or not ecstasy is interruptive, to at least account for it seems to entail forms of articulacy. At this point, Klages, who tends to stress ecstasy’s all-pervasive, non-intentional nature, cannot avoid resorting to Spirit, soul’s eternal enemy. He does so in strong, powerful metaphors: “It is not the wave of life, embedded in purple darkness, which makes visionary [seherisch], but rather its being lashed upward and smashed by the resistance of the egomorphic Spirit.” (Klages, 1981, p. 261; my trans.). And also “if by virtue of tremendous strength the disturbing intervention succeeds in severing a reflective faculty [Absprengung des Besinnungsvermögens], the nonsentient stream of contemplation [bewusstlose Strömung des Schauens] can, being now temporarily uninhibited, gain predominance in possibly memorable

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‘visions’ [erinnerbaren ‘Gesichtern’] – provided that there is ample vital inwardness left.” (Ibid., p. 268; my trans.). In sum, the participation of Spirit seems requisite to articulate ecstasy at all. As I do not share Klages’ radical dualism, I would add here that the cultural artefacts that we generally held in esteem are somehow dependent on what Klages calls ‘Spirit’ – even if the category of ‘Spirit’ needs to be revised and extended. Should inspiration and concomitant ecstasy indeed be analytically implied by the notion of ‘soul’ (which is my claim here), the assumption becomes inevitable that inspiration and ecstasy always already take place unconsciously – and therefore, inarticulately. If at all, this can be inferred in two ways, however unsatisfactory this inference may be in light of modern methodological acribia. What is required is either (1) withdrawal from the prevailing supraliminal waking consciousness, or (2) a focus on one’s life’s overall drift. In both cases, verbal articulacy helps to give words to what is virtually wordless. Hence, it is always inevitably at risk of betraying what it translates. I will discuss the two requirements in subsequent order, and I will start with the withdrawal from waking consciousness. For ‘evidence,’ I will rely on literary (Nietzsche, Proust), spiritual (Pantañjali) and autobiographical (Theresa of Avila, Rousseau) sources. I will end by briefly discussing ‘induced ecstasy,’ as can be found paradigmatically in Arthur Rimbaud. I. Withdrawal from waking consciousness Whatever credit the reader is willing to give them, examples of withdrawal from waking consciousness issuing in ecstasy are not too difficult to deliver. They fall apart in literary narratives, spiritual counselling, and autobiographical accounts. More often than not, these genres overlap. As regards the literary narratives, a methodological remark is indispensable, especially to anticipate critiques which refuse to accept such narratives as an argument. It is true indeed that poets and novelists do not intend to give a detailed description of something that took place in their own life. They make use of artistic imagination. However, for this imagination to be credible or even ‘convincing,’ it needs to convey elements that strongly appeal to the reader’s imagination. Once a real and effective connection is established between the artist’s and the reader’s imagination, it becomes likely that even on those points which still lie beyond the scope of the latter (which is often the case), the author’s perspective may, all the same, be accepted as reliable. It is a well-known fact that e.g. science fiction literature used to be seen only as a whimsical pastime for adventurous youngsters

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rather than a more severe pursuit; interestingly, however, many futurist fantasies from the past, even the wildest, have meanwhile become real. In my view, this would offer an argument to at least not immediately discredit the literary imagination as being merely speculative. In the words of Goethe, which kindly turn to the muse for sweet and complete certainty: “Stand where you are, be still, and looking behind you, backward, / All things consider, compare, and take from the lips of the Muse then, / So that you’ll see [schauest], not dream it [schwärmst], a truth that is sweet and is certain [die liebliche volle Gewissheit].”101 Literary narratives (Nietzsche, Proust) Interestingly, Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra opens saying that Zarathustra, after having abandoned his hometown, went into the mountains, to tirelessly enjoy his spirit and his solitude (genoss er seines Geistes und seiner Einsamkeit und wurde dessen zehn Jahre nicht müde). However, after ten years, his heart changed (Endlich verwandelte sich sein Herz). Addressing the sun, Zarathustra exclaims that he has too much wisdom inside (Ich bin meiner Weisheit überdrüssig). He would like to spend and share (Ich möchte verschenken und austeilen). Self-enjoyment ultimately brings Zarathustra to self-abandonment and expenditure of self, and self-concealment inexorably issues in self-revelation.102 As it can be defended that Zarathustra at least partly represents Nietzsche, along the same line it can be asserted that the narrator in Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu is not altogether alien to Proust himself. This mitigates the mere ‘literary’ nature of their account in favour of a more appropriately autobiographical gist.103 For my quotations and the corresponding interpretation of the following Proust passages, I am indebted to the marvellous study by Robbert Zaehner, Mysticism: Sacred and Profane (London 1957). Zaehner was a scholar of comparative religion and

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Goethe. Die Metamorphose der Tiere. In Gedichte von J.W. Goethe, 504. This does not exclude his relapse into self-enjoyment toward the end of the story, cf “Und Zarathustra lief und lief und fand niemanden mehr und war allein und fand immer wieder sich und genoss und schlürfte seine Einsamkeit und dachte an gute Dinge, – stundenlang.” Also sprach Zarathustra IV, Mittags. 103 What also mitigates it is its correspondence with ‘real’ autobiographical accounts, such as can be found in Rousseau’s Rêveries du promeneur solitaire. Cf Rousseau, 1959, p. 1002, 1003. Benjamin writes that “Schwerlich gab es seit den geistlichen Übungen des Loyola im abendländischen Schrifttum einen radikaleren Versuch zur Selbstversenkung.” Benjamin, 1991, p. 321. 102

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mysticism, who delivered the renowned Gifford Lectures in 1967-1969. In the preceding, I have discussed passages from Proust’s La prisonnière. In my discussion of these passages, I suggested that Bergotte’s sudden collapse after a close inspection of a “little patch of yellow wall” on Vermeer’s View on Delft may have been due to a confrontation with an unconsciously innervated inner ‘patch,’ in other words, a neurotic outburst. The passages on which I will be drawing below preferably refer to non-neurotic, healing experiences, where contact with a permanent state of inner ecstasy is established, however intermittently. In the entire A la recherche du temps perdu sequel, Zaehner identifies several of those intensity experiences that, while inspiring the whole narrative, remain somewhat isolated from the storyline itself. These experiences, according to Zaehner, have as their main virtue the integration of the author’s actual and his deeper I. They allow him to become susceptible to a permanent state of mind, behind what is merely ephemeral and transient. This permanent state can be interpreted as an extratemporal time-relatedness. In a flash, the narrator suddenly sees his temporal ego in light of its realisation outside of time; he sees it as it truly is and always already has been, though generally unrecognisable. A momentary clearing of the mind, a lifting of inner inhibitions and blockades and, besides, an external, slightly shocking impetus, function as preconditions for the achieved perspicuity. Compare the following descriptions of the well-known madeleine episode, the first one coming from the sequel’s first volume (Combray), and the second from its last (Le temps retrouvé): “No sooner [à l'instant même] had the warm liquid mixed with the crumbs touched my palate than a shudder ran through me and I stopped, intent upon the extraordinary thing that was happening to me. An exquisite pleasure had invaded my senses, something isolated, detached, with no suggestion of its origin [sans la notion de sa cause]. And at once the vicissitudes of life had become indifferent to me, its disasters innocuous, its brevity illusory – this new sensation having had on me the effect which love has of filling me with a precious essence; or rather this essence was not in me, it was me. I had ceased now to feel mediocre, contingent, mortal. Whence [D’où] could it have come to me, this all-powerful joy? I sensed that it was connected with the taste of the tea and the cake, but that it infinitely transcended those savours, could not, indeed, be of the same nature. Whence did it come [D’où venait-elle]? What did it mean? How could I seize and apprehend it?”104

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M. Proust (1913). Combray. In Proust, 1999, p. 44f. Trans. Remembrance of Things Past. Vol. 1: Swann’s Way: Within a Budding Grove. trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff & Terence Kilmartin. New York: Vintage, pp. 48-51; my italics.

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As appears from this passage, what is essential is not so much the reexperienced self (which is meaningless and futile) but the occasion of the self-experience taking place. The event comes down to a liberation or a rejuvenation withdrawing the narrator from time and space and giving him full relaxation. Purely synchronistic, it does not have a clear cause; instead, it is brought about by sheer association. In the final volume, the narrator looks back once more on this soothing experience: “[M]y apprehensions on the subject of my death had ceased from the moment when I had unconsciously recognised the taste of the little madeleine because at that moment the being that I then had been was an extra-temporal being and in consequence indifferent to the vicissitudes of the future. “But let a sound, a scent already heard and breathed in the past be heard and breathed anew, simultaneously in the present and in the past, real without being actual, ideal without being abstract, then instantly the permanent and characteristic essence hidden in things is freed and our true being which has for long seemed dead but was not so in other ways awakes and revives, thanks to this celestial nourishment [notre vrai moi qui parfois depuis longtemps, semblait mort, mais ne l’était pas autrement, s’éveille, s’anime en recevant la céleste nourriture qui lui est apportée]. An instant liberated from the order of time has recreated in us man liberated from the same order, so that he should be conscious of it [pour la sentir]. And indeed we understand his faith in his happiness even if the mere taste of a madeleine does not logically seem to justify it; we understand that the name of death is meaningless to him for, placed beyond time, how can he fear the future?”105

In this section on literary narratives about unconscious ecstasy, I am following the lead of Zaehner’s reading.106 Interestingly, Zaehner refrains from giving yet another formalistic commentary with which contemporary Proust research has been saturated. Instead, he focuses on the crucial inner experiences, however trifling in the eyes of an outsider, that inspired Proust’s literary work as a whole. These experiences cannot be conjured up at wish, let alone that they determine the author’s over-all state of mind – as is perhaps the case in Arjuna, Akiane Kramarik or perhaps even Theresa of 105 M. Proust (1927). Le temps retrouvé. In Proust 1999, p. 2267 (Time Re-gained, trans. Stephen Hudson); my italics. 106 And indirectly Walter Benjamin’s, where Proust’s memories of the eternal are qualified as rauschhaft, “ecstatic”. Benjamin, 1999, p. 320. Proust emphasises the entangled form (verschränkte Gestalt) of remembered eternity.

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Avila. They seem to be waiting for little provocations eliciting them, such as the sipping from a tea-cup, the tinkling of a fork on a plate, or the sudden appearance of a church tower from afar. One can do nothing except passively wait. Reportedly, to stimulate his creativity, Proust only wrote at night-time during the silent hours, in a room that was made fully soundproof such as to avoid the slightest disturbance. In chapter 4, in which I will discuss memory in relation to death, I will come back to the last Proust quotation. We will see that Proust’s association of memory, recollection, and death is highly significant. Spiritual counselling (Patañjali) Closer to ‘real’ experiential evidence, albeit still in the form of allusions, are the infinite number of references in writings by yogis and spiritual leaders in their manuals. In the previous chapter, we have seen how Patañjali describes yoga as “the stilling of the changing states of the mind” (Yoga sutras I, 2). Once this state is reached, “the seer abides in his own true nature [svarnjpe]” (I, 3) This state comes down to an “absorption without conceptualisation,” which “occurs when memory has been purged and the mind is empty, as it were, of its own [reflective] nature [svarnjpa]. Now only the object [of meditation] shines forth [in its own right].” (I, 43) The latter two passages highlight an ambiguity concerning one’s rnjpa or nature: is it present or absent during ultimate ecstasy? Similar to the Latin word forma, the Sanskrit term rnjpa can mean both ‘form’ and ‘beauty’. It belongs to one’s ownmost form to become translucent for something ultimate, something that is not our property and that still needs our ‘form’ or ‘beauty’ to shine: “Upon attaining the clarity of nirvicƗra-samƗdhi [super- or transreflective ecstasy], there is lucidity of the inner self.” (I, 47) Patañjali’s discussion of rnjpa is reminiscent of Klages’ notion of ‘soul’ (Seele): uniting the receiver and the received it is both a receptacle and a trigger. Patañjali is far from being the sole spiritual counsellor to teach his disciples about an unconscious state of inner ecstasy. It could be argued that even in Buddhism, such a state is defended, despite the explicit rejection in socalled Critical Buddhism.107 Japanese Buddhists referred to it as ‘innate 107

Cf Jamie Hubbard & Paul L. Swanson, Eds (1997). Pruning the Bodhi Tree. The Storm over Critical Buddhism. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press; e.g. the articles by Sallie B. King who defends, and Matsumoto Shirǀ, who denies, the Buddha nature doctrine. Critical Buddhists such as Matsumoto Shirǀ or also Hakamaya Noriaki, however, may well have in mind theories about ‘original enlightenment’ (hongaku shisǀ) which particularly flourished in Japan.

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enlightenment’ (hongaku shisǀ), a doctrine that seems to originate in medieval China and Japan. It must remain an open question whether authors like Patañjali are themselves acquainted with what they describe. But even if they are, the link between written accounts and inner experience cannot directly be identified with actual memory. At most, an unconscious after-effect of inner ecstasy (such as a widened waking consciousness) might reverberate through their texts. I will come back to the complex issue of memory and recollection in the last chapter. Autobiographical accounts (Theresa of Avila, Rousseau) Written accounts of an unconsciously ‘experienced’ state of ecstasy we can find in the world’s various mystical traditions. Insofar as I believe that the more these accounts are detailed, the more they lose credibility, the reliability of, for example, Theresa of Avila’s Inner Castle can be debated. However, both self-reflectivity in the descriptions of ecstasy’s experiential ‘periphery’ (i.e., the mental preparations, spiritual exercises, and the aftermath) and honesty about the ineffability of the experience itself make corresponding references to ecstasy more trustworthy. Trustworthiness, I think, is a more adequate criterion here than convincingness or rational argument. It strikes that, compared to, for example, Meister Eckhart, Theresa of Avila gives much more ‘information’ about her own inner experience. Whereas Eckhart limits his discourse to several concise references to the soul’s castle (Burglein) or to a little spark (Seelenfunklein), Eckhart’s posthumous disciple Theresa often explicitly describes her own intimate experiences and refers to an invincible inner peace, residing in her ‘inner castle’. As we have already seen above, she affirms that “[i]t is not intended that the powers, senses and passions should continually enjoy this peace.” However, Theresa continues (and this is important for my point here), “[t]he soul does so, indeed [el alma sí]”. Yet, she concludes, in an attempt to encourage her fellow nuns, “in the other mansions there are still times of struggle, suffering, and fatigue, though as a general rule, peace is not lost by them. This ‘centre of the soul’ [centro de nuestra alma] or ‘spirit’ [este espíritu] is so hard to describe or even to believe in, that I think, sisters, my inability to explain my meaning [por no me saber dar a entender] saves your being tempted to disbelieve me; it is difficult to understand how there can be crosses and sufferings and yet peace in the soul [el alma se está en

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paz].”108 Without pretending that Theresa’s account ‘proves’ anything to the veracity of inner ecstasy, I am inclined to give much weight to small discursive indications of self-reflectivity, such as the clause “my inability to explain my meaning saves your being tempted to disbelieve me”. We can find similar remarks in both her Letters (Epistolaria) and her autobiography (Vida). For example in the noteworthy letter 59: “A very pleasing interior quiet and peace [quietud y paz interior muy regalada] sometimes flow [viene algunas veces] from this recollection [recogimiento], so that it doesn’t seem to the soul it is lacking anything [el alma que no le parece le falta nada]. Even speaking tires it, I mean reciting vocal prayer and meditating. All it wants is to love. This quiet lasts a short while, and even a longer while.”109 In chapter 4, I will come back to this passage, but then only to focus on the notion of ‘suffering’ associated with inner peace. Another, apparently different and yet related autobiographical narrative we find in Rousseau’s Rêveries du promeneur solitaire. Since Rousseau’s social context differs from Theresa’s, I believe that this rather contributes to than weakens the reliability of both accounts together. Writing his Rêveries, Rousseau has almost reached the end of his life. In complete isolation on a Swiss island, having fled those that he saw as his enemies, Rousseau muses about an inner state of peace beyond daily turmoil and afflictions: “But if there is a state in which the soul finds a seat solid enough entirely to repose and collect there its whole being [une assiette assez solide pour s’y reposer tout entière et rassembler là tout son être], without being obliged to have recourse to the past, or stretch towards the future; where time is to her a void [ne soit rien pour elle]; where the present continually lasts, without, however, denoting its duration and without the least sign of succession, without any other sense of privation or enjoyment, of pleasure or pain, hope or fear, than solely that of our existence, and that this sentiment alone is able wholly to occupy it; as long as this state lasts, he who finds himself in it may call himself happy, not from a poor, imperfect, relative unhappiness like what we feel in the pleasures of life, but from a full, perfect, and sufficient happiness, which does not leave the least void in the soul it would be glad to fill [qui ne laisse dans l’âme aucun vide qu’elle

108 Theresa of Avila, El Castillo Interior (The Interior Castle, trans. Thomas Baker, 1921) VII, 2. 109 Teresa de Avila (1915). Obras de Sta. Teresa de Jesus II Relaciones Espirituales. Burgos: Bibliotheca Mistica Carmelitana; trans. Kieran Kavanaugh & Otilio Rodriguez (1987, 1967). Collected Works I. Washington, D.C.: Institute of Carmelite Studies, p. 520.

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sente le besoin de remplir].”110

Just as in the case of Theresa of Avila, it could be critically asked if there can be any posterior memory of this state at all; and if so, how it can be accounted for. As if in anticipation to this question, Rousseau immediately continues saying that “this is the state in which I often found myself on St. Peter’s Island, during my retired meditations [mes rêveries solitaires]”. I think that the impurity of the aftermath of this state – the relapse into daily turmoil – will inevitably make any claims as to having actually experienced it always doubtful; unless the experience itself has left its traces upon the ecstatic dreamer’s mind, for example by having widened its average scope and mindset. In chapter 4, I will suggest that the self-elation inherent to the reveries may go as far as to embrace – and assimilate – trauma; thereby, I will argue, they anticipate death (which I will define as ‘enhanced subliminality’). One could also ask if the condition Rousseau is referring to comes truly down to what I am discussing here as ‘ecstasy’. I would argue that it does, insofar as it can be identified with an unspecific state that precedes any subsequent distribution of external ‘data’ over the senses. Such distribution will only promote ego-formation and associated identification with sense impressions. Paradoxically, due to sense withdrawal, self-awareness increases in proportion to the decrease of egoity; as if a (synesthetic) self exists beyond the ego, that is, beyond appropriation, identification and sense distribution. Let us see how Rousseau further describes this state: “In what consists the enjoyment of a like situation? In nothing external, nothing but one’s self, and our own existence; as long as this state lasts, we are sufficient to ourselves, like God. The sense of existence [sentiment d’existence], stripped of every other affection, is of itself a precious sense of contentment and peace [sentiment précieux de contentement et de paix], which alone would suffice to render this existence lovely and sweet, to him who knows to remove from his mind [écarter de soi] all those terrestrial and sensual impressions which incessantly arise to distract and trouble our comfort [douceur] here below.” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 1047; trans. p. 221)111

110 Rousseau, Rêveries du promeneur solitaire, in Rousseau, 1959, p. 1046; trans. (1783) The Confessions of J.J. Rousseau with the Reveries of the Solitary Walker, vol. I. London: J. Bew, Pater Noster Row, p. 220. 111 This passage is reflected by the chapter ‘Vor Sonnen-Aufgang’ in Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra (III.1): “O Himmel über mir, du Reiner! Du LichtAbgrund! Dich schauend schaudere ich vor göttlichen Begierden. […] deine Liebe und deine Scham redet Offenbarung zu meiner brausenden Seele. […] O wie erriete

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It is my claim that the mental conditions which both Theresa of Avila and Rousseau are describing are possible examples of the soul’s state of permanent ecstasy discussed in this section. However, as could be inferred both from Theresa and Rousseau, this state is not without being threatened. I have already suggested that ecstasy combines ultimacy and preliminarity. This must necessarily be so if one wants to do justice to an original ontological deficit, which may become manifest in birth anxiety. Lygia Clark gave expression to this anxiety in terms of “a womb of fear (deep inside myself),” a “sensation of emptiness [vazio] and death” and “abysmal space”. Rousseau seems to allude to this emptiness by denying it a place in perfect happiness. Such happiness, we have seen, “does not leave the least void in the soul it would be glad to fill [qui ne laisse dans l’âme aucun vide qu’elle sente le besoin de remplir].” And in Theresa of Avila, not only is the inner peace surrounded by “crosses and sufferings,” and “times of struggle, suffering, and fatigue”; it also refers to the void more directly, insofar as it consists of the replenishment of this void. In the state of inner peace “it doesn’t seem to the soul it is lacking anything [el alma que no le parece le falta nada]”. In it, the soul does not fall short or anything, or even, it falls short of (falta) nothing (nada). ‘Nothingness’ or the ‘void’ are present in virtue of their being subsequently replenished by inner peace. In terms of Lygia Clark, it could be argued that the soul in this state has first ‘swallowed’ the void (“I discovered that I had been swallowing this external space [espaço] because I could not endure a separation, a fundamental space”).112 As is well known, the ambiguity of perfect happiness necessarily threatened by a void has been articulated outstandingly by Levinas. In his Totalité et infini, Levinas explains how pure pleasure cannot even be conceived without its possible interruption: “Enjoyment [jouissance] seems to be in touch with an ‘other’ inasmuch as a future is announced within the element and menaces it with insecurity.” (Levinas, 1984, p. 110; trans. p. 137) “This insecurity, which thus delineates a margin of nothingness [liséré de néant] about the interior life, confirming its insularity, is lived in the instant of enjoyment [jouissance] as the concern for the morrow.” (Ibid., p. 124; ich nicht alles Schamhafte deiner Seele! […] Bist du nicht das Licht zu meinem Feuer? Hast du nicht die Schwester-Seele zu meiner Einsicht?” 112 Addressing the subject of the void and emptiness, I am greatly indebted to the Dutch philosopher Gerard Visser, esp. his book from 2018 Gelatenheid in de kunst. Nijhoff, Braque, Kawabata. Van gesloten naar open vormen. Amsterdam: Boom. I owe the few references to Braque’s Le jour et la nuit to Visser. Though Visser is not a thinker of ecstasy, he largely contributed to my intellectual development.

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trans., p. 150) Interestingly, however, this insecurity does two things at once: it not only allows for the ultimate as ultimate, or ecstasy as ecstasy, but it also makes the ultimate a condition for something seemingly unrelated to ultimacy – even though it ‘transcends’ it: a relation to another person. “Empty space,” Levinas asserts (as if directly commenting upon our discussion of void and empty space), “is the condition for this relationship.” Not as its neutral background, but as its very constituent: “Empty space […] is a modality of enjoyment and separation.” (Ibid., p. 165; trans., p. 191) Discussing empty space as the way in which both pleasure and relation to the other become real, Levinas even refers to ‘peace’. True, not to Theresa’s or Rousseau’s inner peace strictly speaking, but to an ethical peace, a peace with the other: “[T]he relation is maintained without violence, in peace with this absolute alterity.” (Ibid., p. 171; trans., p. 197) Could it be that in the relation to the other – which only becomes possible in virtue of the empty space or liséré de néant – the inner peace is exteriorised by being offered to the other? Moreover, could it be that this offering of inner peace to the other will issue in a surpassing of this inner peace, in other words, an ecstasy still more ecstatic to the extent that only thus can a final consummation of emptiness (and concomitant anxiety) be imagined? In Levinas’ words, original pleasure is redirected, it is given another destination, and another destiny: “within the very interiority hollowed out by enjoyment [que creuse la jouissance] there must be produced a heteronomy that incites to another destiny than this animal complacency in oneself.” (Ibid., p. 122f; trans., p. 149) One does not have to agree with Levinas’ apparent contempt for the soul’s original pleasure to accept the possibility that its ultimacy may still not be ultimate enough. Only the ethical relation to the other will finally swallow the imminent threat of discontinued enjoyment. If my hypothesis makes sense, there are at least two consequences. Firstly, a surpassing of ecstasy by ethics will annihilate its being threatened by an original void. Secondly, the ethical relation with the other is not unrelated to the output of creative inspiration discussed earlier, insofar as ethics and aesthetics – perhaps even culture as such – have in common an attempt to exteriorise inner peace by covering up (‘replenishing,’ ‘swallowing’) the void. Indeed, Rousseau is right when he complains that “[h]appiness is a permanent state which does not seem intended for man here below” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 1085; trans. p. 276), albeit that this statement should not primarily be taken as a complaint about human finitude but rather as a promise of an ecstasy still beyond ecstasy. Both ethics and art or culture

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may build a bridge between these two forms of ecstasy.113 Induced ecstasy (Rimbaud) In modern times, a crossing of the boundary cutting off day consciousness from transcendental consciousness was endeavoured after explicitly by the Romantics (cf Novalis, Tieck). But it did not stop there. A significant number of thinkers (let alone artists) used all means available to warrant regular access to a transcendental consciousness (whatever their philosophical conception of consciousness as such). These means varied from meditation or prayer (Jung, Bataille, Simone Weil) to using alcohol and laughing gas (William James) or drugs (Freud, Sartre, Benjamin, Klages). Akiane Kramarik does not seem to need stimulating means, which might be indicative of creativity’s non-physiological origin. In his previously mentioned study, Zaehner describes Arthur Rimbaud’s attempts to pave a way towards inner ecstasy violently and to induce it. Rimbaud, the father of 20th-century poetry, went as far as pro-actively deranging his mind by drinking absinthe and using opium. In comparison to Proust, Theresa of Avila and Rousseau, he showed himself more impatient. Rimbaud sought to actively preserve his acquaintance with the sources of his initial inspiration (with which he had nevertheless already been in contact, given his earlier poetry). Most significant is his letter to Paul Demeny (1844-1918) of 15 May 1871, also called the Letter of the Seer. “The first study for the man that wants to be a poet is true complete knowledge of himself: he looks for his soul; examines it, tests it, learns it. As soon as he knows it, he must develop it! That seems simple: a natural development takes place in every brain: so many egoists proclaim themselves authors: there are plenty of others who attribute their intellectual progress to themselves! – But the soul must be made monstrous […]. I say one must be a seer [voyant], make oneself a seer. The Poet makes himself a seer by a long, rational and immense disordering of all the senses [un long, immense et raisonné dérèglement de tous les sens]. All forms of love, suffering, madness: he searches himself; he consumes all the poisons in himself, to keep only their quintessence. Unspeakable torture, 113

For a discussion of everyday ecstasy see Marghanita Laski (1980). Everyday Ecstasy. London: Thames and Hudson. Laski distinguishes three types: 1) ontological bliss, 2) falling in love, and 3) ethical satisfaction. For a global world historical catalogue, see Martin Buber (1921). Ekstatische Konfessionen. Leipzig: Im Insel-Verlag.

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where he needs all his faith, every superhuman strength, during which he becomes the great patient, the great criminal, the great accursed – and the supreme Knower, among men! – Because he arrives at the unknown! Because he has cultivated his soul, already rich, more than others! He arrives at the unknown, and when, maddened, he ends up by losing the knowledge of his visions: he has still seen them!”

This letter is as fierce as it is desperate. In Rimbaud’s Une saison en enfer (A Season in Hell), written two years later, despair seems to have gained the upper hand; this short text reflects the period of recovery in his grandmother’s house after the young poet’s frantic attempts to assail heaven (or his unconscious). Still, Rimbaud at least claimed to know what he had to do to write poetry (his famous poem Voyelles from 1871 puts the dérèglement des sens in practice). He even testifies to it in his correspondence with Paul Demeny, who was a poet, and even his senior withal. It seems probable that Rimbaud was already familiar with what he is recommending here, albeit that he had lost a steady contact with it. The letter does not address an interlocutor, Rimbaud instead seems to address himself, and remind himself of those previous poetic incidents that had come all of a sudden. The same self-obsessed blindness to the addressee figures in a letter written to Georges Izambard (1848-1931). Similar to the Demeny letter, it is rife with emphatic recommendations on how to write poetry. The letter’s apodictic overtones may surprise even more since the epistle was written to Rimbaud’s own erstwhile high school teacher of rhetoric. In the letter to Izambard, we find the often quoted statement that “I is another” (Je est un autre). We can only speculate about Rimbaud’s endeavours to dig deeper into his mind, and about the extent to which his subsequent poetry benefited from these endeavours. It remains a tragic fact that, after ending his friendship with Verlaine, his poetic energy seems to have abandoned him forever (unless one sees his ensuing arm trader life as a long-drawn-out, non-literary representation of the same energy). In one respect, Rimbaud’s attempts to cross the boundaries set by supraliminal consciousness differ from Proust’s, Theresa’s and Rousseau’s. Whereas the illumination experiences of the latter are personal and integrating, Rimbaud’s are not. On the contrary, they depersonalise and even resemble a (self-afflicted) psychosis.114 This is why I see Rimbaud as 114

Cf. Jacques Lacan (1966). De l’agressivité en psychanalyse. In Ecrits. Paris: Seuil, pp. 101-124. Note the following remark by Klages on the state of Verzückung (‘rapture,’ ‘entrancement’) in Christian mysticism, which in my view rather applies

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a limit case. Whether the denominator ‘psychosis’ labels a gained access to a deeper (subliminal) self or, instead, a complete loss of self – to the extent of becoming pervious to other selves – must remain undecided here. Above, when describing the example of Des Esseintes in Huysmans’ novel A rebours, I suggested that psychosis and neurosis each in a different way draw upon subconscious fixed ideas. We have seen that this fixation not necessarily excludes reliable perception but that it only forms an obstacle for contextualisation and adequate responsiveness. We have also seen that anxiety not only reflects degrees of immaturity in the subject of ecstatic images; it could also, perhaps even simultaneously, reflect an ontological incompleteness. The latter possibility becomes convincing (if at all) in proportion to these images’ susceptibility to being integrated into a broader tradition of (prophetic) experience. My surmise is that this susceptibility exists, albeit that Rimbaud’s intentional, voluntary self-destruction distorts the picture. A deeper self is at least partly involved in Rimbaud’s inward itineraries, however malformed and incomplete it surfaces.115 II. Focus on life’s drift “People don’t change. They only stand more revealed”. —Charles Olson116

My second attempt to substantiate the claim that inspiration and ecstasy always already take place unconsciously entails a focus on one’s life’s overall drift. “[W]hat is really strange,” Gabriel Marcel writes, “is the fact that, in spite of everything that is implied by the current belief that time’s arrow flies only one way, a man, as he grows older, has nearly always the feeling that he is growing nearer to his childhood; though the gap of years between him and his childhood is growing, at the same time, wider and wider (Marcel, 1950, p. 195; 1997, p. 210). In this section, I will study this paradox.

to the induced ecstasy in authors like Rimbaud (or, if need be, Bataille): “so scheint diese [i.e. Verzückung] in ‘übersinnlicher’ Glorie eines grell zerlösenden Lichtes lautlos und doch einem Schrei vergleichbar aus entsetzlichsten Qualen und Martern hervorzubrechen.” Klages, 1981, p. 267. 115 Cf Cioran: “Si, on ne sait comment, Rimbaud avait pu continuer […], il aurait fini par reculer, par s’assagir, par commenter ses explosions, par les expliquer, par s’expliquer. Sacrilège dans tous les cas, l’excès de conscience n’étant qu’une forme de profanation.” Cioran (1973). De l’inconvénient d’être né. In Cioran, 1996, p. 1396. 116 Maximus, to Gloucestor: Letter 2.

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At the beginning of the chapter, I suggested that the notion of soul analytically implies inspiration and ecstasy. I argued that, beyond their incidental outbursts, they take place unconsciously. Above, I have tried to describe how this can be based upon literary and/or autobiographical testimonies about occurrences during which the senses allegedly withdrew from the author’s waking consciousness. Now, I will turn to another possible ground for the assumption of an ongoing subconscious ecstasy and inspiration. While not cogent, an appeal to this ground is always viable. It has the advantage of being slightly more accessible than the autobiographical accounts or spiritual counselling discussed above. I am referring here to what could conceivably be made up from a focus on one’s own life’s overall drift. I hypothesise that this drift, while giving the impression of being erratic, testifies to an unconscious ecstatic and inspirational awareness. Klages puts it as follows: “Inherent to the activity of being-awake is the constant inclination towards the passivity of not-being-awake, of being driven rudderlessly [beständige Hinneigung auf die Passivität des Nichtwachens und des steuerlosen Sichtreibenlassens].” (Klages, 1981, p. 807; my trans.) Despite the seemingly pejorative phrasing (steuerlos, Sichtreibenlassen), Klages intends to address something which he believes is of crucial importance: an inner ‘awareness’ of which one is consciously unaware and which drives one forward.117 In Ecce homo Nietzsche quotes from Zarathustra’s ‘soul lyrics’: “The soul that flyeth from itself, and overtaketh itself in the widest circle [die sich selber fliehende [Seele], welche sich selber in weitesten Kreisen einholt]”.118 Focussing on the general drift of one’s own life may not always be habitual. If at all, it is likely to happen at turning points in one’s life: marrying, childbirth, retiring, disease, or dying. The more distanced perspective which is presupposed here does not necessarily ensure giving a fully reliable and meaningful autobiographical self-image; such an image might still be disturbed by fallacious or self-destructive images or fixed ideas (cf Janet) that rather obfuscate than illumine one’s life.119 What is more, even 117 Except for the Stoic apatheia, Klages’ ideas of a steuerloses Sichtreibenlassen do not necessarily differ so much from Seneca’s ducunt volentem fata, nolentem trahunt. Epistola 107. 118 Nietzsche, Ecce homo. In KSA 6, p. 344; trans. Anthony M. Ludovici & Paul V. Cohn. 119 “combien il serait hasardeux de prétendre qu’il y a place pour du définitif, pour de l’irrévocable”. Marcel, 1997, p. 174. “Quand je parle de ma vie, je suis encore engagé dans la vie; ma vie, ce n’est pas essentiellement mon passé”. Ibid., p. 176. “Ma vie est infiniment au-delà de la conscience que je puis en prendre à un moment

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biographers may likewise be mistaken about the person whose life they describe, due to personal or ideological biases. Nonetheless, without being a sufficient condition for an enlarged self-perception, a distanced perspective and a withdrawal from immediate daily concerns are at least a necessary condition. The temporal order of everyday events, choices and decisions, and the existential myopia which is enhanced by this order, may be overcome by taking cognisance of overall patterns or tendencies in behaviour and habitual outward responses, throughout one’s entire lifetime or in substantial strands of life. My point here is that the putative drift of one’s life gives reasons to hypothesise about a (subconscious) source fuelling this drift and empowering life accordingly. This source, I argue, is an ongoing inner ecstatic-inspirational awareness. My argument is as follows. By speaking of a ‘drift of life,’ I intend to combine finality and non-temporality. For a mere temporal finality or teleology would do justice neither to blatant irregularities or discontinuities in someone’s biography, nor to the always imminent possibility of relapsing into inferior states (cf, e.g. Ulysses’ return to Ithaca, or Abraham’s itinerary to the promised land of Canaan: both repeatedly faced serious and unexpected setbacks).120 Combining finality and non-temporality comes down to assuming (1) increased awareness of what one’s life may be about, and (2) an unconsciously experienced attractivity of a goal which, despite suffering, misery and misfortune, motivates life’s unpredictable journey. I hypothesise that being unconsciously attracted by an existential, as yet invisible, magnetic point of no return – a subliminally fuelling source – testifies to an experienced inner effulgence or abundance with regard to this point. Situating it on a onedimensional linear timeline would run the risk of sanctifying apparent disorder in someone’s life, and of erroneously assuming that the concatenation of bare facts exhausts life’s meaning; extracting it from a temporal, chrono-logical order, however, could do more justice to apparently interruptive or incisive life events that enhance awareness and invigorate one’s determination to continue. There is no need to clarify here, I think, that (1) ‘awareness’ does not equal ‘understanding’ (too many lives seems to end in horror or shame beyond quelconque; elle est foncièrement, elle est essentiellement inégale à elle-même.” Ibid., p. 182. 120 When not individuals’ but peoples’ lives are considered, it is interesting to realise that, according to legend, both the ancestors of the ancient Greeks and of the Jews in Canaan were refugees and settlers.

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comprehension121), and that (2) a lot of people refrain from following life’s inner drift – which, according to my argument, implies that they (unconsciously) resist the fatal attraction issuing from life’s magnetic pole. Du Prel ironically remarks that materialists would deny their own theories during a state of real ecstasy. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 496) Reportedly, one of the greatest 20th-century materialists, A.J. Ayer, changed his views after a neardeath experience. The retractation in The Spectator, which Ayer subsequently added as a “post-script” to his first article in The Sunday Telegraph (28 August 1988), ironically does not deny, but might eventually even confirm Du Prel’s statement.122 For a philosophical corroboration of my hypotheses, I will turn to the Plotinian-Schopenhauerian tradition, especially to Carl du Prel. In this tradition it is argued that, beyond the coincidental choices and decisions a human being makes during lifetime and which are fatally rooted in an innate character or mental disposition, one is free in the choice of one’s incarnation itself. A free and deliberate, ‘metaphysical’ choice – this tradition claims – precedes all necessitated, arbitrary life choices of which we mistakenly assume that they are free. I do not intend to speculate here any further about previous lives that supposedly engender metaphysical choices for new incarnations, even though the belief systems associated with it are ancient and widely spread. For my argument, it suffices to state that the Western philosophical tradition allows for more moderate versions of the metaphysical choice theory than the one offered by Schopenhauer (let alone Plotinus). I am thinking of both J.G. Fichte sr. and Sartre who, each in their way, equate consciousness with ultimate, metaphysical freedom and choice. (To be clear, especially Sartre might be stupefied to realise that his philosophy of freedom approximates theories about reincarnation and choice of life. Granted, this works both ways, for the same would equally apply to the latter when being confronted with Sartre’s version.) The view which I am defending here dramatically differs, however, from the impoverished conceptions of freedom and choice in Fichte sr and Sartre, even if Sartre emphasises that making a free choice entails joy or even jouissance.123 I am putting forward here not only the theory that a radical 121

Cf “The horror! The horror!” (Joseph Conrad, The Heart of Darkness), or “Es war, als sollte die Scham ihn überleben.” (Franz Kafka, Der Prozess). 122 See http://www.philosopher.eu/others-writings/a-j-ayer-what-i-saw-when-i-wasdead/, retrieved on 27 May 2019. 123 Cf “Ainsi retrouvons-nous mais dans l’humilité de la finitude, l’extase de la Création divine.” Sartre, 1980, p. 513. Note that Sartre defines free choice in terms of jaillissement (510), explosion perpétuelle (509), explosion fixe et vertigineuse de

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choice antedates (empirical) life, but more in particular the theory that this choice roots in a continual state of inner ecstasy and inspiration. Admittedly, if I am justified in advocating this theory, one could rightfully put into question the word ‘choice’ as an adequate term. This is the reason why I prefer to use the word ‘drift’. Among the philosophers of the mentioned Plotinian-Schopenhauerian tradition, it was Carl du Prel who, in my view, most convincingly argued for an omni-determining, yet ultimately free subliminal choice or drift. This choice-drift, Du Prel contends, becomes perspicuous through – yet never entirely coincides with – the series of incidental choices and decisions we make in our lives, and in the ensuing lifecycles we go through. For my argument here I am most indebted to Du Prel’s final chapters in his Philosophie der Mystik. In these chapters, Du Prel draws on Schopenhauer’s Metaphysik der Geschlechtsliebe, without for that matter following Schopenhauer in his suppression of individuality by impersonal will. On the contrary, Du Prel invigorates individuality by rooting it in what he calls a personal ‘transcendental’ will. “Life,” Du Prel states, “is a transcendental self-prescription of our subject [transcendentale Selbstverordnung unseres Subjekts]; the attachment to life relies upon a transcendental act of will, which accompanies us throughout our entire life, and which continues to exist in equal intensity even when it is thwarted by the will of our earthly being [wenn er sich kreuzt mit dem Willen des irdischen Wesens].” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 471; my trans.) How does Du Prel justify this view? He offers several, very different arguments, without, however, making the farther-reaching claim which I am defending here; that is, the claim about an unconscious inner ecstasy fuelling transcendental ‘choice’. It makes sense, though, to take a closer look at his arguments, since they justify my point nonetheless. Besides, these arguments further corroborate those which I have tried to develop in the present and the previous chapter.

I. Somnambulism For direct evidence of a “transcendental self-prescription of our subject,” Du Prel primarily refers to somnambulist states of those rare individuals whose awareness during their trance state seems to have been enhanced. A major example, not only for Du Prel but also for many of his contemporaries, l’Etre dans le ‘Il y a’ or even jouissance (510). Cf this to Lygia Clark’s “the web of this emptiness that constructs the jouissance we later fall into” quoted earlier.

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was Frederike Hauffe, the seeress of Prevorst. I briefly described her case in the previous chapter. For a more recent example, which shares many features with the seeress of Prevorst, I could refer to the Bulgarian Baba Vangha (1911-1996), a blind Bulgarian mystic, clairvoyant, and herbalist, who was frequently consulted even by political leaders and other dignitaries (e.g., Leonid Brezhnev).124 Whereas in the 19th century the common term for the recurrent mental states of people like Frederike Hauffe was ‘somnambulism,’ today the terms ‘hypnosis’ or ‘hallucinations’ would rather be used (unless they are exhaustively pathologised, as, e.g. in Pierre Janet).125 During the trance states adduced as evidence by Du Prel, somnambulists turned out to be endowed with a heightened consciousness that seemed to govern their overall behaviour while being in a ‘normal’ state. A somnambulist trance, Du Prel concludes, is bound to comprehend and embrace consciousness’ normal waking state. Still, just as ordinary waking consciousness, it is susceptible of further development. “If we find back in the transcendental subject the psychic faculties of being-awake,” Du Prel remarks, “and if this subject, using its sensory organs, as it only extended its feelers into the material world, while the sensory being itself is capable of psychic development, then the transcendental subject must likewise be capable of development; that is, absorb the deposit of our conscious activity and undergo accretion.” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 475; my trans.)

II. Transcendental Self-Prescription Another argument Du Prel uses to support his thesis about subliminal selfcoaching is equally remarkable. He expressly refers to the existence of our instinct of self-preservation and self-protection, but not, as was done most often in 19th-century evolutionism, in a reductive way. Du Prel draws the 124

Baba Vanga healed thousands of people from diseases that doctors could not treat. For more details see P. Ivanov & V. Izmirlieva (2003). Betwixt and Between: The Cult of Living Saints in Contemporary Bulgaria. In Folklorica, Journal of the Slavic and East European 8 (1), pp. 33-53 and G. Valtchinova (2005). Vanga, la ‘Pythie bulgare’: idées et usages de l’Antiquité en Bulgarie socialiste. In Dialogues d’histoire ancienne, 31 (1), pp. 93-127. 125 Cf Richard P. Bentall (2007/2001). Hallucinatory Experiences. In Etzel Cardeña, Steven Jay Lynn & Stanley Krippner (Eds). Varieties of Anomalous Experiences. Examining the Scientific Evidence. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, pp. 85-120; Barušs and Mossbridge, 2016, Ch. 5; and Kelly a.o., 2010/2007, Chs 3 and 6.

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ultimate, finalistic or teleological consequence from evolutionism’s usual, reductionist account of this same instinct. If we do not ground the instinct of self-preservation in a transcendental self-prescription of our subject, Du Prel states, we would not be capable of avoiding the contradiction “of affirming [bejahen] life even after having since long already cursed its content”. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 471) Suicide, he continues, does not take place in virtue of the cessation of the will to live but despite it. (Ibid.) Note that at least the possibility of suicide implies for Du Prel that transcendental will, strong though it be, is not wholly irresistible.

III. Progress The third argument which Du Prel offers is entirely different; it does not cogently impose the existence of a transcendental will, but it mentions the benefits implied by this will of entering the conditions of our life on earth; these conditions can be terrible sometimes. Suffering, Du Prel argues, can make individuals inventive and resourceful on the one hand, and compassionate with their fellows, on the other. “[N]ecessity promotes both the historic progress of the race and the moral progress of the individual. Therefore, the evil in the world, while entailing the struggle for life, is optimistic as regards its result; for this struggle promotes the biological increase of life forms and their consciousness, and it promotes individual development both intellectually and morally”. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 467; my trans.) Though one can doubt if any actual progress made in human moral and intellectual sensitivity proves anything to the existence of an unconscious inner coaching principle, let alone to its ecstatic nature, highlighting this progress at least makes sense, in my view. Whether one can rightfully consider such progress as revelatory concerning human nature (both conscious and unconscious) depends on whether one is justified in acknowledging any form of teleology or finality (albeit in a light, nonintellectualist, de-temporalised form). In the next chapter, I will come back to the gradual erosion of this acknowledgement with the rise of Modernity and modern science, and its hesitant coeval return in philosophies of the unconscious (Von Hartmann, Hellenbach, Du Prel, Driesch, Klages, Jung etc.).

IV. Parental love The fourth argument Du Prel gives in favour of a transcendental will preceding our empirical will is still more extraordinary. It does not even address the incarnate individual’s pre-existent will directly but the love for

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each other of this individual’s parents. Parental love, Du Prel argues, may coincide with the drive towards incarnation of the prospective, pre-existent infant. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 455, 463) He goes as far as suggesting that “the mothers of significant men have been passionately loved” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 463; my trans.) And also: “From the strength of the drive towards incarnation, or, what is metaphysically the same, sexual love, we must infer that a big transcendental advantage is involved, which might be offered by the immersion in the world of the senses [Versenkung in die sinnliche Welt].” (Ibid., p. 476; my trans.) This highly speculative, extremely unusual argument draws on Schopenhauer, who makes a similar claim – although other than the latter, Du Prel acknowledges love as an individualising force, beyond the mere depersonalising sexual drive. If at all, this claim could convince those who recognise that human instincts are more than mechanical tools and that they are rather indicative of an unconscious awareness of a goal as yet invisible. When I accept Du Prel’s claim here, it will only be on two conditions. First, that the notion of ‘importance’ is not reduced to outstanding historical or cultural significance (someone can be ‘important’ in a variety of ways, also on a purely local level; reversely, even those lives that were seemingly ‘important’ – e.g., of political leaders and other ‘high professionals’ – may at second sight have been less influential or valuable than is generally assumed). Second, that mutual parental love is not seen as fully equivalent to the incarnation drive in their offspring without exception; should such love have been absent (e.g., in cases of rape or abuse), it should not be concluded that the ensuing infant is not entitled to possess a proper life drive of its own regardless of its parents’ lack of mutual love. True, it would be an interesting endeavour – provided it is conducted with care and interpretative reticence – to study the lives of the many influential people who were born ‘illegitimate’ children or out of wedlock. Take for example kings, politicians or political leaders such as Sargon the Great (ca. 2360-2279 BC), Ptolemy I (367-282 BC), William the Conqueror (10281087), Queen Elizabeth I (1558-1603), Alexander Hamilton (1757-1804), Eva Perron (1919-1952), Willy Brandt (1913-1992) or Fidel Castro (19262016); travellers/explorers like Francisco Pizzaro (1471-1541) or T.E. Lawrence/‘Lawrence of Arabia’ (1888-1935); artists like Giovanni Boccaccio (1313-1375), Leonardo Da Vinci (1452-1519), Richard Wagner (18131883), Paul Cézanne (1839-1906), Billie Holliday (1915-1959) or Edith Piaf (1915-1963); authors like Alexandre Dumas fils (1824-1895), August Strindberg (1849-1912), Gustav Meyrink (1886-1932) or Jean Genet (19101986); actors like Marilyn Monroe (1926-1962), Sophia Loren (1934), Jack

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Nicholson (1937) or Oprah Winfrey (1954); business magnates and investors like Francesco Sforza (1401-1466) or Steve Jobs (1955-2011); philosophers like Confucius (551-479 BC), Desiderius Erasmus (14661536) or Thomas Paine (1737-1809).126 And this is still only a selection; especially in royal families, bastard children were common. “Love,” Du Prel states, “anticipates progeny [Nachkommenschaft] as regards quality and individuality”. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 459) It should be noted, though, that other, more down-to-earth explanations for the exceptional achievements of the individuals mentioned above can be conceived than the one suggested by Du Prel. Yet, it should also be noted that several Biblical births interestingly go against the grain of probability; sometimes the infant is born to parents who were hitherto childless due to age (Isaac, John the Baptist) or infertility (Samuel, Josef, Benjamin, Samson), sometimes to ‘unlawful’ brides (Solomon), sometimes to widows (Obed), sometimes to prostitutes (Boaz) or relatives (Zerah and Perez, Moab and Ammon), sometimes even to unmarried girls (Jesus). Other religious traditions are equally rife with stories of the miraculous births of those who were to become spiritual leaders, gods or demi-gods. Irrespective of the historical ‘reliability’ of those stories, they at least testify to an experienced correlation between the child’s crucial future life mission and the physical-empirical unlikelihood of the child’s birth itself. That we had better be extremely reticent in actively endeavouring to evince correlations between life mission and the unlikelihood of birth can be demonstrated by referring to Roald Dahl’s famous short story ‘Genesis and Catastrophe: A True Story’ (1962). This story describes how a young Austrian woman, after having had some miscarriages, rejoices in the last birth of a healthy boy. It turns out that this boy is Adolf Hitler. Sadly, the story is based on historical facts. I will conclude here my discussion of the second ground for assuming that inspiration and ecstasy take place unconsciously: a consideration of life’s drift, irrespective of apparent misfortunes. How, if at all, could such a consideration confirm my assumption? It does so to the extent that this drift might testify to a motivational pull factor eliciting actors to live their life and not give up, despite misfortune or misery. “[T]he more definitely I am aiming at some purpose or other, the more vividly I am aware of being alive,” Marcel writes in a chapter entitled ‘My life’. (Marcel, 1950, p. 162; 1997, p. 177)

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Some of these examples can be found in Juré Fiorillo (2010). Great Bastards of History: True and Riveting Accounts of the Most Famous Illegitimate Children Who Went on to Achieve Greatness. Beverly, MA: Fair Winds Press.

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I admit that my argument is not cogent. As a minimal condition for being convinced it seems requisite that one take a distanced view on one’s own life and that one put aside for a moment the average mindset, which is mostly guided by immediate daily concerns. I am inclined to compare the focus on one’s personal entire lifecycle – as opposed to a narrow focus on one’s immediate concerns – to contemplating the universe as a vast spatialtemporal continuum; in such a continuum all earthly measures of time and space disappear or become irrelevant altogether. One last word on the anthropological dimensions of ecstasy as regards human evolution. Du Prel goes as far as announcing that the “transcendental powers” liberated in or during ecstasy are indicative of a future state of human development: “The beginnings [Ansätze] of the transcendental faculties which manifest themselves in all states of ecstasy are simultaneously anticipations of our transcendental existence and developmental germs of the biological humans of the future [Entwicklungskeime des biologischen Zukunftsmenschen].” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 528; my trans.) While what Du Prel has in mind here mainly regards the visionary powers of the somnambulist, I am inclined to extend the gist of his statement to any human talent rooting in inspiration. This would prevent the standard evolutionary doctrine from being limited to mere physical development, rather than to moral and cultural enhancement.

Possession (Hitler; Anneliese Michel) “The really great men in the history of the world have all either known how to meditate or have unconsciously found their way to the place to which meditation leads us. Even the most vigorous and gifted among the others all failed and were defeated in the end because their task or their ambitious dream seized hold of them, made them into persons so possessed [Besessenen] that they lost the capacity for liberating themselves from present things, and attaining perspective [sich immer wieder vom Aktuellen zu lösen und zu distanzieren].” —Hermann Hesse127 [I]f there are supernormal powers, it is through the cracked and fragmented self that they enter.” —William James128

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Hesse, 1979, p. 108f.; trans. Winston, Ch. 2. Eugene Taylor (2010, 1982). William James on Exceptional Mental States. The 1896 Lowell Lectures. Portsmouth, NH: Randall, p. 110. Also see Ch. V Demoniacal Possession.

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Introduction So far, I have dwelt on the notion of ‘inspiration’ in terms of clairvoyance of one’s soul, a definition which I borrowed from Carl du Prel. I have discussed three constituents of inspiration: a call, a drive, and ecstasy. Ecstasy, I defined as the experience of clairvoyance of one’s soul. In the section on drives, I distinguished, in addition to the drive towards selfpreservation, a drive towards self-abandonment. The latter needs to be acknowledged to encompass the essential elements of culture: art, religion, philosophy and science. I also argued that Klages, by over-emphasising selfabandonment, seems to overlook that the loss of Ego in ecstasy might discover individual selfhood or speciality. This selfhood had been put forward by Du Prel, against Schopenhauer’s de-individualising will. I suggested that selfhood paradoxically combines novelty and familiarity, but neither Klages nor Schopenhauer seems to be willing to recognise such a dimension. Nonetheless, the importance of Klages’ strong emphasis on selfabandonment as a surrender of the Ego must not be underestimated either. Stressing self-experience, I argued, might ignore that ecstasy takes place at the expense of the Ego; that is, of that entity which consists of identification and appropriation. I suggested that the experience of ‘possession,’ despite being a non-category in contemporary psychiatry, often strongly resembles ecstasy when observed phenomenologically. It could be seen as its caricature. In reality, it cannot always be decided if someone is inspired or possessed (cf the case of Sabbetai Sevi). The hypothesis I will be defending in this section is that possession relies on excessive identification with outer dimensions which, once incorporated, return as ‘voices’. This identification is a result of an excessive experience of selfhood: note that ‘voice’ is cognate with ‘vocation’. Sometimes the term ‘messiah complex’ is used for this excessive self-experience, others speak of ‘penance possession’.129 I believe that this is at least what, despite all differences, unites the two examples of possession I will discuss below. Nonetheless, defining possession is one thing, identifying it in individuals another. My preliminary idea is that possession and inspiration overlap and share characteristics.130

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Felicitas D. Goodman (2005/1981). The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel. Eugene, OR: Resource Publications, p. 172. 130 Terence Palmer defines it in terms of 1) temptation, 2) infestation, 3) oppression, 4) obsession, and 5) demonic possession. Cf Terence Palmer (2017, 2013). The Science of Spirit Possession: Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, p. 61. Also

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I do not pretend to exhaust the interpretation of possession; it is too complicated a phenomenon to be done justice to in this limited context. C.G. Jung would ascribe possession to weak ego boundaries and absorption of collective unconscious content: “Just as one man may disappear in his social role, so another may be engulfed in an inner vision and be lost to his surroundings. […] The pathological inflation naturally depends on some innate weakness of the personality against the autonomy of collective unconscious contents.”131 Yet, it remains unclear in this account why someone would select this “collective-unconscious” content rather than that. Modern Western psychiatrists would speak of a ‘dissociative identity disorder’. They would firmly reject the category of ‘possession’ and relegate it to foregone eras of superstition and credulity. If Des Esseintes can still claim that king Herod was “invaded” by “madness” (qu’une démence envahit), this wording should be attributed to mere poetic imagination rather than to spirit possession. It is not my aim to propose a relapse into earlier times of naïveté. Our generation is greatly indebted to miscellaneous scientific achievements and improvements. However, we cannot neglect that modern medical terminology, relying upon causal explanation and concomitant materialistic assumptions is as veiling as it pretends to reveal. The terms ‘psychosis,’ ‘hysteria,’ ‘schizophrenia’ or ‘bipolar disorder,’ for example, designate specific patterns of behaviour accompanied by distinct neurological processes; however, I cannot be complacent with these designations, as though they were giving a full account. As long as the ontological nature of ‘consciousness’ refuses strict definitions, its boundaries cannot be delimited, either. If we start accepting our fundamental incapability to define, perhaps the notion of ‘possession’ see Sudhir Kakar (2009/2008). Mad and Divine. Spirit and Psyche in the Modern World. Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press; Jacques Lacarrière (1975). Les hommes ivres de Dieu. Paris: Fayard; Ioan P. Couliano (1984). Expériences de l’extase. Extase, ascension et récit visionnaire de l’hellénisme au moyen âge. Paris: Payot. 131 C.G. Jung (2019, 1934). Die Beziehungen zwischen dem Ich und dem Unbewussten. Zürich: Patmos Verlag, p. 34f. Trans. (1972) The Relations Between the Ego and the Unconscious. In Two Essays on Analytical Psychology. By G. Adler & R.F.C. Hull. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 203. “Für die Entwicklung der Persönlichkeit ist also strenge Unterscheidung von der Kollektivpsyche unbedingtes Erfordernis, denn jede mangelhafte Unterscheidung bewirkt ein sofortiges Zerfließen des Individuellen im Kollektiven.” Ibid., p. 41. Elsewhere, Jung speaks of the “Attraktion eines kollektiven Bildes, das, […] eine so hochgradige Inflation erzeugen kann, dass die Persönlichkeit überhaupt aufgelöst wird. […] Die krankhafte Inflation beruht natürlich auf einer meist angeborenen Schwäche der Persönlichkeit gegenüber der Autonomie kollektiv-unbewusster Inhalte.” (Ibid., p. 34f)

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will not seem to be as odd as it does at first sight. It is of note that discussions about ranking ‘possession’ in the DSM-V are not without cross-cultural dimensions. In African or Amerindian contexts, where different ontologies and anthropologies prevail, ‘possession’ is much more likely to be taken at face value than to be diagnosed in terms of ‘dissociative identity’ or ‘multiple personality’ disorder. “[W]ith each successive edition, the DSM has refined its criteria for diagnosing pathological possession. It has, for example, paid greater attention to cultural variations in possession and its common occurrence in religious contexts; it also has a broad understanding of the agent of possession (e.g., as a ghost, deity, or demon). However, we suggest that it still needs to go further – by acknowledging the ambiguity of affect in possession cases (including the potential social stigma driving the suffering) and by providing a more sophisticated account of how culture and other variables shape possession experiences.” 132

Possession in Hitler “I, too, may be predestined to march before the rest of you with the torch of perception. Behind me, you must carry out the work. I must follow my inspiration [Eingebung] and my task [Auftrag].” —Hitler133

Below, I will briefly discuss two possible examples of possession. By jointly presenting the case of Adolf Hitler and Anneliese Michel (a young German girl who lived from 1952-1976 and who suffered from having terrible, self-destructive hallucinations), I do not in the least want to suggest that the latter’s behaviour is in any way, like Hitler’s, morally reprehensible. Instead, it might be speculated that she was one of Hitler’s many 132

R. Delmonte, G. Lucchetti, A. Moreira-Almeida & Miguel Farias (2016). Can the DSM-5 Differentiate Between Nonpathological Possession and Dissociative Identity Disorder? A Case Study from an Afro-Brazilian Religion. In Journal of Trauma & Dissociation 17(3), p. 334. Also cf M. van Duijl, W. Kleijn & J. de Jong (2013). Are symptoms of spirit possessed patients covered by the DSM-IV or DSM5 criteria for possession trance disorder? A mixed-method explorative study in Uganda. In Social Psychiatry and Psychiatrical Epidemiology 48(9), pp. 1417-30. For a highly interesting attempt to explain possession in light of Frederic Myers’ theories, see Palmer, 2017. 133 H.A. Turner, Jr., Ed. (1978). Hitler aus nächster Nähe. Aufzeichnungen eines Vertrauten 1929-1932. Frankfurt: Ullstein, p. 272; trans. Ruth Hein (1985). Hitler Memoirs of a Confidant. New Haven: Yale University Press, p. 153.

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posthumous victims (in fact, one of the purported inner demons she fell prey to was Hitler). Another misunderstanding that I would like to avoid is any suggestion as to have finally ‘settled’ debates about the terrible phenomenon of ‘Hitler,’ which would be preposterous. Nevertheless, it remains intriguing that even a century after Hitler’s historical performance, no final agreement has been reached on the dictator’s mindset. I would argue that both in the case of Hitler and of Anneliese Michel, a further study of consciousness in light of the possibility of possession could offer new insights into these two tragic lives (yet again, without neglecting the moral incommensurability between the two cases). Among the many Hitler studies and biographies, a recent one particularly drew my attention: Bernhard Horstmann, Hitler in Pasewalk.134 This book speculates about the appalling metamorphosis Hitler had undergone toward the end of World War I or in its immediate aftermath. Other than his misleading account in Mein Kampf suggests, Hitler had probably not yet converted to the virulent, hate-mongering anti-Semitism when still living in Vienna. Basing himself upon medical reports drafted during Hitler’s gasattack treatment – reports that have only indirectly survived – Horstmann comes to a surprising conclusion. The blindness ensuing the gas-attack was psychogenic, he claims; in other words, it was self-afflicted and not physiological.135 Otherwise, the hypnotic treatment by Dr Edmund Forster would not have been successful in actually healing the patient (who, by the way, had already been diagnosed as a ‘hysteric psychopath’; on these grounds, the wounded lieutenant had been sent from the Flemish battlefields to faraway Pasewalk instead of Brussels, like his fellow combatants). Horstmann’s daring hypothesis is partly based on comments made by Heidi Baitinger, a German psychologist and hypnotherapist from Nuremberg. Horstmann suggests that Hitler had never fully recovered from his hypnotic treatment. During the sessions with Forster, the latter had invigorated semidormant beliefs in his patient about having a mission to save Germany. Once unleashed, Horstmann argues, these beliefs had remained lingering in Hitler’s mind after the treatment’s sudden interruption. Interestingly, Du Prel and William James likewise assert that persons sometimes continue to entertain ideas that hypnotists have prompted them to accept during their 134

Bernhard Horstmann (2004). Hitler in Pasewalk. Die Hypnose und ihre Folgen. Düsseldorf: Droste Verlag. The author (1919-2008) was lawyer and a novelist, and a former officer during the 3rd Reich. Due to resistance activities he was arrested by the Gestapo. He survived both Nazi and subsequent post-war Soviet internment. 135 Also cf. G. Köpf (2005). Hitlers psychogene Erblindung. Geschichte einer Krankenakte. In Nervenheilkunde 24, pp. 783-90.

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hypnosis.136 One need not be a physician or a psychiatrist to qualify Hitler as psychopathic. What remains puzzling – already to those who had known him before his rise to power – is Hitler’s transformation from a humble, obedient, somewhat queer lieutenant, to the malignant, eloquent propagandist he had suddenly become in the twenties. Whatever the cause of Hitler’s relentless self-surrender to evil, I hypothesise that it would make sense to discuss it in terms of ‘possession’. As a possible testimony to this possession, I will quote here part of a discussion Hitler had in Weimar around 1931 or 1932 with Otto Wagener, a former major general. The latter had been close to Hitler for several years before he fell in disgrace. In the immediate aftermath, Wagener wrote down his memoirs which were published posthumously. “Actually, I’m now and then aware [Ich ertappe mich sogar selbst bisweilen darauf] that it is not I who is speaking, but that something speaks through me. […] Now and then ideas, concepts, views occur to me that I have read nowhere, heard nowhere, and never before thought, nor can I justify them by logic, and they do not even seem to me capable of being logically justified.” (Turner, 1978, p. 269; trans., p. 150; also in Horstmann, 2004, p. 122)137

When asked if he believes whether his intuitions come from a transcendent region, or if they are just this-worldly, mediated by a human voice, Hitler answers, “In general, at such moments I have a sensation like an inner vibration, as if I were being touched by an invisible charge [wie wenn ich von einem unsichtbaren Kontakt berührt würde]. Whenever I have seized the impulse [Habe ich den Moment erfasst], what I said or did as a result of that feeling always turned out to be correct. Whenever I have let it go, almost invariably it turned out later that it would have been right to follow the inner voice.” (Turner, 1978, p. 270, trans., p. 151; Horstmann, 2004, p. 123)

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“wie Somnambulen nach dem Erwachen oft magnetische Befehle ausführen, so auch Hypnotisierten die im Wachen fortdauernde Idee, ein beliebig ersonnenes Verbrechen begangen zu haben, übertragen werden kann, wie der unwiderstehliche Impuls, sich dieses Verbrechens anzuklagen.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 216. “Post-hypnotic, or deferred, suggestions are such as are given to patients during trance, to take effect after awakening.” William James (1890, 1950). The Principles of Psychology II. New York: Dover Publications: p. 613. Also cf Palmer, 2017, p. 119. Palmer speaks about “the vulnerability of the unsupervised subject”. 137 The German original adds a sentence which remarkably lacks in the translation: “Aber sie stellen sich später dann meistens doch als richtig heraus.”

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At the end of the exchange, Hitler explicitly mentions his mission. Suddenly a bright light glowed in Hitler’s eyes, and staring into space, he continued: “I, too, may be predestined to march before the rest of you with the torch of perception. Behind me, you must carry out the work. I must follow my inspiration and my task. But you, behind me, can see and recognise things as they are. The torch only occasionally casts its flickering flame on the path before me. But those of you who come behind me march in its light. That is why we belong together, the rest of you and I! I, the one who leads through the dark, and you who, seeing, are meant to complete the task [Ich, der durch das Dunkel Führende, und Ihr, die Ihr sehend vollenden sollt!].” (Turner, 1978, p. 272; trans., p. 153)

Not just my tentative diagnosis here of Hitler’s being ‘possessed,’ but already his self-description cannot fail to be utterly unusual in light of modern-day psychopathology. An appeal is made to invisible, transcendent voices (dass es aus mir spricht; Ich muss meiner Eingebung und meinem Auftrag folgen), which not only impose themselves upon the speaker, but at the same time are appropriated by him (cf meiner, meinem; Habe ich den Moment erfasst, etc.). Should the hypothesis of a biographical turning point during hypnotic treatment in Pasewalk make sense, then Wagener’s interlocutor will have been under the sway of ‘demons’ for a decade already, since their conversation took place in 1931 or 1932. At that moment, the point of no return may already have been passed, and the soliloquy Hitler is referring to (Ich ertappe mich sogar selbst bisweilen darauf [sic], dass nicht ich spreche, sondern dass es aus mir spricht) could only refer to remainders of an extinguishing prior personality. One would only have to think of Hitler’s always increasing, notorious outbursts of rage to convince oneself of his final surrender to foreign possession. To not give in all too easily to the hypothesis of Hitler’s possession, let us also briefly refer to a significant passage from a psychological report made in 1943 by Harvard doctor Henry H. Murray. In a section entitled ‘Hysteria,’ it is said that “Hitler has exhibited various forms of hysterical dissociation, most notably in the two symptoms which constituted his war neurosis in 1918, namely blindness and aphonia (mutism). He experienced periods of marked abstraction, violent emotional outbursts, visions of hallucinatory clarity. In speaking before crowds he is virtually possessed. He clearly belongs to the sensational company of history-making hysterics, combining, as he does, some of the attributes of the primitive shaman, the religious visionary, and the crack-brained demagogue – consummate actors, one and all.

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Chapter 2 “It is important to note, however, that Hitler has a large measure of control over his complexes. He uses an emotional outburst to get his own way, turning it on or off as the occasion requires.”138

In the next paragraph, however, it is stated that “hysteria […] develops into [schizophrenia] (a serious variety of insanity). Since Hitler […] has exhibited all the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia, the possibility of a complete mental breakdown is not remote.” (Murray, 1943, p. 25f.) What matters here, but what must equally be left undecided, is the extent to which Hitler did have “a large measure of control over his complexes,” and if he indeed experienced “a complete mental breakdown”. It could be argued that this apparent ‘control’ was part and parcel of the possession itself. Also, it should be noted that according to Du Prel, most ‘magnetists’ are capable of auto-magnetisation.139 However, Du Prel continues, self-magnetisation or -hypnosis are not without risk “since neither can the occurring somnambulism be interrupted at random nor can the extent of its increase be manipulated”. (Du Prel, 1888, p. 264; my trans.) Should this be true, then it would shed new light on Hitler’s use and abuse of hypnosis.

Possession in Anneliese Michel “[T]his is not a depression, this is a condition.” —Anneliese Michel140

Regardless of the dramatical differences with the former, my second example of possession has similar ambiguities. While Hitler was capable of leading a public life and being active as a statesman, this only partly applies to Anneliese Michel, who managed to hide her inner suffering for many people and continue studying until some months before her tragic premature death. True, following the criteria for schizophrenia distinguished by De Waelhens (see the previous chapter), it is not so clear that they unrestrictedly 138

Henry H. Murray. Analysis of the Person of Adolf Hitler, with predictions of his future behavior and suggestions for dealing with him now and after Germany’s surrender, October 1943. Confidential O.S.S. report,

retrieved on 30 December 2016, p. 25. 139 “Die meisten Magnetiseure bezeugen, dass man sich selbst magnetisieren kann, und zwar kommt es in den verschiedensten Grade vor.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 263. 140 Goodman, 2005, p. 206.

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apply to Hitler. In contrast, they seem to apply directly to Anneliese Michel during her state of possession. Being a young, sensitive and most talented German girl, raised in a Bavarian catholic family, at the age of 16, Anneliese was diagnosed with epilepsy and therefore treated in a mental hospital. She started seeing frightening visions (Fratzen) and manifesting a strong aversion for all sorts of religious objects. Her family became convinced that Anneliese was possessed. After several requests, they received official Church permission for an exorcism. The exorcism failed, however, and Anneliese finally died presumably (sic) as a result of a number self-inflicted injuries, malnutrition and dehydration. In the ensuing trial, both the parents and the priests who had to lead the exorcism rituals were found guilty of negligent homicide. Details of Anneliese’s case can be found on the internet and in a few publications. Some of the recordings during the exorcism have been made available online and can easily be found on YouTube. The listener hears a terrifying voice that alternatively claims to be Cain’s, Lucifer’s, Nero’s or Hitler’s.141 “Es gibt hier keine Ruhe” (‘there is no rest here’), the voice screams. According to her mother, during one of her daughter’s first fits, Anneliese had claimed to see Mother Mary. She had expressed the will to atone for the wrongdoings of others and to suffer for their sins to exonerate them from eternal punishment.142 This element is essential for my argument of possession as a disproportionate experience of self. In Hitler, too, we find characteristics referring to a messiah complex, as he seems to attribute to himself a propitiatory role, albeit of a different kind as Anneliese’s. The interpretations of Anneliese Michel’s tragic mental suffering vary from, on the one hand, orthodox Roman-Catholic apologetics, belief in evil spirits and apparitions of Mary the mother of Christ, and, on the other hand, scientistic indignation about superstition, failing diagnosis, and inadequate treatment. Even though the latter approach seems to be the most substantive 141

Interestingly, Anneliese Michel showed a more than average terror when being confronted to a Hitler documentary once (“She avoided looking at the pictures advertising the film at all cost because when she had inadvertently done so the first time an unspeakable horror had engulfed her that she had a hard time shaking off.”) Goodman, 2005, p. 106. Also cf. I.M. Lewis (1989/1971). Ecstatic Religion. A Study of Shamanism and Spirit Possession. London/New York: Routledge, Ch. 7 ‘Possession and Psychiatry’. 142 See the following documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h1giTAB81b0, accessed on 29 December, 2016. Cf Goodman, 2005, p. 112ff. Goodman calls this “penance possession,” see p. 172.

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at first sight, its materialistic premises cannot satisfy. Neurological networks may well have been damaged, leading to hallucinatory perceptions (hearing diabolical voices, seeing frightening apparitions) and corresponding affects (inexplicable outburst of anger or anxiety); what remains unaccounted for, however, are precisely these perceptions and affects themselves, in their idiosyncratic nature. This is why I believe that we should not only be grateful for the always improving means to treat people who suffer from inner nightmares; we should not shy away either for endeavouring phenomenological approaches of, in this case, psychoses. A phenomenological approach could be qualified, then, as one that dispenses with causal explanation and that reduces the meaning of the latter to mere instrumentality. If at all, only from a phenomenological perspective would a term as ‘possession’ start to make sense. Again, at the causal level, it is of the utmost importance to do what we can to heal a patient whose behaviour might otherwise have become both self- and other-destructive. But as long as any materialistic ontology remains defective, we cannot be complacent with any account of possession that merely considers brain malfunctioning. Only an acausal, phenomenological approach of possession could keep a middle between materialistic reductionism and medieval superstition. In this respect, Felicitas Goodman’s interpretation can be helpful. In a meticulous study of the history of Anneliese Michel’s mental suffering, this anthropologist comes to an astonishing hypothesis. She suggests that Anneliese may have experienced a veridic spiritual crisis (or, in Goodman’s terms, a “religious altered state of consciousness”), that might perhaps be better left to its inner dynamic than be treated with the far from innocent, noxious drugs that her physicians gave her. It could very well be that these drugs, rather than healing her, had been detrimental to her mental condition and contributed to her premature death. (Goodman, 2005, pp. 227ff, pp. 247f) They may have prevented her from reaching “a discharge caused by all that tension building up in the parasympathetic nervous system.” (Ibid., p. 205)143 One need not accept the specific Roman Catholic creeds by and large to accept Goodman’s hypothesis since highly similar cases as Anneliese’s can be found cross-culturally, as Goodman’s study shows. The most astounding fact is that a post-mortem autopsy showed no lesion in Anneliese’s temporal globes or anything else that would support her psychiatrist’s diagnosis. This corresponds to Anneliese’s repeated remark that “‘this is not a depression, this is a condition.’” (Ibid., p. 206)

143

Goodman refers here to Barbara Lex, a trance researcher.

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Identificatory pressure The phenomenon of possession closely resembles what we have found in Du Prel, Myers, Janet, etc., in terms of dual consciousness, one empirical or supraliminal, and one transcendental or subliminal, the latter encompassing the former. However, in cases of possession, neither of the personalities has access to the other, or can be related to the other; not even as their reversal or suppression. At best, the ‘main’ one is condemned to full impotence. This is at least the conclusion of the German psychologist Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich (1880-1949), who wrote an extensive study on the phenomenon of possession.144 When being possessed, the subject is taken control of by another personality without being able by themselves to ‘return,’ or even ‘inspect’ the new leading character. “Typical possession is nevertheless distinguished from ordinary somnambulistic states by its intense motor and emotional excitement, so much so that we might hesitate to take it for a form of somnambulism but for the fact that possession is so nearly related to the ordinary form of these states that it is impossible to avoid classing them together.” (Oesterreich, 1921, p. 36; trans. p. 39).

Upon the returning of the old personality, Oesterreich writes, there may be a memory of the original event. Still, there will not be any understanding of the fact that the intrusive personality has been temporarily their ‘own’. “the statement that possession is a state in which side by side with the first personality a second has made its way into the consciousness is also very inaccurate. Much more simply, it is the first personality which has been replaced by a second.” (Ibid., p. 37; trans. p. 39)

There are degrees of possession. In some cases, Oesterreich adds, the possessed person is still ‘lucid’ and is capable of passively observing what is happening to him or her. Such cases are unusual, as they might be indicative of what is going to happen, or of what happens if someone is fully possessed. According to Murray’s report, Hitler’s case may represent an excellent example of such a lucid possession. At the same time, Felicitas Goodman informs us that Anneliese Michel was likewise aware of what happened to her but incapable of intervening.145 The psychopathological 144 Traugott Konstantin Oesterreich (1921). Die Besessenheit. Langensalza: Wendt & Klauwell; trans. D. Ibberson (1930ff). Possession, Demoniacal and Other Among Primitive Races, in Antiquity, the Middle Ages and Modern. London: Kegan Paul. 145 During a seizure Anneliese was still capable of ‘talking’ with her eyes. “From a slight movement of her eyelids [her boyfriend] could see that she did, in fact,

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catalogue Oesterreich himself is borrowing from (e.g., accounts by Justinus Kerner, Carl August von Eschenmayer, F. Raymond, Pierre Janet, etc.) brings him to the conclusion that during lucid possession the patient is suffering from an “obsessive state of intuition and imitation” (zwangsmäßigen Einfühlungs- und Imitationszustand). (Oesterreich, 1921, p. 44; trans., p. 47). Sometimes even the other personality that imposes itself upon the patient’s habitual one is somehow experienced as equally proper; as if he or she were simultaneously endowed with two personalities, one of them having a robust compulsory nature. At any case, the patient feels like they cannot recede from identificatory pressure and believes to be forced into it. Given that even normal people manifest obstinate behaviour in various degrees (cf obsessive-compulsive disorders), and given that there are states in which the possession is still lucid and somehow susceptible to passive observation, it would be enticing to make some preliminary remarks to prepare for a conclusion. Firstly, there must be a centripetal ‘force’ which keeps the ‘ordinary’ subject together. This force might be identified with the drive towards selfprotection discussed earlier. We have seen that Du Prel enriched the prevailing flat, biologistic conceptions of this drive by suggesting that it ultimately relies upon a transcendentale Selbstverordnung unseres Subjekts which goes against the grain of present misfortune (if there is any). Standard biologistic interpretations of the self’s centripetalism and self-protection do not go deep enough into it. Secondly, this unifying force is always already more or less under pressure. This pressure may have different causes. I think that ultimately these causes can be traced back to the reverse, outbound drive towards selfabandonment. We have seen earlier that anxiety is not wholly alien to this drive. It might ultimately, and paradoxically, bring the subject to giving up what was gained in the formative process of becoming an Ego in the first place, or at least, of putting it into play. Thirdly, this formative process rests upon identification and appropriation and requires continuous input of centripetal energy (appropriation). However, this does not yet explain the terrifying consequences of losing the power to keep one’s Ego upright when being possessed. If we think of the understand what he was saying, but that she just had no power to respond.” Goodman, 2005, p. 161.

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practice of meditation advocated by Patañjali, despite its emphasis on loosening ego boundaries and even on letting go egoic acquisitiveness altogether, it does not necessarily make one psychotic or even possessed (although it could do so). How to distinguish between a ‘wholesome’ releasement of ego boundaries and a ‘morbid’ or ‘insalubrious’ one? I cannot find an answer to this question in Oesterreich. My hypothesis is as follows. Possession, I said, is a caricature of ecstasy. Ecstasy, as a constituent of inspiration and the phenomenal side of the drive towards self-abandonment, somehow encounters selfhood (albeit through creating). Possession also encounters selfhood – perhaps even more intensely than is generally done – without, however, processing this encounter adequately. I surmise that, as a result of a deeply felt experience of selfhood, the possessed subject relies on an excessive appropriation of outer dimensions (which, once incorporated, return as ‘voices’). This appropriation is likely to contradict inner self-experience, especially if (as is often the case) it regards ‘evil’. Could it be that the possessed individual, due to weak ego-boundaries or a weak drive towards self-protection, is insufficiently capable of adequately handling self-experience? Being overwhelmed by it, they may want to atone for those outside of their selfexperience in such a way as to take on one’s shoulders what is incumbent on these outsiders themselves. I already mentioned that sometimes the terms ‘messiah complex’ or ‘penance complex’ are used in this respect. Even though their mutual personalities were structured entirely differently, both Hitler and Annelies Michel had such a complex, but I think they were by far not the only ones. Sect leaders and self-proclaimed gurus may be other examples, although attributing a messiah complex to them must always be done with care. Possible examples are numerous. One may think of Mani (ca. 216-276), the founder of Manichaeism; Sabbetai Sevi (1626-1676)146 and Jacob Frank (1726-1791)147, both Jewish Messiah claimants and founders of sects; Mirza Husayn Ali Nuri or Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892), the 146

See Gershom Scholem’s account in his monography on Sabbetai Sevi. Reportedly, when being in Aleppo Sabbetai heard a divine voice telling him that he was “Israel’s saviour, the Messiah, the Son of David, the Anointed of Jacob’s God, destined to redeem Israel”. Scholem, 1992, p. 160. Interestingly, Scholem argues that the manic-depressive psychosis from which Sabbetai probably suffered need not tell us anything about the content or value of the patient’s thoughts and deeds, for, as opposed to schizophrenia, it not necessarily damages human reasoning. Ibid., p. 151ff. 147 For a recent, Nobel Prize winning literary biography, see Olga Tokarczuk (2021, 2014). The Books of Jacob; trans. Jennifer Croft. London: Fitzcarraldo Editions.

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founder of the Baha’i religion, and many others, both inside and outside the world’s main religions. Though each of these example characters may be very idiosyncratic by nature and in need of further psychological research, it is my theory that they were inherently sensitive personalities who, for lack of self-protective drives, could not adequately handle a confrontation with selfhood. Instead of building a protective boundary around this selfhood, they gave in to the sharp dualism implied by it. De Waelhens claims that “the crises which constitute subjectivity totally, or almost totally, unfold in the unconscious and […] they only appear in the open air, albeit in the mode of non-solution [sur le mode de la non-résolution], in various pathologies which each time bear its imprint.” (De Waelhens, 1982, p. 218; my trans.; also see Kusters 2016)148 The most radical, and almost unacceptable consequence of my hypothesis is that even Hitler – whom I consider to count among world history’s most evil villains – may have been a sensitive nature, who might have done better to continue painting to avert imminent psychotic possession. If it is true that one of De Waelhens’ criteria for psychosis mentioned in the previous chapter – identification of life and death – applies to Hitler, too; what, then, to think of the following remark by Hermann Friedmann: “Whereas the haptic concept of the physiologist cannot tell when life disappeared and death is there – the visionary [sehende] morphology of the artist has always experienced it as one of its most important themes. The fine grading of life, sleep and death, for which the hand of the physiologist is not fine enough – to the eye of the artist they have always been what is interesting and rewarding.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 484; my trans.) Another consequence of the hypothesis that possessed people did not overcome the crisis of self-confrontation would be the following: ecstatic Ego-surrender, even if prompted by meditation and veridical encounter with selfhood, remains dependent on, and ultimately also benefits from, Egoconstructs. Such Ego-constructs would prevent the subject from becoming susceptible to malignant influences and from becoming vulnerable to possession. An ‘ideal Ego,’ should this contradictory notion make sense, 148

Jung also seems to attribute possession to a penance complex: “Die innere Stimme bringt […] das zum Bewusstsein, woran das Ganze, d.h. das Volk, zu dem man gehört, oder die Menschheit, deren Teil wir sind, leidet. Aber sie stellt dieses Böse in individueller Form dar, so dass man zunächst meinen könnte, dass all dieses Böse nur individuelle Charaktereigenschaft wäre. Die innere Stimme bringt das Böse in versucherisch überzeugender Weise heran, um zu bewirken, dass man ihm erliegt.” Jung, 1947, p. 208f.

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would consist of a set of identifications and dispositions which are flexible enough to be surrendered each time anew, while staying permeable to a deeper self beyond it.149

Conclusion “Specialism opens to man his true career; the Infinite dawns on him; he sees what his destiny must be.” —Honoré de Balzac150

In this chapter, I have discussed inspiration as a phenomenon of the soul’s enhanced self-experience. I defined inspiration as clairvoyance of one’s soul, and I analysed it in terms of vocation, drive and ecstasy. In the first chapter, however, I suggested that respecting specific codes may likewise give access to the soul: the codes of leading a particular life, overcoming fixations, and concentration. How do these two methods towards soul experience relate? For they might look contradictory, or at least different. The experience of self-revelation due to concentration or self-analysis need not be identical to the experience of inspiration. Both are mostly soul experiences, in my view, and yet different. It is my thesis that inspiration, other than concentrated self-experience, entails an awareness of individuality, speciality or specialisation. This might appear from the following conversation between German composer Johannes Brahms (1833-1897) with Arthur Abell. It shows how different his artistic concentration is from Patañjali’s. Brahms goes as far as claiming theurgic powers for concentration: “I can tell you, however, from my own experience, that an ardent desire and fixed purpose combined with an intense resolve brings results. Determined concentrated thought is a tremendous force and this Divine Power is responsive to it. I am convinced that this is a law and that it holds good in any kind of human endeavor.”151 When asked how many composers are actually in contact with this power, Brahms significantly answers that there is less than five per cent. What individuality or speciality exactly are, beyond mere logical abstractions, is difficult, if not impossible, to determine. The act of determining 149

For an analogy to the Ego protecting selfhood, see Friedmann on the relation between Kantian pure and practical reason: “Die reine Vernunft begründet nicht die praktische, sondern schützt sie.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 457. 150 Honoré de Balzac (1951/1832). Louis Lambert. Paris: Albin Michel, p. 150; trans. (2019) Clara Bell and James Waring. 151 Arthur M. Abell (2016, 1955). Talks with Great Composers, ebook, Ch. 10.

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individuality is a contradiction in terms. Crediting individuality with experiential content while avoiding to reduce it to a logical category (whose existence is contingent upon our abstractive faculties), I propose to equate it with an abysmal reality whose essence consists of always increasing selfintensification. Vocation, drive and ecstasy, I would say, prevent that inspired, specialised individuality (insofar as it is inspired, that is) will ever come to a standstill and become liable to determination. “Specialism [Le spécialisme],” Honoré de Balzac wrote in his novel Louis Lambert, “opens to man his true career; the Infinite dawns on him; he sees what his destiny must be.” (Balzac, 1951, p. 150; trans. Bell & Waring) De Balzac’s description of individuality in terms of the “true career” of a human strongly reminds of Du Prel’s “clairvoyance of one’s own soul”: “Specialism,” De Balzac had said just before the definition just quoted, “consists in seeing the things of the material universe and the things of the spiritual universe in all their ramifications original and causative. The greatest human geniuses are those who started from the darkness of Abstraction to attain to the light of Specialism. (Specialism, species, sight; speculation, or seeing everything, and all at once; Speculum, a mirror or means of apprehending a thing by seeing the whole of it.)” (De Balzac, 1951, p. 149f; trans. Bell & Waring).152 Drawing on this description, we could say that individuality (spécialité, spécialisme) somehow combines the singular and the whole. My suggestion would be that it restores wholes that tend to disintegrate. Synchronicity may play a meaningful role here. But there is another difference between individuality or speciality, on the one hand, and concentrated self-experience, on the other. Whereas the latter tends to annihilate anxiety by absorbing it, the former destroys it by transforming it. Yogic concentration and subsequent meditation, for example, immobilise anxiety by paralysing its motor drive (sensation, 152

In giving a picture of the protagonist’s, i.e. Louis Lambert’s, life, the author interestingly suggests (apparently in order to reject) that there is a relation between Lambert’s vocation, on the one hand, and his ecstasy as a dedicated writer, on the other: “peut-être voulait-il résoudre l’œuvre de sa destinée par l’extase, et rester sous une forme presque végétale comme un anachorète des premiers temps de l’Eglise, en abdiquant ainsi l’empire du monde intellectuel. […] Mais cette résolution n’estelle pas alors pour certaines d’entre elles l’effet d’une vocation?” De Balzac, 1951, p. 84 (my italics, RS). To the extent that Lambert’s ecstasy in my view was deindividualising, I would argue, it may not have been ecstasy at all but rather a harbinger of imminent madness, if not possession. In light of my previous discussion of ecstasy as the polar opposite of orgasmic experience it is instructive to read that, some years later, Lambert’s uncle just in time prevented his nephew to practice on himself “l’opération à laquelle Origène crut devoir son talent.” Ibid., p. 137.

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desire, identification, etc.). Artistic inspiration, removing the sting of anxiety’s formless nothingness, deletes it by giving shape and form to it. An implication of this would be that the inspired subject, insofar as it is an inspired subject, consists of anxiety made undone by creation. To the extent that absolute creation does not exist, there will always be a remainder of anxiety’s amorphous nature that inheres to the inspired artwork. To make this anxiety ‘visible,’ I think, could be the self-imposed challenge for any artist’s heirs, whose work – I argued in the previous chapter – not only consists of dialoguing with but also of forgiving their predecessor. Saul Leiter ‘forgives’ or ‘pardons’ the photographic work of his sources of inspiration, William Klein and Robert Frank, for leaving too much anxiety in it, and Nobuyohsi Araki’s work is ‘forgiven’ by Araki’s disciple Kayo Ume for its inherent anxiety. In the next chapter, I will discuss the concept of ‘synchronicity’ as a meaningful extension of soul awareness. I will try to show that synchronicity not only revises the predominant conceptions of causality and the ensuing materialistic worldviews; it also helps restore wholes where causality tends to disintegrate the observed.

CHAPTER 3 SYNCHRONICITY

Introduction: synchronicity awareness and optic approach “We know that our life is ebbing away both outward into the inhuman distances of cosmic space and downward into the inhuman microspace of the atom, while we go on dealing with a middle stratum, the things that make up our world, without troubling ourselves at all over the fact that this only proves a preference for impressions received in the middle distance, as it were. Such an attitude is considerably beneath our intellectual level, but that alone proves what a large part our feelings play in our intelligence. Our most important psychological machinery is, in fact, kept in motion to maintain us in a certain equilibrium, and all the emotions, all the passions in the world are nothing compared with the immense but wholly unconscious effort human beings make just to preserve their peace of mind.” —Robert Musil1 “O heaven above me! thou pure, thou lofty heaven! This is now thy purity unto me, that there is no eternal reason-spider and reason-cobweb:— —That thou art to me a dancing-floor for divine chances [göttliche Zufälle], that thou art to me a table of the Gods, for divine dice and dice-players!—” —Nietzsche2

According to her mother, child prodigy Akiane Kramarik explained her love for poetry saying that, in it, “she could so quickly and effortlessly express ideas she didn’t have to discuss – ideas that nobody judged.” (Kramarik, 2006, p. 19) As if the insights poetry provides dispense with the lengthy trajectory which causal, discursive research is still in need of following. In this chapter, I will choose another angle as from which to approach the subject of the human soul. I will address a particular form of consciousness man is endowed with and its implications. To characterise this form of consciousness, I will use the term ‘synchronicity’: a term that has been introduced by C.G. Jung but the connotations of which by far extend beyond 1 2

Musil, 1997, p. 527; trans. Wilkins, Ch. 109. Also sprach Zarathustra III.1 Vor Sonnen-Aufgang; trans. Thomas Common.

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Jung’s scope. Moreover, as already mentioned in the introduction to this book, Jung was inspired by Paul Kammerer’s Das Gesetz der Serie. Instead of ‘synchronicity,’ I could just as well use the word ‘seriality,’ which may even be more comprehensive (it comprises longitudinal sequences as well as latitudinal). (Koestler, 1972, Ch. 3, esp. p. 95) For reasons of convenience, however, I will use the word ‘synchronicity’ here, which is more common. ‘Synchronicity’ refers to an acausal yet meaningful series of coinciding events, whether on an individual level (the coincidence of experiencing several interrelated yet causally fully independent events) or on a global level (such as the simultaneous discovery of fire, agriculture, etc., in the early Anthropocene at places remote from each other).3 I would further qualify ‘synchronicity’ with a term introduced by Hermann Friedmann, “optic causality”. Without mentioning ‘synchronicity,’ Friedmann derives this term from painting. The regular causal (e.g., chemical) analysis of a painting’s materials (canvas, coat, paint), he argues, does not in the least contribute to this painting’s real ‘causality’. “It need not be rehearsed that the painting – by virtue of the accuracy of perspective, the harmony of its colours, in the consistency of its group relations – obeys another, an optic causality, which belongs to another domain than the logic of tangibility.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 31; my trans.) It is Friedmann’s explicit aim to complement the prevailing “haptic” worldview – in other words, the worldview based on efficient or material causality – by resorting to an “optic” worldview: “Against the haptic deficiency of the sculpture [haptische Mangelhaftigkeit des Bildwerkes] an opponent emerges: the interpolating, reintegrating optic fantasy which heals all fractures. Therefore, everything which exists only partially in a haptic form, can ‘increase’ in existence optically; the optic concept of existence is by no means covered by the haptic.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 32; my trans.) Friedmann’s account of “optic causality” is helpful to outline further what is at stake with synchronicity. A synchronicity experience – whether on an individual or a global plane – may come down to a switch from haptic to optic causality, the decisive point being whether one is justified in attributing a primordial character to either form of causality, and based on which criteria.

3

“wo Wiederholungen einem speziellen, durchsichtigen Ursachenmechanismus gehorchen, dürfen sie nicht als ‘Serien’ benannt und behandelt werden.” Kammerer, 1919, p. 105.

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At the background of my discussion of synchronicity awareness and optic causality are contemporary debates about human enhancement: the attempt to extend human capabilities through technological devices. Whereas it would be too simplistic to argue either ‘for’ or ‘against’ human enhancement, I think it is worthwhile to consider a proper anthropological perspective that could offer a criterion for meaningful and meaningless enhancement technologies. I will show that receptivity to synchronicity experiences or optic causality requires an altered state of consciousness. It is my conviction that, to gain more insight into human nature, our myopic or monoculist scope itself must be revised. The robustness of the standard ‘analytical’ approach is also its weakness, so much so that forms of blindness it can hardly even articulate characterise the latter’s explorative virtues. Did not Polyphemus, the notorious one-eyed, mono-chronistic Cyclops in Homer’s Odyssey, believe that he was perfectly capable indeed of seeing clearly, and of carrying out well his daily job: to herd his flock of sheep? Did he ever miss a second eye at all? It was only after meeting with Ulysses, the ʌȠȜȪȝȘIJȚȢ/polymètis (‘rich in cunning or craft’) who robbed him of his sight, that the Cyclops discovered that he was not only one-eyed but also myopic. Perhaps one day in future, long after Ulysses’ departure and lamenting on the ‘shore’ of his insulation, he will equally discover the corresponding cruelty and destructive nature of his blunt, ‘haptic’ and ‘myopic,’ ‘mono-chronistic’ mindset which an optic mindset and a synchronicity awareness may come to correct and enlarge. In the first chapter we have seen how the haptic mindset aggravates the innate drive towards self-preservation and issues in self-confirmation and authority over the observed object; the optic mindset, on the other hand, in full self-negligence and self-abandonment focuses on the object itself. (Friedmann, 1930, p. 33f) As suggested earlier, it is simplistic to play off one against the other, as (other than Friedmann seems to believe) both categories often overlap. When I continue to associate synchronicity experiences with optic approach, this cannot always prevent ambiguities. They have a share in regular, efficient or material causality. What is preponderant is the experience’s inner penchant, rather than its supposedly fixed essence. The outreach of synchronicity awareness is enormous. It affects the human capacity to receive various input types on different frequencies simultaneously. Simone Weil illustrates this by claiming there is a miraculous similarity between politics and art (poetry, music, architecture)

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since both are governed by a principle (and difficulty) of “simultaneous composition on several planes”.4 The politician must act like a poet who builds verses that do not only obey to rime, but also melody, meter, concision, evocative virtues, and meaning. That is, while promoting their social ideals, politicians cannot ignore the side effects of each of their single actions leading towards these ideals. Neglecting such side effects will usually lead to resistance and a felt need to resort to repressive violence. Natural-born politicians, like skilled poets, will do more than calculate conditions and consequences; they will coincide both with their action and its implications. This creates a challenge to any traditional conception of human subjectivity and agency. Just as the real poet is born out of their poems, the real politician (Winston Churchill, Thomáš Masaryk, Olaf Palme) originates in the conditions that shape their policy. They belong to it just as a depicted figure to the painting. In this chapter, I will start by presenting a short critique, articulated by Carl du Prel, of Darwinism. Why? Because I believe that generalised Darwinism represents the biggest obstacle to an adequate anthropology that could account for synchronicity experiences. Along with a drive towards selfpreservation, Darwinism can only accommodate contingency. It can solely think evolution, not development proper. Secondly, I will discuss the complex issues of plurality and necessity concerning causality. Causal plurality entails taking other forms of causality into account than exclusively efficient and material causality – which dominate the scientific scene today. The necessity of causal relations was first put into question by David Hume, who made a case for their probability character. While partly agreeing with Hume, I will argue that a kind of causal necessity may be recurrent, albeit on another (supra-egoic) level. Thirdly, I will dwell on – what Jung has called – the acausal nature of synchronicity as a soul event. Even though synchronicity may take place 4

Cf. Simone Weil (1999). L’Enracinement. In Oeuvres, Paris: Gallimard, p. 1162; trans. by Arthur Wills (2002, 1952). The Need for Roots, London/New York: Routledge, p. 211. Cf. p. 1207 (trans. p. 278) where it is suggested that the synchronising virtues of the poet imitate God. Interestingly, before being a biologist, Paul Kammerer was a musical composer, just as Rousseau was a composer before being a philosophical author. Eccentric composers are privileged literary protagonists, cf. E.T.A. Hoffmann’s Kappellmeister Johannes Kreisler in LebensAnsichten des Katers Murr, or Thomas Mann’s Adrian Leverkühn in Doktor Faustus. Note the importance of music in the educational system of Castalia in Hesse’s novel Das Glasperlenspiel.

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both on an individual and a societal, or even global level I think that providing casuistry of the former will mostly be counterproductive. On the other hand, global synchronicities have the advantage of further highlighting the non-objective nature of the soul, as outlined in the previous chapters. Fourthly, I will address the fundamental undermining of the subject position which a synchronicity experience brings about. Some concrete examples of synchronicity experiences in philosophers (Rousseau, Klages, Derrida), artists (Johannes Brahms, Stefan George), and scientists (Descartes, Driesch, Paul Kammerer) will underpin my claim that intellectual or artistic creativity requires an interruption, if not a disruption, of the overall subject position. I will argue that creativity and synchronicity experiences are mutually confirmative – even though, ultimately, they cannot fail to both hover above an abyss. Finally, I will dwell on a phenomenon that could be seen as an immediate display of synchronicity, as it seems to directly elicit an altered state of consciousness: ‘physiognomy’. This ancient discipline is almost forgotten today. It tries to gauge the signs of a human countenance. What interests me in physiognomy is that it focuses on the significant simultaneity of facial characteristics rather than on their singularity and independent causal chains. Physiognomy could be listed among the external soul phenomena discussed in the first chapter; these phenomena include, as we have seen, bodily ideation, production of kin, organic self-relatedness, and repetitive constellations. However, as I suggested before, while being an external phenomenon, physiognomy nonetheless combines this outer reality with an immediate inner awareness of the soul. The oblivion, or perhaps even active neglect, which have been physiognomy’s fate in the recent history of sciences do not take away that, 1) physiognomy offers exciting insights into the nature of human consciousness and its various states, and that 2) it strikingly reflects Daoist, Pythagorean or Kabbalist motives and concepts, which at least should make the comparative philosopher wary of ethnocentrism curious.5

5 For interesting studies on synchronicity, see the work of Roderick Main (Revelations of Chance. Synchronicity as Spiritual Experience. Albany: SUNY, 2007; The Rupture of Time. Synchronicity and Jung’s Critique of Modern Western Culture. Taylor & Francis e-library 2004.)

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1. Synchronicity and causality Evolution and development Few people know that already during the 19th, and well into the 20th century, classical Darwinism was intelligently criticised for its one-sidedness and its materialistic implications; in other words, for its relying on an impoverished causality principle. The origin of this critique can be found in the philosophical descendants of Schelling and Schopenhauer. Thinkers like Eduard von Hartmann, Gustav Fechner, Carl du Prel, Hans Driesch, Hermann Friedmann, Ludwig Klages, or Henri Bergson, even attempted to reinsert (non-intellectualist) teleology or goal-orientedness in human nature, however differently. They had to reinterpret consciousness for this attempt and endow it with unconscious or subliminal layers. In the preceding chapters, we have seen that the notion of ‘self-preservation’ is, in fact, a teleological anomaly in Darwinism. It took a Carl du Prel to unveil self-preservation’s ‘metaphysical’ asset; that is, of being a higher-order commandment issued by our deeper, subliminal self to our empirical, supraliminal self. The ‘vitalistic’ critique, which the thinkers mentioned above voiced confronted Darwinism with a disturbing implication of its most basic notion, ‘evolution’. For evolution to be a real evolution, so they argued, two conditions must be fulfilled. Firstly, the process at stake must account for real development. Any evolution which does not positively enhance variety, that is, which cannot encompass equilibrated form as its outcome, cannot rightfully be called ‘evolution’.6 By purely random ‘selection,’ nothing really develops. What takes place is, in terms of Hans Driesch, a mere ‘heaping up of materials’ (Anhäufung des Materials) or an ‘addition,’ rather than an integrated assemblage or assignment (Zuordnung) of substances. The second condition to be fulfilled to justify the concept of ‘evolution’ would be that it is applied comprehensively, that is, not just to the physical but also to the mind or consciousness. Subsequent advances in the theory of evolution partly tried to handle such critique. Think of the ‘modern synthesis,’ brought about in the beginning of the 20th century, between Darwin’s adaptation theory and Mendel’s theory of inheritance (R. Fisher, J.B.S. Haldane, S. Wright), or the ‘extended 6

Driesch calls an evolution based on chance or coincidence a mere Scheinentwicklung, cf. Driesch, 1921, p. 561. Bergson argues in a similar way in his l’Evolution créatrice.

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evolutionary synthesis’ (C.H. Waddington, M. Pigliucci). The latter is particularly interesting as it hesitatingly allows for forms of ‘non-material’ development enhancers (niche construction, evolvability, multilevel selection, epigenetic inheritance, etc.). In lieu of outlining here the broad field of philosophical anti-Darwinism or presenting the just mentioned varieties of extended or mitigated evolutionism, let me briefly, and pars pro toto consider some points addressed by Carl du Prel. Du Prel takes advantage of evolutionism’s allusion to development7, whether or not its defenders actively acknowledge it. A full-blown theory of organic evolution, he claims, ought to take seriously not only an evolution of the body but also an evolution of the mind. Darwinism remains halfhearted by not taking into account forms of awareness that exceed habitual knowledge, such as unexplainable intuitions, prophetic flashes of insight or exceptional states of mind.8 Its chief orientation is retrospective (it looks back to prior ‘causes’9), not prospective. Another critical point in Darwinism, according to Du Prel, is its wrongful dismissal of teleological explanation: “The opposite of teleology is chaos, not, however, regularity [Gesetzmässigkeit], which is rather fully teleological, and even more so in proportion to the completeness of mechanism.”10 In causal explanations, constituents always prevail over wholes – in synchronistic accounts, the reverse is the case. In line with this is Darwinism’s problematic assumption of natural selection (adaptation and mutation) as the sole basis for species formation and morphogenesis (which are two distinct yet connected processes). Does not the foetus in the maternal womb develop without any struggle for its 7 “Der Materialismus hat sich des Darwinismus zur Stütze seiner Thesen bemächtigt; es wird sich aber zeigen, dass die Entwicklungstheorie keine Stütze, sondern die Überwinderin des Materialismus ist.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 380. 8 “keimartige Anlagen die in uns schlummern und gelegentlich zur Äußerung kommen”; these “deuten prophetisch auf die Zukunft,” ibid., p. 382. 9 Which is a pleonasm, unfortunately. 10 Ibid., p. 409. My trans. Also cf: “dass die organisierende Seele auch in ihrer Haupttätigkeit, in der Bildung und Erhaltung des Organismus, eine zwecksetzende sein muss. Wenn das Gehirn in seinen Funktionen Zwecke setzt, so muss es auch selbst als Organ teleologisch entstanden sein.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 125. Or, “Die Endursache besteht lediglich in der Verknüpfung der materiellen Ursachen”. Karl du Prel (1911). Philosophische Abhandlung über die Intelligenz des Zufalls und die Berechenbarkeit des Glücks. In Nachgelassene Schriften. Leipzig: Verlag Max Altmann, p. 31.

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existence, and is not its morphogenesis still beyond the need for natural adaptation?11 Du Prel is addressing here the biological conundrum of morphogenesis which, despite being undeniably impacted by environmental adaptation and genetic mutation, cannot be reduced to these factors; a positive inner drive must be acknowledged, which steers embryonic development toward uniformity and equilibrium. Darwinism is somehow right, Du Prel continues his argument, in supposing a correlation (not to be confused, though, with material or efficient causality) between the increase of human consciousness, on the one hand, and its organic substructure, on the other. How would the ongoing complexity of the brain not allow for amplification of human sensation and sensitivity? “[A]n increase in these mystical aptitudes [Anlagen] can only be achieved by a biological altering of the human life form or its brain, that is, one through which the threshold of sensibility is once more shifted in the sense of in increased capability of sensation [gesteigerter Empfindungsfähigkeit].” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 389; my trans.) Interestingly, the 18th-century French thinker Condillac already voiced this view12, albeit on entirely different (that is, empiricist-sensualistic) premises. Contemporary anthropologists and neurologists will repeat it.13 Du Prel concludes that “the mystical phenomena of psychic life are anticipations to the biological process; therefore, an intimate connection between Darwinism and transcendental psychology exists.” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 390; also cf p. 402; my trans.)

11 Du Prel, 1888, p. 94. One could say that the embryo to some extent draws on its mother’s nutritional affluence; still, as opposed to e.g. a carcinoma, it depends upon the continued affluence of resources and on mutual thriving. 12 Condillac, “Tous les phénomènes de la mémoire dépendent des habitudes contractées par les parties mobiles & flexibles du cerveau ; & tous les mouvements dont ces parties sont susceptibles, sont liés les uns aux autres, comme toutes les idées qu’ils rappellent sont liées entre elles.” La logique, ou, les premiers développements de l’art de penser I, 9. 13 Cf. P. Shaw etc. who “demonstrate[s] that the trajectory of change in the thickness of the cerebral cortex, rather than cortical thickness itself, is most closely related to level of intelligence.” Intellectual Ability and Cortical Development in Children and Adolescents. In Nature 440, 2006, no. 7084, p. 676.

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Synchronicity and analysis “[the Cyclops Polyphemus] tore them limb from limb [įȚ੹ ȝİȜİȧıIJ੿ IJĮȝઅȞ] and supped upon them [੪ʌȜȓııĮIJȠ įȩȡʌȠȞ]. He gobbled them up like a lion in the wilderness, flesh, bones, marrow [ȝȣİȜȩİȞIJĮ], and entrails [਩ȖțĮIJȐ], without leaving anything uneaten”. —Odyssey, 9, 291f

After these introductory remarks about Darwinism, let us turn to the central theme of this chapter: synchronicity. As mentioned earlier, this term was coined by Jung and referred to an apparently coincidental yet meaningfully correlated chain of events. (Main, 2004, Ch. 5) Earlier, I have described synchronicity in terms of “optic causality” (Friedmann); that is, a causality constituted by a simultaneity of ‘cause’ and ‘effect’. In his Das Gesetz der Serie, Paul Kammerer makes a distinction between “spatial” or “simultaneous seriality” and “temporal” or “successive seriality”. (Kammerer, 1919, p. 67) Even Jung acknowledges that both types of (acausal) seriality belong together so that strictly speaking ‘synchronicity’ also comprises meaningful yet acausal temporal sequences (a miraculously iterative set of coherent phenomena, such as the repeated encounter with a friend one has not seen for ages within a short term, or a recurrent dream with only short intervals). We have seen that it is questionable that classical evolutionism can positively account for development. The notion of ‘development’ requires form-building, morphogenesis, ‘outcome,’ rather than ‘upshot’. ‘Upshot’ would be consequentialist, whereas ‘outcome’ reflects simultaneity. I aim to show that the idea of ‘synchronicity’ is indispensable to corroborate further a reliable anthropology that remains relatively invulnerable to preposterous materialist and reductionist claims, whose big ‘Cycloptic’ mouth swallows the ‘marrow’ and ‘entrails’ of human beings. Synchronicity reveals a dimension of human life that transcends the impact of mere materialism and consequentialism. It does so in principle inasmuch as the nature of this dimension is synthetic rather than analytic. “[T]he epitome of all transcendental forms of knowledge will be fractured here in duplicity of corresponding forms,” Friedmann elucidates; “here the Euclidean tactile space [Tastraum], there the projective visible space [projektive Gesichtsraum]; here the Newtonian ‘empty’ time, there a ‘tectonic’ time; here haptic causality, with its inevitability [Zwangsläufigkeit] defined in concepts and principles of pure mechanics14, there a necessity of another 14 Even though the Cycloptic destructivity (ıȤȑIJȜȚĮ ਩ȡȖૃ) makes one a-mechanic: ਕȝȘȤĮȞȓȘ įૃ਩Ȥİ șȣȝȩȞ (‘helplessness caught our mind’).

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order, a type of necessity which everyone clearly sees [einsieht] a priori in particular optic consistencies [optischen Folgerichtigkeiten]: resemblances, groups, or harmonies.”15 (Friedmann, 1930, p. 41; my trans.) I will argue that any scientific inquiry into the anthropological impact of human enhancement necessarily misses the mark. It starts at the wrong end. Therefore, it is blind to an implicit assumption: the unquestioned entitlement of ‘analysis’ or ‘haptic causality’. Another word for ‘analysis’ is ‘reduction’. As long as this assumption is ignored, discussions about human nature will continue to struggle over the implications for humanity of the latest technological developments (such as artificial intelligence). It is one of my critical suppositions that human consciousness is somehow related to virtual ‘synchronicity’ awareness, or ‘optic causality’. The experience of synchronistic events defies (haptic) causality since such events represent a meaningful, albeit acausal (optic) constellation witnessed in amazement by a subject: independent causal chains unexpectedly meet (associate) and create a telling, though not always in-tell-igible whole without a common identifiable cause. It is my claim that what is called ‘human’ is susceptible to synchronistic events. Should this claim be valid, then this is not a minor issue. On the contrary, it affects the entire way in which homo sapiens conceptualises and is conceptualised; that is, it affects both his knowledge and its content. It even affects science and scientific approaches of the homo sapiens (that is, as a ‘hominid’ endowed with sapientia-wisdom). For, if science solely obeys the logic of haptic causality, it is likely to overlook what is or might be non- or acausal and yet decisive. Granted, not each science or scientific paradigm is exclusively governed by a causality principle. We should make an exception at least for 1) parapsychology or psychical research, 2) quantum mechanics, and 3) the theory of relativity.16 Often a distinction is made between the meso-level, 15

Implying that, rather than using our hands to seize or capture, as the Cyclops does (ਥʌ੿ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ ੅ĮȜȜİ), we have to lift them up to God (ਕȞİıȤȑșȠȝİȞ ǻȚ੿ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ). 16 Cf. Yuasa Yasuo (2008). Overcoming Modernity. Synchronicity and ImageThinking. Albany: SUNY Press, Ch. 3. Also see Hermann Friedmann: “Die im Dämmerlichte stehende Relativitätstheorie hat immerhin integrative Leistungen vollbracht, die den haptischen Weltbegriff dem optischen annähern. So fallen in jener Theorie die Extensionen des Raumes und der Zeit nicht mehr auseinander, sondern durchdringen sich, und die universale Form der Raumzeit legt sich nicht wie eine lose Hülle um die materiellen Körper, sondern ihr Wesen und ihr Begriff ist eins geworden mit dem der raumzeitfüllenden Materie selbst.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 159.

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where causality is applied, and the micro- and macro-levels, where it does not apply, or less clearly. A distinction between levels of application, insightful though it is, does not seem to corroborate causality as a general, alldetermining principle ontologically. It rather indicates the cumbersome anthropocentrism which prevails, as can also be inferred from the Musil quotation at the beginning of this chapter: “We know that our life is ebbing away both outward into the inhuman distances of cosmic space and downward into the inhuman microspace of the atom, while we go on dealing with a middle stratum, the things that make up our world, without troubling ourselves at all over the fact that this only proves a preference for impressions received in the middle distance, as it were.” (Musil, 1997, p. 527; trans. Wilkins) Let us take a glance at the notion of causality itself, its extent and its limitations.

Causality at stake Causal plurality and necessity In Le côté de Guermantes Marcel Proust imagines the world of a person who has become deaf. Whereas previously, he writes, this person would have associated a noise with the audible ‘cause’ of a movement, now that he has become deaf, objects which are being removed without any noise seem to be wholly without a ‘cause’. It is as if these objects suddenly started to live.17 In terms of Friedmann, it is as if an optic causality has been substituted for a haptic causality. If true, the example also teaches that the audible primarily conforms to tactility instead of visibility. Causality the way it is usually conceived may thrive on an unquestioned, rashly generalised mindset. The concept (or rather: conceptualisation) of causality is by far too complex to be discussed here exhaustively. For the moment, I will define causality as a ‘justified account of change’. This is at least the definition which Aristotle followed when he started to sort out four different types of such an account: a material (IJઁ ਥȟ Ƞ੤ ȖȓȞİIJĮȓ), a formal (IJઁ İੇįȠȢ, IJઁ ʌĮȡȐįİȚȖȝĮ, ੒ IJȠ૨ IJȓ ਷Ȟ İੇȞĮȚ), a final (IJઁ Ƞ੤ ਪȞİțĮ) and an efficient (ਲ ਕȡȤ੽ IJોȢ ȝİIJĮȕȠȜોȢ ਲ ʌȡ૵IJȘ) account (Physics II.3). Note that Aristotle’s language here is more descriptive, if not allusive, than technical (as the scholastic terminology

17 “Comme le bruit était pour lui, avant sa surdité, la forme perceptible que revêtait la cause d’un mouvement, les objets remués sans bruit semblent l’être sans cause; dépouillés de toute qualité sonore, ils montrent une activité spontané, ils semblent vivre”. Marcel Proust (1920-21). Le côté de Guermantes I. In Proust, 1999, p. 805.

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mostly is). Science “A new astronomy Based on Causation, or a Physics of the Sky derived from Investigations of the Motions of the Star Mars, Founded on Observations of the Noble Tycho Brahe” —Johannes Kepler18

Modern science increasingly tried to eliminate the formal and the final cause as meaningful justifications of, and cogent arguments for, change. Gradually, it restricted itself to the sole material and efficient cause. Thereby it unnoticeably narrowed down the concepts of ‘cause’ and ‘explanation’ to the latter.19 I already alluded to this impoverishment in the previous chapter, when discussing Klages’ conception of inner polarity. As a result of this development, ‘explanation’ today comes down to providing the material and efficient cause. This applies to the natural sciences, and it gradually overwhelms the social sciences20 (if not even the humanities). But modern science also underwent an alternative, partly more promising development as regards causality. In Aristotelian-scholastic thinking causal relations were implicitly seen as necessary relations (‘if A causes B, then B will necessarily follow if A occurs’). This may be so for logic and thinking, but not for experience. Whereas logic involves the interposition of cogent relations between two or more terms, experience can only deliver probability.21 Both Hume and Kant addressed this complex issue; they tried to rid empirical observation from this logistic prejudice. Hume modestly reconceived of ‘causality’ as high probability and constant conjunction, and Kant transformed both ‘causality’ and ‘necessity’ from ontological categories into transcendental categories of human understanding. Therefore, I think, the rejection of 18 English translation of Kepler’s magnum opus Astronomia Nova ǹǿȉǿȅȁȅīǾȉȅȈ,

seu Physica Coelistis, tradita commentariis de motibus Stellae Martis, Ex observationibus G.V. Tychonis Brahe. Quoted and discussed in Koestler, 2014, pp. 285, 545. ‘Based on causation’ translates the Greek term ǹǿȉǿȅȁȅīǾȉȅȈ. 19 Cf. among many other studies Louis Dupré (1993). A Passage to Modernity. An Essay in the Hermeneutics of Nature and Culture. New Haven & London: YUP. 20 An exception is Charles Taylor (1980). The Explanation of Behaviour. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul. 21 Cf. e.g. G. Heymans (1890). Schets eener kritische geschiedenis van het causaliteitsbegrip in de nieuwere Wijsbegeerte. Leiden: Brill, pp. 112-174. Also cf. Carl du Prel: “Die Unbegreiflichkeit einer Erscheinung besagt nur, dass sie gegen unsere Erfahrungsgewohnheit ist; Unmöglichkeit aber besagt sie durchaus nicht.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 32.

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causality amongst some contemporary thinkers (who draw on Ernst Mach, Bertrand Russell, or Paul and Patricia Churchland) should not be overemphasised. If they speak of “the unreasonable effectiveness of data,” and claim that “causality has definitively been pushed away from its pedestal as a primary source of meaning,” or even that “correlation supersedes causation”22, this should be taken with a grain of salt. What such thinkers merely do is reinterpret the concept of ‘causality’ in terms of ‘correlation’ or ‘statistical probability’.23 The revolution brought about by Hume and Kant is simply perpetuated with other means. What remains decisive, though, is not so much if causality is acknowledged but rather how it is interpreted. If one realises that a nonnegligible number of mathematicians and philosophers have insisted on the unbridgeable gap between probability and reality, one cannot but conclude that traditional (necessitarian) causality has been given a mortal blow.24 Philosophy 1.

Necessity “The holiest necessity of my inner being [heiligste Notwendigkeit meines Innern] is not a law for nature.” “Necessity is the inner being of freedom [Notwendigkeit ist das Innere der Freiheit]; thus, no basis can be found to truly free action; freedom is as it is because it is so, it just is [sie ist schlechthin], it is absolutely [unbedingt] and thereby necessarily.” —Schelling25

Whereas concerning causality, modern science tends to be both reductive (dismissal of finality/teleology) and corrective (empirical causality differs 22 Quoted in Richard Starmans (2019). Oorzaak en gevolg: overwegingen bij het hedendaagse denken over causaliteit. In Filosofie Tijdschrift 29/3, p. 42f. 23 See R. Starmans (2018). The Predicament of Truth: On Statistics, Causality, Physics and the Philosophy of Science. In: M.J. van der Laan & S. Rose (Eds). Targeted Learning in Data Science: Causal Inference for Complex Longitudinal Studies. Berlin: Springer. 24 Cf Paul Kammerer: “Die Zahl der Mathematiker und Philosophen, die zwischen den Ergebnissen der Wahrscheinlichkeitsrechnung und dem tatsächlichen Eintreffen der Wahrscheinlichkeiten Widersprüche vorfanden, ist nicht klein.” Kammerer refers to Adolf Fick (1829-1901), Levin Goldschmidt (1828-1897), Karl Pearson (1857-1936), Alexius Meinong (1853-1920) and Othmar Sterzinger (1879-1944). Kammerer, 1919, p. 176. 25 Schelling, 2009, p. 81 and 84; trans. Fiona Steinkamp (2002). Clara or, On Nature’s Connection to the Spirit World. Albany: SUNY, p. 27 and 28.

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from sheer logic), philosophy took different, sometimes even opposite directions. To start with the empirical ‘necessity’ of causal relations: if ‘necessity’ was accepted at all (as in Hegel or Marx), then at least it was not anchored anymore in the single-minded intellect (Verstand) of a thinking individual but rather in trans-individual reality (e.g., Spirit, History, Vernunft). Causal necessity was not seen as linear (‘A causes B’) but as dialectically mediated (‘A and B produce C’). Dialectical causal necessity minimised the rigour of any form of immediate causal necessity while insisting on the ongoing need for philosophical ‘fact-finding missions’ in support of dialectically mediated necessity. As appears from his detailed studies of law, religion, history, and art, Hegel was one of the first modern philosophers to rely on such ‘missions’. Subsequent scientific dissatisfaction with Hegel’s dialectical framing of the unearthed facts does not take away Hegel’s metaphysical ardour in first collecting them. Despite the sophisticated preservation of causal necessity in the Hegelian tradition, the majority of modern philosophers welcomed its removal from experience. Heidegger, for instance, reconceived of ‘necessity’ (Notwendigkeit) as ‘need’ (Wende in die Not)26, while Derrida pointed out its inherent lack.27 Both claimed that thinking necessity comes down to thinking need, and, therefore, to thinking what fails to present itself. Thereby, they simply ignored the question as to the allegedly inevitable character of ‘causal’ relations. Horkheimer and Adorno identified necessity proper with myth and the eternal recurrence of the same28; together with many 20th century French philosophers, they insisted on the singular, the special or the irreducibly unique; in short, on anything that would pose a challenge to oppressive causal frameworks, whether or not dialectically mediated.29 Similar to Heidegger, C.G. Jung connects ‘need’ (Not) with 26 “Das Dasein ist die Wende in die Not. Aus dem Da-sein des Menschen und aus ihm allein entspringt die Entbergung der Notwendigkeit und ihr zufolge die mögliche Versetzung in das Unumgängliche.” Heidegger (1978, 1967). Vom Wesen der Wahrheit. In Wegmarken. Frankfurt: V. Klostermann, p. 195. 27 Jacques Derrida (1972). Positions. Paris: Minuit, p. 80n. Il faut: 1) we must, 2) there is a need/lack of… Elsewhere, Derrida denies any causality to différance (Derrida, 1972, p. 9, 12). 28 “Denken verdinglicht sich zu einem selbsttätig ablaufenden, automatischen Prozess, der Maschine nacheifernd, die er selber hervorbringt, damit sie ihn schließlich ersetzen kann.” Horkheimer & Adorno, 1988, p. 31. 29 “Die Aufklärung als nominalistische macht Halt vor dem Nomen, dem umfanglosen, punktuellen Begriff, dem Eigennamen.” Horkheimer/Adorno, 1988, p. 29.

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‘necessity’ (Notwendigkeit), thereby overcoming the impasses left by the abovementioned criticisms of Hegel: “Without necessity [Not] nothing budges, the human personality least of all. […] Only acute necessity is able to rouse it. The developing personality obeys no caprice, no command, no insight, only brute necessity; it needs the motivating force of inner or outer fatalities [sie bedarf des motivierenden Zwanges innerer oder äußerer Schicksale].”30

2.

Causal pluralism

“It therefore appears that ‘organic unity’ is a goal and not a present reality – a goal which can be visioned, approached and up to a certain point achieved. It is in the most favourable cases the fruit of spontaneous growth and maturation; in others it is the well-earned reward of self-training, education or therapy, through the use of a variety of techniques, in order to help and hasten the process.” —Roberto Assagioli31

As regards the other development in modern science (its rejection of finality/teleology as a constituent of causality), philosophers seemed to diverge more clearly. At variance with the main strands of science, several thinkers reintroduced causal pluralism or teleology – and therewith what I will henceforth refer to as ‘synchronicity’32. Let us consider a few paradigmatic cases. One of the profound trendsetting examples of reintroduced teleology is without a doubt – again – Hegel’s philosophy, which is centred around the Spirit. Spirit, in Hegel, is not only a resource for (trans-individual) necessity, as we have just seen; it also warrants history’s ultimate telos. The substitution of Spirit by Matter or Economy in left-wing Hegelianism no less preserved this telos. Additionally, just as in Hegel, a sophisticated, trans-individual type of necessitarianism accompanied post-Hegelian finality. Insofar as Hegelian philosophy not only allows for dialectical necessity but also for finality, it goes entirely against the grain of the major tendencies of modern science.

30

Jung, 1947, p. 189; trans. R.F.C. Hull (1981) The Development of Personality. In Collected Works of Jung 17. Princeton: Princeton University Press, p. 293. 31 Assagioli, 2012, p. 33. 32 If synchronicity will hereinafter be called ‘acausal,’ what is meant is that it is not determined by efficient causality, but rather by causal plurality – which may entail teleology.

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Hegel may have been one of the last philosophers to defend a form of causal necessity; he was certainly not the last to uphold finality. The hermeneutical projects of Wilhelm Dilthey and Hans-Georg Gadamer consisted of sustaining teleology and finality at least for the humanities.33 I propose to call the type of finality defended in the hermeneutic tradition ‘erratic’. The Geisteswissenschaften, according to Dilthey, are ‘hermeneutical’: they study meaning (Sinn). ‘Meaning,’ whether as the epochal mindset out of which human artefacts can rise (Dilthey), or as the looming horizon unfolded by texts (Gadamer), does not cause (i.e., effectuate) a human artefact or a text; it as it were ‘attracts’ them. Science, on the contrary, searches for causal explanations (in the sense of finding efficient or material causes). To the extent that the hermeneutical tradition in philosophy, along with Hegelian thinking, upholds and endorses notions of ‘finality’ and ‘teleology,’ it contradicts standard conceptions of causality in the natural sciences, and it dilutes the credibility of these conceptions. Other than in Hegel, however, hermeneutic finality overtly resists dialectical control. Meaning, even though it is the telos of a text or an artwork, remains unpredictable and erratic. Hegelian thinking and the hermeneutical tradition may share a concern for finality; as regards the putative ‘necessity’ with which this finality is reached, though, they could not be more different. In this respect, it is highly interesting to consider a third example of reintroduced teleology, which holds the middle between dialectical necessity (Hegel) and erratic finality (hermeneutics): the 19th- and 20th-century philosophies of the unconscious. In the previous chapters, I have discussed a number of these philosophies. Ludwig Klages, for example, suggested that inner drives unconsciously move us to reach out for goals; these goals, he added, are original images or syntheses that govern an organism’s basic drives by eliciting rather than producing them. Otto Rank claimed that an inclination to anchor a perennial self in the abyss of life anxiety sets artists and other enthusiasts in motion. Further on in this chapter, we will see how Carl du Prel and others interpret the unconscious as a leading principle in human physical or spiritual maturation. This interpretation was picked up by C.G. Jung, Roberto Assagioli, and (what is called today) ‘transpersonal psychology’; they offer an approach of the human psyche that tries to encompass future-orienting concepts such as ‘maturing’ or ‘self-elation’. In all these cases, finality or teleology plays a preponderant role, which outdoes mere efficient or material causality. Obviously, the way goal-orientedness is lived out 33

“Die Natur erklären wir, das Seelenleben verstehen wir.” (Dilthey)

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concretely is beyond dialectical control, as in Hegel; it is not intellectualist, as in Aristotle. But that does not preclude the existence of a hidden necessity at work. If at all, this necessity can be either accessed retrospectively or during an altered state of consciousness. Closely related to – and hardly distinct from – philosophies of unconscious finality is vitalism or Lebensphilosophie. This would be a fourth example of causal plurality. Various philosophies of life have tried to supplement efficient causality with forms of finality. In the first chapter we have seen how Hans Driesch, for example, reinstated the time-honoured Aristotelian notion of ‘entelechy’ as a steering morphogenetic principle; he defined it as an agent that “transform[s] a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”. Hans Jonas and Rupert Sheldrake, each on their way, have continued Driesch’ quest for motion-provoking goals. Lastly, an astute variety of an uncontrollable yet verifiable goalorientedness in human agency could be identified in what Wilhelm Wundt, Germany’s first psychologist, had called ‘heterogony of ends’ (Heterogonie der Zwecke). While acting on purpose, Wundt argued, the actor may ‘develop’ new, albeit unforeseen, ends. Discoveries enhance invention. Likewise, Carl du Prel stated that sometimes human artefacts, while presupposing intelligent reasoning, display properties that cannot be accounted for on the sole basis of intention. (Du Prel, 1888, p. 75f.) Today, we could perhaps think of the internet as a significant example; initially invented for military purposes, it is now used for ends that could not be anticipated consciously. Heterogony of ends is closely related to ‘serendipity’: the non-intentional discovery of something useful.34 In my view, serendipity cannot be distinguished from finality or synchronicity once a subconscious activity is taken into account. Obviously, by ‘taking into account’ I do not mean to imply that such unconscious activity can be controlled or freely disposed of. When taking them at face value, heterogony of ends, synchronicity, and serendipity will always pose a mystery. These examples of re-appreciated teleology equally account for synchronicity experiences. Each of the thinkers mentioned here tried to overcome the prevailing limited conceptions of causality. Concerned with the fullness of phenomena, they favour pull over push. When 20th-century 34 Cf Royston M. Roberts (1989). Serendipity. Accidental Discoveries in Science. New York: John Wiley & Sons.

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philosopher Paul Ricœur (1913-2005), criticising Dilthey’s bifurcation of ‘sciences’ and ‘humanities,’ tried to reconcile causal explanation and hermeneutic understanding at least for the humanities, this also shows a felt need to do full justice to phenomena and bring the best of both worlds together. The fact that the Anglophone world has familiarised itself with a sharp distinction between ‘science’ (note the singular!) and the ‘humanities’ is of deplorable significance. What starts as mere nomenclature imperceptibly continues by imposing its normativity. As if the ‘humanities’ were not ‘scientific,’ or worse, as if they cannot bring real knowledge (scientia, scire). On the other hand, science pretends to control change only by virtue of its previous reductionist account. The experiments it justifies this account with presuppose the reduction that enables experimental research itself, thereby closing the vicious circle. In addition to its impoverished accounts of change, modern science generally repudiates necessity as a constituent of causality. By doing so, it opens itself in principle for the unpredictability of phenomena – which is in itself beneficial. However, it also underpins a subject position that is fenced off against a deeper, transpersonal apperception of necessity. The latter, I want to argue, is mostly, if not always, accompanied by synchronicity events. It is “a necessity of another order, a type of necessity which everyone clearly sees a priori in particular optic consistencies: resemblances, groups, or harmonies.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 41)35 Synchronicity and acausality Individual level “It belongs to the meaningfulness of my itinerancy [Irrfahrt] that I always receive a ‘message’ [‘Botschaft’] at the right moment: a book, a letter, and why not even an idea that comes to my mind [ein eigener Gedanke]” —Hermann Friedmann36

With terms such as ‘proof,’ ‘evidence,’ ‘argument,’ ‘explanation,’ ‘confirmation,’ ‘test,’ ‘repetition,’ etc., an impoverished causality concept dominates the contemporary scientific scene and its conceptual jargon. We have seen that modern science generally embraces a restricted (‘haptic’) form of causality. This has become implicitly dominant, outside as well as inside science. There is, however, an alternative to this restricted causality: synchronicity. Although the term comes from Jung, the corresponding 35 36

Cf “A rechercher le fatal, on se découvre soi-même.” Braque, 1952, p. 34. Hermann Friedmann, 1950, p. 251; my trans.

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experience seems perennial, both on the individual level and on the level of society. Most notably, Chinese Daoism, Greek-Hellenistic Pythagoreanism, and, to some extent, Jewish Kabbalistic traditions, are grounded on synchronistic accounts of the world. These traditions are firmly based on an optic approach, even if the haptic is never absent. I am inclined to attribute optic proclivities to Jung’s predecessor, the biologist Paul Kammerer, who generalised the principle of (coincidental) ‘seriality’ such as to make it a law of nature. This law, Kammerer claimed, controls both contingent life events and natural phenomena like morphogenesis, mimicry, memory, inheritance, etc.37 It should be distinguished from what Kammerer calls ‘tangential’ (i.e., normal) causality (Berührungskausalität). (Kammerer, 1919, p. 365, 453) Individual examples of synchronicity experiences are numerous, and many of us are familiar with them. One could imagine dreaming about a person one has not seen for a while at the very moment she sends you an e-mail – such scenario occurred to the author of this book. An example given by Jung is too well known to be listed here. It regards a scarab flying into his study at the very moment that a patient tells him about her dream of a scarab; this dream enhanced her subsequent healing process, which had up till then stagnated. In general, according to Jung, any form of mantic wisdom, precognition, clairvoyance, augurism, etc. (sometimes called ‘paranormal’ or ‘exceptional experiences’) could be said to be a case of synchronicity, that is, of an ‘acausal’ connection between vision and event (in the sense of not determined by efficient causality). A more recent example comes from the American philosopher of science Lou Marinoff. He recounts the story a friend of his, a psychotherapist in Manhattan, told him about one of her patients. This patient not only had an unusual ophidiophobia (fear of snakes); he also tended to ‘manifest’ them regularly. During their fourteenth session, the psychotherapist suddenly noticed “to her shock and disbelief” a massive python on her bookshelf. Snakes are reasonably rare in Manhattan.38 And even if they may have been less rare in 3rd Century Rome, 37 Kammerer interpreted seriality in terms of Newton’s law of inertia: “In an inertial frame of reference, an object either remains at rest or continues to move at a constant velocity, unless acted upon by a force.” Cf. “Das Seriengesetz ist Ausdruck des Beharrungsgesetzes der in seinen Wiederholungen mitspielenden (die Serie in Szene setzenden) Objekte.” Kammerer, 1919, p. 117. 38 Lou Marinoff (2009). Synchronicities, Serpents, and ‘Something-Else-ness’. A Meta-Dialogue on Philosophy and Psychotherapy. In Philosophical Practice. Nov. 2009, 4.3., pp. 520ff. Interestingly, Jung writes in 1928: “Das Schlangenmotiv ist gewiss keine individuelle Erwerbung des Träumers, denn Schlangenträume sind

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it may have surprised Eustochius, sitting at Plotinus’ death bed, to see a snake “slipping into the hole of the wall” “at the same moment” that his master died.39 Having a synchronicity experience may give one the feeling of dreaming, ‘eyes wide shut’. (Main, 2004, Ch. 6; 2007, Ch. 3) Interpreting synchronicity experiences, whether one’s own, or others’, closely resembles dream interpretation. It seems as if such experiences coincidentally bring together waking and sleeping.40 I will not lose myself here in adducing individual casuistry. Other than one might expect, this will only raise doubt about its reliability and aggravate scepticism. The sole casuistry that I think could be useful mentioning here regards synchronicity experiences in philosophers, artists, and scientists.41 Below, I will discuss a few examples from each category. I hypothesise that creative insights and ideas are surrounded by synchronicities, which one could see as their birth pangs. The reliability question cannot be silenced here, either. Still, to the extent that the genius of philosophers, artists, and scientists is already an anthropological enigma, the occurrence of synchronicity experiences concomitant with intellectual or artistic creativity does not only intensify this enigma; it also confirms the veracity, both of the genius and the experiences. “Talent and genius,” Kammerer notes, not only “show us the capacity to distinctive analysis […], but also the capacity to sehr häufig, sogar bei Großstadtmenschen, die vielleicht überhaupt nie eine wirkliche Schlange gesehen haben.” C.G. Jung (1946, 1931). Seelenprobleme der Gegenwart. Zürich: Rascher Verlag, p. 158; my italics. 39 Porphyry, Life of Plotinus I, 2. Also cf Ludwig Klages: “Als Schleichendes ist die Schlange Darstellungsform eines Wesens, das bei tausend Gelegenheiten zur Darstellung kommt, bald dingartig, bald eigenschaftsartig, bald zustandsartig und dergestalt durch irgendeinen Verwandtschaftszug verknüpf bar wird z. B. mit dem menschlichen (‘Schleicher’ und den ihm dienenden ‘Schlichen’!)” Klages, 1981, p. 382; my italics. 40 “so ist es eine jedermann geläufige Traumgewohnheit, alle möglichen geträumten Erlebnisse zu verknüpfen, die mit einander gar nichts zu tun haben”. Kammerer, 1919, p. 98. In other words, only the ‘dreamer’ sees the connection; upon awakening, causal logic intervenes and blinds one for the synchronicity of dream logic. 41 Kammerer catalogued and classified many individual synchronicity experiences in his Das Gesetz der Serie. For a more recent collection see Phil Cousineau (1997). Soul Moments. Marvelous Stories of Synchronicity – Meaningful Coincidences from a Seemingly Random World. Berkeley, CA: Conari Press. Also see John Michell, Robert Rickard (1977). Phenomena. A Book of Wonders. London: Thames and Hudson; and Alan Vaughn (1979). Incredible Coincidences: The Baffling World of Synchronicity. New York: Ballantine.

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bring about an immediate synthesis of this analysis, as it were to reduce and invert the differentiating process, and to connect things which the average man would never associate.” (Kammerer, 1919, p. 98; my trans.)42 Social level “We are now of the opinion that the birth of culture coincided everywhere with a transition to the sympathetic state of feeling, which only a select number amongst the peoples was allotted with achieving.” —Ludwig Klages43

If (1) a synchronicity experience is a soul experience, and if (2) it can occur to individuals and groups of people alike (even to humanity as a whole), then the conclusion would be that ‘soul’ is a category which both regards and exceeds the individual. We have already seen in the previous chapters that, as the soul is no dividable object, this conclusion – while perhaps difficult to understand – is not surprising in itself. Phenomena like empathy, telepathy or clairvoyance testify to supra-individual forms of awareness. The de-animated object language, which dominates today, makes it much harder to give expression to the supra-individual. Global synchronicities may invite us, not necessarily to merge the individual and the societal, but at least to re-think their connection. Examples of synchronicity on a societal or even global level will be less ambiguous for modern, sceptical readers than individual casuistry. The American sociologist Robert K. Merton speaks here of “multiple independent discoveries”.44 What to think for instance of the global simultaneity of several groundbreaking inventions in pre-history (e.g. of the wheel, fire, agriculture)? In addition to the pre-historical era, one could refer to the more recent discovery of the infinitesimal calculus (Leibniz, Newton), oxygen (Priestly, 42 Cf Rosenzweig: “Der Urheber fällt so wenig wie sonst ein Meister fertig vom Himmel; Genie ist durchaus nicht, wie die allgemeine Bildung heute meint, angeboren, sondern, weil auf dem Selbst und nicht bloß in der Persönlichkeit beruhend, überfällt es den Menschen eines Tages; Wunderkinder sind keine Genies und haben nicht mehr Aussicht es zu werden als jeder andere Mensch, während andrerseits ein Genie, das es einmal ist, nie aufhört es zu sein; noch Verkommenheit, noch Wahnsinn sind beim Genie genial.” Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 165. 43 Ludwig Klages, 1974, p. 404; trans., p. 132. 44 Robert K. Merton, (1979). The Sociology of Science. Theoretical and Empirical Investigations. Chicago and London: University Of Chicago Press, pp. 371-382. Also see Kammerer, 1919, p. 23.

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Lavoisier, Scheele), or the evolution of species (Darwin, Wallace). As regards inventions, it is striking that the cross bough, magnetism, and the blast furnace have been invented simultaneously and yet at a considerable distance from each other. In his famous book Configurations of Culture Growth, the American anthropologist Alfred Kroeber describes many global patterns that the rise and development of cultures often seem to follow. (Kroeber, 1963, pp. 17-20) Kroeber extensively quotes the ancient Roman historian, Velleius Paterculus, who rhetorically asks, “who can marvel sufficiently that the most distinguished minds in each branch of human achievement have happened to adopt the same form or effort [in eandem formam], and to have fallen within the same narrow space of time [et in idem artati temporis congruere spatium]? […] [T]he minds that have had the capacity for distinguished achievement of each kind [clari operis capacia ingenia] have set themselves apart from the rest by doing like things in the same period of time [in similitudine et temporum et profectuum].”45 The second example of synchronicity on a global scale would be the simultaneous rise of the future world religions and global worldviews in what Karl Jaspers called the axial age (Achsenzeit). Buddha, Confucius, Lao-ze, the Jewish prophets, and Socrates lived and worked in a period roughly between 600 and 300 BCE. Thirdly, it was Michel Foucault who detected several remarkable sociophilosophical synchronicities characterising historical epochs. One of the most significant examples Foucault discovered concerned the altering ways of societal strategies to deal with insanity precisely at the time that Descartes demarcated the rational from the irrational. Instead of being allowed to linger around in town centres, Foucault noticed, madmen and lunatics were suddenly closed up in strictly supervised mental asylums and hospitals. Foucault’s account differs from the Hegelian in that it deprives the ‘epochs’ of their ultimate intelligibility.46 Next, on a microscopic level, one could think of the biological phenomenon of morphogenesis; that is, the embryonic development towards a uniform organism. Despite contemporary scientific biology’s dismissal, or at best, 45

Velleius Paterculus, Roman History I, in Kroeber, p. 17. Latin key words added by me, RS. 46 Cf Karl Joël on the simultaneous rise of ancient Greek natural philosophy on the one hand and of lyrical poetry on the other. Cf. Karl Joël (1906). Ursprung der Naturphilosophie aus dem Geiste der Mystik. Jena: Eugen Diederichs Verlag, p. 38. Also cf Ludwig Klages, 1981, p. 912.

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neglect, of famous (and daring) morphogenetic theorists, such as Hans Driesch, Paul Kammerer, and Rupert Sheldrake, the problem of morphogenesis is still unresolved (and is likely to remain unresolved within the predominant causal parameters). Finally, even though their scientific reputation has become debated, disciplines such as physiognomy, graphology, and Gestalt psychology, can very well be interpreted as forms of synchronicity awareness, Insofar as distinct causal chains concur to form a meaningful whole that supersedes those causal chains. In sum, simultaneous inventions, the coeval rise of the future world religions, historical epochs, biological morphogenesis, and synthesising ‘sciences’ testify to synchronicities on a supra-individual level. These examples, while being not adequately protected against further analysis, somehow resist exhaustive explanation in terms of efficient causality. They give a picture of what Friedmann called ‘optic,’ as opposed to ‘haptic,’ causality, or what Kammerer termed as ‘seriality’. But since the concept of ‘causality’ today is generally identified with efficient causality, let us see how defining synchronicity as an acausal relation (as Jung did) can already be helpful. Acausality “It is certain that the determination which reaches out from the optic towards the haptic world but which roots in the optic world, cannot on its turn be conceived haptically.” —Hermann Friedman47

Synchronicity experiences regard a coalescence, a production of unity or uniformity, without there being any identifiable maker or originator. This ‘production’ ought to be taken as subject-less, as a pure event; as an inconvenient event without a convener; that is, without a subject or an agent. Should such an originator be identified in the final analysis (which cannot be theoretically excluded, obviously), then: 1) synchronicity would be debunked, 2) linear, efficient causality restored, and also 3) the synchronic event’s meaningfulness undermined. I tacitly assume that the imposition of ‘meaning’ onto a subject by a hidden actor (‘God,’ an unknown ‘natural law,’ etc.) is less ‘meaningful’ – if at all – than a freely discovered, selfrevelatory meaning. The ‘meaningfulness’ of a state of affairs or an event is indeed diminished by any secret agency or by intentions ‘behind the screen’. 47

Hermann Friedmann, 1930, p. 52; my trans.

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Instead, it would be plausible that meaning only becomes significant by virtue of its independent discovery. Does not the concept of ‘meaning’ itself imply an unmistakable reference to a subject experiencing it? The significance of ‘meaning,’ I would suggest, is proportionate to the becoming-transparent or -translucent of an event; this process is always gradual and cannot be rushed. ‘Meaning,’ then, is identical to the experience of a revelation without a revealer. If a revealer finally reveals himself, the meaning gets lost (unless revealer and revelation coincide). Imposed meanings are meaningless. The notion of ‘discovery’ is analytically implied by the concept of ‘meaning’. Insofar as ‘meaning’ is not an isolated object but something that supervenes upon a particular significant constellation, one could even argue that a single individual’s discovery of meaning compares (to say the least) to scientific discovery; both keep pace with synchronicity. ‘Synchronicity’ comes down to the experience of a meaningful coincidence, a concurrence of events without any common, clearly identifiable cause. It is as though a synchronicity experience stages a cross-cut of time and space, linking independent causal chains in an acausal yet meaningful way. Causal explanations seem implausible or even impossible since the event apparently obeys a different logic. To the extent that scientific rhetoric is conditioned by (restricted) causality, any meaningful account of a synchronicity experience challenging causality is excluded at the outset. The ‘subject’ of synchronicity experience So far, I have mentioned two reasons why science cannot reasonably cope with synchronicity experiences. Firstly, it has fully surrendered to a limited causality concept, which has become standard. Secondly, like it is not enough that synchronicity experiences transcend ‘ordinary’ causality, these experiences affect the subject of scientific research and its habitual observational stance. They reflect the subject’s altered state of mind and exclude any objecti-fication. Interestingly, it is frequently noticed that people with an altered state of mind – e.g. when in mourning, or a mental or spiritual crisis, etc., but also when being in a more uplifting state such as happiness or inspiration – are more susceptible to synchronistic events than others. While medieval thinkers such as Avicenna and Albertus Magnus already testify to this remarkable fact, more recent philosophers as different as Schelling, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Walter Benjamin, Gabriel Marcel or Jacques Derrida equally second it. (Gerding et al., 2014)

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How to justify (purified, non-intellectualist) teleology, or even synchronicity, in the age of science and causality? Clearly, the aforementioned philosophical attempts to preserve teleology could not remain unaffected by mainstream scientific ‘causal’ thinking. More than Aristotle’s physics had ever been, this renewed teleology was exposed to the critical question as to how this purported ‘teleological’ structure or pattern is to be accessed. It would be superficial to claim that every single philosopher satisfactorily dealt with this question. However, there is one conviction that the advocates of finality or synchronicity shared: the subject position itself must be altered to become susceptible to this ‘extended’ causality. To Hegel, it was evident that Verstand (intellect) is limited and that it needs Vernunft to overcome its limits. The theorists of the unconscious (Von Hartmann, Du Prel, Myers, etc.) explicitly took into account an alternative, deepened form of consciousness from which to assess inner and outer processes. Klages expressly defends ecstasy as a breaking of the Ego shell that prevents one from just following the tendency of our internal drives. Driesch stayed as long as possible on the observational level to address organic ‘entelechy’; realising, however, that this would only bring him indirect evidence, he finally referred to inner experience or self-awareness to complete his argument with direct evidence – an unusual move for a scientific biologist. It will be my claim here that synchronicity experiences require the altered state of consciousness that characterises not only great philosophers and artists but also scientific theorists. Forming new, philosophical or scientific ‘ideas’ capable of incorporating anomalous experiences involves the unusual bringing together of disparate ‘pieces’ of evidence and playing in different sensorial registers simultaneously.48 The paradigm shifts brought about by renewing scientists entail the creation or formation of ideas (‘functives,’ as Deleuze and Guattari call them) that cannot be justified on the sole account of the prevailing scientific paradigm, let alone that these ideas will be the outcome of mere calculation or reasoning. The same applies to philosophical or artistic renewal; it will be based on insights, views or visions (‘concepts’ or ‘percepts’) out of reach for the predominant approaches. Could it be so that scientists, philosophers, and artists capture a synchronicity, and that this synchronicity is surrounded by synchronicity experiences that function as its ‘harbingers’? In what follows, I will partly use Deleuze’s and Guattari’s tripartition of 48

For a related yet slightly different approach, see Wouter Kusters (2016). Filosofie en waanzin. Kristalreceptuur: naar een ommekeer van de natuurlijke levenshouding. In Tijdschrift voor Filosofie, 78.

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philosophy, art, and science as a guideline. Deleuze and Guattari associate philosophy with concepts, art with percepts and affects, and science with functives. Philosophy, art, and science, they argue, are three different ways to deal with reality, which, in their view, is itself ultimate chaos. Although I disagree with this view of reality, I find their tripartition helpful; especially Insofar as the ‘tools’ they attribute to each field of application represent, what I would call, ‘condensed synchronicities’. The nature of these condensed synchronicities, I argue, are reflected in the mind (‘soul’) of the philosopher, artist, or scientist. The process of creating a philosophical concept, an artistic percept, or a scientific functive is often demonstrably embedded in a synchronistic pattern of experience. As regards the latter, it is not my intention here to convince, nor even to give cogent arguments. It would be preposterous to claim that one could ever collect sufficient biographical details, check their reliability, and produce irrefutable evidence. I only want to give some hints that might point in the direction of possible synchronicity experiences accompanying creative processes. For any assessment of the veracity of the few examples listed below, I propose to follow the same, pragmatic criteria as William James endorsed when assessing the veracity of religious experiences: “immediate luminousness,” “philosophical reasonableness,” and “moral helpfulness”.49 In light of the idea-generators’ indubitable philosophical, artistic, and scientific achievements – achievements which could be associated with synchronicity experiences –, I believe that all examples proffered below meet these criteria. Philosophers As just suggested, founding philosophical ideas – even beyond the conditions of their genesis – may already by themselves represent consolidated synchronicities. Deleuze and Guattari, who to my knowledge do not use the term ‘synchronicity,’ state that philosophy’s core business is the creation of concepts. Interestingly, they underline that philosophical concepts do not designate anything. Instead, they say, such concepts consist of events (événements); they have event character.50 Therefore, philosophical concepts are no referential tools at the free disposal of philosophers; they instead form a unity of the thinking subject (the philosopher) and its 49 William James (1997, 1902). The Varieties of Religious Experience. A Study in Human Nature. New York: Simon & Schuster, p. 33. 50 “tandis que les événements sont la consistance de concept.” Deleuze & Guattari, 1991, p. 143.

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thinking experience: “The concept […] is […] immanence of the lived to the subject, act of transcendence of the subject in relation to variations of the lived [vécu], totalisation of the lived or function of these acts” (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991, p. 135f; trans. p. 142) If valid, this interpretation would apply to any philosophical concept, ranging from Plato’s idéa, to Nietzsche’s Macht, Hegel’s Geist or Heidegger’s Sein: they express the founding experience of a particular philosophy, or the event that has made and will make that philosophy a viable philosophy. “It is a concept that apprehends the event, its becoming, its inseparable variations”. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991, p. 150; trans. p. 158) I find Deleuze’s and Guattari’s approach of philosophical concepts very convincing. It not only mitigates the exclusive pretensions of these concepts, but it also associates concepts (or ideas) with events which are viable because they are unique. In virtue of being philosophers, thinkers coincide with the philosophical concepts they have created. The implication, however, is twofold. Firstly, the initial philosophical concept or idea itself cannot be comprehended by peers in the final analysis; at best, these peers can try to think in a similar vein. But, secondly, precisely because of the unique constellation it captures (‘apprehends’), the concept or idea will become viable for others. As if only synchronistic uniqueness offers viability. But can we distinguish the synchronistic nature of concepts or ideas from the state of mind that accompanies the thinker when they arrive at them? As said, we often lack adequate (auto)biographical accounts that would substantiate my claim that idea generation involves susceptibility to synchronicity experiences. As suggested by James in his discussion of religious experiences, the alleged synchronicities will be corroborated by their “immediate luminousness,” their “philosophical reasonableness,” and their “moral helpfulness”. If the synchronicity experiences can be attested at all, their philosophical, artistic, or scientific outcomes would strongly support their reliability. I will now briefly present three examples: Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s coming across an advertisement for an essay competition at the Dijon Academy; Ludwig Klages’ intuitively sensing the relevance of quoting a German poet when visiting a Viennese park; and the intertwinement of text and personal experience in the work of Jacques Derrida as a whole. As suggested earlier, whether these examples refer to ‘serendipities’ or ‘synchronicities’ cannot be distinguished since we have no access to the intentions, let alone the subconscious, of these philosophers. I prefer to speak of synchronicities here.

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To start with Rousseau: it is highly informative to thoroughly re-read the detailed description in the Confessions of the events preceding the writing of his prize-winning essay on sciences and arts, in 1750.51 As is well-known, this essay inaugurated Rousseau’s career as an independent philosopher. Upon his return to Paris, Rousseau heard that his friend Diderot had just been released from prison and was given house arrest at Vincennes castle. Rousseau intended to visit him on foot, as taking a carriage was too expensive for him. The intense summer heat delayed his walk. During a short break, his eyes fell on an advertisement in the newspaper that he had coincidentally bought; it announced an essay competition at the Dijon Academy. “The moment I had read this,” Rousseau writes, “I seemed to behold another world, and became a different man [je vis un autre univers et je devins un autre homme].” And he continues: “All I distinctly recollect upon this occasion is, that on my arrival at Vincennes, I was in an agitation which approached a delirium.” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 351; trans. Aldus Society, book VIII; my italics, RS) Granted, Rousseau complains that, from that moment onward, he was lost, owing all his subsequent miseries to the start of his writing career. But still, “[m]y sentiments became elevated with the most inconceivable rapidity to the level of my ideas. All my little passions were stifled by the enthusiasm of truth, liberty, and virtue; and, what is most astonishing, this effervescence continued in my mind upwards of five years, to as great a degree perhaps as it has ever done in that of any other man.” (Ibid., my italics). My next example is Ludwig Klages. The example shows that Klages combines a sharp intuition of what he calls genius loci – the guardian spirit of a specific location – with an overall premonition of imminent threat. Needless to say that Klages’ sensitivity to imminent threat pervades his entire philosophy (which is strongly inspired by environmental concerns and worries about the increasing agony of nature). Biographically, this sensitivity seems to have densified in 1910, during a short visit to a city park in Vienna with his host, a local friend who had invited him to his house. During the walk, Klages suddenly hears the vibrating strings of an Aeolian harp that had been hung in the trees. He responds to the sound by spontaneously quoting two lines from the German Romantic poet Nikolaus 51 Having selected the Rousseau example relatively at random, I now realise that the subtitle of his essay, i.e., Si le rétablissement des Sciences & des Arts a contribué à épurer les moeurs, may appear in a new light once James’ third criterion of veracity (“moral helpfulness”) is adduced. Rousseau’s denial of the question, provided that it originates in a veridic synchronicity experience, may itself contribute to the purification of morality.

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Lenau: “Wie auf dem Lager sich der Seelenkranke, / So wirft im Wind der Strauch sich hin und her.” (‘like the mentally ill in asylums, / bushes are thrown back and forth in the wind’) His amazed host, whose wife happened to be severely ill at the time, informs Klages that in 1850, Lenau had died insane in the mental asylum neighbouring their park. There was even a commemorative plaquette. Klages showed himself just as amazed as his host, as he was wholly unaware of the proximity of this mental asylum; moreover, he had not read Lenau for a long time. Relating this event many years after, Klages adds the following testimony: “I have never erred concerning the future destiny of peoples, but I often erred concerning single characters, and foresight and premonitions are completely withheld from me. The reality of the genius loci, however, has more than only once revealed itself to me.” Nevertheless, Klages mildly concludes, “I take the entire affair as a coincidence [möchte ich die Sache für Zufall halten].”52 For a third example, I would like to refer to the work of Jacques Derrida. It abounds with synchronicities. These synchronicities regard not only the apparently collateral (yet highly significant) findings in the texts which Derrida reads and comments but also personal incidents during the writing process itself. Citing examples of meaningful textual discoveries in Derrida’s readings only makes sense if one realises three things. Firstly, for a fuller understanding of the hermeneutic impact of those discoveries, a meticulous reproduction of the entire context of the commented fragments would be indispensable – whereas I can only give a snapshot here. The second thing one needs to realise is that the whole pragmatics of Derrida’s text reading comes down to an unearthing of synchronicities. Thirdly, the community of Derridean philosophers and exegetes today is well aware of these synchronicities; yet, it ignores or denies the possible psycho-ontological credits these synchronicities may receive. Here are three brief snapshots of synchronistic finds in Derrida’s work. 1) In a cross-reading of Maurice Blanchot’s text Le récit and Shelley’s 52

Hans Eggert Schröder (1996, 1972). Ludwig Klages. Die Geschichte seines Lebens. Das Werk I (1905-1920). Bonn: Bouvier Verlag, p. 501; my trans. Also see E.T.A. Hoffmann: “Was den Organisten betrifft, der Euch draußen in dem Park schauerliche Chorale vorgespielt hat, so ist das niemand anders gewesen, als der Nachtwind, der durch die Lüfte brausend daherfuhr, und vor dem die Saiten der Wetterharfe erklangen. Ja ja, Kreisler, die Wetterharfe habt Ihr vergessen, die zwischen den beiden Pavillons am Ende des Parks aufgespannt ist.” Hoffmann, 2006, p. 183.

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unfinished poem The Triumph of Life, Derrida suddenly realises that Shelley had drowned close to an Italian town called Lerici (le récit - Lerici). 2) In a commentary on Walter Benjamin’s text Zur Kritik der Gewalt, which concludes with the enigmatic sentence that only divine – and not mythical – power can be rightfully called die waltende (‘sovereign’), Derrida refers to Benjamin’s proper name, Walter – thereby also critically suggesting that Benjamin usurps divine power by pretending to identify it (walten - Walter). 3) Finally, in a text on the American speech act philosopher John Searl, Derrida expresses a critique of the latter’s lack of responsibility by associating his name with the French S.A.R.L. (société à responsibilité limité), a limited liability company (Searl - S.A.R.L.).53 For examples of synchronicity experiences occurring in Derrida’s life while writing, one could consult a variety of his texts or sources. I could, for instance, refer to the events urging Derrida to finally pronounce himself on the subject of ‘negative theology’ – of which Derrida had repeatedly been ‘accused’ despite his relentless denial. These events are memorised in his famous text ‘Comment ne pas parler. Dénégations’.54 Next, it is intriguing to read how, during the preparations for an exhibition at the Louvre museum in Paris, partial facial paralysis in combination with a nightmare about being attacked by blind people, inspire Derrida to focus on the topic of blindness – both in, and as a constituent of, drawing and painting. For a preliminary title of the exhibition, he considers the following: L’ouvre où ne pas voir (L’ouvre – ‘opens it’ – Louvre).55 A third biographical example would be that, while writing an autobiographical text alongside Augustin’s Confessiones (‘Circonfessions’), Derrida not only discovers several striking similarities with Augustin, the trendsetter of the autobiographical genre itself; he also realises that they were both born in the same country (Algeria), and that his own birth house was located in the rue St. Augustin. Incidentally, when writing his ‘Circonfessions,’ Derrida’s beloved mother was languishing on her death-bed. Also, she had Alzheimer’s disease. (Derrida & Bennington, 1991)

53 Cf Jacques Derrida (1986). Parages. Paris: Galilée; id. (1994). Prénom de Benjamin. In Force de loi. Paris: Galilée; and id. (1990) Limited Inc. Paris: Galilée. 54 In Jacques Derrida (1987). Psyché. Inventions de l’autre. Paris: Galilée. Cf. p. 547 n.1. 55 Benoît Peeters (2010). Derrida. Paris: Flammarion, p.497f; Jacques Derrida (1990). Mémoires d’aveugle. L’autoportrait et autre ruines. Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, p. 38.

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Artists The susceptibility of artists to synchronicity seems even more apparent. Deleuze and Guattari argue that similar to the philosophical concept, the artistic percept can be seen as a unique condensation of heterogeneous elements. A percept, in Deleuze and Guattari, unites a variety of sensations or affects; in such a way as to produce a self-contained creation: the artwork (“the compound [le composé] must stand up on its own”; Deleuze/Guattari, 1991, p. 155; trans. p. 164). My point here is that the artwork (le composé) is self-contained because of its uniquely composed character; its ‘synchronicity’ warrants its endurance. One might think here of Mozart, who wrote in a letter on composing music that “the whole, though it be long, stands almost complete and finished in my mind, so that I can survey it, like a fine picture or a beautiful statue at a glance. Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, but I hear them, as it were, all at once (gleich alles zusammen).” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 34) In line with Deleuze and Guattari, one could say that the music composer creates a composition that can be performed by whomever, whenever, wherever. To the extent that this is possible, I would add, it will be a real work of art. According to Deleuze and Guattari, it can ultimately dispense with both creator and spectator, by virtue of its (synchronistic) combination of unpredictable and yet necessary constituents: “The artist's greatest difficulty is to make it stand up on its own [le fasse tenir debout tout seul]. Sometimes this requires what is, from the viewpoint of an implicit model, from the viewpoint of lived perceptions and affections, great geometrical improbability56, physical imperfection, and organic abnormality. But these sublime errors accede to the necessity of art if they are internal means of standing up (or sitting or lying).” (Deleuze/Guattari, 1991, p. 155; trans., p. 164) In light of our previous discussion of (standardised) causality, it may become clear that the artwork, and the percept on which it is based, is the exact opposite of a repeatable unit susceptible to testing or experimentation. In terms of Deleuze and Guattari, it would be the opposite of a unit that relies on the perception of a spectator or a creator. Because of its “sublime errors,” art assumes “necessity” character. Needless to say that this necessity is not sustained by efficient causality, as would be requisite in modern science. Instead, I would say that it thrives on receptivity to synchronicity. “One material is exchanged for another, like the violin for 56

Cf Francesca Woodman’s “disordered geometries” discussed in the first chapter.

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the piano, one kind of brush for another, oil for pastel, only inasmuch as the compound of sensations requires it.” (Deleuze/Guattari, 1991, p. 157f; trans., p. 167; my italics) In his early years, the German Romantic composer Johannes Brahms remarkably identified with a literary character from E.T.A. Hoffmann’s novels (Lebens-Ansichten des Katers Murr, Fantasiestücke in Callots Manier), the Kapellmeister Johannes Kreisler. Brahms even signed his first compositions with the name “Joh. Kreisler jun.” Incidentally, Hoffmann, who was not only a novelist but also a reviewer of music, sometimes did the same. As has been pointed out by Siegfried Kross57, in a thorough crossreading of both Brahms’ letters and testimonies and Hoffmann’s novel, the Kapellmeister’s musings often surprisingly anticipate Brahms’. Kross juxtaposes two passages, one from Hoffmann and one from Brahms, in which the inner struggles of the composers are described in such a way that the same person might have written them. (Kross, 1982, p. 196f) He also quotes a passage from Kater Murr which seems to anticipate Brahms’ exchanging his family name for the name Kreisler: “I will call you by the gentle name Johannes so that I may at least hope that behind the satyr’s mask a gentle spirit is hidden after all. And then! I will never be convinced that the bizarre name Kreisler was not smuggled in and substituted for a quite different family name.” (Kross, 1982, p. 197) In a conversation with the German-Hungarian composer-violinist Joseph Joachim and the American music critic Arthur Abell (the reliability of which is sometimes disputed), Brahms is supposed to have called out: “What an extraordinary coincidence, that the world’s two most inspired literary geniuses [i.e., Shakespeare and Milton] both had that same realisation that a more than earthly power dictated to them, when they soared to such sublime heights in their day-dreams.”[…] I often think of them before I commence to create something new.” (Abell, 2016, Ch. 4) It seems impossible, however, to disentangle the temporal order of Brahms’ discoveries of his musical talents and his reading of Hoffmann’s novel. The least one can say is that the young Brahms was on the verge of merging with his literary alter ego. This might worry since Hoffmann’s Kapellmeister turned out to be half-mad. In a letter to Clara Schumann from 15 August 1854, Brahms wrote: “I often argue with myself, which means that Kreisler 57

Siegfried Kross (1982). Brahms and E.T.A. Hoffmann. In 19-th Century Music 5/3. Also cf. Jan Swafford (1999). Johannes Brahms. A Biography. New York: Vintage, Ch. 2.

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and Brahms are struggling. But usually each of them has his own opinion and they fight it out. This time, however, both are utterly confused, and neither knows what he wants.”58 After 1854, Kross writes, the references to Kreisler disappear in Brahms’ writings. It seems as if Hoffmann’s Kapellmeister Kreisler had helped the young Brahms to discover his inner genius and to articulate and develop it. The essence of this genius, according to Brahms in the conversation above with Joachim and Abell, is “synchronisation”. It would be useless to merely bring himself under hypnosis without bringing back the revealed mysteries to waking consciousness. As a composer, he concludes, one needs “the power to synchronise”. (Abell, 2016, Ch. 4) The implication of this remark, I would add, is that for lacking this faculty, ‘somnambulists’ like the seeress of Prevorst could never become real artists (provided that they had the required additional technical skills). Instead, Akiane Kramarik seems to be capable of this ‘synchronisation’. The German poet Stefan George, to whose poetic circle Ludwig Klages had temporarily belonged, was obsessed with Spain. His love for anything Spanish had started on the Bingen grammar school of his youth, where he had met a Venezuelan classmate; it was invigorated after having befriended three Mexican youngsters during a short stay in Paris. When finally visiting Spain, he felt overpowered by “the rare feeling of revisiting [Wiedersehens] a long lost fatherland”. It was as if Spain “opened inside him an uncanny depth of memory [unheimlicher Tiefenraum der Erinnerung]”. George’s biographer, Thomas Karlauf, gives more details about this deep love for Spain and the way it is reflected in his poetry. One of his early poems even speaks of a “transformation of his soul” (Wandel der Seele) due to “seeing” the palm trees “again” (wiedersah): Wandel der Seele geschah Als ich die üppig und edel Zu mir sich neigenden wedel Erster palmen wiedersah.59

Whereas in my view, already these unconscious reminiscences related to Spain are indicative of a repetitive-synchronistic pattern60, the ‘outside’ 58

Clara Schumann - Johannes Brahms, Briefe I, 9; quoted in Kross (1982), p. 199. Gesamtausgabe III. 88, quoted in Thomas Karlauf (2008, 2007). Stefan George. Die Entdeckung des Charisma. München: Pantheon, p. 119. 60 “Die mit gewaltigen Mitteln ins Werk gesetzte Utopie Philipps II., der den Prozess der Säkularisierung stoppen und eine spirituelle Erneuerung des Lebens aus der 59

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world seemed to enhance George’s inner penchants. Interestingly, upon returning home from Spain to Bingen and when finally arriving in Berlin by mid-July 1889, the first people he coincidentally met there were his old Spanish (Mexican) friends, whose father had meanwhile been reallocated from Paris to Berlin. Without these three young Spanish boys, George writes, he would “hardly have come out of his room [wohl weniger aus seiner Stube gekommen]”.61 As if his Stube represented his soul being still enclosed upon itself, and as if exiting it equalled the exposition of his intimacy to the outside world (if not his re-connection with it). Scientists If philosophy deals with concepts and art with percepts, science is concerned with functives. A functive, Deleuze and Guattari argue, is a retarding limit (Ralentie) which science imposes upon the flux of reality to enable measuring it. Functives tend to be expressed in (mathematical, chemical, etc.) formulae, that consist of variables. This makes them applicable: scientific formulae are susceptible to concretisation. How would a functive or a formula relate to a synchronistic pattern? One would say that the application or applicability of a formula yields (efficient or material) causality, and therefore excludes synchronicity. Adding two hydrogen atoms to one oxygen atom produces a water molecule (H2O). Multiplying a circle’s radius with 2ʌ leads to the measure of its circumference (2ʌr). The volume of a sphere can be put as V = 4/3 ʌ r3. Energy equals mass times the speed of light squared (E = mc2). However, as a compound, these formulae represent a synchronistic constellation, at least Insofar as there is no superior cause available on account of which this compound can be explained. As a compound, the formula explains without being explicable itself. The measuring rod cannot be measured itself. Concerning scientists who experienced synchronicities during the process of their discoveries, we are just as handicapped as in the case of philosophers and artists: we can only rely on personal testimonies. If we have reason to doubt the reliability of these testimonies, then we can resort to James’ criteria (“immediate luminousness,” their “philosophical reasonableness,” and their “moral helpfulness”) to assess them. To avoid Kraft des Glaubens herbeiführen wollte, wurde für den 21-jährigen George zum Déjà-vu. Spanien – das war die Reise in eine ferne Zeit, die sich als Teil der eigenen Vergangenheit herausstellte.” Karlauf, 2008, p. 120. 61 For George-quotations and other biographical details see Karlauf, 2008, pp. 118121.

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overstating my argument, I will only give a few examples of possibly synchronicity-related discoveries.62 Three examples I will describe more extensively, viz., Descartes’ foundational dream, Hans Driesch’ encounter with his wife-to-be coinciding with a decisive turn to vitalist biology, and Paul Kammerer’s simultaneous confrontation with his proper name and a remarkable frog. I will end by briefly referring to Johannes Kepler, Galileo Galilei, and Freud. While René Descartes is usually classified as a philosopher, he can also be seen as a scientist; even more so as the unification of sciences under one mathematical header was his most profound concern. It is ironical to realise that Cartesian thinking (if not also its materialistic aftermath) started with an unusual dream the young Descartes had while reposing in a guesthouse in the German city of Ulm, on 10 November 1619. It was the first year of the atrocious Thirty Years War, that would bring about a significant turning point in European history. Descartes himself attributed great value to his dream, the meaning of which only became entirely clear to him one year later. His subsequent scientific and philosophical ideas seemed to have germinated in the dream, which consisted of three parts. Despite some references in the Discours de la méthode, Descartes’ own account of the dream is lost; its content has roughly been preserved, though, in Adrien Baillet’s Vie de Monsieur Descartes (1691). Baillet’s version is defective, but, as the Jungian scholar Marie-Louise von Franz observes in a fascinating study, parts of it return in Descartes’ writings. Von Frantz mentions the Neo-Thomist philosopher Jacques Maritain (1882-1973) as the first author to seriously study this dream in relation to Descartes’ thinking.63 According to Maritain, Descartes’ dream can be compared to the intellectualised via purgativa of mysticism. (Von Frantz, 1952, p. 58 n.3) Apart from two psychoanalytic articles, it has hardly received the attention it deserves. For details about Descartes’ dream, the mood he found himself in when having it (exhaustion), and his response to it (enthusiasm), I would instead refer to Von Frantz’ study.64 Here, I will only mention a few key elements, 62

For a slightly reductivist interpretation that nevertheless takes into account the role of coincidence in scientific discoveries, see Thomas L. Griffiths & Joshua B. Tenenbaum (2007). From mere coincidences to meaningful discoveries. In Cognition 103, pp. 180-226. 63 Jacques Maritain (1932). Le songe de Descartes. Paris: Éd. Corrêa; Von Frantz, 1952. 64 Also see Stephen Gaukroger (2003, 1995). Descartes. An Intellectual Biography. Oxford: Clarendon Press, pp.104-111.

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with an emphasis on Descartes’ explanation. Typical aspects of this dream are: walking through the streets and being suddenly captured by a stormwind; being awakened by a loud noise of thunder and ensuing fire sparks filling his room; and finally, seeing two unknown books: one a lexicon, the other a poetry collection containing both a poem entitled Quod vitae sectabor iter? (Which life shall I lead?), and a poem entitled Est et non (It is, and it is not). Exploring the poetry-book, Descartes came across several copperplate engravings. It is particularly noteworthy that Descartes, according to his statements (rendered by Baillet), had already started to interpret his dream while he was still sleeping. The lexicon, Descartes suggests, might refer to the inner unity of all sciences, whereas the poetry collection could represent the close link between philosophy and wisdom. Is not the miracle of wisdom, he continued, a product of divine enthusiasm and the power of imagination, and are not the latter often far more fertile than philosophical rationality? Wisdom, he suggested, inheres to human nature just as fire sparks to pebbles. The poets brought together in the poetry collection may well express the revelation and the enthusiasm which he had received. While Quod vitae sectabor iter? might refer to the importance of being guided by a wise person or moral theology, Est et non rather evokes the truth-and-error principle in the profane sciences and human knowledge. Could it be, Descartes wondered, that the spirit of wisdom itself had revealed the treasures of all sciences through this dream? Von Frantz, whose rendition of Baillet I am following here, finally mentions that for Descartes, there was no need any more also to find out the meaning of the copperplates; the next day, he was unexpectedly visited by an Italian painter.65 (Von Frantz, 1952, p. 67ff and passim) Just as Descartes, Hans Driesch was both a philosopher and a scientist. He started as a biologist and only later became a philosopher. In his autobiography, Driesch mentions the year 1898 as a significant turning point in his life. Not only did he definitively convert from materialism to vitalism; he also met his wife, Margarethe Reifferscheidt. This coincidence, which regards two key moments (public and private life), already has some 65 Von Frantz additionally mentions the French medievalist and art historian Gustave Cohen (1879-1958), who noticed “significant temporal rhythms” in Descartes’ life: on 10 November 1618 Descartes has a stimulating and decisive meeting with the Dutch physician Isaac Beeckman; on 10 November 1619 he has his dream; and on 11 November 1620 he finds his scientia mirabilis and its possible applications. Von Frantz, 1952, p. 58.

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significance in itself. As his autobiography shows, private life and scientific research were insolubly linked. Driesch became a major supporter of biological vitalism by addressing and proposing solutions for the puzzle of morphogenesis. Beyond his scientific successes, his marital life was happy, and his wife accompanied him on his many travels. Interestingly, there seems to be another link between the private and the public (apart from their personal impact). After having described how in 1899 he married in Naples, Driesch adds that he and his wife did not immediately agree on where they would live. At least for the winter, they would stay in Naples. Naples was the place where Driesch had done research with sea urchin embryo’s and where he started theorising about a non-material, unifying and life-making principle (‘entelechy’). Almost immediately after having mentioned their wedding and postponed settlement (über den Ort, wo meine Frau und ich uns niederlassen würden, waren wir uns noch nicht einig; Driesch, 1951, p. 112), Driesch describes how a discovery by his friend and colleague, Curt Herbst, enabled him to conduct his experiments with embryos more successfully. Growing blastomeres requires calcareous seawater (normales Seewasser) to preserve them (ihre Teilungsprodukte blieben von da an beisammen). Noncalcareous water will lead to premature termination of cell division (bei Fehlen des Calciums die Furchungszellen des Keimes nicht beieinander bleiben, sondern auseinander fallen, sodass es garnicht zur Bildung eines ‘Individuums’ kommt). Therefore, it can be used for researching the potencies of cells in their successive stages. (Ibid., p. 113) It should be noted that, during their honeymoon weeks, Driesch and his wife stayed in Cadenabbia, Beatenberg and on the Grosse Scheidegg (sic).66 “However, all this was obviously not a completed ‘honeymoon,’ the simple reason being that we did not have a reasonable chance [in näherer Aussicht hatten] at all of obtaining a permanent place of residence.” (Ibid., p. 112; my trans.) The calcareous mountainous regions of Switzerland, however, kept the itinerant young couple together until it finally settled in Heidelberg, where there son Kurt (named after Curt Herbst) was born.67 Toward the end of his autobiography, Driesch largely credits his repeated travels and relaxing strolls – rather than conscious laboratory work itself – 66 scheiden = splitting; Egg/egg. NB: what to think of Driesch’ wife’s name: Reifferscheidt? (Reife = ‘maturity’; scheidt = ‘split’); or even the adjective used in the autobiography (in entscheidender Zeit). 67 “Die Geburt unseres Sohnes machte uns natürlich etwas sesshafter”. Driesch, 1951, p. 129.

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for receiving flashes of insight and renewing ideas: “the ‘flashes of insight’ [‘Einfälle’] were given to me. They originate from my psychic constitution [Sie stammten aus meiner seelischen Anlage].” (Ibid., p. 295; my trans.) What is a prerequisite, however, is “an unconditional devotion to an idea” (bloßen Hingegebensein an eine Idee). (Ibid., p. 304)68 Driesch also explicitly admits that he is not insensitive to life coincidences, such as the remarkable role of the number 9 in his life data. (Ibid., p. 294) My third example concerns Paul Kammerer, whom I already introduced as a forerunner of Jung’s synchronicity concept (he coined the term ‘seriality’). Author of Das Gesetz der Serie, Kammerer was a widely respected researcher of reptiles and insects. A (probably false) accusation of scientific fraud with midwife toads made Kammerer take his own life. Just as Jung, Kammerer kept a log-book in which he registered samples of the coincidences or synchronicities he experienced from the age of twenty to forty. He listed these samples in Das Gesetz der Serie and subdivided them over the following categories: 1) numbers, 2) words and names, 3) persons, 4) mail, mainly letters, 5) dreams, 6) memories, 7) music, 8) science, 9) casualties and accidents, 10) crimes, 11) travels, and 12) other cases and events. (Kammerer, 1919, pp. 24-34) From the almost one hundred listed coincidences, I will only select two which are directly related to Paul Kammerer himself and his research. On 16 February 1917 Kammerer reads an article in a newspaper about the Kammersänger (Court or State singer) [Alfred] Piccaver. Upon subsequently placing an order in an order book, he notices that an order had just been placed for another Kammersänger. Entering his name in the order book, he realises that his own name (Kammerer) and the Court singer’s (Kammersänger) had been juxtaposed. (Ibid., p. 26) On 18 April 1915, Kammerer observed spawning common frogs (rana temporaria) in the Austrian countryside. This was unusually late in the year. Returning home, he suddenly spotted a similar frog in a dusty, arid city park, with a lot of people walking. It surprised him a lot since common frogs were not domestic in the area; one would instead have expected the agile frog 68 “Man übergibt gleichsam – das freilich muss man in bewusster Weise – einem ‘anderen’ den Auftrag zur Arbeit und dieser ‘andere,’ heiße er Seele, Unterbewusstsein oder wie sonst, arbeitet dann.” Driesch, 1951, p. 304. Similar to Driesch, Henri Poincaré mentions the inexplicable concomitance of his discoveries with periods of apparent inactivity of consciousness. Poincaré, 1920, p. 50f. His entire Science et méthode is dedicated to the ‘(il)logic’ of discovery.

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(rana agilis). (Ibid., p. 34) Someone skilled in dream interpretation would probably interpret these synchronistic coincidences in terms of prospective, yet unexpected fertility or success.69 Since an altered state of consciousness characterises both dreaming and synchronicity experiences, I am inclined to see synchronicity experiences as a form of ‘day-dreaming,’ if not as alternative forms of ‘somnambulism’.70 The three last examples (of Kepler, Galilei, and Freud) are perhaps only underpinning my argument if we try to imagine what kind of perception the scientific discoveries require. Their findings testify to an unusual bringing together – a co-perceiving of – two perceptions hitherto seen as fully heterogeneous. To us, who are mentally adjusted to their homogeneity, the revolutionary character of a co-perception of the heterogeneous – its synchronising character – is hardly understandable. By associating the celestial spheres with numbers, Johannes Kepler managed to combine astronomy and physics or natural philosophy. This was uncommon since astronomy used to be part of mathematics in his time, whereas natural philosophy was primarily based on qualitative, Aristotelian premises. Galilei may have been inspired by his prior study of design, fine art – including perspective and proportion – and music when suggesting heliocentrism. The founders of psychoanalysis (Janet, Freud, Jung) were extremely aware of almost imperceptible links between gestures, sounds and images; in the case study of the Ratman (der Rattenmann), already referred to in chapter 1, Freud discovers that the rat his patient was so obsessed with primarily had to be taken as a dense verbal knot combining 69 Coincidentally, straight after quoting Kammerer’s frog example, when haphazardly consulting Stefan George’s biography for a meaningful example, I subsequently opened his Poetry. I immediately came across the following poem: “Komm in den totgesagten park und schau: / Der schimmer ferner lächelnder gestade ·/ Der reinen wolken unverhofftes blau / Erhellt die weiher und die bunten pfade.” In Stefan George (2003). Die Gedichte. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, p. 274. In line with this would be Richard Wagner’s comment on the vision he had when composing Das Rheingold (he felt like sinking in a flood and laying at the bottom of the Rhine). He understood “that this vision of the rushing water was to symbolic of my future musical creations – that the stream of my life was to flow from within me.” Conversation with Engelbert Humperdinck in 1880. In Abell, 2016, Ch. 14. 70 Cf: “so ist es eine jedermann geläufige Traumgewohnheit, alle möglichen geträumten Erlebnisse zu verknüpfen, die mit einander gar nichts zu tun haben”. Kammerer, 1919, p. 98.

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several significant, yet unconscious anxieties and concerns of this patient. On a side-note, it is interesting to realise that not only Freud was sensitive to the merely verbal nature of the patient’s rat anxiety, but also the patient’s unconscious. For precisely due to this subliminal awareness, the Ratman could develop his obsessional neurosis.71 Correspondence between inner and outer world In the first chapter, I have discussed the soul as an inner and an outer phenomenon. Since the opposition between ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ relies upon a problematic notion of space, I interpreted both in terms of ‘direct’ and ‘indirect’. Soul as an inner phenomenon, I suggested, comes down to intimate experience or inwardness – even though such access is never fully protected from illusion and self-deception. The soul may be experienced as an outer phenomenon in its bodily projection (ideation), its production of kin, in organic self-relatedness, and repetitive constellations. The phenomenon of synchronicity confronts us with the possibility that the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ world (provided that we can still use this distinction in a meaningful way) meet or even coalesce. True, one could argue that this already happens whenever the soul is experienced as an outer phenomenon, for example, when contemplating organic ‘offspring’ or human ‘culture’. My point is that ‘synchronicity’ is not alien to what I termed as the soul’s ‘outer’ manifestation. Whereas the latter can be qualified as a temporalisation of space, the former can be defined as a spatialisation of time. I would like to elaborate a bit more on the relativity and philosophical inconclusiveness of the general distinction between ‘inside’ and ‘outside’. I will demonstrate that the disruption of this distinction in synchronicity experiences is not as odd as it seems at first sight. The latter affect the structure of subjectivity and, whatever its historical tenets, reveal its contingency. In synchronicity experiences, the bedrocks of subjectivity shake and are finally dissolved. If the structure of subjectivity is susceptible to being dismantled, this will have two implications. Firstly, it should be acknowledged that, since the subject persists in its subjectivity and identifies with it (in suo esse perseverare conatur), its concatenated system of identificatory and causal relations will be entirely impervious to dimensions or data that may 71 Also

see Friedmann, 1950, p. 169. And “dass mir ein Wichtiges Denkelement auch das ‘poetische’ ist,” “dass mein Verkehr mit Künstlern den mit Forschern erheblich überwog”. Ibid., p. 170.

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nonetheless be real. Consequently, this non-permeability will become constitutive for the nature of subjectivity in general. Any ‘science,’ therefore, that does not put into question causality – and, ultimately, the subject of science itself – might distort reality. The second implication of the subject’s liability to dissolution is that, should a perceiving subject be inwardly affected by experience – that is, in the conative depth structure of subjectivity itself – subject and object will become permeable for each other. They cannot be sharply distinguished anymore. Depending on average mental disposition, the person confronted with a synchronistic experience may initially believe they go mad. It will seem as though the outside world has become malleable and has started reflecting inner states of mind. In other words, it will be as if dimensions in the ‘outer’ world mirror ‘inner’ states of mind. Strange though it seems to a modern rational person, this mirroring is not so peculiar if we realise that the modern rational subject itself is a product, not a fact of nature. In his ground-breaking work Sources of the Self. The Making of the Modern Identity, Charles Taylor has shown that modern subjectivity, whether in its rationalist or its empiricist form, is the historical result of an ongoing ‘disengagement’; that is, of a self-imposed, conative receding from the outside world. The empiricist philosopher John Locke, according to Taylor, presupposes a ‘punctual self’ as a subject of perception, whereas the rationalist Descartes takes ‘disengaged reason’ as a starting point. (Taylor, 1989, pp. 143ff) Even they who believe this disengagement to be necessary or inevitable can easily see that it essentially excludes conscious contents. Kant, refilling the emptied Cartesian and Lockean consciousness with structured patterns (that is, the forms of sensation and the categories of thinking), did not challenge ‘disengaged reason’; its content, he claimed, was merely transcendental and implicit. With Hegel, consciousness and environment started to interact again, albeit in a fundamentally intelligible way, supposedly under dialectical control. Hegelian thinking is rife with observed synchronicities; however, it is highly doubtful if its pretention of dialectical control deepened its understanding of them.

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I cannot give an exhaustive picture here of the itinerary of consciousness throughout Western culture. Instead, let me briefly mention examples that equally suggest a correlation between inner and outer world. These examples would illustrate that, to access synchronistic correlations at all, common forms of subjectivity should be revised, and their exclusive claim to truth probed. Jung’s account of the soul would be the most telling example here. Though Jung was a psychiatrist, his views did have cosmological implications. Jung addressed an issue whose impact on consciousness cannot be underestimated: maturation. I will come back to maturation below when discussing physiognomy. I will define it as ‘soul adequacy’ or as ‘adequate image-processing’. Psychological maturation processes, Jung said, may reproduce the outer world as an extension of the mind.72 External events start reflecting or correspond to, what is going on inside. The concept of ‘maturation’ is immensely important since it does not take the human mind as a ready-made. It cannot even be excluded that a very immature soul proffers a highly acerb, sophisticated, irrefutable argument. In this context, it would be crucial to consider that philosophers, scientists, or artists are often viewed from the perspective of their development. “Darwin,” Joseph Joachim says in his conversation with Brahms, “was a great man; he made one of the most momentous discoveries in all human history, but only along materialistic lines. Spiritually, he was very backward in his own evolution”. And he continues saying that, “the fundamental error of these leading Victorian scientists of today, is that they believe only that which is revealed to the five senses; that which can be measured, weighed or proved by chemical analysis. Now scientific analysis ignores completely the true relation of the world to mankind; there are many higher, spiritual values such as beauty, love, intuition, harmony, order, inspiration, laws, the wonderful messages of the flowers, and music, which defy scientific analysis; and yet they are no less real than the palpable phenomena to which these scientists attach such importance. In fact, they are much more so, because these higher values are eternal, whereas those gross material things are fleeting and transitory. […] The immature materialistic doctrine – that the marvelous law and order prevailing in the universe – is the result of a ‘fortuitous concord of atoms,’ is, to my way of thinking, a far greater draft on the credulity than the crudest anthropomorphic conception of Divinity.”

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Ferenczi remarks that precipitate maturation may ensue trauma. Cf. Sándor Ferenczi (1933). Sprachverwirrung zwischen den Erwachsenen und dem Kind. In Sándor Ferenczi, Schriften zur Psychoanalyse II, p. 311.

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(Abell, 2016, Ch. 3) True, development does not necessarily imply maturity (cf the radicalisation of Sartre in his second phase), though it could do so. On the other hand, assessing maturity is not a matter that disregards the assessor themselves. (Preferring the early Wittgenstein to the later may – but need not – testify to immaturity in the assessor. Assessing Darwin’s materialism as immature may – but need not – testify to the assessor’s maturity.)73 For another example that sheds light on inner-outer world correspondence, I would like to refer to the French classical scholar Pierre Hadot (19222010). Hadot’s analyses reveal a typical feature of ancient philosophy frequently ignored today or even deliberately neglected. Hadot states that ancient philosophy required technologies of self-cultivation as adequate preparation for the acquisition of philosophical insight. It would be wrong and fully anachronistic to attribute to, e.g., Stoic thinkers a ‘primitive’ cosmology allegedly ‘corrected’ by modern science. The Stoic cosmology cannot be objectified since it only becomes intelligible to those “living in conformity with nature”.74 Michel Foucault, equally critical of the modern subject, its presuppositions and its usurpations, drew on Hadot’s interpretations when developing his late philosophy under the header ‘technologies of the self’.75 Both Hadot and Foucault remind us of what I 73 Kammerer equally speaks of the maturing of thoughts: “vom Gedankenkeim zum ausgereiften Gedanken,” “Entwicklung der gesamten Bewusstseinskomplexe”. Kammerer, 1919, p. 375. Also see Du Prel: “Wer der Volksmetaphysik entwächst, ohne doch für die höhere Metaphysik reif zu sein, wird sich seine Weltanschauung unter einseitiger Berücksichtigung der Naturwissenschaften bilden, das heisst dem Materialismus verfallen.” Karl du Prel (2012, 1890). Das Kreuz am Ferner. Ein hypnotisch-spiritistischer Roman. Austria: Verlag vergriffener Bücher, p. 175. And in his Glasperlenspiel the author warns that science and art must be protected against the intrusion (Zudrang) of “the young men who have nothing but talent” (the Nurbegabten) who falsify (verfälscht) the whole meaning of pedagogy and service, and betray the Spirit (Verrat am Geist). Hesse, 1979, p. 516. 74 Cf Pierre Hadot (1995). Qu’est-ce que la philosophie antique? Paris: Gallimard. 75 Michel Foucault, Technologies of the Self. In Luther H. Martin, Huck Gutman and Patrick H. Hutton, Eds (1988). Technologies of the Self: A Seminar with Michel Foucault. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press., pp. 16-49. Also see Heidegger on the Aristotelian cosmology. Interestingly, both Hadot and Foucault are sources of inspiration to searchers of human enhancement. In the context of what I am trying to get across here, however, it matters a lot whether this enhancement is realised blindly, out of a will to power or even boredom; or if it is – instead – based upon new forms of consciousness already emerging, forms that search enhancement by virtue of this emergence.

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have discussed in the first chapter, mainly by referring to Patañjali, as ‘codes’. Soul access, I argued, cannot be had gratuitously; it may require adequate preparation. This insight dominates the majority of Eastern philosophies. The Japanese philosopher Yuasa Yasuo (1925-2005) writes: “meditation signifies the method of knowing the world with the mind-body theory as its foundation. Accordingly, in the stance that understands the ontological state of thing-events in the world in light of the subject’s inner experience, there is something comparable to the thought of ancient India that thinks of the correlative relationship between human beings and the cosmos on the basis of the mandala.” (Yuasa, 2008, p. 44)

Even Karl Jaspers, in his Psychologie der Weltanschauungen, had identified ‘self-reflective mindsets’ (selbstreflektierte Einstellungen), in distinction from ‘objectifying’ (gegenständliche) and ‘enthusiast (enthusiastische) mindsets’. Whereas the scientific position is characterised by an objectifying stance that takes the outer world only for granted, many Eastern traditions focus on the self, or ‘inwardness,’ and the way it relates to the world. It entails that the ‘outer’ world will always appear in a different light when compared to views that wholly neglect (or suppress) inwardness. These examples do not ‘prove’ any inner/outer world correspondence; they merely back up its presuppositions from a cross-cultural and historical perspective. According to Jung, an “understanding of synchronicity is the key which unlocks the door to an Eastern apperception of totality”.76 Should it be so, as is my claim here, that synchronicity awareness is not limited to Eastern thinking, there will be more connections between ‘East’ and ‘West’ than is often assumed. No anthropology could remain unaffected by such affinities.

2. Synchronistic observation: Physiognomy “A man sets out to draw the world [dibujar el mundo]. As the years go by, he peoples a space [espacio] with images [imágenes] of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines [ese paciente laberinto de líneas] traces the lineaments of his own face [traza la imagen de su cara].” —J. L. Borges77

76 Quoted by Yuasa, p. 97. Also cf. Zhuang-ze: “Meaning [dao] becomes obfuscated once we focus on small, accomplished pictures of existence.” 77 J.L. Borges (1972f). Epílogo. In El Hacedor. Madrid: Alianza Editorial, S.A.; trans. Andrew Hurley (1998). Collected Fictions. London/New York: Penguin

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“that image and form, far from being impotent or inoperative, are rather the true, the unique causa efficiens in the most real world which we know, in the world of human actions and deeds.” —Hermann Friedmann78

Introduction In the previous sections, synchronicity has been discussed as an acausal determination of a coherent set of phenomena. These phenomena take place (if at all) both on an individual and on a social or global level. Individual synchronicity experiences imply a sudden concurrence of acausally related events endowed with significance for their witnesses, such as Kammerer’s spawning frog, Jung’s scarab, or Marinoff’s and Plotinus’ snake. Social or global synchronicity experiences entail meaningful constellations of events without a common cause, such as the simultaneous rise of agriculture or the coinciding performance of prophets or wisdom teachers who laid a basis for subsequent global worldviews. When observed, synchronicity experiences indicate a state of mind mirrored by the event itself, to the point of eventually implying an inner/outer world correspondence. Given that modern rationalist or empiricist consciousness is not perennial but has a history, with associated premises and conditions of possibility (cf Gadamer’s wirkungsgeschichtliches Bewusstsein), such a correspondence need not be as unusual as it may seem at first sight. Discussing individual and global synchronicities runs the double risk of being obliged to produce endless casuistry (as in the first case) and of merely taking for granted worldwide events remote in space and time (as in the second). There is a possibility, though, to bring the subject of synchronicity still closer to the reader. The age-old discipline of physiognomy, having fallen in scientific disgrace today, may offer a paradigmatic example of an immediate invitation to synchronicity encounters in the present. The reluctance of science to take physiognomy – that is, the hermeneutics of facial characteristics – seriously is significant in itself; it shows that science’s basic premises are left undebated. Obviously, reconsidering physiognomy as a possible example of synchronicity should not open the

Books, p. 161. On the correspondence between ‘face’ and ‘travelling through life,’ also see C.G. Jung, Ulysses. Ein Monolog. In C.G. Jung, 1947, p. 137n. (“das beim ‘abaissement du niveau mental’ die von Wernicke aufgestellten ‘Organrepräsentanten’ in die Erscheinung treten.”) 78 Hermann Friedmann, 1930, p. 53; my trans.

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door for arbitrariness, let alone for racism. I take ‘physiognomy’ to be the accepted invitation to an approach of the human countenance as a synchronistic unity. In this unity, then, separate causal chains coalesce and lead to a composite whole that exceeds its single constituents. In the attempt to ‘read’ the countenance, connection and synthesis prevail over analysis and secession. “The human face lives from its full being and not from its parts [Das Menschengesicht lebt von seinem ganzen Wesen her und nicht von seinen Teilen],” says Max Picard (Picard, 1947, p. 37; my trans.), whose physiognomic endeavours we will discuss below. Therefore, Picard emphasises, we should pay equal attention, if not more, to someone’s physiognomy, facial gestures, voice, or intonation, compared to their message. Interestingly, Akiane Kramarik, when asked what she liked painting most, resolutely answered: “Faces. They are more meaningful to me than anything else. A face is the first thing you see when you are born.” (Kramarik, 2006, pp. 38; 9) In my view, this observation shows that a considerate and respectful study of a face offers direct access both to synchronicity experience and to the accompanying altered state of consciousness so eagerly desired by artists and creative thinkers.79 The German physicist Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1742-1799), the father of modern physiognomy, defines it as the “faculty [Fertigkeit] […] to infer the nature [Beschaffenheit] of the spirit and heart from the form and nature [Beschaffenheit] of the external parts of the human body, mainly the face, but by excluding all transient signs [vorübergehenden Zeichen], the emotions [Gemütsbewegungen]”80 It is an attempt to mainly encompass the temporary signs in a countenance, its facial expressions since they are supposedly most informative and telling about the human soul or the inner life. Physiognomy was already practised in Aristotelian circles; however, no distinction was made here, yet, between human and animal physiognomy. Physiognomy was seen as a part of a general physics (doctrine of nature). 79 Such as Josef Knecht, Magister Ludi in Hesse’s Glasperlenspiel: “Für den Magister, der ein so zartes Künstlergefühl für Geheimnisse des Ausdrucks und ein so waches Erziehergefühl für Charaktere besaß, gab es schon längst gewisse physiognomische Kennzeichnen, welchen er, ohne ein System daraus zu machen, instinktiv vertraute”. Hesse, 1979, p. 317. 80 Georg Christoph Lichtenberg (1778). Über Physiognomik, wider die Physiognomen; my trans.

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Aristotle and his contemporaries did not have difficulties in defining human faces as, for instance, lion-like or bird-like. The Renaissance witnessed a resurgence of interest in physiognomy, or ‘physiognomony’ (cf Giambattista della Porta’s De humana physiognomonia, 1586). Paracelsus (1493-1541) treated physiognomy as a part of a general mantic (cf chiromantic, pyromantic, geomantic), that is, as an attempt to explain the inner side based on an outer appearance. Lavater (1741-1801) was famous for his Physiognomische Fragmente. Particularly outstanding is the 19th-century painting by Moritz Daniel Oppenheim of Lavater studying Moses Mendelssohn’s face, with Lessing sceptically standing aside. The Jewish thinker Mendelssohn, however, had no reasons to be grateful for his physiognomic portrait in Lavater’s Fragmente, even less so in light of the latter’s vain attempts to convert him to Christianity. The example shows a delicate issue in physiognomy: the tendency of its practitioners to determine and even judge an inner character based on sheer outward appearance. Sadly, the outcomes of a deterministically conceived physiognomy have infected the attitude of many Europeans ever since with anti-Semitic, racist, or misogynist attitudes. As if to avoid these deterministic tendencies from the onset, the subsequent interest of physiognomists shifted from inner to outer characteristics without trying to reconnect them. Following Goethe’s lead (“one must not seek anything behind the phenomena; they are themselves the doctrine”), 18th- and 19th-century Romantic thinkers started focussing on what is experienced in or through appearances rather than on what is behind them. Some went as far as distinguishing the physiognomy of a landscape or natural scenery. Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859), for example, stated in his Ansichten der Natur (1808): “An overview [Überblick] of nature at large, a proof of the collaboration of forces [Zusammenwirken der Kräfte], a renewal of the pleasure offered by the immediate view [unmittelbare Ansicht] of tropical countries to the feeling human being: these are the goals which I am striving for.” (My trans.) Nature’s enchantment (Zauber der Natur) or its ambience (Stimmung) were aspects to which a physiognomy of nature should tune in. A keen sensitivity to such elements appears in the famous paintings of Caspar David Friedrich. Such paintings testify to the subtle awareness needed for adequate perception of what is delicate and yet decisive in certain phenomena, be they landscapes, sceneries or human faces. Other 19th-century discussions of physiognomy we find in Schopenhauer (‘Zur Physiognomik’), Carl Gustav Carus (Symbolik der menschlichen Gestalt), and Cesare Lombroso (L’Uomo delinquente). The Italian psychologist

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Sante de Sanctis (1862-1935) wrote a fascinating study of facial expressions in thinking (Die Mimik des Denkens). In it, he made a distinction between (1) the attentiveness of animals, the facial expressivity of thinking in (2) infants and older people, (3) adults, and (4) the insane. (Sante de Sanctis, 1906, p. 183) Despite some exceptions, the 20th century saw the gradual disappearance of physiognomy as a discipline. It was replaced by phenomenology, which transformed physiognomy’s primary concern into a philosophical method. We will see, though, that this concern can only be credited if it is based on an adequate approach of consciousness (that is, as layered). Nonetheless, the inchoate tendency persisted in rejecting the metaphysical remnants and speculative nature of expression in favour of impression. Ludwig Klages endeavoured a ‘physiognomy’ of handwriting (graphology)81. At the same time, Rudolf Kassner (1873-1959) argued that to achieve a fuller picture of man we should enlarge our scope, and rather rely on ‘imagination’ (Einbildungskraft) and strong empathy (Einfühlung) than on the distortive vices of analysis and reduction. In his ground-breaking essay on photography, Walter Benjamin suggests that a photographer who cannot read his pictures must count as analphabetic. In other words, authentic photography relies upon true seeing (i.e., of the instantaneous, the momentary constellation), and the real photographer is the offspring of the “augurs and haruspices” of Antiquity. (Benjamin, GS II/1, p. 385) The author whose lead I will follow below to elucidate the synchronistic implications of physiognomy is Max Picard (see introduction), author of Das Menschengesicht and Grenzen der Physiognomik.82 I will highlight some significant issues in his work on physiognomy to corroborate my idea that physiognomy exemplifies synchronicity awareness.

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Klages even equated physiognomy and psychology: “Wir halten die psychologische Betrachtungsweise nicht etwa nur verwandt der physiognomischen, sondern als in der Tiefe mit ihr identisch.” Klages, 1936, p. 12. Psychology’s core business is “Seelisches aus seiner Erscheinungsform abzulesen” Ibid., p. 12f. 82 Picard’s focus on visuality differs from Rosenzweig’s. Rosenzweig’s physiognomy has an oral, mouth-centered teleology. Cf “Wie von der Stirn der Bau des Gesichts beherrscht wird, so sammelt endlich sein Leben, alles was um die Augen zieht und aus den Augen strahlt, sich im Mund. Der Mund ist der Vollender und Vollbringer allen Ausdrucks, dessen das Antlitz fähig ist”. Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 470f.

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Countenance, Synthesis and Presence In this section, I will discuss physiognomy as an apt case in point of presently observed and observable synchronicity; that is, an acausal, synesthetic synthesis of single yet corresponding features. After giving a brief outline of the synthetic qualities of a human countenance, I will continue studying its relation to time (maturing) and space (cosmology). Synthesis Already Carl du Prel notes that, for an actor to be a good actor, their facial and bodily gestures need expressing genuine emotions convincingly. To develop emotions initially absent in the actor, he asserts, adequate gesticulation and mimicry can be used, for these will produce those emotions. While emotions do not resemble visible features, they still correspond to them. When accurately imitated, they could make an actor liable to experiencing the corresponding affects. (Du Prel, 1888, pp. 121f.) As a side remark, it could be added here that readers who are familiar with yoga asana’s (postures) know that these can release blocked emotions and set free hidden energy. Performing, just like any form of bodywork, can be cathartic. Regardless if one focuses on the human countenance (as Picard does) or on the entire human body (as Klages or Du Prel do83), the argument remains the same: physiognomy rests on a concurrence (if not a competition) of independent visual characteristics united by one facial (or bodily) expression. This concurrence can only be synesthetically perceived, if at all.84 Thus stated, it strongly reminds of Hans Driesch’ assessment of embryonic morphogenesis and its basis in entelechy: the development of an embryo comes down to the uniform organisation of its constituent materials towards its all-encompassing form. It corresponds to the cross-section or cross-cutting of parallel yet independent causalities by morphogenetic, that 83

“Es ist nicht einzusehen, warum das richtige Prinzip der Physiognomik – dass das Äußere der Abdruck des Inneren ist – auf den Kopfteil des Leibes beschränkt sein, und dieser vor den übrigen einen nur ihm gehörigen Vorzug haben sollte. Die Form des ganzen Körpers hat metaphysische Bedeutung, ist Ausfluss der Seele.” Du Prel, 1888, p. 109f, p. 129. 84 Cf Rosenzweig: “Über dieses erste elementare Dreieck, wie es gebildet wird von dem Mittelpunkt der Stirn als dem beherrschenden Punkt des ganzen Gesichts und den Mittelpunkten der Wangen, legt sich nun ein zweites Dreieck, das sich aus den Organen zusammenfügt, deren Spiel die starre Maske des ersten belebt: Augen und Mund.” Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 470.

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is, form-producing tendencies. In Driesch’ own words: the “transform[ation of] a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”. But physiognomy is more than perceived organic form; it regards the surfacing of the inner form: the surfacing of the face. It is an attempt to account for the uniform impression of separate facial singularities, their co-incidence or co-alescence. It is an attempt to detect commonness in a plethora of facial characteristics, describable in general language. “No expression of the soul resides on a delimited part of the face, it is everywhere on the entire face. “The soul is a unity, a wholeness [Ganzheit], and that which in the expression of the face corresponds with the soul must also be a unity, a wholeness.” (Picard, 1947, p. 67; my trans.)

True, for any physiognomic description to be suitable, an adequate attunement of the observer is needed. For example, if an observer focuses on only one facial characteristic, such as an aquiline nose or thick lips, their physiognomic picture might be amiss. Repeatedly, Max Picard warns us for such approaches. Let us not forget that Picard is writing his book on the human countenance in 1929, during the heydays of anti-Semitic racist stereotyping, as if to prevent deterministic physiognomies. The latter are inadequate since analytic instead of synthetic. Therefore, any adequate physiognomy (provided that such a thing exists) presupposes the observing subject’s adequacy, if not adequation, to the observed countenance. Physiognomy would require an adaequatio rei et intellectus; admittedly, without the availability of a tertium comparationis assessing the adequacy. The absence of a neutral outsider’s position as from which to judge whether or not the proposed physiognomy is fitting reflects the lack of any unbiased spectator perspective as from which to assess the veracity of a synchronistic event. This makes physiognomy as intriguing as it is vulnerable. It is perhaps not without reason that, less than ten years after writing Das Menschengesicht, Picard already publishes Die Grenzen der Physiognomik (‘The Limits of Physiognomy’), as if to correct possible (deterministic) misunderstandings. Picard immediately emphasises that whichever physiognomy can only make sense if it is motivated by love. “If the human face is not surrounded by love, it freezes [so erstarrt es], and the observing person will be confronted not with the real face but with the material side of the face, the inanimate, and everything which is stated about such a face

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is wrong.” (Picard, 1937, p. 14; my trans.)85 Love is characterised here primarily as openness and expectation. I venture to add that the true lover is more open than any empiricist observer could ever be. Lovers are looking into an abyss. Let us briefly see how Picard addresses the two characteristics of physiognomy mentioned before: synaesthesia and acausality. Admittedly, the following passage outlines not only the synthesising potentials of physiognomy but also the confusion and bewilderment it gives rise to. I will have to come back to the latter hereafter. “When someone is observing a human face, the entire being of the observer will be affected: feeling, intellect, will, and even the depth in which feeling, intellect and will are still obscurely interrelated: the suspicious [das Ahnungshafte]. The entire being of the perceiver is stirred [aufgewühlt]. (Picard, 1947, p. 11; my trans.) “The parts which constitute the face, together still do not yet produce a face. The face is more than the sum of its parts.” (Ibid., p. 62; my trans.)

Upon closer ‘inspection’ of a human countenance, Picard claims, hidden, synesthetically collaborating layers of the observer’s awareness are gradually unearthed. Observing a human countenance cannot fail to affect the observer. It addresses an innate ‘faculty’ to synchronise the single constituents of a face (“the depth in which feeling, intellect and will are still obscurely interrelated: the suspicious”). Klages confirms this by saying that an “extension of the mind” (Erweiterung des Verstandes) is indispensable for physiognomic awareness.86 Interestingly, a recent scientific study

85 Also see “Der Mensch kann so sein, wie er aussieht, aber er muss es nicht. Der Mensch hat das Wort und auch die Tat, durch welche das Innere offenbar wird, wenn es nicht im Gesicht offenbar wurde.” Ibid., p. 50. And Odyssey 9, 294f: “As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to heaven [ਕȞİıȤȑșȠȝİȞ ǻȚ੿ Ȥİ૙ȡĮȢ: ‘to Zeus/God’] on seeing such a horrid sight [ıȤȑIJȜȚĮ ਩ȡȖૃ ੒ȡȩȦȞIJİȢ], for we did not know what else to do [ਕȝȘȤĮȞȓȘ įૃ ਩Ȥİ șȣȝȩȞ: ‘resource-/ meanlessness seized our mind’].” (my italics). 86 “Die neue Einsicht, ob durch umsichtigstes Denken oder eine blitzartige Erhellung gewonnen, hat ihren Quellpunkt stets in der Erweiterung des Verstandes für die Semiotik der Körperwelt oder im Fortschritt der geistigen Aneignung bis dahin noch fremder Physiognomien.” Klages, 1936, p. 12. NB in light of the geistigen Aneignung bis dahin noch fremder Physiognomien one wonders if not Ulysses, when meeting the Cyclops, was less mentally equipped (less ‘mature’) than the Cyclops himself: “We were frightened out of our senses [ਲȝ૙Ȟ įૃ Į੣IJİ țĮIJİțȜȐıșȘ ijȓȜȠȞ

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equally supports this claim. It affirms that making eye contact with someone disrupts available resources for speaking and conceptualising; therefore, people tend to look aside when they try to express their thoughts in a conversation.87 As such, the face addressed as countenance is acausal; it is not governed by causal chains. Obviously, as a physical unit, it has been causated in the developmental process which all humans are liable to undergo. But as a unity, it repels causality: “The face is standing there in such an ontologically robust way [Das Gesicht steht so seinshaft da] as if it had never become; as if there were not only no becoming in its presence anymore: generally, there seems to be no becoming anywhere anymore; becoming has been brought to a standstill before this strong presence [Seinshaftigkeit].” (Ibid., p. 21; my trans.)

Being itself a phenomenon, Picard continues, the countenance also affects other phenomena. A-temporal by nature, it de-temporalises anything else, saturating the environment with its structure. Evidently, for any third person observing my encounter with the other, the world keeps turning, birds singing, and the wind blowing. But for me, provided that I genuinely engage with the other, the immediate environment seems to recede or to paralyse, to the point of reminding me only subsequently of, e.g., a declining temperature, a setting sun, or a closing café. I do not think that the abovementioned experience can be confirmed indiscriminately by whomever, let alone by a ‘neutral spectator’. This would perhaps deprive this experience of having any scientific relevance. However, I believe that this experience is not alien to portrait painters, photographers, movie-makers, lovers, actors, poets, friends, and other meticulous observers of facial expression. I even believe that for those engaged in a profound exchange, it is not even as though time stood still. From their perspective, it did. “All you need to do is remember that you are part / of this light, in it and of it, as guest is to host, / and that you belong to it, even though the light itself / is wholly merciless, and eventually will devour you.” (Berengarten, 2011, p. 92)

਷IJȠȡ] by his loud voice [ijșȩȖȖȠȞ IJİ ȕĮȡઃȞ] and monstrous form [Į੝IJȩȞ IJİ ʌȑȜȦȡȠȞ]”. (9, 257) 87 Shogo Kajimura & Michio Nomura (2016). When we cannot speak: Eye contact disrupts resources available to cognitive control processes during verb generation. In Cognition 157, pp. 352-357.

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Presence For an illustration of Picard’s notion of the Seinshaftigkeit of a countenance, I would like to refer at this point to the photographic work of Roman Vishniac (1897-1990). Vishniac managed to document pre-War Jewish life in Eastern Europe. In an interview shortly before his death, Monique Atlan remarks: “Looking at your photos one always notices, on the face of the people, in their eyes, something which they bear like a secret…” Vishniac replies as follows: “In all human beings, what one sees is not only the face and the expression, it is the entire human nature, and each human being bears the nature of all its ancestors. It is dramatic to see photographs of children who do not look like children anymore. They inherited the sufferings from their ancestors, the resistance against suffering, and this can better be seen in the eyes than in any other part of the body. I took pictures of ploughmen’s hands which show many things, but of all human organs, the eyes are most important, because they are windows [fenêtres] both to the inside and the outside. In commercial photos, where the eyes are almost invisible, one only sees emptiness [le vide], they are only empty frames [cadres vides]; we absolutely need expression, vision. This is what we call the soul of a person, and we can find it in the paintings of the great Renaissance artists. The photographer Diane Airbus says that the photograph is a secret which speaks of another secret. In fact, the secret lasts, it remains the same from the beginning until the end…”.88

To Picard – whose physiognomic theories read as an excellent description of Vishniac’s portraits – the countenance produces pure presence (Gegenwärtigkeit), in a way nothing else can. Presence, then, will be more than the sole difference between past and future. It is endowed with a plenitude of its own, to the point of being an adequate equivalent of synchronicity – both as a concept and as an experience. Let us see how Picard qualifies presence. This will not only offer a fuller picture of the human countenance but perhaps also of the phenomenon of synchronicity; on the condition, that is, that the latter reveals itself in the former. 88

Monique Atlan (2006). Rencontre avec Roman Vishniac. Paris: Le Manuscrit, 27f; my trans. Walter Benjamin argues that the art of photography can only be saved from the kunstgewerbliche Einschlag (commercial impact) of technology by an Avantgarde of photographers: those who did not merely switch from portrait painting to photography out of commodity. Benjamin, 1999, p. 383. This remark in my view also applies to Leiter and Araki discussed in chapter 1. It would definitely not apply to Jed Martin in Houellebecq’s La carte et le territoire, who turns from photography to painting with a strong kunstgewerbliche[r] Einschlag.

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Synchronicity, then, might be further characterised in terms of presence, and obstacles to presence may equally block the breakthrough of synchronicity. Firstly, presence, Picard asserts, is a meeting place between time and eternity. As a cross- or intersection, it forms the human counterpart to divine eternity. (Picard, 1947, pp. 130, 139)89 We can infer that presence has theological implications for Picard, but we must remind ourselves that these implications are no less phenomenologically tainted (without which his account would be dogmatic). Presence, as it can be experienced in the human countenance, ‘curbs’ time and space – similar to synchronicity. Secondly, Picard contends, presence is always replenished by divine illumination. Intersecting time and space, it puts these into a more embracing perspective. Note, however, that full (or rather, ‘filled’) presence and the concomitant broader perspective are never assured. The synchronising ‘plenitude’ just mentioned is vulnerable insofar as it creates a limit position that cannot be occupied at wish. It can just as well be considered as a virtuality that is still to become real, as though it were a promise. ‘Presence,’ then, would be a domain or a sphere into which the face arrives once it assumes revelatory features. We have seen that, for these features to become revelatory, they would have to start being ‘symphonic’ or ‘consonant’: “The parts which constitute the face, together still do not yet produce a face. The face is more than the sum of its parts.” Fragmentation cannot sustain presence, and one can well imagine that everything that prompts or promotes fragmentation (fixed ideas, trauma) will impair the manifestation of presence – and, we could add, of synchronicity. Thirdly, Picard holds, encountering a human countenance’s presence might make visible not only this countenance itself but equally the long way it has come from eternity into time, in other words, unfathomable depth: “In the human face one can still sense [spüren] the entire road which brought it from eternity into temporality. The face is positioned at the very end of this road [Das Gesicht steht am äußersten Ende dieses Weges].” (Picard, 1947, p. 132; my trans.) Insofar as the countenance entails a cross-section of time and space and so to say ‘excavates’ them, it remarkably resembles Driesch’ concept of ‘entelechy’ used to describe form-building (entelechy “transforms a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”). But whereas Driesch’ concept of ‘entelechy’ can be exemplified referring to anything alive, Picard 89 In his essay ‘Le peintre et la vie moderne’ Baudelaire calls this meeting place between time and eternity ‘beauty’.

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illustrates his point by mentioning ‘saints’. Saintly faces, he says, even if we only possess them in the form of paintings or sculptures, represent intersecting “milestones” (Meilensteine) along the road of eternity; that is, they exemplify discoveries and insights that have enriched humanity. Strictly speaking, for Picard, any face might serve as an example of depth. Saintly faces, however, by virtue of life experience and maturing processes, reveal more (albeit not necessarily always ‘at face value’ but sometimes only ‘on closer inspection’). Adjacent to the parameters grid of presence, the faces of saints, in particular, tend to ‘curb’ time and space. I will come back to the notion of ‘maturing’ below, without exclusively applying it to ‘saints’. A final characteristic of presence in Picard is that it has a stabilising (synchronising) virtue as regards time and space. Compare the following passage, in which presence and eternity are succeeded by ‘temporarily’ expectant time and space. “Thus, time and space silently wait before the presence [Gegenwärtigkeit] of the human face; they are waiting for eternity to join them [sie warten, dass die Ewigkeit hier zu ihnen trete]. “The human face, however, is standing there like a placeholder of eternity [steht da wie ein Platzhalter der Ewigkeit], quietly and brightly. “Then suddenly, time and space have been waiting long enough; they cease to stand silently and set forth. But time moves more rhythmically now that it has waited here, and space extends itself into its vastness in a more organised way [geordneter] than before. “This is the gift of presence [Geschenk der Gegenwärtigkeit] to human beings: they are lifted out of time and space.” (Picard, 1947, p. 142; my trans.)

As appears from this passage, which strongly reminds us of Proust quoted in the previous chapter90, ‘presence’ is a qualitative category. It affects time

90

“Mais qu’un bruit déjà entendu, qu’une odeur respirée jadis, le soient de nouveau, à la fois dans le présent et dans le passé, réels sans être actuels, idéaux sans être abstraits, aussitôt l’essence permanente et habituellement cachée des choses se trouve libérée et notre vrai moi qui, parfois depuis longtemps, semblait mort, mais ne l’était pas autrement, s’éveille, s’anime en recevant la céleste nourriture qui lui est apportée. Une minute affranchie de l’ordre du temps a recréé en nous pour la sentir l’homme affranchi de l’ordre du temps. Et celui-là on comprend qu’il soit confiant dans sa joie, […] on comprend que le mot de ‘mort’ n’ait pas de sens pour

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and space with relativity (‘surrounding’ them with presence) and imbues them with content. The encounter with presence transforms time and space, endows them with order and rhythm. Rhythm vivifies time, gives it pulsation. The experience of order and rhythm, though, is only the aftermath of a meaningful encounter with a countenance – and even, if ‘presence’ indeed connects countenance and synchronicity – of synchronicity experiences.91 We can think here of this aftermath as the impression, whether strong or subtle, an encounter may leave on us. An encounter can be impressive, for example, when it makes us ‘fall’ in love. But let us not forget that it can equally be confusing, discomforting, or bewildering. “It is dramatic,” Vishniac asserted, “to see photographs of children who do not look like children anymore. They inherited the sufferings from their ancestors, the resistance against suffering, and this can better be seen in the eyes than in any other part of the body.” ‘Presence’ can synthesise or synchronise but, in proportion to the recipient’s state of mind, it can also upset. It can unite, but it can equally unravel. Excursion: presenting oneself to Polyphemus For a limit case which remarkably both illustrates the impact ‘presence’ can have (even on those with an overall ‘haptic’ mindset) and what can thwart it, let us take another look at the Cyclops narrative. In chapter 1, I suggested that scientific ‘hapticism’ – a preference for tactility – is exemplified by the cruel, one-eyed Cyclops Polyphemus, who grabs and swallows Ulysses’ comrades. I must nuance here an all too negative account of the Cyclops, for Polyphemus is not altogether insensitive to the force of presence. Rereading the Odyssey passages where Ulysses meets Polyphemus, one may be surprised about the monster catching sight of the unexpected visitors of his cave, and addressing them properly with the words ੯ ȟİ૙ȞȠȚ (੯

lui; situé hors du temps, que pourrait-il craindre de l’avenir ?” M. Proust, Le temps retrouvé (1927). In Proust 1999, p. 2267; my italics. 91 On rhythm as aftermath, see Heidegger (who does not speak about countenance here, though): “Der Ort des Gedichtes birgt als die Quelle der bewegenden Woge das verhüllte Wesen dessen, was dem metaphysisch-ästhetischen Vorstellen zunächst als Rhythmus erscheinen kann.” Heidegger (1990, 1959). Die Sprache im Gedicht. In Unterwegs zur Sprache. Frankfurt: Neske, p. 38. Also cf RosenstockHuëssy who contends that “Offenbarung ist Orientierung.” See Franz Rosenzweig. ‘Urzelle’ des Stern der Erlösung. In Franz Rosenzweig (1937). Kleinere Schriften. Berlin: Schocken Verlag-Jüdischer Verlag, p. 358.

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expressing the common address form92, and ȟİ૙ȞȠȚ connoting both ‘stranger’ and ‘guest’): “But when he had busily performed his tasks, then he rekindled the fire, and caught sight [İ੅ıȚįİȞ] of us, and asked [İ੅ȡİIJȠ įૃਲȝȑĮȢ]: ‘Strangers [੯ ȟİ૙ȞȠȚ], who are ye [IJȓȞİȢ ਥıIJȑ]? Whence do ye sail [ʌȩșİȞ ʌȜİ૙șૃ] over the watery ways? Is it on some business, or do ye wander [ਕȜȐȜȘıșİ] at random over the sea, even as pirates, who wander [ਕȜȩȦȞIJĮȚ], hazarding their lives [ȥȣȤ੹Ȣ ʌĮȡșȑȝİȞȠȚ: ‘putting souls aside’] and bringing evil to men of other lands?’” (9, 252ff)

The way the address is phrased immediately reminds us of Picard saying that “[i]n the human face one can still sense the entire road which brought it from eternity into temporality. The face is positioned at the very end of this road.” (Picard, 1947, p. 132). Granted, Polyphemus’ words may seem a little unfriendly, but what else to expect when one suddenly notices intruders into one’s home? Polyphemus radically changes his attitude only when Ulysses emphatically appeals to Zeus and the other gods and exhorts his host to do the same: “Nay, mightiest one, reverence the gods [ਕȜȜૃ Įੁįİ૙Ƞ, ijȑȡȚıIJİ, șİȠȪȢ: ‘be timid, timorous for’]; we are thy suppliants; and Zeus is the avenger of suppliants and strangers – Zeus, the strangers’ god – who ever attends upon reverend strangers.’” (9, 269ff) In other words, Ulysses warns the Cyclops that, should he not show himself hospitable, God may avenge them on him. His warning includes a threat, if not a humiliation of the desolate, decrepit race of the Cyclopes. Whereas at least, at first sight, Polyphemus shows himself aware of a presence, Ulysses implicitly denies presence, by reminding the Cyclopes of their illicit existence.93 A psychoanalysis of these creatures might demonstrate their bitterness, inner wounds, or even trauma, quickly leading to foreclosure when it comes to face-to-face encounters. In other words: it quickly leads to failing physiognomies – both on the subject and the object side. We have noticed earlier that, in Virgil’s Aeneid, the Cyclops is described as “not pleasant to 92 “When used, ੯ denotes a throwing off of reserve. The throwing off of reserve gives it a familiar tone, which often becomes angry, coarse, or impatient. Hence ੯ is never found in prayer or addresses to the gods, and is entirely absent in passages of dignity and elevation”. J. Adams Scott, American Journal of Philology 1903, p. 195ff, quoted in J. Mehler (19305). Mehler woordenboek op de gedichten van Homèros. Rotterdam: Nijgh en Van Ditmar, p. 843. 93 Which is furthermore subtly illustrated by Ulysses’ introduction of the reply to the Cyclops: ਲȝİ૙Ȣ IJȠȚ ȉȡȠȓȘșİȞ ਕʌȠʌȜĮȖȤșȑȞIJİȢ ਝȤĮȚȠ੿: “‘We, thou must know, are from Troy, Achaeans” (9, 259). ਲȝİ૙Ȣ IJȠȚ: We (nominative) … you (ethical datif).

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look at [nec visu facilis], affable to no one [nec dictu adfabilis ulli]”. (Aneid III, 621) The Latin visu facilis obscures whether it designates subject or object physiognomy. It leaves undecided if it is the subject’s (i.e., Achaemenides,’ Ulysses comrade inadvertently left behind on Cyclopes island) act of seeing which is impaired, or the object’s (i.e., the Cyclops’) being-seen – in other words, his face. Polyphemus’ face (visus) is not facile (facilis), neither for the physiognomist nor for himself. For one thing, the physiognomist (Ulysses, Achaemenides) cannot easily contemplate the ugly one-eyed face of the Cyclops – it is paralysing. For another, despite his initial address (੯ ȟİ૙ȞȠȚ: ‘o strangers-guests’), the Cyclops himself cannot take a good look at his visitors. He is not good-looking (nec visu facilis) as he lacks depth perspective. This both prompts and aggravates his trauma, for “he straightway [Į੝IJȓțૃ] made answer with pitiless heart [ȞȘȜȑȚ șȣȝ૶]: ‘A fool art thou, stranger [ȞȒʌȚȩȢ İੁȢ, ੯ ȟİ૙Ȟૃ], or art come from afar [IJȘȜȩșİȞ İੁȜȒȜȠȣșĮȢ], seeing that thou biddest me either to fear or to shun the gods. For the Cyclopes reck not of [ਕȜȑȖȠȣıȚȞ] Zeus, who bears the aegis, nor of the blessed gods, since verily [਷] we are far better than they.” (9, 272-276)

In terms of the English psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott, one could argue that Polyphemus’ mother had never mirrored but instead retaliated his innate infantile aggressiveness, thereby depriving him of developing an inner world which differs from the outer world. An affect-mirroring mother might have healed him from his monocular myopia and corresponding destructivity.94 In sum, while even hapticism may still be receptive to synchronising presence, it only takes the slightest reminiscence of trauma and infantile humiliation to activate foreclosure.95

94 When

the process has been adequate, however, the baby can make proper ‘use’ of the outer world, and it “can get fat by taking in food from the outside,” Kalsched comments upon Winnicott. (Note that the Cyclops merely throws up the consumed human flesh: saniem eructans et frustra cruento … commixta mero.) Kalsched continues, “The baby has relinquished the omnipotent illusion of self-sufficiency by letting his or her love be felt toward the mother. The baby now has ‘binocular’ vision. Depth perspective has suddenly come into being and separation/individuation is occurring.” Kalsched, 1995, p. 192. 95 Jung interestingly writes that “Aufklärerische Meinungen geraten daher unversehens in die unmittelbare Nachbarschaft neurotischer Symptome. Sie sind in der Tat, wie diese, verbogenes Denken, das an Stelle des psychologisch richtigen Denkens steht.” C.G. Jung, Seele und Tod. In C.G. Jung, 1947, p. 221f.

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Countenance and time: maturing “The Cosmic Spirit seeks not to restrain us but lifts us stage by stage [Stuf’ um Stufe] to wider spaces. […] We must prepare for parting [Aufbruch] and leave-taking [Reise] Or else remain the slaves of permanence.” Hermann Hesse96

Let us return to physiognomy proper, that is, a clair-voyant, non-myopic acceptance of the approach of the human countenance as a synchronistic unity, and which is aware of presence. If I am right in assuming that the countenance represents a paradigmatic instance of a presently observed and observable, synthesising and yet upsetting synchronicity; if it exemplifies an acausal, synesthetic synthesis of single yet corresponding features; then it must somehow reveal the cross-section or cross-cutting of time characteristic of synchronicity experiences. By a ‘cross-cutting of time,’ I mean the disclosure of a dimension that interacts with (rather than within) time. For this dimension to be revealed, inner development and growth seem indispensable. In light of Picard’s emphasis on saintly faces allegedly reflecting such growth, I want to explore the notion of ‘maturity’ further. Yet, I will refrain from restricting it to saints (unless the category of ‘saintliness’ is generalised). My claim here is that the cross-cutting of time – whether perceived by or in a subject – is intrinsically connected to the phenomenon of ‘maturing’. I have used this notion of ‘maturity’ several times already, for example, in the previous chapter, when discussing the human response to ecstatic images. Maturing is analogous to morphogenesis (form-building) since it transcends mere causality. I will define ‘maturity’ here as ‘soul adequacy,’ or ‘adequate image-processing’. A ‘maturing process’ is a process during which the soul becomes adequate to the ecstatic images it experiences. I propose to interpret ‘adequacy’ in terms of increasing reduction of anxiety and bewilderment. Insofar as synchronicity experiences connect ‘subject’ and ‘object,’ or ‘soul’ and ‘event,’ the maturing process cannot fail to affect both the physiognomist and the contemplated physiognomy. A mature physiognomist will ideally be someone who has become adequate to (who has synchronised with) what is revealed in the countenance of the other: adaequatio faciei et animae. A 96

Hesse, 1979, p. 484; trans. (2002) Alex Page.

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mature countenance, I will argue, is a countenance expressive of synchronicity experiences. Obviously, ‘maturity’ is a limit concept. Full maturity is likely to be beyond human reach, both in the ‘subject’ and the ‘object’ of physiognomy. Granted, my definition of ‘maturity’ in terms of adequate image-processing and concomitant increasing anxiety-reduction may seem odd or even esoteric. I believe, however, that it is not without overlap with alternative conceptions of maturing and it can be helpful to put it into perspective. “When you no longer believe in yourself,” Cioran writes in his essay ‘De l’inconvénient d’être né,’ “you stop producing or struggling, you even stop raising questions or answering them, whereas it is the contrary which should have occurred, since it is precisely at this moment that, being free of all bonds, you are likely to grasp the truth, discern what is real and what is not. But once your belief in your own role, or your own lot, has dried up,” he continues, “you become incurious about everything else, even the ‘truth,’ though you are closer to it than ever before.” (Cioran, 1995, p. 1395; trans. Richard Howard). Maturing, one could say, in line with Cioran’s quote, is similar to waging an inner battle, inspired by an invincible self-confidence, to seize what is right and real. It comes down to slow ripening of revelatory potencies due to gradually acquired insight and experience over a lifetime. On account of Otto Rank, whose notion of birth anxiety I have discussed in the previous chapter, maturing would be equivalent to dealing with a human Grundkonflikt (‘basic conflict’) throughout a process of inner growth: “the overcoming of previous supporting egos and ideologies from which the individual has to free himself according to the measure and speed of his own growth [nach Ausmaß seines Wachstumsprozesses]”. This is extremely difficult since “the victory is always, at bottom and in some form, won over a part of one’s own ego”. (Rank, 2000, p. 318; trans., p. 375) Both Cioran and Rank insist on the inner struggle as part and parcel of maturing. ‘Struggling,’ I believe, is a helpful notion which contributes to a better understanding of what I have called ‘adequation’ and even ‘anxiety reduction’. In addition to adequate synchronicity processing, maturity may represent the outcome of an inner struggle.

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Ecstasy and the Maturing Physiognomist “But he looked on the faces of the lords of the earth – and he saw them wasted and devoured by the beautiful disease of thought and passion.” —Thomas Wolfe97

I will start discussing ‘subject’ maturity, that is, maturity in the physiognomist. Physiognomists are they who, as I stated earlier, have accepted the invitation to an approach of the human countenance as a synchronistic unity. This invitation does not exclude inner unravelling, though. As already suggested above, Picard’s association of countenance with ‘synthesis’ and ‘presence’ involves a tension: a tension between, on the one hand, synthesis and presence and, on the other hand, bewilderment or even anxiety. Let us take a closer look. We have seen how to Picard a confrontation with a human countenance is all-embracing. “The entire being of the perceiver is stirred.” One may feel enticed, therefore, to associate the facial encounter of physiognomy with what I have described in chapter 2 as ‘ecstatic experience,’ about which I claimed that the associated images are not restricted (as Klages seems to believe) to the natural sphere but extend to the social realm such as to include human faces. When associating ‘physiognomy’ with ‘ecstatic images,’ however, we should be reminded of two things. Firstly, when I discussed ecstatic images earlier, the context was different. In chapter 2, I addressed ecstasy as an experience during which images become manifest. Here, on the contrary, the question arises as to how, if at all, physiognomy can induce ecstasy. Nonetheless, to the extent that ecstasy intermingles timeframes (both chronology and ana- or synchronicity), these different approaches coalesce in emphasising the profound ‘metaphysical’ impact ecstasy or physiognomic contemplation may have. Insofar as physiognomists pay meticulous attention to singularities in facial expression, at some point ecstasy may capture them and transform them into metaphysicians. But, so one could ask, what is a metaphysician? Is it someone receptive to sheer presence and steadily attuned to it? Or is it someone who is left anxious and bewildered for not coming to grips with what is experienced? 97

Wolfe, 2016, p. 526. As examples of these “lords of the earth” and their corresponding physiognomies are mentioned Coleridge, Caesar, Kublai Khan, Thothmes, Aspaltes, Mycerinus, Disraeli, Voltaire, Jonson, Carlyle, Heine, Rousseau, Dante, and Tiglath-Pileser. Ibid., 526f.

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Does the human countenance support a metaphysics of presence or absence? Before answering, I would like to throw up another reminder. In chapter 2, I made a distinction between two types of anxiety and bewilderment. The first type I attributed to degrees of immaturity in the recipient of the images, who feels overwhelmed and embarrassed – even if with hindsight the experience amounts to inchoate maturity. But the second type, I said, may be different. It instead reflects the incompleteness of Being itself, of which the ecstatic subject becomes unconsciously aware; this incompleteness, once infringing upon the ecstatic subject, likewise brings anxiety and bewilderment. In other words, ecstatic anxiety and bewilderment may either be due to immaturity in the subject or to real dimensions of Being itself. The former can be dealt with in an incremental process of maturing. But the second seems irreducible. Applying this twofold anxiety to physiognomy (provided, that is, that physiognomy indeed corresponds to ecstatic imageperception and at times even induces ecstasy), we must admit that even the mature physiognomist cannot adequately deal with the type of anxiety since it originates in an abyss of Reality itself: its ultimate incompleteness. Unless the increasing reduction of the first type of anxiety (which I have defined as ‘maturing’) equally prepares for a suitable confrontation with Reality’s incompleteness. In other words: unless growing adequacy to the contemplated countenance enables one to experience the latter as a trace of an ongoing process of Reality completion. To avoid a simplistic teleology, we had better speak here of experience of the countenance as of an accomplishment which prepares for Reality’s completion. Where a human face is sincerely experienced, there is an accomplished fact (fait accompli) which cannot be denied anymore. Rather than lamenting about the transience of everything alive, we had better interpret face-to-face encounters as stepstones towards Being’s final accomplishment; even if its actual arrival or taking-place cannot be predicted. In light of this second reminder, I would be reticent to make a radical distinction between ‘absence’ and ‘presence’. When I follow Picard’s metaphysics of presence here, it will be in virtue of its specific conception of ‘presence’. ‘Presence,’ in Picard, does not mean availability, let alone Ultimacy. It instead becomes accessible in or as a trace (similar to Levinas, who draws on Picard). We have just seen that facial presence involves an intersection of time and eternity. While being indeed appeasing and comforting (“The human face, however, is standing there like a placeholder of eternity, quietly and brightly”), it cannot fail to be unravelling and upsetting as well (“The entire being of the perceiver is stirred.”) What is more, presence recedes, to make a place for space and time as motion and

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transience (“Then suddenly time and space have been waiting long enough, they cease to stand silently and set forth.”) What remains is a trace: an experience of rhythm and order (“But time moves more rhythmically now that it has waited here, and space extends itself into its vastness in a more organised way than before.”) Could it be that in the human countenance the ultimate and the provisional coincide? It would then represent an accomplished fact: a provisional instance of what is Ultimate, a provisional ready-made or a milestone.98 Even if the bearer of the face dies, their face itself is a fait accompli which can never be made undone. A metaphysician, to return to this question, will be someone who feels challenged and encouraged by synthesis, even if that synthesis is only part of an as yet unaccomplished whole which is always, apparently, on the verge of becoming. In this respect, ‘ecstasy’ could be redefined as ‘being under the sway of provisional synthesis,’ fuelled by what Picard calls das Ahnungshafte. In Grenzen der Physiognomik Picard comes back to the presence character of the countenance. This time, however, he insists on the creative, realising virtue of the act of loving observation. “Love first realises [verwirklicht] a human face.” (Picard, 1937, p. 97; my trans.)99 Contempt for someone’s face will make that face invisible.

The Maturing Countenance “I am the man [ʸʡʢʤ] who has seen affliction by the rod of the Lord’s wrath. […] Indeed, he has turned his hand against me again and again [ ʴʤʩ ʡʹʩ], all day long.” —Book of Lamentations, III, 1,3.100 “Perhaps too in him [i.e., Swann, who was Jewish], in these last days, the race was making appear more pronounced [plus accusé] the physical type that characterises it, at the same time as the sentiment of a moral solidarity with the rest of the Jews, 98 For, as Levinas rightly says, “[l]e visage, encore chose parmi les choses, perce la forme qui cependant le délimite.” Levinas, 1984, p. 172. 99 Cf “Aber dem furchtbar-schönen Ernst einer Gesinnung, der Weh und Schmerz und Qualen kein zu hoher Preis dafür sind, dass in einem gemeinen Angesicht ein adliger Zug erscheine, geben wir uns anbetend hin.” Friedmann, 1930, p. 488. 100 Buber/Rosenzweig translate “Ich bin der Mann, der das Elend besah unterm Stabe Seines Überwallens. […] Wiederkehrend wandte er, gegen mich nur, seine Hand all den Tag,” and André Chouraqui: “Ah! contre moi il se retourne; il renverse sa main tout le jour.” My italics.

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a solidarity which Swann seemed to have forgotten throughout his life, and which, one after another [greffées les unes sur les autres: ‘engraved upon each other’], his mortal illness, the Dreyfus case and the anti-semitic propaganda had revived [réveillée]. There are certain Israelites, superior people for all that and refined men of the world, in whom there remain in reserve and in the wings, ready to enter at a given moment in their lives, as in a play, a bounder and a prophet. Swann had arrived at the age of the prophet. Certainly, with his face from which, by the action of his disease, whole segments had vanished, as when a block of ice melts and slabs of it fall off bodily [dont des pans entiers sont tombés], he had greatly altered.” —Marcel Proust101 “Proust, this grey child [dieses greise Kind]” —Walter Benjamin102

Having discussed ‘subject’ maturity or maturity concerning the physiognomist, I will now try to apply it to the physiognomic ‘object’: the observed countenance itself. Let us speak of ‘object’ maturity here. Again, Picard’s mixture of theological and phenomenological views is conspicuous. What is made manifest, Picard asks, in a countenance’s maturing over time? It is as if the countenance has been created twice. On the one hand, it seems to have been generated from eternity, namely, when it appears all of a sudden, unexpectedly, in pure momentariness (Augenblickshaftigkeit). On the other hand, it seems to have been created from its earthly origin onwards, namely, when it slowly grows into time, and occasions its duration (Dauer): “the entire human life is like an annual ring [Jahresring] around eternity”. (Picard, 1947, p. 151)103 “In space alone, in space without time, the human essence [das Wesen des Menschen] cannot clarify itself. The human needs time. The human has been positioned in space, indeed – but the meaning of this position will only be known through time. 104 The human unfolds in space through time, and this, 101 Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe. In Proust, 1999, p. 1277f. (trans. Moncrieff; my italics). 102 Benjamin, 1991, p. 322; my trans. 103 Cf Proust: “Un homme qui dort tient en cercle autour de lui le fil des heures, l’ordre des années et des mondes.” M. Proust (1913). Combray. In Proust, 1999, p. 14; trans. Remembrance of Things Past. Vol. 1: Swann’s Way: Within a Budding Grove; trans. C.K. Scott Moncrieff & Terence Kilmartin. New York: Vintage. 104 Note that, once more, this description literally repeats Hans Driesch’ biological account of entelechy, which operates in den Raum hinein.

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Chapter 3 that someone unfolds in space through time, this is the trajectory of the human [Bahn des Menschen]. “Since today time fails to manifest itself [Da heute keine Zeit mehr ist], there will be no trajectory [Bahn] either, and the humans meet each other without being led by the laws of a trajectory [Gesetze der Bahn], – they encounter each other [treffen aufeinander] in a meaningless space, by coincidence [Zufall]. Therefore, humans are strangers next to each other.” (Picard, 1947, p. 158)

In the next chapter, when discussing the ‘Cycloptic’ lifestyle, I will come back to this passage. I will argue that this Cycloptic lifestyle – which is primarily characterised by inhospitality and seclusion – mirrors contemporary lifestyles. Time, Picard continues, enriches space by allowing both for maturing or unfolding, and for production of meaning (Sinn). Time permits one to traverse a human life trajectory (Bahn des Menschen) during which things can be discovered and learnt. The opposite of such a trajectory and its corresponding rules and principles (Gesetze der Bahn) would be a concatenation of coincidence (Zufall). A synchronicity experience, then, would come down to the recognition or acknowledgement of one’s station in life over time (“the meaning of this position will only be known through time”). As if there were no need to rashly appropriate (or even usurp) a place. If it were meant to be ours, it would occur to us at the right moment.105 How can we push these remarks a little further towards a better understanding of the notion of object maturity, that is, a mature countenance? A mature countenance, I would suggest, is a countenance which is able to recognise synchronicities, past and present (albeit sometimes without acknowledgement, as in the children’s faces mentioned by Vishniac).106 The one-eyed Cyclopes in the Odyssey – and their eternal

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Cf “Ein solcher Mensch brauchte nicht zu eilen, dass er den Raum weithin besetzte, er füllte von dort aus, wo er in Ruhe war, schon genug Raum aus, und er wurde sicher im rechten Augenblick an den Ort gebracht, an dem er sein sollte. Er konnte in der Zeit warten und verborgen bleiben bis zum rechten Augenblick. Er war im rechten Augenblick da.” Picard, 1947, p. 159. 106 “Le drame, c’est de voir des photographies d’enfants qui n’ont plus l’air d’enfants. Ils ont hérité des souffrances de leurs ancêtres, de la résistance à la souffrance, et cela on le voit mieux dans les yeux que dans tout autre partie du corps.” Atlan, 2006, pp. 27f. The photos can be found mainly in his A Vanished World, New York: Noonday Press, 1983 (Schocken Books 1947). Note that the

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companions in our ‘real,’ ‘non-mythical’ world – will hardly be capable of recognising synchronicities. Polyphemus’ single eye must first be pierced by Ulysses – he must first be blinded – before he can see in the first place. “Alas, alas, then the old prophecy [ʌĮȜĮȓijĮIJĮ șȑıijĮșૃ] about me is coming true,” the monster cries when this has finally happened. And he continues saying that “there was a seer [ȝȐȞIJȚȢ] here, at one time, a man both brave and of great stature, Telemos son of Eurymos, who was an excellent seer [ȝĮȞIJȠıȪȞૉ ਥțȑțĮıIJȠ], and did all the prophesying for the Cyclopes till he grew old [ȝĮȞIJİȣȩȝİȞȠȢ țĮIJİȖȒȡĮ]; he told me that all this would happen to me [IJİȜİȣIJȒıİıșĮȚ] some day, and said I should lose my sight [ਖȝĮȡIJȒıİıșĮȚ ੑʌȦʌોȢ] by the hand of Odysseus.” And yet, so the Cyclops ends his lamentation, “I have been all along expecting [ਥįȑȖȝȘȞ] some one of imposing presence and superhuman strength [ij૵IJĮ ȝȑȖĮȞ țĮ੿ țĮȜઁȞ], whereas he turns out to be a little insignificant weakling [ੑȜȓȖȠȢ IJİ țĮ੿ Ƞ੝IJȚįĮȞઁȢ țĮ੿ ਙțȚțȣȢ], who has managed to blind my eye by taking advantage of me in my drink”. (9, 407ff)107 Is it too far-fetched to refer here also to Walter Benjamin’s observation, in his photography essay, that the first photographers (Nadar, Stelzner, Pierson, Bayard) not only reached the highest quality in their pictures, but also a high age (just like the Biblical patriarchs)?108 Thereby, I would like to add, they resembled the aforementioned Homeric seer (ȝȐȞIJȚȢ) Telemos, son of Eurymos, “who was an excellent seer [ȝĮȞIJȠıȪȞૉ ਥțȑțĮıIJȠ], and did all the prophesying for the Cyclopes till he grew old [ȝĮȞIJİȣȩȝİȞȠȢ țĮIJİȖȒȡĮ: ‘he grew old while prophesying’].” My guess would be that, had Telemos lived today, he might have been an excellent photographer. Granted, longevity is not given to all photographers, even if they are goodHebrew word used in the quotation from Lamentations, gèvèr, connotes courage or bravery, and therefore, preparedness: “I am the man [ʸʡʢʤ] who has seen affliction”. 107 Drawing on Rosenzweig, one could contend that Polyphemus, inasmuch as he remains focused upon his monocularity, will not mature and never become the Greisenkopf he only now starts honouring: “Die Augen sind unter sich nicht etwa mimisch gleichwertig, sondern während das linke mehr empfänglich und gleichmäßig schaut, blickt das rechte scharf auf einen Punkt eingestellt; nur das rechte ‘blitzt,’ – eine Arbeitsteilung, die ihre Spuren schließlich bei Greisenköpfen häufig auch in die weiche Umgebung der Augenhöhle eingräbt, so daß dann jene ungleichmäßige Gesichtbildung auch von vorn wahrnehmbar wird, die sonst allgemein nur an der bekannten Verschiedenheit der beiden Profile auffällt.” Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 470. 108 “ja es scheint eine Art von biblischem Segen auf jenen ersten Photographen geruht zu haben: die Nadar, Stelzner, Pierson, Bayard sind alle an die Neunzig oder Hundert herangerückt.” Benjamin, 1999, p. 374.

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looking seers. As noticed in the previous chapter, the American photograph Francesca Woodman died at the young age of 22 after committing suicide. It is interesting to note, though, that as a caption to two pictures – in which the photographer poses half-naked over a mirror next to some garments – she blotted down the following sentence: “These things arrived from my grandmother. They make me think about where I fit in this odd geometry of time.”109 As if at times, there were another, non-geometrical time, a time in which grandmother and granddaughter are not merely subsequent upon, but perhaps preferably simultaneous to each other, such as to accelerate the latter’s inchoate maturing, if not to make the maturing process superfluous altogether. As a rule, however, the sequences of chronology cannot be so easily dispensed with, neither in the lives of ageing photographers, nor of Telemos son of Eurymos, nor even – I would emphatically add – of the brutal Cyclops Polyphemus. This could appear from the following mature passage in Proust. After having described painter Elstir’s portrait-making skills, the author writes: “We are not provided with wisdom, we must discover it for ourselves, after a journey through the wilderness which no one else can take for us, an effort which no one can spare us, for our wisdom is the point of view from which we come at last to regard the world [un point de vue sur les choses]. The lives that you admire, the attitudes that seem noble to you are not the result of training at home, by a father, or by masters at school, they have sprung from beginnings of a very different order, by reaction from the influence of everything evil or commonplace that prevailed round about them. They represent a struggle and a victory.”110 Whereas Vishniac’s Jewish children from Eastern Europe, or the young artist Francesca Woodman – standing over a mirror amidst inherited stuff from her ancestor – may have reached maturity as in a flash, people generally need a lifetime to deal with the governing principles surrounding them and discover wisdom. Some, like the Cyclops Polyphemus, need to be blinded first. 109

Jessica Backus (2013). This Odd Geometry of Time: On the Photography of Francesca Woodman. The Art Genome Project. https://www.artsy.net/article/jessica-this-odd-geometry-of-time Accessed 15 April 2019. Inspecting a picture of his late grandmother and imaging to see her again comme dans un miroir, Proust’s narrator equally gropes after his location in time (comme s’il y avait dans le temps des séries différentes et parallèles). Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe. In Proust, 1999, pp. 1328, 1327; and A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. In Proust, 1999, p. 620f. 110 Marcel Proust (1919). A l’ombre des jeunes filles en fleurs. In Proust, 1999, p. 678; trans. Moncrieff.

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Countenance and space: cosmology “I was very struck by your face [J’ai été très frappé par ton visage], in your face I found the entire Mediterranean.” —Valerio Adami on Jacques Derrida111

Let us end this discussion of physiognomy by briefly considering its relation to cosmology. This idea will doubtlessly seem oddest to the modern mind. And yet, Picard does not hesitate to make this connection, and he is not the only one. Reading facial lines and trajectories, Picard believes, sheds a wholly different light on the universe. Nature, insofar as it precedes human intervention, bears more human significance than the subsequent social order itself. This idea, which at first sight unites classical Daoism, medieval kabbalah, Rousseau, Schelling, Carus and Klages, needs to be correctly understood if we want to understand Picard’s intentions and thereby avoid naive ‘naturalism’ or ‘determinism’. At the origin of physiognomy is silence. “The silence surrounding the mouth is like the seal which has been put before each word, before the mouth opens it. [“Das Schweigen um den Mund herum ist wie das Siegel, das vor jedes Wort gesetzt ist, ehe der Mund es öffnet.”]112 (Picard, 1947, p. 41; my trans.) Significance and silence (rather than speech), Picard points out, are mutually implicative. Insisting on silence enables Picard to avoid determinism and naturalism, and to warrant alterity or transcendence. There is another way in which Picard intends to safeguard transcendence in his physiognomic ‘musings’. The human being, he argues, is endowed with an inbuilt distance. This appears from the aspect of the human face. “By virtue of perspective form, distance has been built into the face. And not only does one look into the distance of the face as it extends from the front towards its depth [so wie es sich von vorne gegen die Tiefe zu 111 Derrida,

2013, p. 207; my trans. Also cf: “Le vase donne une forme au vide, et la musique au silence.” Braque, 1952, p. 19. In this respect, Polyphemus’ frightening loud, silence-absorbing voice (ijșȩȖȖȠȞ IJİ ȕĮȡઃȞ) could discharge Ulysses from any incrimination – expressed in a previous footnote – of physiognomic foreclosure. If silence attests maturity – which seems a reasonable claim –, Ferenczi is justified in linking linguistic development and anal eroticism: “dass Stimm- und Sprachbildung sowie Analerotik nicht nur zufällig und ausnahmsweise, sondern gesetzmäßig mit einander verknüpft sind. Das Sprichwort: ‘Schweigen ist Gold’ könnte als volkspsychologische Bestätigung dieser Annahme gelten.” Sándor Ferenczi (1916). Schweigen ist Gold. In Ferenczi, 1970, p. 231. 112

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Whereas the first ‘image’ of transcendence is expressed by the mouth (whose speech originates in the silence surrounding the mouth, as though it were primordially ‘sealed’), the second image concerns the eyes. Playing on the German idiom (but in English, it would work as well), Picard associates the act of ‘seeing’ (das Sehen) with the ‘sea of the eye’ (die See des Auges; Picard, 1947, p. 43), associating the eye with depth. One could add at this point that Picard might just as well have highlighted the soul (Seele) which appears in the eyes.113 It is not irrelevant that Ludwig Klages also intrinsically associates man with depth and distance. Admittedly, he does so without explicitly connecting it to physiognomy; Klages primarily connects depth and distance to a corresponding human receptivity. By being able to contemplate (Schauen), Klages states, man is endowed with a receptivity to distance (Ferneempfänglichkeit). To contemplate entails the ability to synesthetically perceive against the horizon of distance and to put things in the perspective of infinity.114 Contemplation equals original synthesis, the analysis of which can only be distortive. “Susceptibility to distance [Ferneempfänglichkeit],” Klages says, is the “consequence of the agency of distance in the Present of the animate being [Folge des Wirkens der Ferne im Hier des lebendigen Wesens].” (Klages, 1981, p. 830; my trans.) Any singular, ‘separate’ observation will always be imbued by an original remoteness that cannot be erased. This remoteness, Klages concludes, allows the soul to deepen the immediate experience by putting it into a broader (albeit transient) perspective. Again, it would matter here if this broader perspective opens (Klages) or supervenes upon (Picard) the revelation of a face. It should be underlined that the concept of ‘space’ implied both in Picard 113

Cf Rosenzweig who associates soul with light: “Gott sprach: Es werde Licht – und das Licht Gottes, was ist es? des Menschen Seele” Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 123. 114 Of which the Cyclops, by virtue of its monoculism, is uncapable. Cf “der Kyklop Polyphem trägt sein eines rädergroßes Auge als Spur der gleichen Vorwelt: das eine Auge mahnt an Nase und Mund primitiver als die Symmetrie der Augen und Ohren, welche in der Einheit zweier zur Deckung gelangender Wahrnehmungen Identifikation, Tiefe, Gegenständlichkeit überhaupt erst bewirkt.” Horkheimer & Adorno, 1988, p. 71.

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and Klages is qualitative rather than quantitative. This space cannot be measured; it can only be experienced. The Anwesenheit der Ferne im Seelenträger (‘presence of distance in the bearer of a soul’; Klages, 1981, p. 830) is the condition of possibility of any subsequent measuring and assessment.115 Let us now also take a more detailed look at the physiognomic outlook of the cosmos, or the cosmic outlook of the human countenance. “The entire creation, it seems, has drawn [eingezeichnet] its image onto the human face,” albeit not profoundly but rather like dew or bloom, as a thin layer. (Picard, 1947, p. 171; my trans.) The latter seems to be the former’s ‘inventory’ (Inventar der Welt). How? Firstly, heaven appears visibly in the human being. “Just like the celestial arch over the earth, the human skull, high and curbed, is superposed over the human form.” (Ibid.; my trans.) The creation of man repeats the creation of nature on a higher level. Next, just as heaven’s firmament is endowed with stars, the human skull bears a front. Picard plays with the German words Stirn (‘forehead’) and Gestirn (stars, celestial bodies) – though perhaps it is a serious play; that is, one in which language gives meaningful hints. “Indeed, the arch of the skull is standing there, like a second celestial arch, and therefore, there is also a sun in this arch, it rises here once more. There are stars, they are so bright [klar], as though each morning, they were brushed bright [klargestreift] by the arch of the sun’s orbit [Sonnenbahn].” (Picard, 1947, p. 173; my trans.) As the forehead contains the eyes, one could also say that just as the sun brightens heaven, the eyes brighten the face. Thirdly, while the sun shines by day, the moon by night. Surprisingly, Picard does not distinguish any ‘organic’ facial counterpart to the moon, but he mentions a mood: ‘melancholy’ (Schwermut). Melancholy, he says, keeps a balance with the brightly shining (sun-like) eyes, to prevent the face from being self-consuming. Just as the light of a human face is brighter than the brightest day (“Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day”), its obscurity is darker than the darkest night. Again, we see how Picard intends to show that man repeats nature, but more intensely.116 115

“blicke vor dem Schlafengehen noch eine Weile in diese Buchten und Meerengen mit den vielen Sternen und weise die Gedanken oder Träume nicht ab, die dabei etwa kommen.” Hesse, 1979, p. 345. 116 Which would definitely make Picard a genius in Schopenhauer’s eyes, Insofar as he focuses not on immediate nature but on that which nature has been aiming at: “daher der Genius der Phantasie bedarf, um in den Dingen nicht Das zu sehn, was

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One correspondence entails another: the human being, Picard continues, can be seen as a “walking piece of earth,” as a “hill”. The solitude of a forest is in his face, brightened, though, by the brightness of his eye. The source of all rivers is in his face, more particularly in the corners of the eyes, moistened by tears. The sea and clouds are in his face. The whole wide world is there (die Weite der ganzen Welt). And just as the stars make their way through the nocturnal sky, the transition of years and events mark the human face. Picard seems to be thinking here of those subtle facial markers subsequently revealing themselves in the human countenance, for example, through the crevices of meetings I may have with a faraway friend, or in a series of pictures of a relative made successively over time. Following a pattern that outsiders cannot control but that can only be discerned occasionally, each time anew the human face shows features expressing acquired experiences or insights. As if each time a new star has risen, accompanying the stars moving along the firmament. When someone dies, Picard asserts, it is not only as though these facial ‘stars’ suddenly leave, but also as if the heavenly stars slow down. “Death slows down the stars in their orbit [Bahn].” (Picard, 1947, p. 181; my trans.) As an example, Picard quotes the following discussion between two soldiers from Shakespeare’s Anthony and Cleopatra (IV.3). It takes place after Antonius’ death: “Music i’ th’ air.” “Under the earth.” “It signs well, does it not?” “No.” “Peace, I say. What should this mean?” “’Tis the god Hercules, whom Antony loved, Now leaves him.” Rather than to the stars supposedly ‘determining’ the human face, Picard’s inverted astrology – which is, no less than ‘common’ astrology, synchronistic in kind – gives precedence to the human face itself. Both this primordial character of the face and its synchronistic ‘constitution’ are clearly illustrated in the following passage: “But as the soul, other than the heavenly bodies [Gestirne], is not in space and not in time, it does not need, like the heavenly bodies, months and years; suddenly, in a single moment, the soul covers the trajectory around its beloved being [legt die Seele ihre Bahn um das geliebte Wesen zurück], in a single moment it creates this being [formt sie es].” (Picard, 1947, p. 182; my trans.)

die Natur wirklich gebildet hat, sondern was sie zu bilden sich bemühte”. (Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, §36, p. 267)

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Unreserved agreement with these statements would be as naive as their rejection. Levinas, for example, whose philosophy of the Face is highly indebted to Picard’s, attributes a mostly poetical value to the majority of them. But he immediately adds that (poetic) language is born precisely in the dimension of original, Baudelairean correspondences!117 Picard’s descriptions, without being immediately evident to a neutral observer, let alone that they can be experimentally ‘tested,’ presuppose a more contemplative attitude for a proper assessment. Their truth or falsity cannot be objectively established. This is necessarily so since any meaningful connection between cosmos and countenance explicitly precludes the objectifying stance. Instead, it asks for exposing oneself to immediate perception or contemplation of, e.g., stars, sunlight, darkness, etc.; perhaps even to their most revelatory hermeneutic exemplified in the human countenance (rather than the other way round). On what condition would claims about a cosmological physiognomy or a physiognomic cosmology make sense to a modern mind? It would certainly not be convincing to merely refer to the so many spiritual traditions from the past which had similar, if not more extravagant ideas about a cosmologyphysiognomy correspondence. Such views are held in Daoism, Pythagoreanism, Kabbala, etc. These traditions somehow state that the human body is a microcosmos reflecting a macrocosmos. Perhaps Heidegger, as a Western philosopher (albeit an obscure one to some), is better equipped to elucidate what is at stake here, especially in his assessment of modern, ‘scientific’ cosmologies. Without attempting to engage in physiognomic studies himself, Heidegger boldly contends that the current Copernican-Galilean-Newtonian worldview is not merely an improvement or a correction of the classical Aristotelian worldview, but its alternative, if not even its competitor. To understand this, one would have to realise that modern cosmology does not merely continue the ancient one (just by improving it); it contests its (phenomenological) premises. Only by reinstating a phenomenological (that is, acausal) perspective could one appreciate Heidegger’s curious (or, ‘spurious’) introduction of his notion of the Fourfold (das Geviert) in his text ‘Bauen Wohnen Denken’. By this notion, Heidegger aims at showing an eternal mirroring and mutual

117

“Le langage ne commence-t-il pas dans cette région préliminaire où se font écho les correspondances dont parle Baudelaire?” E. Levinas (1976). Max Picard et le visage. In Nom propres. Paris: Fata morgana, pp. 113f.

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belongingness of earth and heaven, gods and men.118 To take this seriously, one would have to abandon the objectifying stance of the natural scientist; not because it is false, but because it is ultimately arbitrary. An alternative way of making an analogy between micro- and macrocosmos convincing may be as moot as Heidegger’s philosophy, yet appealing to those who are wary of the common forms of materialistic anthropology. It could be found in Chinese medicine, which ‘applies’ this analogy in the practice of acupuncture, and it seems to work. It can equally be found in qigong, which uses meridians and acupuncture points, ‘testing’ them, so to speak, in practice. In this section, I have discussed physiognomy as an example of observed and observable synchronicity. Physiognomists are they who have accepted the invitation to an approach of the human countenance as a synchronistic unity. A human countenance can be seen as an acausal unity of single causal chains. Focusing on a countenance (or, as Levinas might prefer, addressing it) cannot fail to affect the structure of subjectivity where the act originates. This will always make physiognomy a vulnerable undertaking.119 While objectivity cannot be achieved, physiognomy could enrich our scope on man and the world. Provided that transcendence is warranted in both, they could be seen as reflecting each other, and as concretely articulating an inner depth of nature that, true, many scientists do not ignore. Robots do not have any facial expression, and since they cannot be physiognomically approached, they will remain outside the sphere of what is properly human. I have dwelt on physiognomy as a phenomenon that could exhume deeper dimensions in the human subject, dimensions which can be described in terms of ‘maturing’ and ‘maturity’. Having equated physiognomy with ecstatic images, I made a distinction between ‘subject’ and ‘object’ 118

“Die Sterblichen wohnen, insofern sie die Göttlichen als die Göttlichen erwarten. Hoffend halten sie ihnen das Unverhoffte entgegen. Sie warten die Winke ihrer Ankunft und verkennen nicht die Zeichen ihres Fehls. […] Im Unheil noch warten sie des entzogenen Heils.” M. Heidegger (1990, 1954). Bauen Wohnen Denken. In Vorträge und Aufsätze. Pfullingen: Neske, p. 144. 119 Without claiming that Levinas would welcome physiognomy, I have the impression that Derrida’s (Hegelian) critique of Levinas’ notion of the Face (visage) neglects the Face’s encroachment upon the subject position. This neglect already appears from Derrida’s equation of Levinas’ présence (i.e., of the Face) with the Platonic Ƞ੝ıȓĮ. Cf. Derrida, Violence et métaphysique. Essai sur la pensée d’Emmanuel Levinas. In Jacques Derrida (1967). L’écriture et la différence. Paris: Seuil, p. 149.

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maturity; the former being a property of an observer (adequate image processing), the latter of an observed countenance (capable of recognising synchronicities). The notion of ‘adequacy,’ implied by physiognomy, can be interpreted in terms of anxiety reduction. This interpretation may hold, even where anxiety seems irreducible since reflecting Reality’s incompleteness. My suggestion was that adequate image processing, in general, might compensate for the occurring ‘existential’ anxiety and bewilderment. To this suggestion, I will now add that, when it comes to dealing with that type of anxiety, physiognomic observation of the human countenance may supersede alternative ecstatic images in effectiveness. It does so since, ‘on closer inspection,’ a human countenance may contain a trace of an ongoing process of Reality completion. Should this be plausible, a sincerely experienced human face can count as an accomplished fact (fait accompli) which cannot be denied anymore. This possibility brings us to our final chapter, where I will try to elucidate it in more detail.

Epilogue My claim in this chapter has been that synchronicity experiences are experiences that condensate or densify (‘intimate’) analytically distinct sense data. The preposition dis (as in distinguish, distance, discern, dispose, distribute, etc.) – which refers to remoteness – is replaced by con (Latin) or syn (Greek), prepositions which express togetherness, immediacy or belonging. Synchronicity experiences might be crossovers from ‘ordinary’ sense perception to a growing ‘transcendental’ awareness. Their ‘arbitrariness’ and ‘coincidental’ nature has been decided upon from the outset by any discourse that tacitly assumes the priority of dis- over con/syn-. “Thus we carry over into dream the waking habit of estimating duration [Zeitlängen] according to the number of perceptions upon the physiological scale of time, while our consciousness is, in fact, then subject to the transcendental scale.” (Du Prel, 1885 p. 79; trans., p. 94) “the physiological scale of time is not essential to the human mind,” and “from the organic basis, it follows that its connection with the organic body is no necessary relation.” (Du Prel, 1885 p. 94; trans., p. 112)

Throughout this chapter, I have discussed synchronicity experiences as essential virtuality of consciousness or the soul. I have tried to show that synchronicity, apart from being characteristic of several significant developments in human history, also epitomises a receptivity of consciousness to events, features and experiences the neglect of which

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would be detrimental to an adequate understanding of man. Synchronicity experiences defy formal causality and affect the subject’s observational stance. Therefore, they are structurally at risk of falling beyond the scope of scientific research, which is sadly equivalent to being denied ontological relevance. However, as synchronicity experiences continue to manifest themselves, whether or not we are consciously aware of it, we had better consider the possibility that they are liable to repression. The exceptional experiences alluded to in this book may similarly suffer from non-acknowledgement, denial, or even repression. It being philosophy’s primary task to question set beliefs and convictions, even those endowed with ‘scientific’ credits, I propose to re-address the question of the human being in terms of synchronicity awareness. Doing so creates new philosophical, scientific and even religious challenges. The topics discussed in this chapter should be conceived of as modest preliminaries to dealing with these challenges. Synchronicity awareness could help define criteria for acceptable and unacceptable forms of human enhancement. I believe that enhancement technologies should primarily focus on those hidden human potentials which attest a stratified consciousness and a receptivity to synchronicity. To the extent that (1) enhancement needs a criterion to prevent abuse or distortion of living human beings, and that (2) life itself offers the only available criterion for the assessment of life, the intensification of life issuing from synchronicity experiences is a justifiable principle to supervise enhancement technologies.120

120

Du Prel speaks about a “Steigerung der Intensität des Lebens”. Die Metaphysik der Geschlechtsliebe in ihrem Verhältnis zur Geschichte. In Du Prel, 1911, p. 103.

CHAPTER 4 DEATH AS ENHANCED SUBLIMINALITY

“While the haptic concept of the physiologist cannot tell when life escapes [entwich] and death arrives [da ist] – the visionary [sehende] morphology of the artist has always experienced it as one of its major themes.” —Hermann Friedmann1 “Death slows down the stars in their orbit.” —Max Picard2

Introduction The inescapable question pending over what I have written so far is: what, then, is death? As is the case with all perennial questions, especially if they seem insoluble, answering the question may benefit from first reformulating it. ‘What is death?’ mistakenly anticipates an entity X called ‘death’. We have already seen that the same flaw affects the question ‘do we have a soul?’ What if ‘death,’ just as ‘soul,’ put up a challenge to any ontology of concrete ‘entities’? What if ‘death’ were that which precluded the delineation of single objects, including itself, as an alleged ‘object,’ viz., of definition or intellection? What if ‘death’ were a starting point as of which any discussion of being or reality could only make sense, if at all? Another, kindred prejudice impairing us here is that the question ‘what is death?’ seems to consider irrelevant the mindset with which it is asked, let alone answered. As my entire argument in this book cannot even pretend to invoke, let alone demonstrate as reliable, an altered, deeper state of consciousness, the credibility of anything which is said in this chapter will likewise be severely impacted by the unavailability of a justifying altered state of consciousness.

1 2

Hermann Friedmann, 1930, p. 484; my trans. Max Picard, 1947, p. 181; my trans.

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Despite these structural and methodological difficulties, I will at least try to address the question of death in a way which is not unnecessarily improper. I will do this against the background of my overall argument in this book, which entails a stratification of consciousness and the possibility that deeper layers coincidentally surface: whether in the condensed form of enhanced introspection or inspiration, or as a more conscious awareness of daily life phenomena (human artefacts, kin, organic life, etc.). Relocating the socalled ‘transcendental consciousness’ – or even Heidegger’s Dasein – to death allows for two things at least. Firstly, it would blast the ultimate truthvalue of categories, whether Aristotelian, Kantian, or Heideggerian. Secondly, contemplating death might open the door to seeing death as a promise rather than a termination.3 General definitions of death pretend to give more clarity than they actually can. If ‘death’ is defined as the cessation of heartthrob, respiration, and metabolism, still nothing definite has been affirmed. Death could always be anything, whatever. In this chapter, I will approach ‘death’ as radical alterity or otherness. This implies that the semblance of referentiality attributed to the word ‘death’ (for example when it will be connected hereafter to ‘enhanced subliminality’) must be alleviated; it will only be a makeshift or a palliative. Regular linguistic referentiality will be invalidated by what I intend to express when discussing ‘death’. Death is no concrete signified, allegedly designated by the putative signifier ‘death’. Just as ‘soul’ or ‘consciousness,’ it is irreducibly experiential. It cannot be appropriated from a third-person perspective, against the odds. “The strangeness of death and destiny was legible upon lives and faces which held no strangeness of their own,’ Thomas Wolfe writes. “For, it is the union of the ordinary and the miraculous that makes wonder.” (Wolfe, 2016, p. 426)4 This quote not only remarkable illustrates physiognomy, which I discussed in the previous chapter; it also connects physiognomy and death. As if ‘silence,’ the essence of a countenance according to Picard, anticipates death. In this chapter, I will start making a case for what Hans Driesch had called a “higher metaphysics,” that is, a metaphysics which exceeds the confines of experience. Driesch develops several useful arguments for the assumption that reasoning need not be limited to setting up cogent 3

“Dass des Menschen Reich im tiefsten Sinne ‘nicht von dieser Welt’ sei”. Driesch, 1917, p. IX. 4 Friedmann calls death a “depth phenomenon” (Phänomen der Tiefe, das über das Leben hinausweist). Hermann Friedmann (1956). Das Gemüt. Gedanken zu einer Thymologie. München: C.H. Beck, p. 13.

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syllogisms nor to making verifiable statements. In light of these arguments, I feel sufficiently justified in claiming that death amounts to enhanced subliminality. To outline my argument, I will start addressing the complex issue of memory and recollection since these corroborate personhood. Inspired by Du Prel, I will explore the idea that recollection can be enhanced; dreaming, somnambulism and moribundity are likely to promote it since they flexibilise the threshold of sensibility, which bars off memory. Discussing significant passages in Proust, Joyce and Rousseau enables me to interpret death as a paradoxical coalescence of compression and decompression of selfhood. Elating the latter infinitely while maintaining its inner intensity, death is the only imaginable healer of trauma. Next, I will analyse the notion of ‘presence’ in terms of image, imagination and optics. Drawing on Picard’s physiognomic theories and Marcel’s account of Being, I will show that ‘presence’ entails both synchronicity and a deepened conception of time. This affects moribundity as a phenomenon. For examples, I will resort to quoting a moving death bed scene in Thomas Wolfe’s novel Look Homeward, Angel, and several farewell addresses, among which the famous final conversation between Tom Joad and his mother in John Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath. Finally, I will discuss suffering. I interpret suffering as death’s proxy server, which further supports my claim of death as enhanced subliminality. Suffering, I will argue, can be seen as a form of unconscious resistance against subliminal enhancement; consequently, it involuntarily testifies to an approximation of death. Nonetheless, suffering can also be interpreted as a desire towards undisturbed wholeness or completeness, amidst an experience of non-completeness. Through a thorough reading of the final part of the Cyclops narrative (both in Homer and in Virgil), I will argue that suffering’s nature is inane.

A “higher metaphysics” “Death is the gateway towards a metaphysics of the highest order.” —Hans Driesch5

Talking about death must refrain from the apodictic overtones, which often characterise both spiritualist (Swedenborg) and materialist (Dennett, Dawkins) accounts. In the present examination, I will try to minimise the impression as though one could have any certainty here; also, I will attempt 5

Driesch, 1917, p. 291.

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to avoid implying general validity (deaths can be very different, at least for witnesses). Apart from the intuitive sparks which enable me to write at all, the basis of my argument consists mostly of an extrapolation of tendencies detectable in and amongst the living. These tendencies may give rise to setting up what Hans Driesch, in his Wirklichkeitslehre (‘Doctrine of Reality’), has called a “higher metaphysics” (höhere Metaphysik). (Driesch, 1917, p. 306f) A higher metaphysics would be a metaphysics which builds on categories and forms of being foreign to perception (wahrnehmungsfremd) – albeit that this higher metaphysics will always depend on perception. “Experience,” Driesch states, “does not provide us with knowledge concerning everything real.” And he adds that “equating knowledge from experience [Erfahrungswissen] principally with knowledge of reality [Wirklichkeitswissen] comes down […] to artificially paralysing the faculties of thinking and to bringing thinking to a mere overestimation of the habitual.” (Driesch, 1917, p. 52; my trans.) Experience, Driesch argues, is a general precondition and starting point of metaphysics, not its confines. (Ibid., p. 53) This anti-phenomenological stance implies that any ‘higher metaphysics’ will “largely” consist of an “edifice of assumptions” (größtenteils ein Gefüge von Vermutungen; ibid., pp. X, 29); nothing more, nothing less. It entails a disruption of ego-related knowledge (Sprengung der Ich-bezogenheit alles Wissens), and a hypothesising approach of reality itself, beyond the boundaries of space, time and causality, and based upon induction (Erfinden; ibid. pp. 26, 35). Driesch lists five indications which might justify a higher, trans-perceptive metaphysics. I will briefly present them here. Two indications are connected to nature, both animate and inanimate. Two others are related to ‘humanity’ or ‘humanness,’ as an integrating factor both in the individual and in society at large. A final indication is detected in the phenomena of memory and recollection. Together, these indications do not so much justify but modestly underpin the “edifice of assumptions” about death presented in this chapter.

I Nature The first category of indications pointing at a higher, transempirical metaphysics concerns inanimate nature. Inanimate, ‘lifeless’ nature displays phenomena like gravity, magnetism, electricity, energy, etc. These phenomena take place within space and are determined by long-range force (“Fernkraft”) and potentiality (“Potential”). They seem to challenge or complexify the particle model of matter. A second category concerns animate nature, where living organisms develop from a formless, embryonic state to self-contained and self-

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maintaining beings. Driesch refers here to what he calls potencies (“Potenzen”) of becoming and entelechy. I have discussed the concept of ‘entelechy’ in the first chapter as an example of the external phenomenality of the soul. Other than the former category (long-range force etc.), the process of becoming and entelechy operate into space (in den Raum hinein). For, solely seen from within space, Driesch specifies, one could at best observe a coincidental accumulation of materials. Such an observation would be limited and not give a fuller overview. True, the aforementioned intra-spatial phenomena of the first category will only be indicative of a higher metaphysics for those who are not complacent with the particle model of matter and reject it.6 On the other hand, accepting the extra-spatial ‘phenomena’ of the second category will work exclusively for those who are not convinced that random mutation and struggle for life exhaust animal development.7 Therefore, in light of the powerful impact of the particle theory and the predominance of Darwinism, it is not clear whether these ‘indications’ could offer reliable guidance for a conclusive interpretation of death. Its possibility cannot be wholly omitted either, once ‘physics’ turns out to be permeated by ‘meta’-physical forces.

II Individual and Society Further indications listed by Driesch may offer more substantial evidence and be more difficult to reject. One indication regards the perspective of an individual human being discovering the phenomenon of moral concern, another the standpoint of the human community developing towards a higher unity and integration. On the individual level, Driesch argues, the so-called ‘moral sense’ or otherdirected behaviour in single human beings is striking. Why? Because what is called ‘moral sense’ introduces an extension of the self and incipient other-awareness. As a moral agent, the psychophysical person may be the anticipatory attempt to unify the whole (‘humankind’) with individual psychical life. While a purely mechanical perspective can only distinguish 6

Such as Ernst Mach, who rejected Kant’s Ding an sich and returned to Berkeley’s phenomenalism. Cf F. Seaman (1968). Mach’s Rejection of Atomism. In Journal of the History of Ideas, 29(3), pp. 381-393. Also cf Einstein (see Orsolya Lukács (2019). Carl Gustav Jung and Albert Einstein: An Ambivalent Relationship. In J Hist Behav. Sci. 2019;1–1. https://doi.org/10.1002/jhbs.22014) and Bohm, 1980. 7 Like Driesch himself and neo-Driescheans such as Rupert Sheldrake, Arthur Koestler, Charles Birch, Alexander Gurwitsch etc.

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strategic behaviour, from a higher perspective, individual moral agency may well demarcate a transition (Durchgangsglied) to veridical phylogeny. (Driesch, 1921, pp. 577ff.) Whatever the egoistic and strategic dimensions in individual agency, a self-extending, other-regarding propensity cannot be denied to humans – especially if, in describing human behaviour, one favours synthesis over analysis (e.g., by attributing immediate value to other-regarding agency instead of reducing it to selfish constituents). It could be surmised that the ‘outbound’ propensity of our moral sense is similar to the outbound drive inherent to self-abandonment in art and creativity, which I have discussed in the second chapter. In the second chapter, I have argued that the ethical relation with the other (i.e., the soul’s ‘outbound propensity’) resembles the output of creative inspiration. Ethics and aesthetics – perhaps even culture as such – share the attempt to exteriorise inwardness, with shame as a necessary ingredient. On a collective level, Driesch states, it should be acknowledged that suprapersonal (überpersönlich) processes take place on a large scale; these processes lead to various forms of wholeness (communities, societies) endowed with a ‘psychic’ or ‘ensouled’ (seelisch) nature. In the current Anthropocene, I would add, these forms go as far as contributing to the global constitution of ‘humanity’ or ‘humankind’. For, irrespective of ongoing clashes and conflicts, both locally and globally, developments in the unification of human beings are increasing. One need not resort to contemporary ‘biographers’ of humanity at large such as Yuval Noah Harari to become aware of those developments. Already nascent 19th-century sociology introduced models that extend the scope of the mere individual and concomitantly identified forms of collective consciousness; the latter, sociologists claim, often function as single agents. Marxist doctrines, postmodern philosophies and existentialist critiques alike discerned types of group thinking or group mentality that bypass individual interference. What would these developments towards individual and supra-individual integration – suggesting a higher metaphysics – contribute to a deeper understanding of death? Provided that they are acknowledged as original developments rather than just derivative (‘selfish’) tendencies, these developments could imply that something extra-spatial – i.e., something that is not acting as a common efficient, intra-spatial cause – directs something which is in space: single human beings. It directs them toward something – a state or a condition – which is on its turn extra-spatial8; integrated 8 Cf again Max Picard’s account of the human personality already quoted in chapter 3: “Im Raum allein, im Raum ohne die Zeit, vermag sich das Wesen des Menschen

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‘humanity’ (both on an individual and a global level) still does not exist, it is never fully accomplished and, possibly, always yet to come. True, pretending to identify it (whether in the individual or on a global scale) would already presuppose miraculously partaking of it and having a share in it, be it through belief, knowledge, clairvoyance or calculation. True or not, persevering in the required supra-individual mental state, regardless of its tenets, is impossible, if only for the simple reason that consummate ‘humanity’ itself is still involved in continuous development. Seen from the imperfect present in which we live, it is exempt from real anticipation. The point I want to make here is twofold. Firstly, death could well be a transition to another state which ‘separates’ the self from the other – or ‘selfhood’ from ‘otherness’ –, to the point of ‘denudating’ the latter. Should that assumption be plausible, then not only the event of the decease itself but already moral agency proper fuels this transition. If the biological perspective is irreducible at all (which I sincerely doubt), one could go as far as affirming that what is called ‘biological death,’ by radicalising (‘denudating’) otherness, only exacerbates our moral life (regardless of the nature and substance of the latter). Secondly, death might not be unrelated to those supra-individual developments towards integrated humanity – whatever its eternal impediments and obstacles: war, strife, violence, etc. Death might even condition this development by removing apparent barriers – i.e., the ‘physical’ availability of bodies – and pro-moting or putting forward, otherness (i.e., that which remains after physical availability has been deleted).

III Memory The last category of indications for a higher metaphysics mentioned by Driesch is perhaps most notable. It concerns the phenomenon of memory or recollection. Human consciousness, Driesch argues, is a unity of present and past experiences. Therefore, there must be an unconscious basis of our conscious ego, a basis which lies beyond immediate consciousness. Despite, or rather in virtue of its location beyond the threshold of sensibility, memory

nicht deutlich zu machen. Der Mensch braucht die Zeit. Der Mensch ist in den Raum gestellt, ja – aber der Sinn dieser Stellung wird erst durch die Zeit erkannt. Der Mensch entfaltet sich im Raum durch die Zeit, und dies, dass einer sich entfaltet im Raume durch die Zeit, dies ist die Bahn des Menschen.” Picard, 1947, p. 158f.

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buttresses the ‘higher’ metaphysics Driesch had set out to describe. I will not further dwell on memory here. Not only because we have already seen in the preceding chapters that consciousness or soul is stratified and that its layers are not simultaneously available; but also because memory will occupy us at length further on in this chapter. Let me just state that discussing consciousness without addressing the enigmatic issues of memory and recollection makes no sense. In light of my thesis that death entails enhancement of subliminality, ‘memory’ might be an appropriate name for what consolidates and integrates consciousness. It could be argued that sudden flashes of memory can be interpreted in terms of what Kammerer had called seriality, in light of its acausal dimensions.9 Just as seriality does, flashes of memory create order.10 Interestingly, having escaped death on the island of the brutal Cyclops Polyphemus, Ulysses and his friends entirely forget their comrade Achaemenides, leaving him at the mercy of the one-eyed monsters. This is at least what Virgil writes in the Aeneid: “My comrades left me here in the Cyclops’ vast cave, forgetting me [immemores], as they hurriedly left that grim threshold [crudelia limina].” (Aeneid III, 616ff; trans. A. S. Kline) It is as if receding from the threshold (limina) of death prompts forgetfulness, and as if the Trojans – many of whom will have to face death when conquering the Italian mainland – compensate for this neglect of their former enemies.

Enhanced subliminality “‘You’ll forget me. You’ll forget – forget.’ ‘Forget! I’ll never forget! I won’t live long enough.’” —Thomas Wolfe11

9

“Die periodischen Erscheinungen stellen sich in Gänze als Sonderfall mnemischer Erscheinungen dar”. Kammerer, 1919, p. 319. 10 I will abstain here from further studying memory and recollection in terms of seriality. Such a study would be promising, as it could shed a new light on instinct, inheritance, regeneration, procreation, etc. (which rely upon unconscious memories); on art as forgiveness (see Ch. 1); and even on the theoretical possibility that memories can be shared by people fully ignorant of each other. 11 Wolfe, 2016, p. 407.

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“‘Repression’ is probably the most vital performance of natural healing [lebenswichtigste Leistung der Naturheilkraft]; however, ‘to bring back to consciousness’ [‘bewusst machen’] is probably the greatest danger to life.” —Hermann Friedmann12

After these preliminary remarks, let us turn to the main subject of this chapter, death. Death, it is often repeated, is the end. But the end of what? Can we seriously claim, with apodictic certainty, that death terminates the lives of those who passed away? We cannot make this claim, even less so as we do not know with certainty what life is. I do not even mention here that the concept of ‘certainty’ usually entails empiricist power claims which rely on experimental control. Strictly speaking, the timeframe in which empiricist claims are valid is coeval with the duration of the experimental tests on which these claims rely. Moreover, empiricist truth claims tend to precipitately introduce concepts which rather cover up our ignorance than that they designate fathomed realities. The only ‘certainty’ (sit venia verbo) we may have concerning death as an end is that if someone else dies, this person will be physically out of our usual reach. He has escaped the sphere of immediate contact with the living. If at all, death is an end for the survivors – even more so when we, like Ulysses Achaemenides, forget. If only we realise that already during their lifetime, the deceased ones were wholly other to us, death will intensify (‘enhance’) their alterity. Those who complain about the capriciousness of their life partner may find comfort in it once this partner will have died; the unpredictability of caprice may be tantamount to an inexhaustible residual of alterity which ultimately characterises life (let alone that transience and finitude are expressive of alterity). Should the deceased continue to contact the living, as is often reported by those left behind in mourning, their alterity is not diminished by it. They cannot be conjured up at wish, nor can their apparition be controlled. Sadly, it is even uncertain if it was they whose apparition we saw. Believing Catholics who claim to have seen Mother Mary must face the fact that the apparition can be explained in a variety of ways, despite their firm conviction. Consequently, asking the question of death is significantly influenced by the prevailing conception of consciousness. In the previous chapters we have seen how, in light of altered states of mind, ordinary or waking consciousness can be qualified at best as a pragmatic unit enabling us to tackle daily needs, at worst as an ego shell or a power construct – in which 12

Friedmann, 1956, p. 45; my trans.

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case Driesch’ statement about the need of a “disruption of ego-related knowledge” would be instructive. The question of death, I would argue, is not likely to receive optimal treatment if consciousness realises itself as a mere power instrument. Death, then, would necessarily represent a pure loss, namely, a loss of control. Upon admitting alternative states of consciousness – some of which fertile and prolific in inspiration –, the question of death may keep in store more promising perspectives; not only for the deceased ones but also for those left behind. Provided that the otherness of the other is related to subliminal layers of their consciousness – which is not evident, obviously, but which I am inclined to believe –, their passing away may equal enhanced subliminality. How can this be argued for? The arguments which I will be giving here will not have the conclusive form of syllogisms. This does not necessarily weaken them. Syllogisms, implicitly seen as providing a blueprint for true statements, may be logically cogent; when applied to empirical phenomena, they will lose their cogency. Experience is governed by probability, not by logical necessity. When we realise this, the argument proffered below will perhaps be less arbitrary.

I Memory and recollection. Internal Approach My main argument for death as enhanced subliminality draws on the phenomena of memory, remembering, and recollection. When talking about consciousness as a stratified entity, these phenomena first impose themselves. What is remembered seems to lack the immediacy actual perception abounds with – even though the latter is impossible without the former. I will argue that recollection enhances subliminality and invigorates memory. Interestingly, memory and recollection play an even more crucial role than merely allowing for perception. Without some form of memory and the capability to reproduce memories (whether directly available, or mostly unavailable), the human mind would fall apart. Memory (Erinnerungsvermögen: ‘faculty of remembering’), Du Prel affirms, is “the root of all higher spiritual capabilities” (die Wurzel aller höheren Geisteskräfte). Remembering is the most essential job of consciousness, as it keeps the layers of consciousness together, even if this remains concealed for waking consciousness in its immediate enactment. In light of the actual background of this book – societal issues concerning human enhancement – one could say in general that this is exactly why either memory enhancement or regular training of memory matter: they may strengthen the

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unity of consciousness or personhood. Driesch had insisted that memory confers a unitary form (Ganzheitszug) upon consciousness. (Driesch, 1917, p. 140) It allows new experiences, whether or not successfully, to not only be accumulated (angegliedert) but also reintegrated (eingegliedert) to those we already possess. Du Prel, sharply criticising Schopenhauer’s pantheism and the corresponding depersonalisation of consciousness, similarly emphasises this point: “A sense of personality without recollection [Erinnerung] is not thinkable […]. Increase of recollection is, therefore, increase of individuality”. (Du Prel, 1888, p. 332; my trans.) I would underline here that the capability of recollection is not equal to the ability to express recollection. As Bergson has shown, people suffering, for example from aphasia may lack the regular bodily expenditure to express what they know and yet be capable of knowledge, cognition and memory.13 The philosophical discussion about the nature of memory and recollection is as exciting as it is complicated. It ranges from Plato (Theaetetus) and Plotinus (Enneads IV.6.3) to Bergson and Freud. Without pretending to be exhaustive, let us for a moment follow Du Prel, in whose account of memory (esp. in his Philosophy of Mysticism) several single threads connect. Neither Du Prel nor any other thinker managed to ‘solve’ the anthropological puzzle of memory and recollection. Yet, I believe that his remarks are illuminating. I will address three interrelated questions here: 1) what is the nature of recollection? 2) how does recollection work? 3) which are promising states for enhancing recollection? Discussing these questions will bring us further in interpreting death as enhanced subliminality.

13

In a recent contribution Alan Gauld shows that modern brain research, apart from bringing refined neurological evidence about brain activity, cognition and memory, has not come much further in accounting for the integration of recollections. Cf. his article Memory. In Kelly & Kelly, 2010, Ch. 4, esp. pp. 280ff, 297, 299. “We have very limited theoretical understanding of how, especially in the human case, the various changes and activities that take place in the brain during explicit remembering relate to conscious memory as we routinely experience and express it. […] [I]t is conceivable that some of the odd facts collected by Myers and his colleagues may have some bearing on such a change [of perspective].” Ibid., pp. 280, 281.

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Nature of Recollection Firstly, the existence of recollection and memory as such seems to imply that consciousness cannot embrace all impressions at once. Some content is ‘relocated’ to rid ourselves of what is not immediately requisite. Du Prel was one of the first thinkers to suggest that the primary function of consciousness is to filter and keep out the overload of external or internal stimuli (trauma would be an extreme example of this mental overload). Nietzsche and Bergson did the same, implying that what we might take to be immediate consciousness is already a construct and that its representations are not entirely identical to the perceived due to previous mental filtering of external stimuli. Consciousness actively disposes of its content, adapting it to what is useful. Other than what happens during waking state, ‘exceptional’ states such as sleeping or dreaming allow the diaphragm (Scheidewand) to fluctuate between the accessible and the hitherto inaccessible. Due to this fluctuation, the subliminal sphere may suddenly come within reach. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 288) Since memory entails a disposition of consciousness, enabling the mind to receive, recollection consists of an activity. The memorised content is processed, which means that it can never be displayed in purity. When we remember something, two things usually happen. In the first place, we become aware that the original event itself has disappeared. In the second place, we realise that the actual mental image is merely a replication of the supposed original event; unless, of course, in cases of neurosis or psychosis, when memories are erroneously perceived as actual or original. In the first chapter, I have discussed Bergotte and Des Esseintes/Salomé as literary examples of either pathology. It should be noted that pure actual perception is ultimately indistinguishable, as it will always be permeated by traces of memory, if not fantasy. Provided that memory is linked to another layer of consciousness than that involved in actual perception, it could be argued that the perceiving consciousness consists of a ‘simultaneity’ (‘synchronicity’) of diachronic mindsets (which might eventually prompt one to adduce that the past is present or that the present is past, either way). Stating that the act of remembering induces a distinction between past and present, or between original and reproduction should not imply that a boundary can ever be made in all sharpness. On the contrary, one could compare normal vision to watching those distant stars whose light beams often only reach our eyes when they had gone extinct already a long time ago. ‘Ordinary’ vision – which combines memory and perception in a single act – may be still more complicated than watching

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stars, as it is entangled in the diachronicity of consciousness. The ‘ordinary’ and the ‘exceptional’ states of consciousness tend to coalesce. The act of recollecting is not always smooth. Remembering may be more or less easy, sometimes even impossible, as we all know from experience. One would only have to think here of Proust’s famous examples of memorised youth events (the madeleine cookie, St Martin’s church, etc.) to notice that some of the mind’s pathways are hardly used. They may even remain imperceptible until the moment when external stimuli trigger them.14 Consciousness, I would say, compares to a mental roadmap, or a ‘mind map’. The mind can be seen as a map with a specific pattern on it. Freud would later speak of our mental operations in terms of Bahnung. The standard English translation ‘facilitation’ lacks the reference to Bahn: ‘road,’ ‘lane,’ ‘track’. To recollect or to remember is similar to paving a way for oneself; or even, to following a way already paved by its being frequently trodden. Memory is a pavement facilitated by frequent recollection. Where do memories come from when they are re-membered? Du Prel appeals here to the subliminal (the ‘unconscious’ or ‘transcendental consciousness’). Forgetting, he claims, is never definitive. Experienced content merely disappears from immediate grasp (ein Schwinden aus dem sinnlichen Tagesbewusstsein). Our capability of reproducing it (Fähigkeit der Reproduktion) remains intact since it is connected to the subliminal. What happens, both in recollecting and in forgetting something, Du Prel says, could be best described as a “relocation of the psychophysical threshold” (Verlegung der psychophysischen Schwelle); as a “shift of boundaries between sensuous and transcendental consciousness” (Grenzverschiebung zwischen dem sinnlichen und transcendentalen Bewusstsein; Du Prel, 1885, p. 375); or even as a “change of ownership between both persons as regards a representation” (Besitzwechsel zwischen den beiden Personen in Bezug auf eine Vorstellung; ibid., p. 376). With ‘both persons’ are meant here: waking, supraliminal consciousness on the one hand, and transcendental,

14 Also see Condillac: “la mémoire n’est qu’une manière de sentir”; “mes idées ne sont nulle part, lorsque mon âme cesse d’y penser; mais […] elles se retraceront à moi aussitôt que les mouvements propres à les reproduire se renouvelleront.”; “le cerveau a, comme tous les autres sens, la facilité de se mouvoir suivant les déterminations dont il s’est fait l’habitude.” La logique, ou, les premiers développement de l’art de penser I, 9.

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subliminal consciousness or the unconscious, on the other.15 In light of our discussion of death as enhanced subliminality, I am inclined to highlight Du Prel’s introduction of the term ‘person’ in this context. True, the Besitzwechsel zwischen den beiden Personen in Bezug auf eine Vorstellung may wrongfully entail an unjustified, rash reification of mental states. However, if, on the one hand, the concepts of ‘personhood’ and ‘memory’ are mutually implicative, and if, on the other hand, it is true that subliminal consciousness is a resource of lost content or even “the root of all higher spiritual capabilities” (die Wurzel aller höheren Geisteskräfte), then attributing personality to the unconscious becomes far more acceptable. Recollection at Work This brings me to my second question: how does recollection work? As soon as we can say more about this, obstacles for enhancing memory could be partly removed. Enhanced memory would imply an intensification of personality. If death, as was my hypothesis, entails enhanced subliminality, one could even wonder if not (that which is called) ‘death’ is always around the corner: not only in the case of enhanced memory but also of intensified personality. Perhaps bright minds are ever approximating death; I will come back to this point below when discussing image and beauty. If these odd implications are plausible at all, it would be indispensable to re-interpret the notion of ‘death’. The cessation of respiration, heartthrob and metabolism may not exhaust its meaning. Recollection, Du Prel says in anticipation to Freud, works by way of association.16 Which principles of association can be distinguished? There may be several. For instance, if impressions had formerly been connected, albeit merely in time and space, they are likely to stay connected. If one impression resurfaces, it will likely be accompanied by previously 15

Du Prel’s account will be reiterated by Freud in his famous division of the mind in the unconscious, the preconscious, and the conscious. But as opposed to Du Prel, Freud elaborates on the censorship between these layers, thereby giving consciousness a moral dimension. However, Freud’s ideas about the way to dodge this censorship basically repeat Du Prel’s. Note that in Michel Henry we find an original ‘forgetfulness’ (oubli) which can in principle not be reduced to a prior memory whatsoever. Henry, 2003, pp. 482ff. 16 “Das Gesetz, wonach im Wachen Erinnerungen kommen, ist das der Assoziation, von welchen das wichtigste jenes ist, dass Vorstellungen, die einst verknüpft waren, einander anziehen, sobald eins davon ins Bewusstsein tritt.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 325.

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associated impressions, even if there is no intrinsic or logical connection between them. Revisiting the forest where I was jogging last summer, I may be reminded not only of paths through the woods and particular trees with irregular shapes but at the same time of the weather outside, the elections that took place in the EU, the pain in my knees, etc. Du Prel lists other criteria which facilitate recollection, for example, the extent to which I was actively involved in the memorised content (e.g., in a discussion during a meeting), or its emotional value (cf a wedding ceremony, or a funeral). Only a few decades after Du Prel, Freud will quite understandably refer to initial childhood experiences as accompanied by our strongest memories, even though we have no conscious memory of them (the mother’s breast, our being weaned from it, the first separation from our mother, the impact of paternal will, etc.). Adult traumas, Freud would add, rely on suppressed yet highly vivid memories that unconsciously rule our life; the slightest hint occurring in the outside world may trigger our anxiety and activate our defence mechanisms. In my view (which is based on Rank rather than Freud), trauma originates in birth trauma. As we will see, trauma processing will require replenishment of an original void. It remains debatable if the number of criteria for associationism can ever be exhausted. In the 18th century, David Hume had limited them to three: resemblance, contiguity in time and space, and causality (“constant conjunction”). It should be noted that these rules are purely social and based on common sense. They can perhaps ‘legitimate’ associating impressions and ideas in public debates, but never account for individual recollection. Individuals can have their own, idiosyncratic ‘rules’. It may for example very well be true that the average male person instinctively associates attractive blond women with ‘material girls’ (owing to ‘constant conjunction’ – in the media – of attractivity, blondness, and materialism); however, this need not be so for every man. For, how else should we interpret Rimbaud’s famous poem Voyelles (‘Vowels’) than as an example of purely idiosyncratic association? In Une saison en enfer he writes, “J’inventai la couleur des voyelles! [I invented the colour of vowels!] – A noir, E blanc, I rouge, O bleu, U vert.” Whether the subsequent ‘elaboration’ in the corresponding poem could count as an explanation or a justification of his associations in a Humean sense is unlikely. Associative idiosyncrasy relies on synchronistic idiosyncrasy, especially in art, but also in philosophy (and perhaps even in science). The reader may remind the definition by Deleuze and Guattari (quoted in the previous chapter) of a philosophical concept; this definition suggests its inherent singularity and even its event character: “It is a concept that apprehends the event, its becoming, its

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inseparable variations”. (Deleuze & Guattari, 1991, p. 150; trans., p. 158) In my discussion of this definition, I put forward the paradox that it associates concepts (or ideas) with events which are only viable because they are unique. If true, so I argued, the implication of the definition would be twofold: peers cannot genuinely comprehend the initial philosophical concept or idea itself; and precisely because of the unique constellation it captures (‘apprehends’), the concept or idea will become viable for others. Applied to the present context of the mental association which constitutes recollection: the malleability of ‘reality,’ that is, its susceptibility to endlessly altering connections and modifications, may root in a creative thinker’s or artist’s enhanced subliminality. Should the notion of ‘death’ be rightfully applicable to enhanced subliminality – which is my claim –, then (what is called) ‘death’ somehow corresponds to a reshaping of reality. ‘Death’ is related to paving new ways through being. On a side-note, one can imagine the enthusiasm with which notably Du Prel was embraced in artistic circles, already during his lifetime but even more posthumously.17 Together with Janet and Myers, he was at the cradle of explorative research into automatic writing and other forms of surrealistic art production which attempted to minimise the obfuscation by intentional and will-based consciousness. Enhancing Recollection The third question about recollection asked if there are promising states of consciousness which enhance recollection. If there are any, these would not only intensify personhood but equally ‘further’ death – in the sense of approximating it. Du Prel mentions at least three: dreaming, somnambulism, and the process of dying. It should be noted that he does not claim that these states of consciousness produce the enhancement of recollection and memory; they merely make up for their occasion (Gelegenheitsursache der Gedächtnissteigerung; Du Prel, 1885, p. 295). I will now briefly discuss each of these states.

17

Cf Carl du Prel (1880). Psychologie der Lyrik. Leipzig: Günter Verlag. Also cf Kaiser, 2006.

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I Dreaming The recollection-provoking assets of dreaming are salient: will, and the accompanying control and filter function of the mind, become gradually extinguished. As a result, the recollective function is strengthened: “sleep often undoes the preceding process of forgetting, which took place while being awake”. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 289; my trans.) As a rule, dream content is drawn from memory even though it can only be recognised as such, if at all, upon awakening. Dreaming can activate recollection without corresponding recognition: “there is reproduction without recollection [Erinnerung]”. (Du Prel, 1885, p. 290) If we take as an example Freud’s famous dream about Irma’s injection (quoted in his Interpretation of Dreams), Freud can only recognise (that is, consciously re-mind, remember) the dream events after awakening and upon subsequently reflecting on his dream (even more so upon a deliberate analysis of the dream). Awakening can make us ‘recollective’; that is, it may add recognition (if at all) to ‘mere’ remembering. Two points should be emphasised, though. Firstly, recognition has an added value to mere remembering, not because recognition fixates an unalterable past but because it is by nature an infinite, abysmal activity. Secondly, the integrity of remembering will be enhanced by its involuntariness or spontaneity. Let me start with the first point. Interestingly, Du Prel notes, recognition ultimately originates in the same memory (Gedächtnis) which also allows for the eliciting and liberation of memorie-s. Being the unifying factor of consciousness (cf Driesch), memory is the common yet enigmatic source of reproduction, recollection and recognition. Without recognition, our experience would be drifting on a sea of blind memories which it will be unable to re-collect or gather. Conscious recognition deepens recollection. It does so even if – or must we say, because – recollection is ultimately unfathomable, for we should not discard the possibility that recollection is an infinite job, even less so in light of the layered structure of consciousness discussed in the previous chapters. Just as ‘pure’ actual perception may be illusory (due to its pervasion by past memories or present fantasies), it may be equally misleading to pursue a ‘pure’ memory purportedly exhausted by ‘adequate’ recognition. Not only may the original event subsequently ‘stored’ in memory have been inadequately processed, so that what had been stored was actually an ‘original distortion’. It could also be – and this is a far more promising possibility – that what is called ‘recognition’ will discover hitherto neglected dimensions of stored memories. Perhaps the alleged ‘original’ memorised content (‘memory’) is susceptible to being reengaged by ‘recognition’ in such a way that it appears in an altogether new

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fashion – just as, for example, when someone’s youngest son shows up at a family meeting wearing a decent dinner suit with a corresponding tie for the first time in his life: his current appearance will shed a different light on the small boy he had hitherto been for his parents. Recognition, then, may renew the past. For further confirmation, one would only have to consult historians; they keep studying the past, despite all ‘evidence’ unearthed by their predecessors. Du Prel’s account of dream-mediated recollection originating in subliminal consciousness (‘memory’ or Gedächtnis), sheds light on recognition. It even proposes a solution for the intricate problem of the tertium quid needed, or so it seems, to compare ‘recollection’ and the supposed ‘original memory’. Making a comparison between two states of our mind (i.e., the recollecting mind and the storing mind) would presuppose a neutral arbiter in between them – as if experienced recognition were identical to the drawing of a syllogistic conclusion. Would it not be more convincing instead to interpret recognition in terms of an extension of the mind? This is at least what Du Prel puts forward. He suggests that memory or subliminal consciousness can be seen as the broadest circle which embraces waking, supraliminal, consciousness. What happens when, upon awakening, we recognise dream content as a reproduction of past experiences, is that this dream content is as if in a flash or a flashback, illumined by a broader, more comprehensive consciousness. True, the latter only appears discontinuously and through interruptions of waking consciousness. Awakening from dreaming does not already by itself equal the said extension of the mind; as a rule, without even noticing it, we fall ‘asleep’ again while being awake (i.e., insofar as our minds ‘narrow down’ to business as usual). I would even argue that the extent to which throughout the day we are forgetful of our dreams, any pretension of being ‘awake’ is vain. Was it worth at all to awaken in the morning if we continue ‘slumbering’ all through the day, oblivious of what we have dreamt? Dreams weaken the boundaries of waking consciousness and make them porous to (‘reminiscent of’) past impressions. These impressions must somehow still be present. How? Perhaps not merely as disposable, unalterable objectivity. ‘Recognition’ is more than just a re-appropriation of an alleged ‘pure,’ available past. I would argue that recognition amounts to a rediscovery, or eventually even a re-creation of this past. This virtual possibility, I think, is facilitated by dreaming. In dreams, we experience the fluctuation of a threshold whose essence is not only to protect us (from mental overload) but unfortunately also to fixate past and present. Attributing primacy to waking or supraliminal consciousness, far from

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serving scientific truth-finding, instead contributes to paralysis, if not to ontological despair. Descartes’ dream – discussed in the previous chapter – doubtlessly saved him from falling prey to the ‘cartesian’ mechanism and deterministic materialism of his disciples. The recollection-provoking assets of dreaming, as I just said, should be seen in the light of the extinction of will and the filter and control function of the mind. This brings me to a second point to be emphasised: the integrity of remembering will be enhanced by its involuntariness. If it is true that waking consciousness is primarily dominated by a will to control, we should perhaps give priority to unconscious, involuntary recollection over conscious, wilful recollection. The latter is similar to what we usually call ‘commemoration’. Commemoration is intentional recollection and remembering. To avoid misunderstanding, I am not disputing the (inter)national importance of commemoration ceremonies: the annual Yom HaShoah in Israel, the festivities in commemoration of the two world wars, of September 11th, etc. Yet, ‘commemoration’ cannot fail to imply wilfulness. Therefore, it will always be vulnerable to instrumentalisation. Even if noble goals are served, the truthfulness of historical facts as they are represented during commemoration festivities can ever be doubted. Involuntary memories, I argue, are much more reliable, as both psychoanalysts and police detectives could confirm. Dreams tend to produce such involuntary memories eminently, even though their immediate content is frequently distorted and more original, more in-depth content still to be unveiled. What is more, while in supraliminal consciousness determination by will tends to bar off disinterested recollection, the alleviation of barriers which our dream life can bring may not just stimulate recollection when dreaming, but also enhance recognition when awake. I cannot claim that a mere lifting of the barrier of will is a sufficient condition for a revelation of the truth. However, even those who argue that (what is called) ‘reality’ is a construct of the mind – and whose arch father was Kant – must admit that (what is called) ‘reality’ would benefit – or would have benefited – from non-interference. From Plato to Thomas Aquinas, and from Schopenhauer to Husserl and Heidegger, philosophers have – each on their way – insisted on Being as self-revelatory and on its potential distortion by human mediation and interference, especially when these are moved by the will. This implies that, insofar (and only insofar) as dreaming represents an increased weakening of will, it may approximate spheres of reliability beyond ordinary reach – even though, evidently, dream interpretation can have a hard job working itself through what is still willbased in dreams.

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Let me draw a preliminary conclusion which makes clear the relevance of the above for a better understanding of death. To the extent that (1) personhood can be rightfully attributed to the unconscious or subliminality (in virtue of its being “the root of all higher spiritual capabilities”), (2) personhood is served by non-interference of its bearer (just as ‘reality’ is), and (3) dreams facilitate such non-interference, the ensuing conclusion would be that (4) dreams promote personhood. If death entails the enhancement of subliminality (which cannot be taken for granted, obviously), dreaming furthers death by approximating it. It should be emphasised that strictly speaking, terms as ‘recollection,’ ‘remembering’ or ‘memory’ gradually lose their meaning in proportion to the expansion of consciousness and the shifting of the threshold of sensibility. I would argue that these terms still betray the exclusive viewpoint of waking or supraliminal consciousness. Entering an altered state of mind which is (supposedly) more comprehensive annuls their implicit logic. For, strictly speaking, one does not re-member or re-collect what one is directly perceiving, however faintly. The terms only make sense when applied to the oscillatory movements of our waking consciousness. II Somnambulism The second exceptional state which, according to Du Prel, enhances recollection (and, therefore, personhood) is somnambulism. What Du Prel labels as ‘somnambulism’ or ‘magnetic dreaming’ is preferably called ‘hypnosis’ today, as we have seen in previous chapters. The possibility of hypnosis and the associated discovery of a stratified consciousness is of crucial importance to Du Prel’s entire philosophy. Plenty of his books consist of reports about somnambulism, both of his own time and throughout the ages. It is intriguing that literature, esp. the Romantic writings of the 19th century, reflects an increasing interest for somnambulism. In many famous Romantic novelists and playwrights, the phenomenon plays a crucial role. For example, in E.T.A. Hoffmann’s short story Der Magnetiseur, E.A. Poe’s Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar and Mesmeric Revelations, or Heinrich von Kleist’s Käthchen von Heilbronn. 20th-century illustrations include Gustav Meyrink, Der Golem, Thomas Mann, Mario und der Zauberer, Alfred Kubin, Die andere Seite, Per Olov Enquist’s, Magnetisörens femte vinter, or Peter Sloterdijk’s Der Zauberbaum – Die Entstehung der Psychoanalyse im Jahr 1785. These and similar authors produce what I would call ‘literary evidence’ for the occurrence of somnambulism. However, scepticism about claims of transpersonal insights presumably rooting in somnambulism may be reliant

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on an appreciation of literature as mere entertainment. As said earlier, ‘somnambulism’ and ‘hypnosis’ or ‘hypnotism’ can be used more or less interchangeably, unless if ‘hypnosis’ is meant to designate the method inducing the altered state of mind instead of this altered state itself. Frederic Myers interprets somnambulism as a type of hypnotic behaviour. He defines ‘hypnotism’ as “a summary name for a group of necessary, though empirical and isolated, attempts to bring under control that range of submerged faculty which has already from time to time risen into our observation.” (Myers, 1918, p. 118). William James includes among the features of what he prefers to call ‘hypnotism’ the following: amnesia (“he sinks into a deeper condition, which is often followed by complete loss of memory”), suggestibility, hallucinations, hyperaesthesia of the senses, and susceptibility to posthypnotic suggestions. (James, 1950, pp. 593-616) In the second chapter, I have considered the possibility that Hitler’s possession was aggravated by hypnosis. Pierre Janet, who prefers the term ‘somnambulism,’ mentions the following characteristics: 1) complete oblivion (oubli complet) during the normal waking state of what took place during somnambulism; 2) a full memory during new somnambulism of what took place during previous somnambulisms; 3) a full memory during somnambulism of what took place the previous day. (Janet, 2003, p. 73). Other than Du Prel and Myers, Janet did not credit somnambulist states with any deeper, ‘occult’ form of knowledge. Instead, he interpreted them as based on dissociation, often a result of trauma. James is reticent but has a slight preference for Myers. (Taylor, 2010, p. 91) Whereas for Du Prel the case of Friederieke Hauffe (the Seeress of Prevorst) was a recurrent point of reference, the Swiss psychologist Théodore Flournoy (1854-1920) mainly drew on Hélène Smith, on whom he wrote in his book Des Indes à la planète Mars.18 Du Prel wholeheartedly agrees with Schopenhauer’s statement that those scientists today who reject the possibility of somnambulism should not be seen as sceptics but simply as uninformed. We have seen that even Janet, who tends to pathologise (what he terms as) ‘dissociation,’ allows for a great variety of dissociative states.19 True, for Janet dissociation implies a stricture (rétrécissement) of the mind 18

Théodore Flournoy (1900). Des Indes à la planète Mars: étude sur un cas de somnambulisme avec glossolalie. Paris: F. Alcan. 19 Cf “[L]’oubli au réveil et la mémoire alternante n’appartiennent pas simplement au somnambulisme ordinaire, mais […] se retrouvent avec beaucoup de variations dans beaucoup d’états et permettent de constater bien des variétés de somnambulisme.” Janet, 2003, p. 91.

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and no extension. However, I would object that, if ‘somnambulism’ or ‘hypnosis’ is a matter of dissociation – which is often the case –, they will come down to a stricture of the mind if and only if the mind were delimitable or material; for this is what Janet implies. But if the mind is neither characterised by ultimate boundaries nor by materiality, as is my claim, then what Janet calls ‘dissociation’ does not only not exclude, it even implies extension, despite the ‘fence’ closing off the dissociative mental states against each other. Somnambulism, Du Prel contends, does not only lead to enhanced recollection; it also exacerbates actual awareness and at times leads to forms of hyperaesthesia.20 Encompassing waking consciousness, somnambulist consciousness cannot be encompassed by it. Somnambulists can envision their daily lives, but after relapsing into the latter, they cannot retrospectively consider their exceptional state. Remarkably, the somnambulist states always tie in with the preceding ones while ignoring the intervals of ordinary consciousness. (Ibid., p. 312) They do not produce, however, the extended consciousness, they occasion it (Gelegenheitsursache des inneren Erwachens). (Du Prel, 1885, p. 130; James, 1950, p. 602) Causality will not get hold of it. As regards recollection, depending on the perspective taken, we could both say that it is reduced by somnambulism and enhanced. Janet, we have just seen, underlines the first option, by speaking of an oubli complet of the former state. Upon ‘awakening,’ memories of the previous state of mind vanish. Insofar as Janet is right on this, we are utterly dependent on trustworthy eye-witnesses. However, since the somnambulist state itself represents an elation of consciousness, it will only be likely that recollection and memory ‘benefit’ from this elation. Contemporary hypnotherapy indeed demonstrates that hypnosis, just as meditation, can improve memory, albeit indirectly.21 This implies that Janet’s oubli complet is not fully adequate; to the extent that somnambulist memory retrieval prospectively ‘facilitates’ recollection and memorising during waking state, the oblivion cannot be so 20 “dass das somnambule Bewusstsein nicht nur das Tagesbewusstsein umfasst, sondern es sogar steigert.” Du Prel, 1885, p. 308. And “Allen bisher erwähnten Erscheinungen des Traumlebens werden wir nämlich im Somnambulismus gesteigert wieder begegnen.” Ibid., p. 323. 21 Cf Graham F. Wagstaf et. al. (2004). Facilitating Memory with Hypnosis, Focused Meditation, and Eye Closure. In International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 52/4. Also cf Cf. Etzel Cardeña, Steven Jay Lynn & Stanley Krippner, Eds. (2007, 2000). Varieties of Anomalous Experience: Examining the Scientific Evidence. Washington: APA; Kelly et al., 2010; Barušs & Mossbridge, 2017.

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complete as Janet, or even Du Prel and Myers, seem to suggest. I have noted earlier that Freud speaks of our mental operations in terms of Bahnung, usually translated in English as ‘facilitation’. As already mentioned, this translation obscures the significant reference to Bahn: ‘road,’ ‘lane,’ ‘track’. Recollecting or remembering may come down to paving a way for oneself; or even, to following a way already paved by its being frequently trodden. Recollection equals pavement; its result is a pavement. Granted, memory retrieval by hypnotherapy is not necessarily flawless – memory can eventually be distorted –, nor is it always wise to strive for it, as in cases of severe trauma.22 Traumatic incidents may have deprived suffering individuals of their capability to adequately integrate these incidents and put them in perspective – requisite, so it seems, both for storing memories and for reproducing them. Janet surmised that somnambulism originates in dissociation and that dissociation is based on trauma. If it is, spontaneous somnambulism may be indicative of incipient self-recovery and integration (if not, in terms of the previous chapter, of inchoate maturing). One could even hypothesise that recovering trauma facilitates memory – and personhood – beyond expectation. Should death, as was my suggestion, consist of enhanced subliminality, then death might be a final attempt to integrate trauma. This attempt will only be successful if consciousness (or the soul) turns out to be wide enough to embrace it. If trauma is more general than is commonly assumed – e.g. if, as Rank argues, already birth creates a trauma –, then death, in general, might consist of the ultimate processing of the trauma of human life at large. This brings us to the third exceptional state mentioned by Du Prel as enhancing recollection and, by implication, personhood: the moribund state. III Moribundity Du Prel was undoubtedly not the first to discover that people who find themselves in the terminal stage of their life (whether or not they ‘return’ from a near-death experience) sometimes manifest a renewed, fuller access to their memory. We find this idea already in Schelling’s famous discussion of death in Clara, Über den Zusammenhang der Natur mit der Geisterwelt. Also, Bergson will mention it when discussing near-death experiences. “Increased recollection connected with condensation of representation [Vorstellungsverdichtung],” Du Prel says, “enables the moribund to receive a completely clear panoramic overview of the past life.” (Du Prel, 1885, p. 22 John F. Kihlstrom (1994). Hypnosis, Delayed Recall, and the Principles of Memory. In International Journal of Clinical and Experimental Hypnosis 42/4.

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318; my trans.) It is highly probable that Freud owes his qualification of the dream process as ‘condensation’ of contents (Traumverdichtung) to Du Prel; we should not ignore, however, that in Freud, other than in Du Prel, this condensation serves censorship rather than mental illumination. Freud’s disciple Oskar Pfister attributes the condensed life impression after imminent death-related shock experiences to anti-cathexis; the psyche, Pfister claims, offers consolation by erroneously suggesting that the selection of contemplated experiences make up for a whole life.23 To Pfister’s deprecatory account of enhanced recollection at death, I prefer Bergson’s. Bergson emphasises that imminent death gradually removes our perception-determining interest and allows for an utterly disinterested life-view.24 Interestingly, both accounts rest upon the same argument (interest, self-protection). Bergson’s, though, presupposes less than Pfister’s while being more inclusive, or so it seems. If, as Bergson suggests, the removal of self-interest equally removes obstacles for recollection and accordingly activates memory, the result will be a more embracing or comprehensive consciousness, and an invigorated personhood. The latter would be requisite, I think, for processing indigestible memories, or trauma – whether contingent trauma or its condition of possibility, trauma of birth. Ordinary mental self-protection understandably mitigates the stirring of past psychical damage, for example by oppressing or circumventing its re-emergence, by preventing confrontation with anything which reminds of this damage, or by re-cathecting mental energy in psychical defence mechanisms. Once there is no need for self-protection anymore, waves of past trauma will be absorbed by the abyss of the psyche. If death consists of enhanced subliminality, and the latter of an abysmal increase of consciousness, death may indeed be a final attempt to digest the indigestible and to process trauma. I would even go further. Insofar as trauma (whether of suffering or, finally, of birth itself) always represents phenomenological excess and an overload of the mind, its constituents may 23 O. Pfister (1930). Shockdenken und Shockphantasien bei höchster Todesgefahr. In Zeitschrift für Psychoanalyse 16, p. 449. 24 “La vision panoramique du passé est donc due à un brusque désintéressement à la vie, né de la conviction soudaine qu’on va mourir à l’instant. Et c’était à fixer l’attention sur la vie, à rétrécir utilement le champ de la conscience, que le cerveau était occupé jusque-là comme organe de mémoire.” H. Bergson (1985, 1919). L’énergie spirituelle. Paris: PUF, p. 77. Also cf Barušs & Mossbridge, 2017, pp. 7275, and E.F. Kelly. 2010, pp. 386f, where the authors speak of “enhanced mentation”.

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contribute to mental strength and personhood once they will have been integrated. Clinical evidence teaches that successful integration is sadly often a bridge too far. In such cases, I would argue, only the radical alterity of death could virtually provide what the self-protecting boundaries of waking consciousness cannot tolerate. One would, then, have to endeavour beyond the typical negativity characteristic of our descriptions of death (‘termination of life,’ ‘end of metabolism,’ ‘cessation of respiration and blood circulation,’ etc.) and argue as of the in-between space which altered states of consciousness seem to allow for. Implications I: Memory versus Materialism What does this brief account of memory and recollection teach us? It not only bolsters the idea of a stratified structure of consciousness but also warrants its ultimate unity. Any materialist account (e.g., interpreting memory as mere physiological imprinting of impressions in the brains) lacks the twofold virtue of layered consciousness. Neither can it do justice to recognition, since it does not properly acknowledge the uniformity (Einheitlichkeit) of consciousness and its tendency to integration; nor can it make sense of unrecognised memory as in dreams. It is bound to take experience as mere affiliation rather than as integration. Memories, however, are no separate material imprints but functions of an integrated and integrating consciousness, divided by a functional threshold. To the extent that this threshold can be shifted backwards (as happens in dreams, somnambulism, in the process of dying, but also at the moment of remembering), subliminal life is activated. ‘Memory’ being “the root of all higher spiritual capabilities” (die Wurzel aller höheren Geisteskräfte), as Du Prel states, it should equally be taken as the root of (what is called) ‘personhood’. Memory has a force of unification; it can give a “unitary trait” (Einheitszug) to the mind of its bearer by integrating experiences and occurrences into a meaningful whole: a ‘person’. Meaningful experiences can facilitate integration and impact upon memory and personhood; they can invigorate these. I would define ‘meaning’ as ‘having the potential to integrate’. ‘Memory’ and ‘meaning’ are co-implicative. Insofar as memory is abysmal, the effectuation of memory can bring about a mobilisation: both of the perceived reality and inner life. Memory makes reality malleable and paves new ways through it. Interestingly, Du Prel notes, to a certain extent memory seems to be not entirely subjected to time. For, whereas on the one hand, we are oblivious of myriad experiences that we have had in the past, on the other hand, some

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memories become stronger when we get older, or weaker (e.g., due to disease, loss of vital functions such as sight or hearing, insanity, or neardeath experiences). For ample confirmation of Du Prel’s statements, we would only have to consult people with relatives suffering from dementia. While the demented have a malfunctioning short-time memory, they sometimes have a remarkable capacity to remember things from their earliest youth.25 At this point, we can draw at least three conclusions from our discussion of memory and recollection. These conclusions will redirect us to the main topic of this chapter: death. First, our waking consciousness and its associated functions consist of an activity. To consciously perceive is not identical to passively receiving sense data, it entails a disposition of the mind that actively organises these data. This disposition, it can be argued with Bergson, is steered mainly by interest. If interest disappears, such as in the approximation of death, then a more comprehensive array of past experiences comes within reach. Second, subliminal consciousness or the unconscious seems to be no activity but rather a state. If we define it here as a ‘state’ characterised by ‘immobility,’ we more or less already presuppose the perspective of consciousness as an activity, and negatively demarcate the subliminal from it as a passivity. It could be imagined, though, that, seen from its inherent viewpoint, it can be qualified otherwise.26 Third, if conscious perception relies upon an active disposition and distribution of sense data, distance is implied between perceiver and perceived (cf the preposition dis-, which refers to space).27 The possibility might be envisioned that subliminal consciousness relies on a way of perceiving without outer distance. How to conceive of such a distance-less ‘perception’ will remain a problem since our everyday language and thinking categories for the greater part rest upon external distance and distant perceptions. On a side note, might it be so that what we call ‘poetry’ 25

Also cf Barušs & Mossbridge, 2017, Ch. 3. They speak of “deep time”. Cf. Jung: “Wir haben ebenso Grund zu vermuten, dass das Unbewusste keineswegs ruhend ist, in dem Sinne, dass es inaktiv wäre, sondern es ist anhaltend beschäftigt mit der Gruppierung und Umgruppierung seiner Inhalte.” Jung, 2019, p. 12. 27 This distance is not the same as the one distinguished by Picard and Klages (see chapter 3), for that type of distance regards an in-built, and not the outwardly created, disposed distance meant here and which is implied by conscious perception. 26

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is a quest for, and an approximation of, the lost intimacy (or, inner spatialisation) implied by subliminal consciousness? But even if this is true, it is not likely that it will be successful in ‘convincing’ sceptics of subliminal consciousness. The very acts of ‘arguing’ and ‘convincing’ – whether in philosophy, science or public discourse – are highly reliant upon the very distancing which poetry has started undermining. As an example, I quote here a poem by Richard Berengarten. Already its title, ‘Into these poems,’ is illuminating for our context. Into these poems Into these poems go my full body and mind and soul and spirit also – no part gets left behind Anything smaller or less would be meaningless. But then doubt creeps in – I haven’t given my all for I hold fear within – of the poem’s call. I’ll give my last breath this side death and for this to break through death, I’ll give you too.28

Implications II: Death as Compression and Decompression Let me now highlight those aspects from the preceding, which contribute to the justification of my point that death is to be associated with enhanced subliminality. For lack of any available positive definition, I argued, death should be approached as radical alterity or otherness. ‘Cessation’ or ‘termination’ (of life) are negative descriptions, which still leave open an infinity of possible meanings. As an experience of the soul or consciousness, death is a meeting with otherness or the other. Neither consciousness nor death can be approached from a third-person perspective, let alone that they could ever be objectified – though it will be almost impossible to avoid objectification when writing about death. “In a man’s work,” Thomas Wolfe states, “there are contained not only the seeds of life, but the seeds of death”. And he continues saying that “that power of creation which sustains us will also destroy us like a leprosy if we let it rot stillborn 28 Richard Berengarten (2015). Notness. Metaphysical Sonnets. Brighton: Shearsman Books, p. 47.

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in our vitals.” (Ghiselin, 1985, p. 199) Death is exteriorised in writing, but it will also be betrayed by it since death is so much more than what has been put into the work: “for the first time a terrible doubt began to creep into my mind that I might not live long enough to get it out of me, that I had created a labor so large and so impossible that the energy of a dozen lifetimes would not suffice for its accomplishment.” (Ibid.) With these preliminaries in mind, let us see how memory, remembering, and recollection – if at all – testify to death as enhanced subliminality. My argument is as follows. We have seen that veridical remembering is characterised by a degree of spontaneity. Memories which emerge without the intervention of will are more likely to be reliable. This reliability, however, does not necessarily imply an unalterable, fixed past susceptible to impeccable reproduction by the mind. It rather implies a past susceptible to recognition beyond mere remembrance. I have suggested that, if consciousness cannot be delimited, the faculty of recognition originating in it becomes abysmal and a source of renewal, or of a renewed discovery of the past. In a sense, one could say that the past still has not passed, let alone that it has passed away; virtually, it is always yet to come. Our overall determination by will in waking consciousness tends to fixate, viz. both past and present actively; it usually obfuscates disinterested recollection and perception. Insofar as dreaming, somnambulism, and dying are various ways to cross barriers of consciousness, however preliminarily, such experiences can both stimulate recollection and perception, and enhance recognition. During these states of mind – which are passive –, we eminently experience our crossing of a threshold and, consequently, the natural instability of this threshold itself. The ordinary operations of the latter (i.e., active fixation) become more perspicuous in light of this crossing or this instability. I suggested that the attribution of any primordial character to waking consciousness does not so much serve truth-finding but instead leads to paralysis, if not to ontological despair. Those who are sceptical of the existence of a fixating threshold in consciousness would only have to pay attention to our continuously changing views of the general past: that which is called ‘history’. In a way, history is always mostly inconclusive, insofar as vacillating thresholds separating us from it can invite us to revise the prevailing views or even rewrite history. By implication, memory benefits from passivity. Insofar as the threshold of waking consciousness thrives on active fixation, shifting this threshold

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backwards will diminish both activity and fixation. At death, the climax of this shifting-backwards seems to have been reached, allowing for the release of memory and its abysmal faculties. Whereas the memory-enhancing experiences listed by Du Prel (dreaming, somnambulism, and moribundity) are in themselves more or less out of our immediate reach and cannot be actively elicited, for more explicit evidence one could also resort to ‘ordinary’ recollection; in fact, ordinary recollection equally presupposes a crossing of a threshold of consciousness. This becomes clear in Proust’s “involuntary memory” – occasioned, as we have seen, by the madeleine cookie, Saint Martin’s tower, etc. In Proust, involuntary memory can be seen as a paradigm of spontaneous recollection as such. It makes Walter Benjamin qualify Proust’s work as the reversal of Penelope’s weaving job: in it, the day dissolves what unleashed nocturnal writing yields.29 When something comes (!) to mind, a threshold is crossed that used to separate the supra- and the subliminal. The fixation inherent to actual perception is interrupted, so that perceived ‘reality’ – albeit for a moment – loses its permanent state of paralysis. Eventually, even the slightest memory occurring to me may suffice to mobilise things – as appears from Proust, and the streamof-consciousness literature in general (Joyce, Woolf). What is more, if it is true that recollection tends to unify the mind of the perceiver, the mobilisation of the perceived reality will be accompanied by invigorated personhood. Both Proust’s narrator, James Joyce’s Molly Bloom in the notorious final chapter of the Ulysses, and perhaps also Rousseau in his Rêveries, are on the verge of becoming persons. For an illustration, I will once more resort to the paradigmatic passage from Proust’s Le temps retrouvé quoted in chapter 2. Also, I will briefly refer to Molly Bloom’s soliloquy concluding James Joyce’s Ulysses, and to Rousseau’s reveries written toward the end of his life. The Proust passage (1) demonstrates that death loses its ordinary meaning in light of memory. Molly Bloom’s monologue (2) suggests a simultaneity in death of compression and decompression of self, due to the unleashing of memory. Rousseau (3) seems to introduce felt memories, as opposed to sole intellectual cognition; ‘cheerful’ self-elation toward death may enable consciousness to integrate unpleasant memories, even trauma, and ultimately corroborate personhood.

29

“Und ist dies Werk spontanen Eingedenkens, in dem Erinnerung der Einschlag und Vergessen der Zettel ist, nicht vielmehr ein Gegenstück zum Werk der Penelope als sein Ebenbild?” Benjamin, 1999, p. 311.

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(1) Proust’s musings In the famous passage in Le temps retrouvé, Proust not only comes back to the ground-breaking involuntary memories which paved the way for his entire narrative; remarkably, he connects them with death: “[M]y apprehensions on the subject of my death [mes inquiétudes au sujet de ma mort],” the narrator says, “had ceased from the moment when I had unconsciously recognised [reconnu inconsciemment] the taste of the little madeleine because at that moment the being that I then had been was an extra-temporal being and in consequence indifferent to the vicissitudes of the future.” It seems as if, what the narrator calls the “unconscious recognition” of a past moment in the present, for the first time in his life illumines death for the narrator. It does so by removing his worries or uncertainties (inquiétudes). Memory takes away uncertainty, both the uncertainty about “my death” and the “vicissitudes of the future”. My death will no longer belong to the vicissitudes of the future, because my death – as one could say – does not belong to the future anymore, nor to its “vicissitudes”. Proust continues as follows, in one of the most important passages of 20thcentury literature: “But let a sound, a scent already heard and breathed in the past be heard and breathed anew, simultaneously in the present and in the past, real without being actual, ideal without being abstract, then instantly the permanent and characteristic essence hidden in things is freed [se trouve libérée] and our true being which has for long seemed dead but was not so in other ways awakes and revives, thanks to this celestial nourishment [notre vrai moi qui parfois depuis longtemps, semblait mort, mais ne l’était pas autrement, s’éveille, s’anime en recevant la céleste nourriture qui lui est apportée]. An instant liberated [affranchie] from the order of time has recreated in us man liberated [affranchi] from the same order, so that he should be conscious of it [pour la sentir]. And indeed we understand his faith in his happiness even if the mere taste of a madeleine does not logically seem to justify it; we understand that the name of death is meaningless to him [le mot de ‘mort’ n’ait pas de sens pour lui]; placed beyond time, how can he fear the future?”30

Our “true being,” Proust says, which used to be hidden in death is resuscitated and resurfaces accordingly. It is of note that this resuscitation follows repetition (Kammerer: ‘seriality’) and recognition. It is as if 30

M. Proust, Le temps retrouvé (1927). In Proust 1999, p. 2267 (Time Re-gained, trans. Stephen Hudson, slightly modified by author, RS).

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repetition indicates insistence or even perseverance of what had hitherto been overlooked or wasted, a conatus in suo esse perseverare (Spinoza) of the trifling and yet essential; an insistence of the trifling as the crucial, despite its having been lost or even wasted (perdu can mean both). What seemed to be dead is animated by memory – a memory which is itself accelerated by a single stimulus (“the mere taste of a madeleine”). To those whose memory has been triggered in a similar way (i.e., such as to enable the revival of the inanimate), the word ‘death’ will have no meaning or direction (sens) anymore. ‘Death’ loses its standard meaning of being our always imminent, precarious future; it stops designating future imminence or vicissitudes. Because ‘death’ becomes meaningless, death becomes insignificant. Death is drained by memory, to the point of being absorbed by it. If memory, or subliminality, is enhanced at death, at the expense of the meaning of death, death and enhanced subliminality may start to become mutually implicative. Perdition is transformed into a trouvaille. (2) Molly Bloom’s soliloquy Proust is not the only author to pierce the present with recollection, thereby depriving death of its sting. A glance on James Joyce’s Ulysses, in particular its notorious last chapter which consists of Molly Bloom’s endless, unpunctuated soliloquy, demonstrates that here as well uncontrolled selfreflection repeatedly reminisces death. These recollections remarkably contradict with the complete absence in the entire Ulysses of intra-textual memory or self-reference. Instead, the book resembles – as C.G. Jung argues – a disentangled consciousness or a de-personalised personality. Molly’s memories, one could say, are dissolved in it.31 How does death appear in the last part of the Ulysses? Both in the form of the passing away of others, but also Molly Bloom’s own, anticipated and imagined death. Interestingly, often connected to lovemaking.32 Frequently, 31 Cf. C.G. Jung, Ulysses. Ein Monolog: “Es gibt auf diesen 735 Seiten, so weit mein Blick reicht, keine sinnfälligen Wiederholungen, keine einzige selige Ruheinsel, wo der geneigte Leser, erinnerungstrunken, sich hinsetzen und einen zurückgelegten Weg – sagen wir von etwa hundert Seiten – mit Befriedigung betrachten könnte, wäre es auch die Erinnerung an ein Gemeinplätzchen” (Jung, 1947, p. 113) and “Diese Loslösung des Bewusstseins, diese Entpersönlichung der Persönlichkeit, könnte dies das Ithaka der Joyceschen Odyssee sein?” (Ibid., p. 158) 32 “Miss Stack bringing him flowers the worst old ones she could find at the bottom of the basket anything at all to get into a mans bedroom with her old maids voice trying to imagine he was dying on account of her to never see thy face again,” James Joyce (1992, 1922). Ulysses. London: Penguin Books, p. 872; “if he was married Im

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Molly Bloom refers to the death of others; for example, her youngest son who died as a baby, a tragedy jointly remembered with a lovemaking scene ‘embracing’ the burial mention: “we came together when I was watching the two dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street that disheartened me altogether I suppose I oughtnt to have buried him in that little woolly jacket I knitted crying as I was but give it to some poor child but I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it was we were never the same since O Im not going to think myself into the glooms about that any more I wonder why he wouldnt stay the night”. (Joyce, 1992, p. 926f; my italics RS)

Molly also mentions her own prospective death, curiously again in connection to lovemaking: “Ill have to hunt around again for someone every day I get up theres some new thing on sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose Ill have some peace I want to get up a minute if Im let wait O Jesus wait yes that thing has come on me yes now wouldnt that afflict you of course all the poking and rooting and ploughing he had up in me”. (Ibid., p. 913; my italics, RS)

Earlier, Molly had already memorised her uniqueness and irreplaceability – which are underlined in the preference of dying 20 times over sacrificing this uniqueness once more by marrying (as if dying at least recognises and acknowledges the self, whereas marriage merely spoils it). “now what could you make of a man like that Id rather die 20 times over than marry another of their sex of course hed never find another woman like me to put up with him the way I do know me come sleep with me yes” (Ibid., p. 880; my italics, RS).

As I suggested in the second chapter when discussing ecstasy, the orgasmic experience can be considered as compression of self, as opposed to inspiration which is decompression of self. It could be argued that death, as enhanced subliminality, paradoxically combines these mutually exclusive

sure hed have a fine strong child but I dont know Poldy has more spunk in him yes thatd be awfully jolly I suppose it was meeting Josie Powell and the funeral and thinking about me and Boylan set him off” (p. 877f); “love is sighing I am dying” (p. 899); “I was dying to find out was he circumcised he was shaking like a jelly all over they want to do everything too quick take all the pleasure out of it” (p. 899).

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happenings.33 On the one hand, death underlines an experienced irreplaceability and unique selfhood – as opposed to marriage which destroys it (this is expressed by the “know me come sleep with me” followed by “all the poking and rooting and ploughing he [Poldy/Leopold Bloom] had up in me” indicating the vanity of Poldy’s attempt to ‘know’). On the other hand, death decompresses the self and reaches out to God and peace: “sweet God sweet God well when Im stretched out dead in my grave I suppose Ill have some peace”. When Wilhelm Reich opposes ‘sexuality’ to ‘anxiety’ as decompression versus oppression (“‘Sexuality’ could be nothing other than the biological function of expansion ‘out of the self’ [Streckung ‘aus sich heraus’] from the center toward the periphery. In turn, anxiety could be nothing but the reversed direction, i.e., from the periphery to the center, ‘back into the self.’ [‘in sich zurück’]”). Reich, 2014, p. 200; trans., p. 267), he erroneously assumes that the sexual is identical to pure Streckung: expansion or stretching. We have seen in chapter 2, however, that an oppressive, anxious rebound may permeate the sexual. In contrast, the orgasmic experience – its constituent – is limited by enhanced selfexperience as its “periphery”. Death, I would argue, accomplishes what in sexuality is still limited by anxiety: ‘stretching,’ that is, extension beyond borders, infinite elation. The stretching of death unites centre and infinite periphery, or compression and decompression. Whereas the connection of death to compression of selfhood seems all too obvious – death underlines someone’s uniqueness by terminating their availability and approachability –, things seem to be different for its connection to decompression of selfhood. The self-abandonment and decompression characteristic not only of ecstasy and inspiration but also of death may be concealed by the grave. Yet, this concealment does not imply the absence of self-abandoning decompression. “Every animal being, and man, in particular, has an interest,” as we have seen in Klages, “in not 33 For a preliminary support of this claim, I would like to refer to Franz Rosenzweig who speaks of two “birthdays of the self” (as opposed to the birthday of “personality” which he defines in terms of mere social role). The first birthday of the self, he asserts, coincides with a meeting with Eros, the second with Thanatos (both being but masks of the same daemon). At the first birthday (Eros), the personality dies away in the genus (Gattung), while the second, which is der geheimere Geburtstag des Selbst, comes down to the human being’s meeting with (physical) death. The life of the soul takes place between the sexual and the inspirational, (physical) death being an act of rebirthing. Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 77.

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showing certain mental processes.” (Klages, 1936, p. 122; trans., p. 96) The confrontation with the two openly mating dogs (“the two dogs up in her behind in the middle of the naked street”), however, “disheartens” Molly; not only does it elicit a simultaneous orgasm with her partner (“we came together”), she also realises that her creative efforts (“that little woolly jacket I knitted”) ‘suit’ death, or her dead baby, well (“but I knew well Id never have another our 1st death too it was”). In sum, death may combine compression and decompression of selfhood. It may reconcile what in the orgasmic experience, on the one hand, and in ecstatic inspiration, on the other, is still distinct. The enhancement of subliminality consists of the unbelievable, unimaginable experience in which the self, as a self, expands beyond limits – just as Molly’s memories are dissolved in the Ulysses as a whole.34 Death may turn out to overcome (centripetal) anxiety which prevents the self from setting one step further and surrendering itself to the other. The logic of the sexual is death, and death enhances the sexual. This does not imply a call for suicide since it will only be the ‘other’ who can ‘elicit’ my self-surrender at death. Suicide roots in anxiety or self-protection. Death first allows for self-tasting as a tasting of the other. If it makes sense to associate death with enhanced subliminality, this will have at least two, maybe surprising implications. Firstly, those renowned for their enhanced subliminality (artists, thinkers, etc.) will lead a life which is somehow intimately oscillating between the orgasmic and death. Bright minds, I have suggested, are always on the verge of dying, just as they are on the brink of acquiring personhood.35 Secondly, insofar as enhanced subliminality (1) explores the endless malleability of reality, and (2) approximates death, death may be related to the paving of new ways through reality. To quote Jung on the Ulysses: “The book can just as well be read backwards, for it has no back and no front, no top and no bottom.”36

34 In terms of Rosenzweig, her “personality dies away in the genus”: “Das Selbst also wird an einem bestimmten Tag im Menschen geboren. Welcher Tag ist das? Der gleiche, an dem die Persönlichkeit, das Individuum, den Tod in die Gattung stirbt. Eben dieser Tag lässt das Selbst geboren werden.” Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 77. 35 This is also how I read Plato’s notorious words in the Phaedo 64a: “those who pursue philosophy aright study [ਥʌȚIJȘįİȪȠȣıȚȞ: ‘engage with,’ ‘are concerned with’] nothing but dying and being dead.” 36 Jung, 1947, p. 136; trans. The Spirit in Man, Art and Literature. In C.G. Jung (1967). Collected Works of C. G. Jung. Vol. 15. London: Routledge.

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(3) Rousseau’s apparent ‘amnesia’ At this point, however, a critical question could be asked. In chapter 2, I have discussed both Rousseau and Theresa of Avila as possible illustrations of an ongoing yet subliminal ecstasy. This state, I suggested, might be approximated, albeit in an imperfect way. But whereas the free-floating ruminations in Proust and Joyce eventually surface long-lost memories, in Rousseau, memory and recollection seem to be absent, if not suppressed. True, death is a recurrent theme throughout Rousseau’s Rêveries. But at least in the famous fifth walk, so one could object, memory and recollection seem to be a no-show – despite the state of pure passivity propitious for remembering. Worse, so one could continue objecting, other than Proust and Joyce Rousseau gives an autobiographical picture of a ‘real’ experience which might (if at all) make his description more reliable than the ‘mere’ literary accounts in the Recherche or the Ulysses. Provided that the distinction between autobiography and literary fiction makes sense at all, Rousseau’s autobiographical account of an unimpeded mental state seems to exclude recollection. Given that recollection is a precondition for personhood, as I have argued, the implication would be that at least for Rousseau, the reveries are detrimental to personhood; they postpone death by impairing subliminality instead of enhancing it. Let us reconsider the following passage which I have already quoted before: “But if there is a state in which the soul finds a seat solid enough entirely to repose and collect there its whole being [une assiette assez solide pour s’y reposer tout entière et rassembler là tout son être], without being obliged to have recourse to the past [rappeler le passé], or stretch towards the future [enjamber sur lҲavenir]; where time is to her a void [ne soit rien pour elle]; where the present continually lasts, without, however, denoting its duration and without the least sign of succession, without any other sense of privation or enjoyment, of pleasure or pain, hope or fear, than solely that of our existence, and that this sentiment alone is able wholly to occupy it; as long as this state lasts, he who finds himself in it may call himself happy, not from a poor, imperfect, relative unhappiness like what we feel in the pleasures of life, but from a full, perfect, and sufficient happiness, which does not leave the least void in the soul it would be glad to fill [qui ne laisse dans l’âme aucun vide qu’elle sente le besoin de remplir].”37

37

Rousseau, Rêveries du promeneur solitaire. In Jean-Jacques Rousseau OC I, p. 1046; trans. (1783) The Confessions of J.J. Rousseau with the Reveries of the Solitary Walker, vol. I. London: J. Bew, Pater Noster Row, p. 220.

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First, we should be careful to apply this description to the author’s experiences immediately. It is formulated conditionally: “if there is a state,” etc. This brings Rousseau’s reveries a little closer to Proust and Joyce, at least concerning the nature of what they each describe. Neither can the autobiographical dispense with literary imagination, nor literary imagination with the autobiographical. We will see below that, at least for Rousseau, autobiography thrives on imagination. “Fiction is not fact,” Thomas Wolfe writes, “but fiction is fact selected and understood fiction is fact arranged and charged with purpose.” (Wolfe, 2016, ‘To the reader’) Secondly, what Rousseau wants to describe is a feeling of pure selfexperience [sentiment d’existence] beyond the senses – and, so it seems, equally beyond memory and recollection. If this is adequate, then the feeling of existence paradoxically infringes upon personhood. Is not Rousseau, instead of setting a final step in his life towards mental maturation, relapsing into a state of mental degradation? Is he not opening the door to a collective rather than to an individual sphere, thereby reaping “ego inflation,” as Jung would put it? “Once the personal repressions are lifted,” Jung writes, “the individuality and the collective psyche begin to emerge in a coalescent state, thus releasing the hitherto repressed personal fantasies. […] An infallible sign of collective images seems to be the appearance of the “cosmic” element, i.e., the images in the dream or fantasy are connected with cosmic qualities, such as temporal and spatial infinity, enormous speed and extension of movement, “astrological” associations, telluric, lunar, and solar analogies, changes in the proportions of the body, etc.” (Jung, 2019, p. 51; trans., p. 219f) Let us take a closer look. As just mentioned, I have interpreted this state as a permanent inner ecstasy in chapter 2. “In what consists the enjoyment of a like situation?,” Rousseau significantly continues. “In nothing external, nothing but one’s self [soimême], and our own existence [sa propre existence]; as long as this state lasts, we are sufficient to ourselves, like God. The sense of existence [sentiment d’existence], stripped of every other affection [dépouillé de toute autre affection], is of itself a precious sense of contentment and peace, which alone would suffice to render this existence lovely and sweet, to him who knows to remove from his mind [écarter de soi] all those terrestrial and sensual impressions which incessantly arise to distract and trouble our comfort here below [qui viennent sans cesse nous en distraire et en troubler ici-bas la douceur].” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 1047; trans., p. 221) Comparing these passages to Proust and Joyce, it may surprise the reader that singular biographical events do not seem to play any part in Rousseau’s

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self-relishing at all. True, memories “incessantly arise,” but they will only “distract and trouble our comfort here below”. Instead, however, a “cheerful imagination (imagination riante)” might emerge which acts in the same way as Proust’s madeleine: “Absolute rest is productive of melancholy [létargie], and presents the image of death [une image de la mort]; then the assistance of a cheerful imagination [imagination riante] is necessary, which voluntarily presents its aid to those on whom Heaven has bestowed it. This degree of emotion, therefore, if not supplied by outward objects, should arise from within ourselves”. (Ibid.)

The cheerful or smiling imagination (imagination riante) seems to lack any positive biographical content and to merely precede concrete life events. However, this is only one aspect. For, on the other hand, Rousseau underlines that the imagination is also more than only pure tranquillity or immobility, more than only an image of death (image de la mort) – just as the internal, first-person perspective (‘imagination’) exceeds the external, third-person perspective (‘image’). Its secret origin (“should arise from within ourselves”) reflects primordial feelings, feelings through which what comes from outside is welcomed as a reflection of something deep down inside. Concretely, these primordial feelings for Rousseau point toward experiences of nature: “Awaking from a long and charming reverie, beholding myself surfeited by verdure, flowers and birds, letting my senses wander to the distant romantic shores and vast extent of crystalline waters, I connected all those pleasing objects with my fictitious enjoyments [jҲassimilais à mes fictions tous ces aimables objets], and returning by degrees to my reason [à moi-même et à ce qui mҲentourait], could scarcely distinguish the point of separation between ideal and real delights [des fictions aux réalités]; so much did everything concur to complete the happiness of that quiet [recueillie] solitary life I led in this charming abode.” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 1048; trans., p. 222) In other words, Rousseau recreates the world in light of his imagination. Unless this recreation by imagination is preconditioned by concealed life events, albeit as innocent as tea-sipping with one’s aunt, recollection and memory seem to play no role here. Inner subliminal ecstasy is not enriched with singular biographical details. Rousseau is not unaware of his biography in general. On the contrary. Not only had he already published his autobiographical Confessions; he also memorises several concrete life events in the Rêveries as a whole. However, these life events do not seem to surface when one would expect them most: during the solitary natural wanderings and ponderings of their author.

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What Rousseau’s imagination has in common with Proust’s memory is an experience of sheer hospitality. Hospitality involves a meaningful connection between one’s self or soul, and something transcending the soul. But whereas in Proust, hospitality is connected with a concrete historical memory (tea-sipping with an aunt), in Rousseau it is dissolved from events or even persons. This makes it likely that, in Rousseau’s case, boundaries between the hosted self and the hospitable other are blurred, or even erased. It becomes questionable if under such conditions a self or personhood can be maintained at all. One might almost agree with Jung at this point in suspecting ego inflation. How to avoid introducing death at this point, especially if death, as I have suggested, both compresses and decompresses the self. Holding back unpleasant memories while releasing imagination, Rousseau concludes his fifth walk by expressing his desire to end his days (finir mes jours) in the embrace of the charming abode (beau séjour) on his hospitable, beloved island (Isle chérie): “Why cannot I go and finish my days [Que ne puis-je aller finir mes jours] in that peaceful life, without ever quitting it, or seeing any inhabitant of the continent, who might once recall [me rappellât le souvenir] those calamities of all kinds [calamités de toute espèce], which have been showered on me [rassembler sur moi: ‘are recollected on me’] during so many years? They would soon be forgotten for ever; of course they might not similarly forget me, but what could that matter to me, so long as they were kept from troubling my quiet retreat? Delivered from all earthly passions which are engendered by the tumults of society, my soul would frequently bound above its atmosphere [mon âme s’élancerait fréquemment au-dessus de cette atmosphère], and anticipate its communion with those celestial intelligences whose number it shortly hopes to augment [et commercerait d’avance avec les intelligences célestes dont elle espère aller augmenter le nombre dans peu de temps].” (Rousseau, OC I, p. 1048f; trans. p. 222f)

In my view, Rousseau’s account testifies to an oscillatory movement between permanent inner ecstasy, on the one hand, and anticipated death, or – as I defined it – enhanced subliminality, on the other. Yet, it is difficult to understand how the latter could be enhanced – or, to put it simply, how one could ‘safely’ die – without recollecting own memories; even when unpleasant, even when in compressed form. Would it not be likely that an amnesic self, which failed to enrich itself with recollections and attempts to process them, lacks the solidity (‘compression’) incremental to subliminal enhancement? Would not a person oblivious to biography become vulnerable to ego inflation, or to replenishment with deranging external ‘content’?

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I see two conditions under which Rousseau’s endeavours to have a real experience of self would still be ‘justifiable’ since not actively eliciting amnesia. The first condition would be the existence of traumatic and, therefore, indigestible memory. Which particular memory will be traumatic for someone is too personal to be decided upon. To be honest, as towards the end of his life Rousseau increasingly suffered from paranoia, it cannot be ascertained that the “calamities of all kinds” can be reasonably qualified as traumatic rather than as exaggerated and unrealistic. In case of severe trauma (‘post-traumatic stress disorder’), some therapists suggest their patients to not actively ‘process’ it – since that would destroy one’s mental stability – but just to try to minimise its symptoms by behaviour adjustment. In the unlikely case that Rousseau was indeed traumatised, his attempts to experience feelings of pure existence would be justifiable. The other condition under which such attempts are defensible would be when felt memories facilitate their success. Felt memories are memories in which the sensitive part outweighs the cognitive component – it will, therefore, be difficult to articulate them. I am thinking here of memories of being hospitably welcomed in the world (by parents, caretakers, or lovers). These positive memories are more likely to facilitate the inner ecstasy Rousseau is testifying to, and invigorate its stirrings. They will unmistakably be endowed with feelings; so much so that these feelings sometimes absorb their cognitive constituents. Felt memories, or memories in which feeling is more potent than cognition, may stimulate imaginations that root in primordial self-experience. Like a sieve, they separate the wheat of inner self-relishing from the chaff of afflictions. Thereby, they contribute to recreating the self and the world; in other words, to the exploration of the endless malleability of reality. If this second condition applies, Rousseau’s reveries would primarily consist of felt memories. These felt memories, then, only realise themselves at the expense of neglected or even suppressed bad memories and trauma (“those calamities of all kinds, which have been showered on me during so many years”). Perhaps ‘cheerful’ self-elation toward death, practised in the solitary recluse of the island, will ultimately enable consciousness to both embrace and assimilate unpleasant memories (and theoretically even trauma). This self-elation toward and perhaps even beyond death is the last resort for trauma processing. It only becomes an option if neither ethics nor aesthetics – of which I suggested in chapter 2 that they demolish the imminence of an original void – are viable. When it comes to countering this void, the memories of the moribund enhance subliminality in such a way as to surpass ethics and aesthetics. Elating selfhood infinitely while preserving its inner

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intensity, death is the only imaginable healer of trauma. II Memory and Image-Realisation. External Approach “Will in the end – unimaginable grace! – even Nothingness [das Nichts] become form [Gestalt]?” —Hermann Friedmann38

Having discussed memory and recollection as personality-enhancers and consequently as relevant internal factors of moribundity, I will now turn to external aspects of the latter. When I describe these factors from now on as ‘image-realisation,’ I will connect the subject of death to the subject of ecstasy – which is, as I have tried to show earlier, constituted by image experience. I will also try to connect it to physiognomy, of which I have argued that it may be strongly related to ecstasy, insofar as the essence of physiognomy is equally image-related. But let me start this second section by making some methodological remarks. Memory benefits from passivity, I stated above. And I continued suggesting that shifting backwards the threshold of waking consciousness (which mainly consists of active fixation) will diminish both activity and fixation. At death, I concluded, the climax of this shifting-backwards may have been reached, so that memory and its abysmal faculties are released. This might enable an enhancement of subliminality. For all its inherent poverty, my account of death thus far remotely resembles the argument for the soul as inwardness, which I have tried to develop in the first chapter. I suggested that, to establish meaningful contact with inwardness, following a code is requisite. Drawing on Patañjali, I argued that the prevailing ‘scientific’ methodologies are too narrow; rather than solely focusing on logical ‘consistency’ and ‘objectivity,’ we had better follow a spiritual propaedeutic. Also, I claimed that to reach inwardness, internal fixations (Janet: “subconscious fixed ideas”) need to be overcome. Finally, I stated that a form of concentration is necessary to avoid confusing the variety of inner and outer incentives. Admittedly, my account of death developed above resembles the argument for the soul-as-inwardness only insofar as it relies on testimonies, albeit that these testimonies in themselves are – and cannot be more than – allusive and anticipatory rather than flawless full-blown descriptions. For obvious reasons, death as a first-person experience is not susceptible to being 38

Friedmann, 1956, p. 20; my trans.

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communicated to others (even more so as conventional forms of ‘communication’ are relatively limited in the symbolic registers they manage to disclose). In this respect, the experience of death will always differ from self-testimonies of the soul as living inwardness and inner selfaccess. Whereas the immediacy of the latter can (partly) be shared, the immediacy of the former cannot; death inaugurates a discontinued availability to others. It makes sense to write an autobiography, but writing an auto-thanatography would be pointless. It could even be questioned if death – alleged first-person experience by eminence – can genuinely be appropriated consciously as a self-experience.39 It is highly illustrative in this respect that the Cyclops Polyphemus, after his single eye had been pierced by Ulysses and his comrades, screams out loud that “Nobody (Outis) is murdering me (sic) by craft [ȅ੣IJȓȢ ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ įȩȜ૳]”. The verbal clause “is murdering me [ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ]” being already paradoxical enough, the Cyclops clearly does not say that he is dying, let alone that he has died – which would not only have been impossible but also untrue since he survives the attack. True, the negation implied by the putative proper name No-body/Ou-tis solves the issue at the level of the Cyclops’ double-layered speech act: “Nobody kills me”. As if Polyphemus’ speech act were not already self-deleting by its contradictory content (‘he kills me,’ ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ), the so-called ‘subject’ of the verb: Nobody/Outis transforms it into a platitude. The exclamation deletes itself as a statement; it communicates nothing except the dismantling of the linguistic subject. It is as if Outis/Nobody had to be Ulysses’ pseudonym, at least in light of the Cycloptic exaggerated lamentations about ‘being murdered’; for, while one can undoubtedly be murdered, one cannot simultaneously attest or even testify that one is murdered when still alive. One could also claim that (what Freud would call) ‘castration anxiety’ is entirely superfluous here, as we will see further onwards.

39

This would be a Levinasian-Derridean critique of Heidegger’s focus on Dasein’s Being-toward-death. Both Levinas and Derrida argue that our relation toward death is always mediated by the other. Cf Derrida: “nous aurons à nous demander comment une possibilité (la plus propre) en tant qu’impossibilité peut encore apparaître en tant que telle sans disparaître aussitôt, sans que le ‘comme tel’ sombre d’avance et sans que sa disparition essentielle fasse perdre au Dasein tout ce qui le distingue”. Jacques Derrida (1996). Apories. Mourir – s’attendre aux ‘limites de la vérité’. Paris: Galilée, p. 125f. While agreeing with this critique, I would not say that it fully excludes an immediate, individual or unique self-experience of death; as enhanced subliminality, death disables supraliminality.

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We have seen in the first chapter that it is equally possible to argue for the soul as an outer phenomenon. This would be a more indirect way of approaching the soul. As examples of the soul’s external phenomenality, I mentioned ‘ideation’ (mental projection), ‘production of kin’ (both in the form of physical posterity and art), ‘self-relation in organic life,’ and ‘repetitive constellations’. To clarify my argument, I took Driesch’ concept of ‘entelechy’ as a guide. Entelechy, I said, can be seen an attempt to overcome inorganic nature in virtue of a differentiating process within the organic; it “transforms a system of equally distributed potentialities into a system of actualities which are unequally distributed”. Now, just as it is possible to argue for the soul as an outer phenomenon, it is also possible to explain for death’s enhanced subliminality in terms of outward appearance. Perhaps the latter approach is even more viable; for, despite death being primarily a first-person experience, its nature as ‘disappearing act’ creates an insurmountable obstacle for giving a living testimony to it. Optic Existence What I am pointing at through these methodological remarks is a possible way of experiencing the death of the other as death; that is, not as a mere discontinued presence, let alone as only a biological process. I found a highly captivating description of death-as-an-external-phenomenon in Hermann Friedman’s Die Welt der Formen. In previous chapters, we have seen that Friedmann opposes a haptic to an optic worldview and that he makes a strong case for the latter. I suggested that, despite insoluble difficulties in drawing a straight demarcation line between these worldviews and corresponding attitudes, the distinction is helpful. As outlined in chapter 1, the haptic approach prevails in our common scientific practice. It interprets things as concrete, tangible objects connected by attraction or repulsion. Consequently, it is governed by the standard principle of efficient causality, which equates the interaction between those objects with a powerful stimulus that communicates a measurable impetus to a passive recipient. To emphatically underline the possibly devastating consequences of an exclusively haptic approach, I resorted to the Cyclops narrative (cf “when the Cyclops had filled his huge paunch, and had washed down his meal of human flesh with a drink of neat milk, he stretched himself full length upon the ground among his sheep, and went to sleep.” Odyssey 9, 296ff). We found an almost identical description in Virgil’s Aeneid: “I saw myself [vidi egomet] how he seized two of our number in his huge hands, and reclining in the centre of the cave, broke them on the rock, so the threshold, drenched, swam with blood”. Moreover, we have seen that the

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Cyclops is depicted as “not pleasant to look at [nec visu facilis], affable to no one [nec dictu adfabilis ulli]”. (Aneid III, 621; trans. A.S. Kline) His monocular face made him not good-looking. The blinding of his unique eye (lumen, ‘light’) only aggravated his ugliness and obscurity.40 Being an alternative to the haptic approach, we have seen, the opticmorphological attitude draws on viewing and vision. It is governed by a synchronicity principle and interrelatedness of the involved actors. Optic ‘causality’ is often referred to with the deprecatory term ‘association,’ or it is ‘unmasked’ as coinciding with the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy – true, from the sole perspective of efficient causality. Yet, optic ‘causality’ can paradigmatically be observed in paintings. These are better interpreted in light of, for example, the precision of perspective or colour harmony than of notions like – efficient – ‘cause’ (painter) and ‘effect’ (painting). When it comes to interpreting an artwork (if not, mutatis mutandis, our world), an optic approach is to be preferred over a haptic approach. Why? Because, whereas the former interrupts and dissolves, the latter tends to integrate and connect. Once the possibly destructive nature of the dissecting approaches dominating science will have been brought to light – in other words, once we will have set a step back from such approaches –, alternative truth criteria introduce themselves. I would say that one of these criteria is the potential to integrate phenomena. What Friedmann terms an “optic” attitude represents such a potential. “[E]verything which exists only partially in a haptic form,” he says, “can ‘increase’ in existence optically; the optic concept of existence is by no means covered by the haptic.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 487; my trans.) Whereas haptic approaches tend to be vivisective, optic attitudes seem to have a vivifying virtue. Consequently, it could be rightfully asked if preferring the internecine over the vivifactive is not – similar to the Cycloptic speech act (‘Nobody is killing me’) – ultimately self-deleting. Why do I believe that Friedmann’s views and distinctions can be particularly helpful when discussing death as an external phenomenon? They significantly connect an optic approach with memory and recollection. Thereby, Friedmann achieves two things simultaneously. He not only shows ways to deepen the faculty of memory, beyond its assumed sole function to serve self-interest; what is more, he gives an account of a reliable and trustworthy experience of what could be essential in the death of the other, without for that matter pretending to exhaust its interpretation. Interestingly, he associates optic approach with internalisation, and thereby with memory. 40

“monstrum horrendum, informe, ingens, cui lumen ademptum”. (Aneid III, 658)

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“The existence of an image has two parameters,” he argues; “except the physical materiality, except the canvas, the marble, the cellular tissue, also the determination by the eye and visual fantasy [Gesichtsphantasie], optic recollection [Erinnerung], i.e., interiorisation [Innerlichwerdung]; this second determination indeed completes the optic-morphological concept of existence.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 486; my trans.) Now, this premise – the optical allows for memory and instils vivacity if not even life in it – may become crucial as regards the mourning over our beloved ones. The existence of our relatives does not depend upon their physical presence or visibility, as becomes clear when we realise that their distance in space – even if it lasts for a long time – does not cancel their existence as such. Instead, Friedmann continues, certainty about the existence of our beloved ones relies on firm inner conviction and belief; it is “an attitude of spirit and inwardness” (ein Verhältnis des Geistes und des Gemütes). (Friedmann, 1930, p. 486) What does he mean with this? In my view, it is something which corroborates my previous analysis of memory and recollection as unifying personality traits susceptible to ‘post mortem’ enhancement. What is essential, if not constitutive, for personal existence is not mere physical presence and tangibility – as would seem self-evident at first sight – but the imaging or imagin-ation by witnesses. My ‘personality’ or ‘presence’ (synonymous terms, in my stipulation) may issue in physicality and tangibility; they root, however, in the impression, impact or imprint they make on others. A personality is always impressive. If true, this would make others bearers (and sometimes also supporters) of my personality and even existence. Any reliable ontology that accounts for ‘personhood’ – which from Aristotle up to Kant has never been an explicit aim – would have to be inter-subjective in its core. “It is certain,” Friedmann argues, “that no sensuous position [sinnlichen Standpunkt] can so easily bring us to empathy with a personality [Erfühlung einer Persönlichkeit], or what is more, with its living presence, other than the perspective of its visual manifestation [bildhaften Erscheinung].” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 486; my trans.) For an illustration – or even evidence – Friedmann refers to a famous passage in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. In it, Hamlet eloquently addresses his mother. He compares the portrait of his deceased father to that of his father’s brother, who has usurped the throne without anyone knowing it (except for Hamlet, whose ‘knowledge’ comes from a ghost apparition, though). I will quote the original text (which Friedmann renders in German translation). The interpretive commentary is mine. “Look here upon this picture, and on this, The counterfeit presentment of two brothers.

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See what a grace was seated on this brow; Hyperion’s curls; the front of Jove himself; An eye like Mars, to threaten and command; A station like the herald Mercury New lighted on a heaven-kissing hill: A combination and a form indeed Where every god did seem to set his seal To give the world assurance of a man. This was your husband.” (Hamlet III, 4)

The last lines testify to the impression Hamlet’s father’s image had made and still makes upon others. The word ‘indeed’ (“A combination and a form indeed”) seems to underline that the speaker is only confirming what the spectator (Hamlet’s mother, the Queen), or even the listener’s imagination, will doubtlessly already have noticed. The hendiadys “a combination and a form” (i.e., it is the form which combines) refers to the eternal – or the divine in all its multiplicity – expressed (‘combined’) in the portrayed facial image of the late King. The slight hesitation implied by the verb ‘seem’ (“Where every god did seem to set his seal”) is made undone if only one realises that seem primarily expresses visibility.41 Moreover, reticence is equally counteracted by the “assurance” the divine sealing apparently gives (“To give the world assurance of a man.”) Seal refers to ‘oath,’ ‘promise,’ or ‘covenant’. In this context, the word ‘seal’ suggests that something was entrusted: both to the late King himself and the spectators of his portrait. True spectatorship may rely on a promise which assures or ensures personhood (“a man”). However, this personhood is untouchable. The portrait of the King demonstrates this. “The human face, however, is standing there like a placeholder of eternity, quietly and brightly,” writes Max Picard, as if directly commenting upon this Shakespeare quotation. (Picard, 1929, p. 142) And he continues saying that “[t]he face is standing there in such an ontologically robust way [Das Gesicht steht so seinshaft da], as if it had never become; as if there were not only no becoming in its presence anymore: generally, there seems to be no becoming anywhere anymore; becoming has been brought to a standstill before this strong presence [Seinshaftigkeit].” (Ibid., p. 21) ‘Personality’ and ‘presence’ (Seinshaftigkeit) may indeed be synonymous, as I suggested above. But what, then, is ‘presence’? And how, if at all, does it affect our standard conceptions of ‘death’?

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Visus est in Latin means ‘it seems’. Cf. the ambiguous description of the Cyclops Polyphemus as “not pleasant to look at [nec visu facilis]” (Aneid III, 621): ‘he was not facile in facing’.

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Presence In the Bhagavad gita, Krishna enigmatically comforts Arjuna saying that “whenever righteousness is on the decline, and unrighteousness is in the ascendant, then I body myself forth (tadƗtmƗna‫ ۦ‬s‫܀‬ijƗmyaham: ‘manifest myself’).” And he continues, “For the protection of the virtuous, for the extirpation of evil-doers, and for establishing Dharma (righteousness) on a firm footing, I am born (sambhavƗmi) from age to age (yuge yuge).” (IV, 78) In the Gospel of Matthew, the last words of Jesus’ farewell address are “Look, I am with you always, to the close of the age” (țĮ੿ ੁįȠઃ ਥȖઅ ȝİș’ ਫ਼ȝ૵Ȟ İੁȝȚ ʌȐıĮȢ IJ੹Ȣ ਲȝȑȡĮȢ ਪȦȢ IJોȢ ıȣȞIJİȜİȓĮȢ IJȠ૨ Įੁ૵ȞȠȢ). (Matth. 28, 20) In whatever way one is willing to read these words, they at least point at a conception of ‘presence’ which does not seem to be self-evident. It might, therefore, be worth trying to find literary examples of a similar alternative understanding of presence. In the final part of John Steinbeck’s Nobel prize winning novel The Grapes of Wrath, there is a moving passage in which a son (Tom Joad) says farewell to his mother since he has to flee. The novel is a shocking indictment of social injustice in the USA of the thirties of the 20th century, during the notorious Dust Bowl which drove many impoverished farmers from Oklahoma to California; upon their arrival, they only found more misery and misfortune. “Ma said, ‘How’m I gonna know ’bout you? They might kill ya an’ I wouldn’ know. They might hurt ya. How’m I gonna know?’ Tom laughed uneasily, ‘Well, maybe like Casy [a former preacher] says, a fella ain’t got a soul of his own, but on’y a piece of a big one—an’ then—’ ‘Then what, Tom?’ ‘Then it don’ matter. Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where— wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there. If Casy knowed, why, I’ll be in the way guys yell when they’re mad an’—I’ll be in the way kids laugh when they’re hungry an’ they know supper’s ready. An’ when our folks eat the stuff they raise an’ live in the houses they build—why, I’ll be there. See? God, I’m talkin’ like Casy. Comes of thinkin’ about him so much. Seems like I can see him sometimes.’”42

While the above examples, if reliable, are at least promising, there are other testimonies which seem to be alarming. I am thinking of Hitler’s last will, dictated shortly before he committed suicide. In it, we not only read that “[c]enturies may pass, but out of the ruins of our cities and monuments of 42 John Steinbeck (1939). The Grapes of Wrath. New York: Modern Library, Ch. 28; my italics.

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art there will arise anew the hatred [wird sich der Hass (…) immer wieder erneuern] for the people who alone are ultimately responsible: International Jewry and its helpers!”; toward the end, it is stated that “[t]hrough their [i.e., Hitler’s new Cabinet] work and loyalty they will remain just as close to me [ebenso nahestehen] as companions [Gefährten] after my death [nach dem Tode], just as I hope that my spirit will remain amongst them and will always accompany them [dass mein Geist unter ihnen weilen und sie stets begleiten wird.]”43 These are only examples whose force lies not so much in that they ‘prove’ anything but in their power of suggestion. The precise reason for which the attested ‘presence’ cannot count as ‘proof’ is that they tacitly imply what Friedmann calls “an attitude of spirit and inwardness” (ein Verhältnis des Geistes und des Gemütes). A presence can never be discerned as an object by a subject. I feel enticed to say that only the soul can perceive presence. It is susceptible to presence by virtue of its “optic recollection [Erinnerung], i.e., interiorisation” [Innerlichwerdung]”. This Innerlichwerdung, I now argue, expresses itself in the physiognomy of a countenance which is reminiscent or commemorative. The claim I am making here is that death, while interrupting physical availability, does not destroy presence (Seinshaftigkeit). With an eye to the examples above, let us briefly investigate the notion of ‘presence’. I hypothesise that this notion forms an adequate substitute for ‘selfhood’ or ‘personality’. In chapter 2, I interpreted the latter concepts in terms of ‘vocation’ and ‘creativity’. (cf Marcel, who said that “This self to which I have to be true is perhaps merely the cry that comes out to me from my own depths – the appeal to me to become that which, literally and apparently, I now am not.” (Marcel, 1950, p. 143; 1997, p. 158) As it is impossible to underpin my equation of presence and selfhood with an allegedly ‘self-evident’ axiom, I cannot avoid making the definitions of ‘presence’ and ‘selfhood’ interdependent. This does not necessarily, however, weaken my argument. As phenomena, ‘presence’ and ‘selfhood’ are already in themselves the biggest impediment to any supposedly selfevident or self-reliant axiom whatsoever. A meaningful ontology must be inter-subjective, I stated. This means that ‘presence’ and ‘selfhood’ are to be its central tenets; not only as notions but first and foremost as phenomena. Thinking (that is, conceiving notions) relies on imagination (that is, receiving phenomenal images). Insofar as ‘presence’ and ‘selfhood’ 43

http://www.auschwitz.dk/Will.htm, consulted at 14 April 2020.

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are primordial phenomena, they should be focal points of a meaningful ontology. A reflection on death cannot dispense with them, either. What more can we say about presence? How, for example, can its phenomenal side be elucidated? At least in two ways. We could insist either on its spatial or its temporal dimension. Space “Even the hour of death may send Us speeding on to fresh and newer spaces And life may summon us to newer races. So be it, heart; bid farewell without end [nimm Abschied und gesunde!]. —Hermann Hesse44

Let us start with space. In the previous chapter, I discussed physiognomy as an enactment of synchronicity (or, as I put it there, as ‘an accepted invitation to an approach of the human countenance as a synchronistic unity’). In this specific context, we discovered the notion of ‘presence’. The human countenance, Picard states, unmistakably produces presence (Gegenwärtigkeit). This is a phenomenological claim only to be confirmed by experience. Drawing on this term’s intrinsic ambiguity, we could say that, if something is present, its mere temporality is enriched by spatiality. Space involves the present object’s environment – including even spectators or witnesses – in this object’s mere existence. Consequently, the implied collecting or recollecting (‘ingathering’) nature of ‘presence’ redirects us to ‘synchronicity,’ so much so that experiencing synchronicities may come down to experiencing presence (if not even, one could endeavour, a countenance). Presence is as it were presented to those experiencing synchronicity. (On closer inspection, the circumference of synchronicity’s single constituents might well represent a face, as both Borges and Jung suggest.45) If we remind the above-quoted words in Hitler’s last will, Hitler’s ‘presence’ may manifest itself again both in “the ruins of our cities and monuments of art” and in those who continue to pursue Hitler’s mission. His spirit (Geist) will 44

Hesse, 1979, p. 484; trans. 2002, Alex Page. “A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that that patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.” Borges, 1998, p. 161. Also see Jung: “das beim ‘abaissement du niveau mental’ die von Wernicke aufgestellten ‘Organrepräsentanten’ in die Erscheinung treten.” Jung, 1947, p. 137n. 45

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remain amongst them (unter ihnen weilen) and will always accompany them. Note that the German verb weilen has both a spatial and a temporal connotation (eine Weile means ‘a while’; weilen is ‘to linger around’ like a ghost in a haunted house). Tom Joad, in Steinbeck’s Grapes of Wrath, needs to resort to repetition to combine space with time (“Then I’ll be all aroun’ in the dark. I’ll be ever’where—wherever you look. Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, I’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy, I’ll be there.”) The same applies to Krishna (“I am born from age to age [yuge yuge]”). Time This brings me to the temporal side of ‘presence’. In my discussion of physiognomy, we have seen that ‘presence’ can be considered as a meeting place between time and eternity. Interestingly, Jesus reportedly told his disciples that “Look (ੁįȠઃ), I am with you (ȝİș’ ਫ਼ȝ૵Ȟ İੁȝȚ) always (ʌȐıĮȢ IJ੹Ȣ ਲȝȑȡĮȢ: ‘all the days’), to the close of the age (ਪȦȢ IJોȢ ıȣȞIJİȜİȓĮȢ IJȠ૨ Įੁ૵ȞȠȢ)”. This quotation might illustrate that in ‘presence,’ the temporality of succession manifests its own interruption. The untranslatable interjection ੁįȠઃ/idou, also rendered as ‘Lo’ or ‘Behold,’ expresses the said ‘meeting’ between time and eternity. Without ‘vision’ or ‘optic approach,’ one could object that there is nothing to see, or even – when claiming that succession exhausts time – that eternity is too far ahead of us. Picard describes the meeting between time and eternity in terms of an eternal divine illumination and radiance. Coming across the presence of a human countenance, he adds, might go further – or farther – than a pure horizontal contemplation of this countenance itself. In the facial encounter, one is also vertically exposed to the long way the countenance has come from eternity into time – as if it were preceded by a plethora of (what Asian traditions often call) incarnations. To illustrate this point, I suggested that this insight must have dawned even upon the Cyclops Polyphemus, shortsighted though he usually be. For, when first catching Ulysses and his comrades, he asks them: “‘Strangers, who are ye [੯ ȟİ૙ȞȠȚ, IJȓȞİȢ ਥıIJȑ]? Whence [ʌȩșİȞ] do ye sail over the watery ways?” (9, 252)46 In other words, a susceptibility to eternity comes down to openness for depth or profundity. These dimensions are qualitative rather than quantitative since unfathomable. 46

Cf Proust, “D’où avait pu me venir cette puissante joie ? […] D’où venait-elle ?”. M. Proust (1913). Combray. In Proust, 1999, p. 44f.; my italics.

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The place where the countenance comes from cannot be visited, only envisaged or imagined. Presence, to conclude this short discussion of the spatio-temporality of this notion, has a stabilising virtue as regards time and space. “This is the gift of presence [Gegenwärtigkeit] to the human beings,” Picard stated; “they are lifted out of time and space”. (Picard, 1947, p. 142)47 After Tom Joad has quoted the preacher’s (Casy’s) claim that we all share a soul, he interrupts himself, saying “—an’ then—”. “Then what, Tom?,” his mother asks. “Then it don’ matter,” Tom answers (my italics). And as if to mitigate his boldness, he adds, “See? God, I’m talkin’ like Casy. Comes of thinkin’ about him so much. Seems like I can see him sometimes.” Presence as Unavailability Confusingly, contemporary philosophy seems to celebrate absence rather than presence. Still, while respecting philosophies of absence (such as Derrida’s48), I think that their justified emphasis on the alterity and transcendence of the other does not exhaust experience. The notion of ‘absence’ as a notion rightfully emphasises unavailability. As a designation of experience, however, ‘absence’ is weak. Experiencing the absence of my beloved friend is not equivalent to experiencing mere absence. As there is no such thing as ‘mere presence,’ there is no ‘mere absence,’ either. Already at the conceptual level, let alone at the experiential level, ‘presence’ and ‘absence’ are co-implicative. Whereas Hegel and Derrida have demonstrated the former, experience teaches the latter. Suffering loss is permeated by an enigmatic presence, which both aggravates and alleviates grief. In a way, loss entails its own consolation, not as an addition to but as a constituent of loss itself. It is as if, just as for the moribund death amounts to enhanced 47

Cf Proust : “Mais qu’un bruit déjà entendu, qu’une odeur respirée jadis, le soient de nouveau, à la fois dans le présent et dans le passé, réels sans être actuels, idéaux sans être abstraits, aussitôt l’essence permanente et habituellement cachée des choses se trouve libérée et notre vrai moi qui, parfois depuis longtemps, semblait mort, mais ne l’était pas autrement, s’éveille, s’anime en recevant la céleste nourriture qui lui est apportée. Une minute affranchie de l’ordre du temps a recréé en nous pour la sentir l’homme affranchi de l’ordre du temps. Et celui-là on comprend qu’il soit confiant dans sa joie, […] on comprend que le mot de ‘mort’ n’ait pas de sens pour lui; situé hors du temps, que pourrait-il craindre de l’avenir?” M. Proust, Le temps retrouvé (1927). In Proust 1999, p. 2267; my italics. 48 Or even, albeit more ambiguously, Michel Henry’s, cf “L’absence est l’absence de l’essence originelle de la présence, absence voulue et prescrite par elle.” Henry, 2003, p. 480.

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subliminality, for those that remain in mourning the gradual fading away of the moribund is in proportion to a growing presence. Instead of vainly trying to confirm this hypothesis by ‘evidence-based research’ (which is likely to smother the subtlety of possible experience conceptually), I will once more resort to literary evidence. In Thomas Wolfe’s Nobel prize winning novel Look Homeward, Angel, we find a passage which describes the moving death bed scene of protagonist Eugene Gant’s brother Ben, who was only 26 years old when he died: “Then, over the ugly clamour of their [i.e., the family’s] dissension, over the rasp and snarl of their nerves, they heard the low mutter of Ben’s expiring breath. The light had been re-shaded: he lay, like his own shadow, in all his fierce grey lonely beauty. And as they looked and saw his bright eyes already blurred with death, and saw the feeble beating flutter of his poor thin breast, the strange wonder, the dark rich miracle of his life surged over them its enormous loveliness. They grew quiet and calm, they plunged below all the splintered wreckage of their lives, they drew together in a superb communion of love and valiance, beyond horror and confusion, beyond death.” (Wolfe, 2016, p. 493)

Perceiving Presence Max Picard is not the only contemporary philosopher of presence. We find similar analyses of ‘presence’ in Gabriel Marcel, for example, in his Le mystère de l’être. In his lecture ‘Presence as a mystery,’ he argues that, instead of simply being seized or grasped, presence is rather “felt” (pressentie, ‘sensed’). (Marcel, 1997, p. 232; 1950, 216) It matters a lot which verb is used in connection with ‘presence’. Other verbs Marcel resorts to in order to describe our susceptibility to presence are: ‘recognise’ (reconnaître) (ibid., p. 228/212), ‘receive’ (accueillir) (p. 223f), ‘invoke’ (invoquer), ‘evoke’ (évoquer) or ‘convoke’ (convoquer) (p. 224/208). If we take the Wolfe quotation as a testcase, it strikes that the first verbs of perception (“they heard,” “they looked,” “they saw”) are suddenly replaced by a verb which shifts the focus to a movement originating in the dying youngster himself, ‘to surge’: “the strange wonder, the dark rich miracle of his life surged over them its enormous loveliness”. As a result, “they grew calm” – as if their previous hearing, seeing and looking were still agitated; and “they drew together” – as if their perception had still been dividing them. What can we say about the nature of presence in light of the ways it is perceived? Remarkably, Marcel notes, it is both “unprotected” (désarmé),

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and “invulnerable” (invulnerable) or even “sacred” (sacré). (Ibid., p. 232/216f) As if nakedness, despite its inherent utter vulnerability, simultaneously emanated sacred invulnerability. Drawing on these statements, I would go as far as claiming that vulnerability solely concerns physicality; corporeality, however (e.g., of a human body, a flower, a scenery, a painting), vestures the physicality, with which it apparently coincides, with an invulnerable, indestructible layer. Should this ‘investiture’ be phenomenologically convincing, it would further validate the distinction between optic and haptic view. How would it not since, in optics, priority is given to what is appearing (here, ‘presence’). In haptics, instead, the appearing tends to be subjected to tactile spontaneity, thereby giving way to possible infringement. For additional literary evidence, underpinning Marcel’s further description of ‘presence’ (it is “magic,” and “it can only be glimpsed at” [perçue de façon intermittente]; ibid., p. 224/209), we only have to read a little further in Wolfe. In the following passage, Ben has just died, and his sad relatives are silently surrounding his deathbed. “But in their enormous silence wonder grew. They remembered the strange flitting loneliness of his life, they thought of a thousand forgotten acts and moments – and always there was something that now seemed unearthly and strange: he walked through their lives like a shadow – they now looked upon his grey deserted shell with a thrill of awful recognition, as one who remembers a forgotten and enchanted word, or as men who look upon a corpse and see for the first time a departed god.” (Wolfe, 2016, p. 495)49

The growing silence of the onlookers is in proportion to their awareness of miracle. Part of this miracle seems to be covered by an increasing memory of the deceased young man. Looking backwards, an “unearthly and strange” aspect had always been there, without them ever realising it. Instead, looking at (or rather, “upon”) him in the present, they see a departed presence; more precisely, a presence-as-departed. As if presences require a past into which they tend to flee; and as if the essence of the past is to conceal presence – a presence that may have passed, or even passed away. What is more, presence is recognised all of a sudden, “with a thrill of awful recognition” – as if only present recognition can complete past perception, by unearthing it as it were from the past’s intestines; and as if present perception only matures in future recognition.

49 “Was jetzt auf seinem Gesicht liegt, das alles hat in ihm gelegen.” Gerhart Hauptmann, Michael Kramers Totenfeier, quoted in Friedmann, 1956, p. 21.

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Presence and Memory “Perhaps, in our regret for her who is no more, there is a sort of auto-suggestion which ends by bringing out on our features resemblances [similitudes] which potentially we already bore”. —Marcel Proust50 “he […] found the old man, who had passed peacefully away, lying on his bed, the small face shrunken to a silent rune and arabesque, a magical figure no longer readable, but nevertheless somehow conveying smiles and perfected happiness.” —Hermann Hesse51

Friedmann, whose discussion of death in my view counts among the philosophically most stunning, connects death with image-making and essentialisation. Breath-taking passages taken from his Die Welt der Formen will structure the final part of my discussion here. I support his account in its entirety when he states that “essentialisation is the task of recollection left behind on the earth [Wesentlichmachung ist die Aufgabe der Erinnerung, die auf der Erde zurückblieb]”. This implies that it is incumbent upon survivors to recollect in such a way as to focus on the essential. This essence may not be a ready-made; it requires their activity and full awareness; survivors may be involved in the said essentiality. To take a strong example: commemorating the Jewish holocaust victims – whether in post-war Europe or Israel – incessantly reveals, firstly, hitherto unknown details of Jewish presence in pre-war Europe, and secondly, nonJewish involvement both in this presence and its tragic extermination (“he walked through their lives like a shadow,” my italics). While “essentialisation” is the task of those who survive the deceased, “becoming-essential,” Friedmann continues, is “the vocation of the living during their earthly transformation [Wesentlichwerden der Beruf des Lebendigen auf seinem irdischen Wandel]. Consciousness and recollection,” he goes on saying, “want to become perceptive [scharfsichtig, ‘sharpsighted’]; what is alive, however, wants to become pictorial [bildhaft].” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 488) The remarkable conclusion that could be drawn from such statements in light of dying is that, somehow, being-perceived invigorates both essentialisation and becoming-an-image. In a certain way, veridical, sharp-sighted perception is a form of imagination. What is more, dying – insofar as perceived – contributes to enhanced perception and recollection; it tends to distillate image from mere perception by deepening 50 51

Proust, Sodome et Gomorrhe. In Proust, 1999, p. 1337. Trans. Moncrieff. Hesse, 1979, p. 305f.; trans. Wilkins, Ch. 8.

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perception towards memory. Upon closer inspection, those contemplating the moribund or deceased person will be unsure whether they are having a past or a present perception; in other words, whether they remember or see. Their reminiscent, recollective contemplation disturbs the sovereign chronology of a temporalising consciousness. I would like to refer at this point to my previous definition of ‘maturing’ (‘adequate image-processing,’ Ch. 3) by suggesting that a mature face not only expresses synchronicity but also commemorative spectatorship of images. “Has this eye become mature for vision and recollection [Ist dieses Auge zum Sehen und Erinnern reif geworden],” Friedmann states, “then the image may quietly slide back [zurückgleiten] into darkness. There is indeed in this sliding-back, in this passing-away surely a transcendent willing, a metaphysical freedom.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 488; my trans.)52 Images need eye-witnesses to become what they are: essences. For any essence to become essential, enhanced – that is, recollective and commemorative – spectatorship is crucial. It seems as though (what is called) ‘reality’ relies on conscious, ensouled testimony. Reversely, consciousness or soul feed on images; without these, they would atrophy. In this respect, contemporary astronomy, for example, might benefit from astrological image-thinking; just as modern behaviourist psychology when nourished by Jungian arche-typologies; genetics, when in constant correlation with morphology; or dogmatic theology, when encountering insights from psychic research. It seems attractive to analytically associate ‘image,’ ‘presence,’ and ‘beauty’. Images are beautiful, they are beauty itself, combining, for that matter, subjective perception and objective radiation. And yet, images are necessarily fugitive (as is exemplified by the digital application Snapchat). ‘Death’ may be an alternative name for the fugacity of the image. The bright minds of creative and imaginative thinkers, I have suggested earlier, are always on the edge of death. When I contend that beauty is always fugacious, I do not intend to repeat a cliché. Fugacity is not an accidental characteristic of beauty; it is the essence of beauty itself. Where there is 52 It is ironical that the face of Proust (who had written that notre vrai moi qui parfois depuis longtemps, semblait mort, mais ne l’était pas autrement, s’éveille, s’anime en recevant la céleste nourriture qui lui est apportée) has been eternalised on his death bed, on a post-mortem picture by Man Ray; only to be reprinted on Parisian postcards. In his text Zum Bilde Proust (note the title!), Walter Benjamin ‘essentialises’ Proust’s death bed position by comparing it to Michelangelo’s scaffold in the Sistine Chapel. Benjamin, 1991, p. 324.

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beauty, transience and finitude are illumined; both in the contemplated beautiful ‘object’ and in the contemplating ‘subject’. However, ‘transience’ and ‘finitude’ are, in my view, no self-evident, self-explanatory notions; they are inherently expressive of alterity. The passing-away of the moribund highlights beauty, presence, and alterity in one stroke – even more when the dying person is young, as in the quoted Wolfe passage (“he lay, like his own shadow, in all his fierce grey lonely beauty”). Is it a coincidence that Friedmann, obviously ignorant of Wolfe’s novel, continues his discussion of death quoting Friedrich Rückert’s Liebesfrühling (‘Spring of Love’): “How beautiful life is, because it ends [Wie das Leben schön ist, weil es endet], How sweet the youth, because it flees [Wie die Jugend lieblich, weil sie fliehet]” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 488; my trans.)

The reason given here for life’s beauty (i.e., its finitude) is not to be understood, I would say, as an exhortation to acquiesce. Finitude and transience of beauty (re)present alterity, just as, I would add, presence is alterity. They all contain a promise. Friedmann ends his discussion of death, claiming that “what is alive is beautiful because it dies – and it dies to become essential [wesentlich], to become a form. […] Death saves essence and form from optic disintegration [Verwesung]. Death itself completes the form.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 488f) “Since everywhere where a human being confronts not-being, not-beinganymore, that is, death, it dawns on him in his inner mind [geht in seinem Gemüt ein reines Licht auf]”. (Friedmann, 1956, p. 20; my trans.) If this is true, then the implication becomes inescapable that, all too often against appearance, death always comes in time. The moment of dying supersedes the seeming arbitrariness of the assassinator, whose arrogance would perhaps be refuted by a thorough contemplation of the dead face. Oddly enough, the only perpetrators who sometimes seem to be aware of this are psychopathic murderers. But to obtain such lucidity, they pay the high price of interminable anxiety and utter spiritual depravity.

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III Suffering “Suffering, therefore – that is: the experience of a desire for undisturbed completeness faced with the non-completeness which dominates experience [angesichts erlebniswirklicher Nichtganzheit] – will always remain the incentive towards all forms of the highest metaphysics; death, however, remains the gateway to the possibility of discussing it as a hypothesis [ihrer Vermutungshaften Erörterung].” —Hans Driesch53

I will now discuss a second indication for death as enhanced subliminality: the tragic reality of suffering. Suffering, I will argue, testifies to unconscious resistance against subliminal enhancement. In other words, it involuntarily testifies to an approximation of death. Suffering is death’s proxy server. Yet, with Driesch, suffering can also justifiably be defined as the desire towards undisturbed wholeness or completeness, in the middle of experienced noncompleteness. The experience of suffering, so will be my hypothesis, exacerbates subliminality to a (sometimes) unbearable degree. My aim in what follows is not to justify the experience of suffering. Suffering, and ensuing trauma, are among the worst things one can imagine, and any attempt to minimise their impact is absurd. Yet, I cannot dispense with briefly discussing suffering here since I believe that it is an evil experience which affects consciousness or the soul radically, in a way that compares to death. I think Levinas is right when he states that one cannot define ‘evil’ only in light of suffering-a-bad-experience – as if suffering-evil were just one experience among others. Instead of seeing evil in light of suffering, Levinas adds, we should, reversely, see suffering in light of evil. “Suffering is a pure passive undergoing (Le souffrir est un pâtir pur.)”54 Following Levinas’ logic, suffering has no concrete object anymore, nor can something be objectified in it. In this respect, it is reminiscent of the void of nothingness or the space of pure indeterminacy discussed in chapter 2. How to define ‘suffering’? Suffering Freedom Firstly, it should be noted that the concept of ‘suffering’ seems to presuppose an unquestioned, problematic notion of human subjectivity; as if the subject were a compound of alternating activity and passivity, or inner 53

Driesch, 1917, p. 294; my trans. Emmanuel Levinas (1991). La souffrance inutile. In Entre nous. Essais sur le penser-à-l’autre. Paris: Grasset, p. 108. 54

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free will and outer necessity. We have already seen in the previous chapter that the notion of ‘necessity’ is murky. When applied to perception, I argued, this notion is inane; perception differs from logic. Unless a hidden necessity is at work. I concluded that such a hidden necessity, if at all, can either be accessed retrospectively – when looking back upon one’s life – or during an altered state of consciousness. It is precisely the stratification of consciousness which blurs the boundaries between ‘coincidence,’ ‘probability,’ and ‘necessity’; just as it blurs the boundaries between ‘activity’ and ‘passivity’. Strictly speaking, one can only ‘suffer’ when ‘choice’ exists, as the opposite of suffering. Whereas ‘suffering’ corresponds to real experience (how would it not), the concept (and concomitantly the understanding) is misleadingly implying opposition to ‘free choice’ or ‘activity’. However, the latter concepts, though applicable at the level of supraliminal consciousness, are empty when applied at the subliminal level. If Driesch defines ‘suffering’ in terms of a dualism (one suffers from incompleteness, Nicht-Ganzheit – he says – and imagines the possibility of being complete: Ausdenkenkönnens ungetrübter Ganzheitlichkeit), he still takes supraliminal consciousness as a starting point. Nonetheless, he immediately adds, suffering gives the impetus to what he calls a “higherorder metaphysics”. (Driesch, p. 296)55 Secondly, if Levinas is right that ‘suffering’ radically challenges the subject/object distinction – that it precedes, or perhaps even conditions it –, it might be best associated with the void just mentioned. I have introduced this notion to further elaborate on what Rank qualifies as ‘birth trauma’. The void, we have seen, connotes a space of pure indeterminacy. This indeterminacy not only results in a feeling of anxiety or inner oppression but also – simultaneously – in what can rightfully be called ‘freedom’. While sheer arbitrary freedom is elusive, as it rather perpetuates than overcomes our disempowerment, true freedom terrifies. It must be suffered. I am inclined to link true suffering to real freedom. The difficulty here is that the standard conception of terms like ‘suffering’ (as ‘having pain’) or ‘freedom’ (as ‘arbitrariness’) is cumbersome since moot. The price for unearthing a more proper conception – which is both justifiable and closer to experience – is having to define these terms only cross-referentially and interdependently. 55 Organisms as they are, Driesch affirms, are always incomplete, they suffer for that matter (“Es ist stets Leiden an Nichtganzheit, am ‘Dualismus’ in irgendeiner Form [...] Und dieses Leiden erkennt der Wissende an sein irdisches Sein, welches eben ein Sein in Nichtganzheits-verkettung ist, geknüpft.” Driesch, 1917, p. 314. What is more, the concatenation (Verkettung) in a body implies submission to coincidence (Zufall). Ibid., p. 310.

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In other words, ordinary suffering may be pervaded by a ‘suffering’ which not only demonstrates a terrifying void (a space of pure indeterminacy); it also confronts the suffering person with a ‘freedom’ beyond mere arbitrariness. The root of this real freedom is subliminal; its soil is suffering and anxiety. Gestalt Switch Let me quote again the passage from Theresa of Avila’s Inner Castle (see chapter 2) in which a lasting inner ecstasy or peace (paz) is identified along with ongoing internal suffering (trabajos). “It is not intended that the powers, senses and passions should continually [siempre] enjoy this peace,” Theresa writes. And she goes on saying that “[t]he soul does so, indeed”. In chapter 2, I have interpreted these lines as an indication of permanent inner ecstasy. But I had not yet insisted on the reverse side of this ecstasy, i.e., “struggle, suffering and fatigue”. Encouraging her fellow nuns, and referring to the depths of the soul, Theresa adds that “in the other mansions [estotras moradas] there are still times of struggle, suffering, and fatigue [tiempos de guerra y de trabajos y fatigas], though as a general rule, peace is not lost by them. This ‘centre of the soul’ or ‘spirit’ is so hard to describe or even to believe in, that I think, sisters, my inability to explain my meaning saves your being tempted to disbelieve me; it is difficult to understand how there can be crosses and sufferings [trabajos y penas] and yet peace in the soul [y que el alma se esta en paz].”56 Theresa seems to suggest a paradoxical simultaneity between inner peace (paz) and lasting suffering (trabajos), albeit that the latter originates “in the other mansions [estotras moradas]” of the soul. The Spanish word morada derives from morar, ‘to reside,’ ‘to dwell,’ ‘to sojourn,’ and is cognate with the Latin verb morari, ‘to linger’ or ‘to loiter’.57 Insofar as the soul cannot be spatially divided (unless metaphorically), I propose to take this remark as referring to two perspectives rather than to separate rooms or spaces, or even timeframes. Each perspective subsequently creates its own space and time around it. Suffering and ecstasy, then, cannot be distinguished in terms of space or time. If they alternate, their sequence is only apparently temporal. Instead, we had better conceive of suffering as the other side of ecstasy and as the perspective (morada) of an ecstasy-turned-inside-out. 56

Theresa of Avila, El Castillo Interior (The Interior Castle, trans. Thomas Baker, 1921) VII, 2. 57 Cf the German weilen, as used in Hitler’s last will (dass mein Geist unter ihnen weilen und sie stets begleiten wird.)

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Even less is the alternating sequence of suffering and ecstasy spatial; the perspective of suffering itself is identical to the distortion of the ecstatic perspective. Besides, the same may apply to ecstasy; it is the perspective of sufferingturned-inside-out. Between these two, there is a Gestalt switch, just as in the famous cartoon of the rabbit and the duck. Theresa’s morada is similar to a Gestalt experience. I would even go further and state that the name for the experienced Gestalt switch – that is, for suffering-transformed-intoecstasy, or ecstasy-transformed-into-suffering – is ‘freedom’. Far from being identical to an always available human property with object character, real freedom requires an altering state of consciousness or a Gestalt switch. One suddenly becomes aware of it, whether by switching from ecstasy- to suffering-governed behaviour, or the reverse.58 I already reminded of selig/zalig and Seele/ziel being cognates. In Dutch, ziel is remarkably equally cognate with zielig (‘piteous,’ ‘pathetic,’ ‘forlorn’), which I consider as meaningful here. To elucidate the Gestalt switch, let us focus on the morada which, as Theresa mentions, coincides with “struggle, suffering, and fatigue [guerra y trabajos y fatigas]”. In themselves, I would argue, these three should not be taken as insulated ‘activities,’ e.g., as a struggle with some concrete inner or outer ‘enemy’. If that were so, then this morada would indeed be spatial and temporal, just as the alleged enemy one struggles with. Instead, the “struggle, suffering, and fatigue” may just as well represent an arduous struggle which is even more fatiguing as it involuntarily reaches out for mutually exclusive goals. It not only struggles to overcome itself as a struggle and to reach a self-transformation or Gestalt switch into ecstasy. Put this way, the struggle struggles with itself to end the struggle, to rid itself of its struggling nature and reach its other, viz., ecstasy, or subliminal enhancement. Yet, in my view, the struggle equally struggles against its own victory; part of the skirmish resists subliminal enhancement and prefers to maintain its state of suffering. This makes the battle ambiguous, as an 58

The inverted proportionality between suffering and ecstasy is central to Georges Bataille; cf. “Si je me représente dans une vision et dans un halo qui le transfigure le visage extasié et épuisé d’un être mourant, ce qui irradie de ce visage éclaire de sa nécessité le nuage du ciel”. Georges Bataille (1970). La pratique de la joie devant la mort. In Œuvres complètes I. Premiers écrits 1922-1940. Paris: Gallimard p. 557. Also see: “Heureux seulement celui qui ayant éprouvé le vertige jusqu’à trembler de tous ses os et à ne plus rien mesurer de sa chute retrouve tout à coup la puissance inespérée de faire de son agonie une joie capable de glacer et de transfigurer qui la rencontrent.” Ibid., p. 553.

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opposition against its own victory permeates it. The contradictory nature of the struggle, I would add, only aggravates its fatiguing nature. It intensifies its efforts while at the same time extinguishing its energy. Suffering a Void Meanwhile, we should not overlook that the suffering I am talking about here is, despite supraliminal traces, largely unconscious. ‘Suffering’ designates an original, subliminal self-experience of the soul which may surface in limit experiences of conscious awareness. Consciously suffering pain, loss or loneliness actualises primordial suffering which confronts the soul with an original void ‘with which’ it as it were skirmishes (as though this void were an object – which it is not). This primordial suffering aggravates ‘superficial’ sorrow (sit venia verbo) by doubling it with radical despair.59 This insight is not new; it has been indirectly brought to light by psychoanalysis and existentialist philosophy. My claim, however, partly goes beyond psychoanalytical or existentialist concerns. Suffering, I argue, testifies to unconscious resistance against subliminal enhancement. I agree with Freud, Sartre or Heidegger when they highlight the despair which exacerbates suffering. But at least Freud and Heidegger cannot do justice to suffering as inverted ecstasy. This entails that they remain blind to human resistance against subliminal enhancement. Sartre, in his Cahiers pour une morale (Notebook for an Ethics), argues for a moral ‘conversion’ which transforms anxiety into a ‘free choice’ made à cœur joie (in full enjoyment).60 I find this emphasis on joy remarkable and noteworthy. Yet, Sartre rejects the existence of an unconscious altogether – which makes subliminal enhancement impossible. Heidegger, on the other hand, while phenomenologising the unconscious (that is, by reducing it to preintentional mindsets or Existenziale), de-personalises it, so that the implication is similar to Sartre’s philosophy’s (a dissipation of subliminal enhancement). Freud, who acknowledges the unconscious and even subliminal enhancement (albeit only during lifetime), believes that the latter is inexorably limited by (what he terms) the ‘reality principle’; this entails 59

“l’angoisse et la détresse ajoutent à la cruauté du mal”. Levinas, 1991, p. 109. On human authenticity, Sartre writes, “Ainsi retrouvons-nous mais dans l’humilité de la finitude, l’extase de la Création divine.” Sartre, 1983, p. 513. And “le monde qui m’apparaît est source de joie en ce que je me découvre comme absolu en le découvrant comme absolu,” ibid., p. 512; or “La perception est surgissement de l’Etre, explosion fixe et vertigineuse de l’Etre dans le ‘il y a,’ est c’est là originellement pour le Pour-soi la jouissance.” Ibid., p. 510. 60

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that, in his view, subliminal enhancement will always be finite and restricted to the boundaries of conscious social life. How does suffering testify to death as enhanced subliminality? In other words, how can it be indicative of unconscious resistance against subliminal enhancement? Or, still more concretely, why and how does suffering resist the unleashed infinity promised by subliminality? To start with, I would say that the notion of ‘suffering’ entails two things. Firstly, at least in Indo-European grammar, it is transitive; it implies an object. This ‘object,’ or so it seems, is suffered. Secondly, the suffered object is offered resistance; otherwise, the term ‘suffering’ would make no sense. ‘Suffering,’ while seemingly analogous to (mutually agreed-upon) intimate physical intercourse, is the latter’s opposite. The suffered ‘object’ violates boundaries or defence lines by force. Unless – which will be my claim here – the concept of ‘force’ only applies if those boundaries and defence lines exist and are well-demarcated. In the absence of a clear delineation of subject and object, the concepts of ‘violence’ and ‘force’ become as meaningless as the concept of ‘suffering’ becomes enigmatic. For indeed, the suffered ‘object’ here is no object at all. It is nothing. Nothing and no-body are suffered. We do not have to consult existentialist philosophers or psychoanalysts to realise that, already upon introspective scrutiny, an original void or a space of indeterminacy threaten the subject; a ‘subject’ which, on its turn, is not a subject but rather a sphere of virtual or actual awareness – the soul – subjected to nothing, or: not subjected to anything. It might well be that, at the level of concrete (supraliminal) experience, there is something (some thing) which is suffered; for example, a loss, pain, solitude, etc. These objects are suffered insofar as they cross psychical boundaries and affect or infect (in-fect) a subject. Yet, my hypothesis being that such objects of concrete suffering reveal a subliminal suffering when scrutinised, the question returns: why call something ‘suffering’ if both object and subject of suffering are lacking? Could it be that the original, subliminal suffering, despite its despair-provoking nature, is ultimately imaginary? Should that be true, then subliminal (i.e., persistent) suffering would drag supraliminal (i.e., ‘concrete,’ objectbound) sorrow and pain down with it in its abysmal mire of nothingness. While often being unbearable throughout, grief and pain both gain and lose poignancy by virtue of rooting in subliminal suffering. Upon closer in(tro)spection, the latter deprives the former of its solidity. This is indeed the paradoxical conclusion at which I arrive here. It is very much counter-intuitive and should certainly not be abused as quick and easy

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appeasement. Admittedly, the more one looks around in the world and takes notice of human misery, the more it will be difficult to accept it. It may even lead to radical despair. Strikingly, however, the very nothingness or absurdity which brings despair will also undermine it. Using a medical term, one could say that the frightening void suffers from (self-destructive) autoimmunity. It is like the tohu wavohu (‘formless and void’) from the Biblical book of Genesis I, 2, which is bound to give way to divine creativity.61 “He felt suddenly the peace that comes with despair,” Thomas Wolfe writes in Look Homeward, Angel. “The sword that pierces very deep had fared through the folds of his poor armour of pride. The steel had shared his side, had bitten to his heart. But under his armour he had found himself. No more than himself could be given. What he was – he was: evasion and pretence could not add to this sum. With all his heart he was glad.” (Wolfe, 2016, p. 386)62 Excurse: Ulysses and the Cyclops Nobody Again, one may be reminded here of the brutal Cyclops Polyphemus, who was outsmarted by Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey. The race of the Cyclopes was notorious for its brutality and inhospitality. Reminiscent of Max Picard’s description of Modernity in the previous chapter, one might say that, at least from the Cycloptic perspective, people “encounter each other [treffen aufeinander: ‘they clash’] in a meaningless space, by coincidence [Zufall]. Therefore, humans are strangers next to each other.” (Picard, 1929, p. 158f.) We will see soon that Polyphemus is making a severe mistake by interpreting his meeting with Ulysses as Zufall, mere chance or coincidence. In the Homeric narrative, Polyphemus had captured Ulysses and his comrades. He promises to swallow them one by one, Ulysses the last. On his turn, Ulysses had made Polyphemus believe that his proper name was Outis (= Nobody; note that, as a phoneme, Outis strikingly resembles the first two syllables of Odysseus). He and his surviving friends finally manage to escape through using a ruse. After getting Polyphemus drunk, they drove a pointed stake into his single eye, thus making him blind. Rudely woken 61

Cf Wolfgang Pauli: “Gott schuf das Volumen, der Teufel die Oberfläche.” Also see Meister Eckhart in his sermon Renovamini spiritu mentis vestrae: “Wenn aber alle Bilder der Seele abgeschieden werden und sie nur das einige Eine schaut, dann findet das reine Sein der Seele, erleidend und ruhend in sich selbst, das reine, formenfreie Sein göttlicher Einheit”. In Meister Eckehart (1979, 1963). Deutsche Predigte und Traktate. Ed. and trans. J. Quint. Zürich: Diogenes, p. 352. 62

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up in the middle of the night by Polyphemus’ shouting, his fellow Cyclopes call towards him: “‘What ails you, Polyphemus,’ they said, ‘that you make such a noise, breaking the stillness of the night, and preventing us from being able to sleep? Surely nobody [਷ ȝȒ IJȓȢ] is carrying off your sheep? Surely nobody is trying to kill you either by craft or by force?’ [਷ ȝȒ IJȓȢ ıૃĮ੝IJઁȞ țIJİȓȞİȚ įȩȜ૳ ਱੻ ȕȓȘijȚȞ;]” (9, 403ff). It will soon become clear that, at least from the reader’s perspective, the Cyclopes are not so much asking as they are, rhetorically, begging the question. Their formulation (਷ ȝȒ IJȓȢ: ‘surely nobody’) conceals the real answer to what, at first sight, seems to be a question. They do not seem to realise it, though.63 In a precipitate reply, Polyphemus cries: “Nobody is murdering me by craft. Force there is none. [ȅ੣IJȓȢ ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ įȩȜ૳ Ƞ੝į੻ ȕȓȘijȚȞ]”. He erroneously assumed that ‘Nobody’ (Outis) was Ulysses’ real name. After that, his fellows exclaim: “If nobody harms you when you are left alone [İੁ ȝ੻Ȟ į੽ ȝȒ IJȓȢ ıİ ȕȚȐȗİIJĮȚ ȠੇȠȞ ਥȩȞIJĮ], illness which comes from mighty Zeus you cannot fly.” (Odyssey 9, 403f) In other words, they seem to think that their mate is suffering from mere illness and appease him by suggesting that nothing can be done against God’s will. Odysseus, the Master sufferer The Greek is highly ambiguous here and hard to translate. Homer’s storyline is as it were interrupted by grammar. First and foremost, the text addresses the readers or the listeners, and not so much the characters of the plot. If it addresses the story’s characters at all (that is, Polyphemus and the other Cyclopes), it primarily appeals to their unconscious. We will see that the essence of their communication takes place at a subliminal level. Consequently, the truth is and is not understood at the same time. Homer employs a highly sophisticated narrative strategy here whose gist serves my overall intention in the present chapter: to account for acausal yet subliminal suffering, the nature of which is nihilistic and inane. The very name Odysseus itself derives from the Greek word ੑįȪȞȘ/odunè, which means ‘suffering’ or ‘pain’. The Odyssey repeatedly mentions Ulysses’ misery with emphasis, for example when Ulysses kneels for the King and Queen of the Phaeacians to tell his story (“in my distress [ʌȠȜȜ੹ ȝȠȖȒıĮȢ] I humbly pray you,” “I have been long in trouble [ʌȒȝĮIJĮ ʌȐıȤȦ: ‘I suffered 63 Interestingly, the particle ਷ which opens their exclamation can both be interrogative and declarative. The Cyclopes seem to intend asking a question but, from the reader’s perspective, their question could just as well be rhetorical. Could it also be that the mere phoneme ‫ ݝ‬already hints at ȝ߱IJȚȢ/mêtis: ‘craft,’ ‘cunning’?

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sufferings’] and away from my friends”; 8, 147.152). Ulysses even sees himself as belonging to “the most afflicted [ȝȐȜȚıIJૃ ੑȤȑȠȞIJĮȢ ੑȚȗઃȞ ਕȞșȡȫʌȦȞ IJȠ૙ıȓȞ țİȞ ਥȞ ਙȜȖİıȚȞ ੁıȦıĮȓȝȘȞ: ‘I would equate myself to those pain-suffering humans who are among the most afflicted’].” And he continues saying: “Indeed, were I to tell you all that heaven has seen fit to lay upon me [ȝ઼ȜȜȠȞ … țĮț੹: ‘more evils’], you would say that I was still worse off [ȝȩȖȘıĮ: ‘suffered’] than they are.” (7, 211ff) Ulysses is a master sufferer who is overwhelmed by misery and pain. He is suffering in the deepest layers of his soul (ਥȞ੿ ijȡİı੿ ʌȑȞșȠȢ ਩ȤȠȞIJĮ and ʌȑȞșȠȢ ȝ੻Ȟ ਩ȤȦ ijȡİıȓȞ; 7, 218f).64 But Odysseus, he who suffers deep down in his soul, is also Outis. As Outis is believed to be a proper name while it is generally an impersonal pronoun (‘nobody’), already the Cyclops’ answer is equivocal (though neither to himself nor to his fellows but only to readers of Homer’s Odyssey). As an alternative to the translation rendered above, one could read both a lower case (“nobody is murdering me either by craft/deceit or by force”65), and an upper case (“Nobody is murdering me by craft/deceit, and not by force”). The other Cyclopes tacitly assume the first meaning to be the real one; they convince themselves that there is nothing wrong. The second meaning corresponds to Polyphemus’ intentions; the Cyclops yells that the unknown stranger, by far inferior to him in strength and (therefore?) calling himself Outis, had maliciously deceived him. The Cyclopes interpret Ƞ੝į੻/oude as a conjunction (‘nor’), and as immediately consecutive upon the negation implied in the Greek word ȅ੣IJȓȢ, ‘no-body… either by… or by…’. Instead, Polyphemus intends Ƞ੝į੻/oude to express a disjunction: he laments that he is murdered by craft rather than by force. Thereby, he involuntarily admits that despite being strong (which is the case), he is also stupid (which is even more accurate). His stupidity is increased, not only by the fact that he had Ulysses get him drunk but first and foremost by his failure to realise that ȅ੣IJȓȢ (Nobody) is not a proper name at all so that his call for help is headed off from the outset. 64

ੑȚȗȪȢ, ਙȜȖȠȢ, țĮțȩȞ, etc are synonymous terms. Also cf “It would be a long [ਕȡȖĮȜȑȠȞ: painful] story […] were I to relate in full the tale of my misfortunes [țȒįİૃ], for the hand of heaven has been laid heavy upon me.” (7, 242). Several times, Ulysses is called ʌȠȜȪIJȜĮȢ, ‘much-enduring’ (7, 344; 8, 199), and his story is ĮੁıȤȣȞȩȝİȞȩȢ, ‘terrible’ (7, 305). He may temporarily forget what he has suffered (ਥț įȑ ȝİ ʌȐȞIJȦȞ ȜȘșȐȞİȚ ੖ııૃ ਩ʌĮșȠȞ), and longs to return homeward after having suffered so much (țĮȓ ʌİȡ ʌȠȜȜ੹ ʌĮșȩȞIJĮ). (7, 218ff). 65 Ƞ੝į੻ (‘nor’) will then be consecutive upon the negation implied by ȅ੣IJȓȢ (‘nobody’): ‘neither…nor’.

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Unconscious awareness I Remarkably, his fellows’ reply repeats their initial question (“Surely nobody [਷ ȝȒ IJȓȢ] is carrying off your sheep? Surely nobody [਷ ȝȒ IJȓȢ] is trying to kill you either by craft or by force?’”). Therefore, their reply cannot fail to undeceive Polyphemus immediately, both about them misunderstanding his explanation, and, not to mention, Ulysses having misled him in the first place. Again, resorting to the Greek is indispensable. Ǽੁ ȝ੻Ȟ į੽ ȝȒ IJȓȢ ıİ ȕȚȐȗİIJĮȚ (‘if, then, nobody harms you’) re-uses the prohibitive particle ȝȒ/mè (ȝȒ IJȓȢ/mè tis – no body, nobody) rather than the mere negative particle Ƞ੝ which one would expect (as Polyphemus does, cf ȅ੣IJȓȢ/Outis). It is not so much the syntactic nature of this alternative particle of negation (ȝȒ instead of Ƞ੝) but the combination ȝȒ IJȓȢ (‘no body’) which makes sense here, since it is almost homophone with ȝોIJȚȢ/mêtis – which means ‘craft’ or ‘cunning’. Remember that Ulysses is often called ʌȠȜȪȝȘIJȚȢ/polymètis (‘rich in cunning or craft’) in the Odyssey. The Greek word ȝોIJȚȢ/mêtis is synonymous to įȩȜȠȢ/dolos, the word that the other Cyclopes first used and that Polyphemus took over in his reply (ȅ੣IJȓȢ ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ įȩȜ૳, ‘nobody is murdering me by craft/deceit’). The fellow Cyclopes’ subsequent answer İੁ ȝ੻Ȟ į੽ ȝȒ IJȓȢ ıİ ȕȚȐȗİIJĮȚ (‘if, then, nobody harms you’) reveals at least two things. It not only enlightens Polyphemus that his fellows had misinterpreted him; what is more, it shows that the Cyclopes may unknowingly have understood the ‘cause’ of his suffering better than he had, for there is none. Provided that he has ears that can truly hear, Polyphemus may only now realise the real meaning of ȅ੣IJȓȢ: ‘no body’. He is invited to see that the cause of his suffering is empty and void, tohu wavohu66, or inane (“‘Meaningless! Meaningless!’ [hevƝl hevalim: ‘vanity of vanities’], says the Teacher. ‘Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless [hakkol hèvèl],’ cf. Ecclesiastes I, 1-2). Clearly, at a conscious level, Polyphemus’ fellows are equally misled; they overhear what they are already revealing spontaneously, viz., that cunning or craft (ȝોIJȚȢ) are at stake. In this perspective, Polyphemus is entirely right when he screams that ȅ੣IJȓȢ ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ įȩȜ૳: ‘Nobody is murdering me by craft’; or, in other words, that ‘I am being killed by deceit through Nobody’s hands’ – which 66 Cf Genesis I, 2; or Irrsal und Wirrsal, as Buber/Rosenzweig translate these Hebrew words. This German translation might theoretically make sense when applied to ȅ੣IJȓȢ the way I introduce it in the context of this chapter, i.e., as an attempt to specify the (non-)origin of innate suffering. Polyphemus is confused (verwirrt) about ȅ੣IJȓȢ, who had made him err (irren) about his identity while revealing it to him (ȅ੣IJȓȢ, ȝોIJȚȢ).

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eventually comes down to ‘I am not killed at all,’ or even to ‘I am not being killed at all’. ‘Nobody can(not) kill me, not even suffering’. As said, this is true since Polyphemus is neither killed nor being killed. It is only that a stake is driven into his unique eye. True, at this point, one could insist that Ulysses is not just a nobody, even if he calls himself Outis. This does not take away, however, that Ulysses does not kill him, even though he, the Sufferer, makes Polyphemus suffer, too.67 Deception is lethal only for those who believe it is. Despite himself, Polyphemus denies that he is (being) killed. Not even by craft, cunning or deception (įȩȜ૳). Polyphemus is consciously shocked for lacking his distinctive identity marker; unconsciously, he comforts himself that ultimately, nothing is really going on. In Freudian terms, he overcomes his castration anxiety without, for that matter, possessing an adequate substitute or fetish. Other than the disillusioned young girl in Freud’s account (who finds Oedipal consolation in her father)68, or the fetishist (who satisfies himself with a substitute), he does not have one nor does he need one. An unconscious compensation by ‘no-one’ or ‘no-thing’ enables him to face things without regret. Unless, as Freudian die-hards might wish to make us believe, Polyphemus’ sheep fulfil the role of a fetish (“but their master in spite of all his pain felt [ਥʌİȝĮȓİIJȠ: ‘touched,’ ‘reached out to’] the backs of all the sheep as they stood upright,” 9.440f; and “My good ram [țȡȚ੻ ʌȑʌȠȞ], what is it that makes you the last to leave my cave this morning?” 9.447). Unconscious awareness II So far, I have pictured the non-origin of suffering through analysing Polyphemus’ words as an unconscious soliloquy. But it can also be addressed from another angle, i.e., of unconscious communication. In the context of my overall discussion of the unconscious in this chapter, it is interesting to note that the Cyclops unconsciously perpetuates his mates’ evoking ȝોIJȚȢ/mêtis (‘craft’) by using the synonymous word įȩȜȠȢ/dolos. Equally unconsciously, the fellow Cyclopes conceal the term while simultaneously alluding to it with the words ȝȒ IJȓȢ/mè tis (‘nobody’). I would like to underline that the essence of their mutual communication seems to take place at a wholly unconscious level; only the reader of the

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ȀȪțȜȦȥ į੻ ıIJİȞȐȤȦȞ IJİ țĮ੿ ੩įȓȞȦȞ ੑįȪȞૉıȚ: “the Cyclops, groaning and in an agony of pain”. (9, 415) As already mentioned, ੑįȪȞȘ is cognate with ‘Odysseus’. 68 “Mit dem Wegfall der Kastrationsangst entfällt das Hauptmotiv, das den Knaben gedrängt hatte, den Ödipuskomplex zu überwinden.” Freud, Die Weiblichkeit, GW XV, p. 138. Also see Fetischismus, GW XIV, pp. 311-317.

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Greek text can consciously grasp it. Involuntarily – or even non-voluntarily –, Polyphemus’ mates disillusion him about the ultimate cause of his suffering. They do two things at once: 1) they reveal the ‘real’ meaning of Outis (= nobody); 2) they comfort him regarding the non-lethal nature of deception (įȩȜȠȢ, ȝોIJȚȢ). But they do this unconsciously. In light of Polyphemus’ stupidity, it is not even sure that he understands the message. Similarly, it is not sure, either, that they know the gist of their own words. It is up to the students of the Odyssey – us – to interpret the unconsciously transmitted message: the origin of suffering is unidentifiable since rooting in sheer nothingness. By equating this nothingness with what I have earlier called a ‘void,’ I intend to avoid the Scylla of its objectification (‘Evil’ as an independent force) and the Charybdis of the privatio boni doctrine; the former can be associated with Manichaean or Zoroastrian dualism, the latter with the NeoPlatonic and Augustinian traditions. While Polyphemus seems to represent a Manichaean position (he attributes both substantiality and causality to the origin of his misery), his fellow Cyclopes slightly resemble Augustinians (they exile suffering from their ontology and trivialise its meaning). In fact, they are all deceived, both Polyphemus and his mates. Their monoculism is telling in this respect. Non-violence There is one final thing which I would like to point out here. Regarding my earlier claim that ‘suffering’ presupposes an interpenetration of subject and object beyond boundaries, both Polyphemus and his fellows must admit that there is no violence at play. “Violence or force there is none” (Ƞ੝į੻), Polyphemus says, and his mates reply: “If, then, nobody harms you,” etc. (Ǽੁ ȝ੻Ȟ į੽ ȝȒ IJȓȢ ıİ ȕȚȐȗİIJĮȚ). The words ȕȓȘijȚȞ/bièphin (‘through force, violence’) and ȕȚȐȗİIJĮȚ/biazetai (‘violates’) are cognate. They derive from ȕȓȘ/biè, ‘force,’ ‘violence’. Polyphemus tells he is not violated, despite having been penetrated (sic) by a stake. Or, more precisely, he pathetically laments that he is being killed by Nobody’s cunning (ȅ੣IJȓȢ ȝİ țIJİȓȞİȚ įȩȜ૳), and not by his force or violence (Ƞ੝į੻ ȕȓȘijȚȞ). He is being killed without there being force at (the) stake: Ulysses’ stake used cunning, no violence. I have already pointed out that, in fact, Polyphemus is not being killed at all since nobody kills him. Had there really been any force/ȕȓȘ, he would not have been capable of lamenting in the first place: “To define force,” Simone Weil writes in an essay on the Iliad, “it is that x that turns anybody subjected to it into a thing”. And she continues stating that,

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“exercised to the limit, it […] makes a corpse out of him”.69 If there is a force at all, it should be associated with the Cyclops himself. Earlier in the narrative, after the Cyclops had brutally swallowed two of Ulysses’ comrades, it is said that “As for us, we wept and lifted up our hands to heaven on seeing such a horrid sight [ıȤȑIJȜȚĮ ਩ȡȖૃ, ‘cruel works’], for we did not know what else to do [ਕȝȘȤĮȞȓȘ įૃ ਩Ȥİ șȣȝȩȞ: ‘despair captured our mind’] (9, 295).” The Cycloptic job is to paralyse its spectators and make them helpless (ਕȝȘȤĮȞȓȘ). Yet, the Cyclops himself cannot be adequately dealt with by force (Ƞ੝į੻ ȕȓȘijȚȞ); only cunning or craft (įȩȜ૳) can domesticate him. The fellow Cyclopes, who do not even believe that craft can outsmart their race, try to tranquillise Polyphemus. Why shout out loud? they say, “since (İੁ ȝ੻Ȟ į੽) nobody violates you (ȝȒ IJȓȢ ıİ ȕȚȐȗİIJĮȚ),” or since it is mere deceitful cunning which is (at) (the) stake! Not even mentioning that you are alone (ȠੇȠȞ ਥȩȞIJĮ). What else could it be that bothers you but an illness or a disease? This must be simply accepted. “Illness [ȞȠ૨ıȠȞ] which comes from mighty Zeus you cannot fly [ਕȜȑĮıșĮȚ].” It is as if they suggest that such illness will affect one expressly when alone, for it is not a (concrete) thing or object that could be escaped. In line with Theresa of Avila’s account discussed above, one might suggest that the illness they attribute to their mate coincides with guerra y trabajos y fatigas: (inner) ‘struggle,’ ‘suffering,’ and ‘fatigue’. Indeed, if not Polyphemus already (prognostically) suffered from these inner diseases – sent by “mighty Zeus” –, he will at least have plenty of time to suffer from them after Ulysses’ escape, when he will again be sitting alone on his beach in his solitary recluse; this time, however, complaining about the predicted misfortune that had finally come true. “On this he groaned, and cried out, ‘Alas, alas [੫ ʌȩʌȠȚ, ਷ ȝȐȜĮ įȒ], then the old prophecy [ʌĮȜĮȓijĮIJĮ șȑıijĮșૃ] about me is coming true. There was a seer [ȝȐȞIJȚȢ] here, at one time, a man both brave and of great stature, Telemos son of Eurymos, who was an excellent seer [ȝĮȞIJȠıȪȞૉ ਥțȑțĮıIJȠ], and did all the prophesying [ȝĮȞIJİȣȩȝİȞȠȢ] for the Cyclopes till he grew old; he told me that all this would happen to me [IJİȜİȣIJȒıİıșĮȚ] some day, and said I should lose my sight [ਖȝĮȡIJȒıİıșĮȚ ੑʌȦʌોȢ] by the hand of Odysseus. I have been all along expecting some one of imposing presence and superhuman strength [ij૵IJĮ ȝȑȖĮȞ țĮ੿ țĮȜઁȞ], whereas he turns out to be a little insignificant weakling [ੑȜȓȖȠȢ IJİ țĮ੿ Ƞ੝IJȚįĮȞઁȢ țĮ੿ ਙțȚțȣȢ], who has

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Simone Weil (1999), L’Iliade ou le poème de la force, 1940-1941, in: Œuvres. Paris: Gallimard, p. 529; trans. (1965). The Iliad, or the Poem of Force. In Chicago Review 18/2, p. 6.

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managed to blind my eye by taking advantage of me in my drink”. (9, 407ff)

It seems as if the following words from Max Picard, already quoted in the previous chapter, mainly address Polyphemus. What is more, in light of Homer’s description of the Cyclopes, they suggest that the Cycloptic lifestyle is not just mythical. The Cyclops narrative in the Odyssey may give a picture of modern lifestyles. “In space alone, in space without time, the human essence cannot clarify itself. The human needs time. The human has been positioned in space, indeed – but the meaning of this position will only be known through time. The human unfolds in space through time, and this, that someone unfolds in space through time, this is the trajectory of the human. “Since today time fails to manifest itself, there will be no trajectory either, and the humans meet each other without being led by the laws of a trajectory, – they encounter each other in a meaningless space, by coincidence. Therefore, humans are strangers next to each other.” (Picard, 1929, p. 158f)

Virgil’s sequel to Homer’s Cyclops narrative contains a promising note, though. If it is true that “deep healing cannot come about unless a recently opened wound is thoroughly cleaned,” as the American psychoanalyst Donald Kalsched argues (Kalsched, 1995, p. 213), then Polyphemus’ encounter with the sufferer Ulysses – which had made him suffer, too – has been beneficial for his healing process. After having met with the abandoned Greek warrior Achaemenides, Aeneas and his comrades suddenly notice the Cyclops Polyphemus approaching. The monster was herding his flock (“his sole delight [sola voluptas] and the solace for his evils [solamenque mali]”). The text continues saying that “As soon as [the Cyclops] came to the sea and reached the deep water, he washed away the blood oozing from the gouged eye-socket [luminis effossi]”. This is a promising act, indeed. Yet, Polyphemus did it “groaning and gnashing his teeth.” What is more, “he walked through the depths of the waves [per aequor iam medium], without [necdum: ‘not yet’] the tide wetting his vast thighs.” (Aeneid III, 660ff; trans. A.S. Kline) Cleansing one’s wound is one thing, surrendering oneself in full to a thorough healing process, another. “[I]n trauma,” Kalsched argues, “the archaic Self in its terrible as well as benevolent form has not transformed and therefore when it does the result is a crisis.” (Kalsched, 1995, p. 213)70 As soon as the Cyclops realises that 70

In this respect, the narrator in the ‘Cyclops’ chapter of James Joyce’s Ulysses misses an opportunity of being healed; witness his anger. Cf “I was just passing the time of day with Old Troy of the D.M.P. at the corner of Arbour hill there and be

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he is being watched, he bursts out in anger. He [Polyphemus] heard, and bent his course towards the sound of splashing. But when he was denied the power to set hands on us, and unable to counter the force of the Ionian waves, in pursuit, he raised a mighty shout [clamorem immensum], at which the sea and all the waves shook [intremuere], and the land of Italy was frightened far inland, and Etna bellowed from its winding caverns.” Aeneid III, 670ff

Conclusive Remarks: ‘Death is good’ “Death is the gateway towards a metaphysics of the highest order,” Driesch had claimed. Meanwhile, we are perhaps better equipped to understand this claim. Note that speaking of a ‘hypothesis’ here instead of a ‘claim’ does not solve the predicament of philosophy. Both terms already presuppose a hierarchy in truth-relations, the necessity and inevitability of which I am trying to put into question throughout this book. The difficulty of talking about death – as well as about anything else in light of death – is comparable to the problem of infinity for which mathematics found the solution of the infinitesimal calculus. When scrutinised, both ‘death’ and ‘infinity’ seem to destroy conceptualisation. I am not sure if I have been able in the present account to respect the methodological difficulties inherent to ‘death’ – both as a notion and as a phenomenon. I wanted to argue that ‘death’ – experienced or witnessed – is a testimony of a consciousness escaping the boundaries of (measurable) time and space. In my argument, the latter are no absolute boundaries; they may be superseded by forms of a-temporal, timeless becoming and formation of wholes (‘entelechial’ becoming). Both organic growth and development, and maturing can be taken as evidence here. As Driesch puts it in a brilliant formula: becoming itself may become, or have become (‘Gewordensein’ des Werdens).

damned but a bloody sweep came along and he near drove his gear into my eye. I turned around to let him have the weight of my tongue when who should I see dodging along Stony Batter only Joe Hynes. –Lo, Joe, says I. How are you blowing? Did you see that bloody chimneysweep near shove my eye out with his brush. –Soot’s luck, says Joe.” Joyce, 1992, p. 376.

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I have interpreted ‘suffering’ both as unconscious resistance against subliminal enhancement and as a desire towards undisturbed wholeness or completeness, amidst an experience of incompleteness. My commentary on the Cyclops narrative was meant to highlight that the origin of suffering is inane. My claim is that suffering is a reversal of ecstasy, meaning that both are constituted by the same mental ‘stuff’. Suffering is an unspeakable tragedy, and my aim is certainly not to deny this. However, since the phenomenon of suffering creates the biggest challenge for any worldview, ideology, religion, or philosophy, I believe it makes sense to hypothesise about its relation to the putative ‘subject’ of suffering: consciousness or soul. Already a glance on this issue reveals that considering this relation entails reassessing the notions of ‘subject’ and ‘object’. It is not without reason that the critique of the rational subject, as formulated in contemporary thinking, can hardly escape the question of suffering. This question is of crucial importance to Hermann Cohen; to Horkheimer and Adorno and their philosophical Frankfurt School; to Simone Weil; to Levinas; to psychoanalysis and analytical psychology; to Bataille; to Cioran; and doubtlessly to many other modern thinkers. In a very obscure passage of his Stern der Erlösung, Franz Rosenzweig enigmatically speaks of a first and a second birthday of the human self. The first, Rosenzweig claims, coincides with our meeting with Eros, the second (the “more secret birthday of the self”) with our encounter with Thanatos (= death). (Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 77) As if our real life exceeded the boundaries of physical life and death, and started with a particular moment at which an Erotic energy is experienced which sets one on a meaningful track. I am inclined to interpret this moment with what I have termed earlier as ‘vocation’ or ‘call’ – a breakthrough of inner ecstasy. Miraculously, Rosenzweig suggests that this more proper birth is repeated at death when meeting Thanatos. This means that death (Thanatos) does not delete the self but slightly enhances it. As if death were not only a negative principle but also a mysterious birthday which inaugurates a renewal of life. That this is indeed what Rosenzweig believes is the case appears much further in his book, in a passage which is equally often overlooked: “The created death of the creature,” he writes, “portends the revelation of a life which is above the creaturely level [des übergeschöpflichen Lebens]. For each created thing, death is the very consummator of its entire materiality [ein rechter Vollender zu seiner ganzen Dinglichkeit]. It removes creation imperceptibly into the past, and thus turns it into the tacit, permanent prediction of the miracle of its renewal.” (Rosenzweig, 1990, p. 173; trans. Hallo, p. 155) Rosenzweig concludes by referring to an old rabbinic tradition which associates the Hebrew word for ‘very’ (ʣʠʮ/meǀd) – in the Biblical creation

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narrative stating that God found it “very good” – with the Hebrew word for ‘death’ (ʺʥʮ/mƗwet): “That is why, on the sixth day, it was not said that it was ‘good,’ but rather ‘behold, very good!’ [siehe, gut gar sehr!] ‘Very,’ [Gar sehr] so our sages teach, ‘very’ – that is death.” (Ibid.) Look, death is good.

ETHICAL PERSPECTIVES

This book still contains open ends and loose threads. Instead of summarising the gist of my argument, I will try to open some windows to what one might call its ethical implications. True, ethics has never been far away in my account so far. I used moral concepts such as ‘forgiveness,’ ‘call,’ ‘dialogue,’ or ‘transcendental self-prescription’; other concepts, such as ‘enhancement,’ ‘recollection,’ ‘self,’ ‘awareness,’ or ‘presence,’ are all tainted by moral nuances. I should be more precise here since, if what I have stated in the previous chapters is plausible at all, notions like ‘ethics’ and ‘morality’ cannot remain unaffected themselves by the existence of a stratified consciousness. Our standard moral discourse today – its concepts, distinctions, and premises – is strongly characterised by a flat (conception of) consciousness. In contrast, the challenges we are facing today might be particularly addressing other levels of consciousness. For example, the problem of ‘global inequality’ is perhaps handled inadequately if it is only seen as a subject matter that can be clearly defined in terms of objectifiable external phenomena – as if it were an ‘object’ for a ‘subject’. Instead, ‘global inequality’ (so I would argue) should first and foremost be framed as a form of growing selfalienation in those defining and addressing it before being addressed by it.1 In light of the prevailing and yet misleading flattened conception of consciousness, we had better interpret ‘ethics’ in terms of implication. An issue is ethical or moral if, and only if, a stratified consciousness implies it. The verb ‘to imply’ literally means ‘to include,’ ‘to enfold’. In my view, the ethical is that which results from the unfolding of an inclusive, condensed consciousness. The incentive which I believe is inherent to anything ethical – both in its distorted, flat conceptions and the derivative conception which I am proposing here – unfolds in proportion to an addressing of consciousness as multi-layered. Ethical questions are fundamentally different from, e.g., ‘prisoner’s dilemma’s’ or ‘trolley problems’ used by university teachers in class to introduce their students to the field of ethics. These questions cannot fail to affect subjects – and unravel them as subjects. 1 Cf Mahmoud Masaeli & Rico Sneller, Eds (2020). The Return of Ethics and Spirituality in Global Development. Antwerpen: Gompel & Svacina.

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I would suggest that the reverse side of this unravelling is that ethical questions are indicative of an ongoing maturing process. It should be strongly emphasised, though, that the logic of maturing processes often seems completely opaque. Think, for example of the inhuman ‘choice’ Sophie faces in the concentration camp, or Eisenhower’s and Montgomery’s when preparing the invasion in Normandy. When discussing ethical questions, I am inclined to exploit the ambiguity of the word ‘question’. An ethical question is not merely analogous to a question which demands a symmetrical answer, such as ‘What is the capital of Colombia?’ An ethical question is rather a quaestio, a topic, or an issue to be considered. This consideration could be painful; the Latin in quaestionem dare means ‘to extradite for torture’. The intended result of considering a quaestio is not just an answer but gain or profit (quaestus means ‘gain,’ ‘profit,’ ‘advantage’). Dealing with ethical issues entails suffering and gain, in other words, ‘maturing’. If there is neither suffering nor gain involved, the so-called ‘ethical questions’ at hand are either maltreated or disguised economic questions.2 The identification of ethical questions, therefore, entails becoming aware of a maturing process taking place. This means that a teleological dimension is never alien to the ethical, albeit that the telos cannot be discerned, let alone defined. It acts as a promise; it unfolds along with the ethical unfolding itself. What would be an appropriate method for dealing with ethical questions? From the preceding argument throughout this book, it can be inferred that it is worth trying to focus on visibility instead of tangibility; in other words, an optic approach might be preferable insofar as a haptic approach is problematic. It should be underlined that an optic approach is not merely identical to using one’s eyes or just watching (“Were not the eye sunlike, It could never see the sun”). The essence of the optic entails synchronicity awareness; the latter could transform sight into insight, seeing into vision, or the sole collection of visual data into recollection. As we have seen in the Cyclops narrative, the optic can ultimately even dispense with the eyes; for, once Polyphemus’ sight was taken from him, he first started seeing, that is, 2

Interestingly, Biblical Hebrew does not really have an equivalent for the English verb ‘to ask’. The first ethical ‘question’ in the Bible is ‘said’ rather than ‘asked’: “And the LORD God called unto the man, and said [ʸ ʓʮʠʖ ˕ʥʔ ] unto him: ‘Where art thou?’” (Genesis 3, 9). Even reproach is ‘said’: “And He said [ʸ ʓʮʠʖ ˕ʥʔ ]: ‘What hast thou done?’” (Genesis 4, 10)

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remembering; what he remembered was a prophecy, so that his memory itself became prophetic: “‘Alas, alas, then the old prophecy [ʌĮȜĮȓijĮIJĮ șȑıijĮșૃ] about me is coming true. There was a seer [ȝȐȞIJȚȢ] here, at one time, a man both brave and of great stature, Telemos son of Eurymos, who was an excellent seer [ȝĮȞIJȠıȪȞૉ ਥțȑțĮıIJȠ], and did all the prophesying [ȝĮȞIJİȣȩȝİȞȠȢ] for the Cyclopes till he grew old; he told me that all this would happen to me [IJİȜİȣIJȒıİıșĮȚ] some day, and said I should lose my sight [ਖȝĮȡIJȒıİıșĮȚ ੑʌȦʌોȢ]”. (Odyssey, 9, 407ff)

How would an optic approach of ethical questions proceed? My surmise is that this approach will be guided by retrospection, recollection, memory, and forgiveness. Retrospection is realised when the act of seeing is intensified until it becomes visionary. The past brightens the present, thereby enhancing recollection, or even maturing. Seeing the past in the present makes one aware of a promise instilled in the present. Forgetfulness of the past flattens the act of seeing. In terms of recollection, Polyphemus supersedes Ulysses; for whereas the former remembers prophecy, the latter forgets one of his comrades, Achaemenides, leaving him at the mercy of monsters (“My comrades left me here in the Cyclops’ vast cave, forgetting me [immemores], as they hurriedly left that grim threshold.” Aeneid III, 616ff). Let me briefly illustrate my point here by subsequently discussing retrospection, recollection, memory, and forgiveness. This short, nonexhaustive list of categories may set out some guidelines and specify parameters for enhanced ethical awareness.

Retrospection Retrospection, in my view, consists of seeing the past as present in the present. An intensified focus might bring out this past, as the examples of Proust could teach us. They might, yet need not, as there will always be a threat of fixed ideas which force one to disentangle these before any progress can be made. I believe that so-called hostile views (e.g., of ‘Arabs,’ ‘Jews,’ ‘Americans,’ ‘foreigners,’ the ‘working class,’ or ‘capitalists’) are primarily based on fixed ideas, meaning that history has interposed – and continues to interpose – a variety of diaphragms which obscure reliable hindsight. When I define retrospection as seeing the past as present in the present, I do not intend to identify past and history. What is called ‘history’ consists of

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the development of the past towards an unexpected and unpredictable outcome.

Recollection ‘Recollection’ refers to re-digesting past memories. I have interpreted this act earlier in terms of a recreation of reality, and not as a mere repetition of ‘identities’. The malleability of ‘reality,’ I stated, consists of the susceptibility of self and world to endlessly altering connections and modifications. Artistic imagination reveals this (Picasso’s Guernica), but one could equally think of creative historians (Huizinga, Spengler, Toynbee, Dilthey, Troeltsch, etc.) whose sharp-sightedness sheds new light on the past. I have suggested that even the word ‘recognition’ could be used for the perception and acknowledgement of this new light. Recognition, then, will paradoxically be a confrontation with a deeper layer of the past which has never even been present, that is, duly recognised in a present perception. The implication of this paradox is, firstly, that the past may keep something in store the essence of which is still to be apprehended, and secondly, that this stored secrecy (alterity) is somehow connected with the self – why else call it recognition?

Memory I have claimed that trustworthy remembering is characterised by spontaneity. Memories emerging without the intervention of will, let alone the interposition of fixed ideas, are more reliable. Again, this reliability does indeed not imply an unalterable past susceptible to seamless reproduction by the mind. Instead, it implies a past susceptible to recognition beyond mere remembrance. If, as was my overall statement, consciousness cannot be delimited, the faculty of recognition originating in it becomes abysmal and a source of renewal, or a renewed discovery of the past. The past still has not passed, let alone that it has passed away; it is always yet to come. I believe that any act of commemoration, vital though it be, should not be obsessed with ‘facts’ or a ‘fact world’; this could all too easily lead to revengefulness, the development and nourishing of fixed ideas, and sometimes even to ontological despair. An ideal ‘commemoration’ would be disorganised and spontaneous – comparable to the blue butterfly that suddenly appeared during Richard Berengarten’s visit to the Šumarice memorial site commemorating a Nazi mass murder; it landed on his finger

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and refused to fly away.3

Forgiveness In ‘forgiveness,’ I argued in Chapter 1, something is given or revealed indirectly, something else being taken away. What is given or revealed can only be noticed (if at all) upon the removal of something else. This ‘something else’ is time. Or at least, time is taken away along with what is immediately taken away (e.g., something past). What is usually called ‘time’ would at that point – instead of an incessant continuity of instants – rather represent a discontinuity, susceptible to hosting another, far more pressing ‘temporality’. In Chapter 2, I suggested that in forgiveness, shame is lifted owing to the recreative act which ensues – or rather, is implied by – forgiveness. Forgiveness recreates the past by fathoming its endless malleability. To quote once more Hermann Friedmann: culture represents “the ethos of the human eye that is living-towards a light which becomes form in heaven.” (Friedmann, 1930, p. 499) In my interpretation, this means that culture consists of a double promise: both the promise of future illumination and the promise of a future transformation of this light into concrete form. Once the prospective illumination has received a heavenly form – possibly even including (rectified) tangibility –, it will be adequately in-formed. The corresponding ethos (forgiveness and dialogue) will be an ethos which anticipates this future transformation and is justified by it. This ethos entails restless endeavours into obscured otherness, always recommencing and always bringing to light what is new.

3

See Richard Berengarten. A Synchronistic Experience in Serbia. In McMillan et al. (2020). For an interpretation of the metamorphosis of tragedy (symbolised by the butterfly) see my Spirituality as Poetry. On Richard Berengarten’s Balkan Trilogy. In Studies in Spirituality 29, 2019.

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INDEX

Abell, Arthur M. 187, 221f, 228, 232, 342 Adami, Valerio 141, 257 Adorno, Theodor W. xx, 103, 203, 258, 335, 348 Albertus Magnus 213 Alksnis, Gunnar xvi, 342 Althusser, Louis 82 Antognazza, Maria Rosa 60, 342 Araki, Nobuyohsi xx, 46f, 69, 189, 242 Arendt, Hannah 133 Aristotle 11, 22, 24, 39, 48f, 50, 135, 200, 206, 214, 236, 308 Aspaltes 250 Assagioli, Roberto 29, 31, 75, 204f, 342 Atlan, Monique 242, 254, 342 Augustine 9, 22, 125, 219, 331 Avicenna 213 Ayer, Alfred J. 167 Baader, Franz von 13 Baba Vangha 169 Backus, Jessica 256, 342 Bahá’u’lláh 185 Baillet, Adrien 224 Balzac, Honoré de 187f, 342 Baruk, Henri 25 Barušs, Imants 12, 169, 286, 288, 290, 342 Bataille, Georges 91, 97f, 124, 129, 162, 164, 323, 335, 342 Baudelaire, Charles 86, 124, 243, 261 Bayard, Hippolyte 255 Beeckman, Isaac 225 Beethoven, Ludwig von 61 Benjamin, Walter 61, 67f, 70, 82, 131ff, 137, 153, 155, 162, 172,

213, 219, 237, 242, 253, 255, 293, 318, 342f, 345 Bentall, Richard P. 168, 343 Berengarten, Richard 63, 65, 241, 291, 340f, 343, 356, Bergson, Henri 15, 27, 97, 195, 275f, 287f, 290, 343 Berkeley, George 150, 269 Biemen, Dick van 132 Bijl, Guillaume 115 Binswanger, Ludwig 24f, 343 Birch, Charles 269 Bishop, Paul xvi, 343 Blanchot, Maurice 218 Boccaccio, Giovanni 171 Bohm, David x, 269, 343 Bonaventure 22 Borges, J.L. 233, 312, 343 Bose, Jagadis Chandra xi f, 353 Botticelli 122 Bouteligier, Claudia 19, 356 Brahe, Tycho 201 Brahms, Johannes 221f, 231, 351, 356 Brandt, Willy 171 Braque, Georges 108, 160, 207, 257, 343, 357 Brett, Guy 84, 343 Brezhnev, Leonid 169 Buber, Martin 162, 252, 329, 344 Buchanan, J.R. 65, 344 Buddha 27, 29, 62, 156, 211, 349 Butler, Cornelia 102, 344 Caesar, Julius 250 Cardeña, Etzel 169, 286, 343f Carlyle, Thomas 250 Carus, Carl Gustav 237, 257 Cassirer, Ernst 61, 344 Castro, Fidel 171

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul Cézanne, Paul 171 Chouraqui, André 114, 252 Churchill, Winston 65, 193 Churchland, Paul and Patricia 202 Cioran, E.M. vi, 82, 95, 100, 103, 113, 121, 133, 164, 249, 335, 344 Clark, Lygia vi, xx, 33f, 36ff, 41, 43, 46, 83f, 90, 101f, 108f, 116, 122, 124ff, 129, 151, 160, 168, 343f Claudel, Camille 133 Cohen, Gustave 225 Cohen, Hermann 335 Coleridge, Samuel Taylor 250 Condillac, Étienne Bonnot de 197, 277, 344 Confucius 172, 211 Conrad, Joseph 167 Couliano, Ioan P. 175, 344 Cousineau, Phil 209, 344 Dahl, Roald 172 Dante 250 Darwin, Charles 193, 195ff, 211, 231f, 269 Dawkins, Richard 97, 267 Dehing, Jef 99, 344 Delay, Jean 25 Deleuze, Gilles 15, 17, 31, 46f, 54, 78, 101, 116, 214ff, 220f, 223, 279f, 344 Delmonte, R. 176, 344 Dennett, Daniel 97, 267 Derrida, Jacques 8, 14, 17, 20, 30, 38, 70f, 75, 87f, 95f, 116, 121, 125, 131, 141, 151, 194, 203, 213, 216, 218f, 257, 262, 305, 314, 344f, 348, 354 DeSalvo, John 13, 345 Descartes, René 8f, 22, 46, 137, 194, 211, 224f, 230, 283, 346f, 352 Dexter, George T. 87, 346 Diderot, Denis 217 Dilthey, Wilhelm 27, 205, 207, 340, 345

359

Disraeli, Benjamin 250 Dongen, Hein van viii, xviii, 22, 345, 347 Driesch, Hans xvii f, xxii, 2, 8, 47ff, 60, 64, 67, 170, 194f, 206, 212, 214, 224ff, 238f, 243, 253, 266ff, 274f, 281, 306, 320f, 334, 345 Duchamps, Marcel 115 Duijl, M. van 176, 346 Dumas, Alexandre 171 Dunhill, Alison 115, 345 Dupré, Louis 201, 346 Eckhart, Meister 14, 30, 157, 326f, 346 Edmonds, John W. 87, 346 Einstein, Albert 49, 139, 269, 352 Eisenhower, Dwight 338 Elizabeth I 171 Ellenberger, Henri 15, 25, 82, 346 Enquist, Per Olov 284 Erasmus, Desiderius 172 Eschenmayer, Carl August von 184 Eustochius 209 Ey, Henri 25 Fechner, Gustav Theodor 33, 56ff, 82, 195, 346, 348 Ferenczi, Sándor 16, 108, 231, 257, 346 Fernandez, Sergio vi, 116, 124ff Feuerbach, Ludwig 36f, 65, 346 Feyerabend, Paul 22 Fichte, Immanuel Hermann 26, 42, 346 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 167 Fick, Adolf 202 Fine, Lawrence 346 Fiorillo, Juré 172, 346 Fisher, R. 195 Flournoy, Théodore 285, 346 Foucault, Michel 18, 211, 232, 346 Frank, Jacob 185 Frank, Robert 189 Frantz, Marie-Louise von 137, 224f, 346

360 Freud, Sigmund xv, xviii, 8, 11, 17f, 25, 28, 65, 78, 99, 112, 134, 162, 224, 228f, 275, 277ff, 281, 287f, 305, 324, 330, 347 Friedmann, Hermann xii ff, xvi f, xx f, 1, 4ff, 25f, 32, 44, 49f, 56, 65, 67, 70, 74, 76, 97, 103f, 129, 134, 137ff, 186f, 191f, 195, 198ff, 207, 212, 229, 234, 252, 265f, 273, 304, 306ff, 311, 316ff, 341, 347 Friedrich, Caspar David 123, 236 Gadamer, Hans-Georg 22, 205, 234 Galilei, Galileo 224, 228 Gardijn, Willem du viii, 46 Gaukroger, Stephen 225, 347 Genet, Jean 14, 171, 347 George, Stefan 194, 222f, 228, 347, 350, Gerding, Hans viii, xviii f, 213, 347 Ghiselin, Brewster 63, 66f, 82, 89ff, 94f, 106, 108, 113f, 118, 122f, 220, 292, 347 Gilman, Sander L. 99, 347 Goethe, J. W. von 61, 128, 153, 236, Goldschmidt, Levin 202 Goodman, Felicitas D. 180f, 182ff, 347 Goya, Francisco 123 Green, T.H. 21, 58, 150, 347 Griffiths, Thomas L. 224, 347 Guattari, Félix 17, 31, 46f, 54, 78, 101, 214ff, 220f, 223, 279f, 344 Gurwitsch, Alexander 269 Habermas, Jürgen 24 Hadot, Pierre 232, 347 Haldane, J.B.S. 195 Hamilton, Alexander 171 Hanegraaff, W.J. 13, 347 Harari, Yuval Noah 270 Hart, Onno van der 15, 348 Hartmann, Eduard von xiv, 8, 170, 195, 214 Hauffe, Friederike 12ff, 15, 169, 285, 347

Index Hegel, G.W.F. 39, 58, 65, 83, 120, 203ff, 211, 214, 216, 230, 262, 314, 348 Heidegger, Martin xvi, xix, 3, 8, 22, 30, 56, 65, 94, 102, 133, 203, 216, 232, 245, 261f, 266, 283, 305, 324, 348 Heidelberger, Michael 82, 348 Heine, Heinrich 250 Hellenbach, Lazarus xiv, 8ff, 170, 348 Henderson, David x, 352 Henry, Michel 8, 25, 30, 112, 278, 314, 348 Herbst, Curt 226f Hervey de Saint-Denys, Léon d’ 11 Hesse, Hermann 91f, 94, 107, 142, 173, 193, 232, 235, 248, 259, 312, 317, 348 Heymans, Gerardus 201, 348 Hilgard, Ernest 15 Hillis Miller, J. 75, 348 Hippocrates 11 Hitler, Adolf 19, 131, 172f, 176ff, 183, 185f, 285, 310ff, 322, 348, 351, 353, 357 Hoffmann, E.T.A. 88, 193, 218, 221f, 284, 348, 351 Holliday, Billie 171 Homer xx, xxiii, 6, 60, 149, 192, 246, 255, 267, 326ff, 333, 353 Horkheimer, Max xx, 103, 203, 258, 335, 348 Horst, Rutger 15f, 348 Horstmann, Bernhard 177f, 348 Houdetot, Sophie d’ 133 Houellebecq, Michel 242 Hubbard, Jamie 156, 348 Humboldt, Alexander von 236 Hume, David xiv, xxii, 9, 11, 54, 83, 193, 201f, 279, Humperdinck, Engelbert 228 Husserl, Edmund 8f, 30, 40, 283, 344 Huysmans, Joris-Karl xx, 2, 79ff, 147, 164, 348

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul Ivanov, P. 169, 348 Izmirlieva, V. 169, 348 James Lieberman, E. xix, 349 James, William 3, 8f, 41, 82, 162, 173, 177f, 215ff, 223, 285f, 349, 356 Janet, Pierre 2, 15ff, 24ff, 45, 73, 80, 129, 165, 183f, 229, 280, 285ff, 304, 348f Jaspers, Karl 16, 25f, 62, 211, 233, 349 Joachim, Joseph 221f, 231 Jobs, Steve 172 Joël, Karl 211, 349 Jonson, Ben 250 Joyce, James xx, 267, 293, 295f, 299f, 333f, 349 Jung, C.G. xiv ff, xviii, 8, 12, 25f, 41, 65, 75, 82f, 93, 101, 137, 139, 162, 170, 175, 186, 190f, 193f, 198, 203ff, 207ff, 212, 224, 227, 229, 231, 233f, 247, 269, 290, 295, 298, 300, 302, 312, 318, 346, 349f, 352 Kafka, Franz 116, 167 Kaiser, Tomas xv, 280, 350 Kajimura, Shogo 241, 350 Kakar, Sudhir 175, 350 Kalsched, Donald 16, 247, 333, 350 Kammerer, Paul vi, xiv, xviii, 4, 136, 146f, 191, 193f, 198, 202, 208ff, 212, 224, 227f, 232, 234, 272, 294, 350 Kant, Immanuel xiv, 4, 10f, 33, 35, 40, 48ff, 58, 94, 128, 187, 201f, 230, 266, 269, 283, 308 Kapp, Ernst 65, 114, 350 Karlauf, Thomas 222f, 350, Kassner, Rudolf 237 Kelly, Edward F. 12, 169, 275, 286, 288, 350 Kepler, Johannes 201, 224, 228 Kerner, Justinus 11, 13ff, 184, 350 Kierkegaard, Sören 8f, 16, 82, 104ff, 137, 350 Kihlstrom, John F. 287, 350

361

King, Martin Luther 19 King, Sallie B. 156 Klages, Ludwig v, xiii f, xvi f, xxi, 1, 3ff, 19f, 23, 26, 35, 38, 40ff, 65, 73, 83, 91, 96ff, 103ff, 107, 112, 115, 129f, 132ff, 148f, 151f, 156, 162ff, 170, 174, 194f, 201, 205, 209f, 214, 216ff, 222, 237f, 240, 250, 257ff, 290, 297f, 342f, 350f, 355f Klein, Melanie 101, 109 Klein, William 69, 189 Klein, Yves 122 Kleist, Heinrich von 284 Kochetkova, Tatjana viii, 47 Koestler, Arthur ix, xii f, xviii, 139, 191, 201, 269, 351 Köpf, G. 177, 351 Krafft-Ebing, Richard von 18 Kramarik, Akiane xx, 85ff, 122, 150, 155, 162, 190, 222, 235, 351 Krippner, Stanley 15, 169, 286, 343, 351 Kroeber, A.J. 63f, 211, 351 Kross, Siegfried 221ff, 351 Kubin, Alfred 284 Kublai Khan 250 Kusters, Wouter 79, 186, 214, 351 Lacan, Jacques 15, 17, 25, 163, 351 Lacarrière, Jacques 175, 351 /ƗFLV$VMD Lao-ze 211 Laski, Marghanita 162, 351 Lavater, Johann Kaspar 236 Lawrence, D.H. 63, 90 Lawrence, T.E. 171 Lebovic, Nitzan xvi, 351 Leibniz, G.-W. 33, 48, 60, 210, 342, 351 Leiter, Saul xx, 45f, 51, 69, 189, 242, 356 Lenau, Nicolaus 86, 218 Levi, Julian 66, 90 Levinas, Emmanuel 2, 8, 30, 68f, 90, 92, 132f, 141, 143, 160f,

362 251f, 261f, 305, 320f, 324, 335, 343f, 351f Lewis, I.M. 181, 352 Lichtenberg, Georg Christoph 235, 252 Lindahl, Jared R. 28, 352 Lloyd, Jeff vi, 116, 124ff, Locke, John 9, 58, 230 Lombroso, Cesare 236 López-Remiro, Miguel 78, 352 Loren, Sophia 171 Lukács, Orsolya 269, 352 Luria, Isaac 125f, 346 Mach, Ernst 202, 269 MacIntyre, Alasdair 62, 352 Mahler, Gustav 123 Maimonides 124 Main, Roderick 194, 352 Maine de Biran, Marie-FrançoisPierre 15 Malebranche, Nicolas de 9, 14, 150 Mani 185 Mann, Thomas 193, 284 Marcel, Gabriel xix, 91ff, 110, 164f, 172, 213, 267, 311, 315f, 352 Marcus Aurelius 22 Marinoff, Lou 208, 234, 352 Maritain, Jacques 224, 352 Marx, Karl 66, 151, 203, 270 Masaeli, Mahmoud 132, 337, 343, 352 McMillan, Christian x, 341, 352 Mehler, J. 246, 353 Meinong, Alexius 202 Mendel, Gregor Johann xviii, 195 Mendelssohn, Moses 236 Merleau-Ponty, Maurice 8, 66 Merton, Robert K. 210, 353 Mettrie, Julie O. de la 3 Meyrink, Gustav 171, 284 Michel, Anneliese 173f, 176f, 180f, 347 Michelangelo 122, 318 Michell, John 209, 353 Miller, Henry 66f, 70, 89f, 94, 113f, 117

Index Milton, John 221 Monroe, Marilyn 171 Montaigne, Michel de 22 Montgomery, Bernhard 338 Moore, G.E. 61, 353 Moreau, Gustave 79f, 147 Mossbridge, Julia 12, 169, 286, 288, 290, 342 Mukherji, Visvapriya xii, 353 Munch, Edvard 123 Murray, Henry H. 179f, 183, 353 Musil, Robert xx, 2, 18, 21, 25f, 43, 62f, 82, 90, 93, 106f, 115, 125, 190, 200, 353 Mycerinus 250 Myers, Frederic W.H. xv f, 2, 21, 44ff, 72f, 76, 78, 83, 99, 129, 176, 183, 214, 275, 280, 285, 287, 353 Nadar 255 Nero 181 Neumann, Therese 45 Newton, Isaac 4, 32f, 198, 208, 210, 261, Nicholson, Jack 172 Nietzsche, Friedrich xix, 22, 31, 35, 66, 82, 90, 122f, 128, 133, 138, 147, 152f, 159, 165, 190, 213, 216, 276, 253 Nin, Anaïs 133 Nomura, Michio 241, 350 Noriaki, Hakamaya 156 Novalis 82, 162 Nussbaum, Martha C. 31, 91, 104, 109ff, 353 Oesterreich, Traugott Konstantin 65, 183ff, 353 Oiticica, Hélio vi, 37, 108, 344 Olson, Charles 164 Oppenheim, Moritz Daniel 236 Paine, Thomas 172 Palmer, Terence xvi, 174, 176, 178, 353 Paracelsus 236 Parker, Stephen 23, 353

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul Patañjali 2, 22ff, 27, 29, 51f, 63, 72ff, 81, 133, 156f, 185, 187, 233, 304, 354 Pauli, Wolfgang xviii, 326, 350 Pearson, Karl 202 Peeters, Benoît 219, 354 Pérez-Oramas, Luis 102, 344 Perron, Eva 171 Perty, Maximilian 11 Pfister, Oscar 288, 354 Piaf, Edith 171 Picard, Max xi, xix, xxii, 50, 235, 237ff, 246, 248, 250ff, 257ff, 265ff, 270f, 290, 309, 312ff, 326, 333, 351f, 354 Piccaver, Alfred 227 Pierson, Pierre-Louis 255 Pigliucci, M. 196 Pissin, Raimund 14, 350 Plato 15, 45, 60, 90, 124, 216, 262, 275, 283, 298 Plotinus 15, 167, 209, 234, 275 Plutarch 11 Poe, Edgar Allen 284 Poincaré, Henri 22, 227, 354 Porphyry 209 Porta, Giambattista della 236 Portmann, Adolf 52, 354 Prel, Carl du v, xiv f, xxi, 1f, 8, 10ff, 21, 28, 53, 55, 85ff, 93, 98, 119, 129f, 136, 150, 167ff, 177, 178f, 180, 183f, 188, 193, 195ff, 201, 205f, 214, 232, 238, 263f, 267, 274ff, 284ff, 293, 350, 354, Proust, Marcel xvii, xx, 2, 24, 31, 59f, 63, 74ff, 80f, 85, 90ff, 104, 107, 117, 121f, 131, 137, 140, 146f, 152ff, 162f, 200, 244f, 253, 256, 267, 277, 293f, 299ff, 313f, 317f, 339, 343, 354, 357 Ptolemy 171 Puccini, Giacomo 65 Rabinowich, Julya xviii, 354 Radin, Dean ix, 354 Rank, Otto xviii ff, xxi, 2, 43, 78f, 91, 96, 98, 100ff, 106ff, 113f,

363

123, 130, 133, 136, 138, 141, 143, 205, 249, 279, 287, 321, 349, 354 Rawls, John 24 Ray, Man 318 Raymond, F. 184 Reich, Wilhelm 54f, 91, 105, 117f, 297, 354 Reifferscheidt, Margarethe 226 Rembrandt 61 Reventlow, Francesca zu 133 Richet, Charles 15 Rickard, Robert 209, 353 Ricœur, Paul 207 Rimbaud, Arthur 147, 152, 162ff, 279 Roberts, Royston M. 206, 355 Roerich, Nikolay 47, 141 Rosenstock-Huëssy, Eugen 245 Rosenstock-Huëssy, Margrit 133 Rosenzweig, Frans 2, 61, 120, 133, 210, 237f, 245, 252, 255, 258, 297f, 329, 335, 355 Ross, Colin 16 Rothko, Mark 77f, 122, 352 Rousseau, Jean-Jacques 82, 133, 137f, 148, 152f, 157ff, 193f, 216f, 250, 257, 267, 293, 299ff, 355 Rückert, Friedrich 319 Russell, Bertrand 202 Sabbetai Sevi 103, 174, 185 Salomé, Lou 82, 123, 133 Sanctis, Sante de 6, 46, 73, 237, 355 Sargon the Great 171 Sartre, Jean-Paul 8f, 125, 162, 167 232, 324, 355 Scheler, Max 91, 97, 100, 104, 109ff, 114, 116, 118, 122, 355 Schelling, F.W.J. 13, 21, 39, 102, 195, 202, 213, 257, 287, 355 Schleiermacher, Friedrich 13 Scholem, Gershom 103, 185, 355 Schopenhauer, Arthur xiv f, xix, 8, 35, 53ff, 65, 83, 139, 167f, 171,

364 174, 195, 213, 236, 259, 275, 283, 285, 355 Schreber, Daniel-Paul 14, 355 Schröder, Hans Eggert 218, 355 Schubert, Gotthilf Heinrich 11, 13 Schumann, Clara 221f Seaman, F. 269, 355 Searl, John 219 Seneca 22, 165 Sforza, Francesco 172 Shakespeare, William 151, 221, 260, 308f Shaw, P. 197, 356 Sheldrake, Rupert 49, 206, 212, 269 Shelley, Percy Bysshe 218f 6KLUǀ0DWVXPRWR Showalter, Elaine 99, 356 Sidgwick, Henry 61, 356 Silburn, Lilian 115, 356 Slootweg, Timo 19, 356 Sloterdijk, Peter 284 Smith, Hélène 285 Sneller, Rico xviii, 19, 132, 337, 343, 352, 356 Socrates 3, 60, 211 Spender, Stephen 66, 82, 90f, 94f, 106, 108 Spinoza, Baruch de 22f, 124, 295, Spoerri, Daniel 115 Starmans, Richard 202, 356 Steinbeck, Albrecht 8 Steinbeck, John xx, 267, 310, 313, 356 Stelzner, Carl Ferdinand 255 Sterzinger, Othmar 202 Strauss, Leo 123 Strindberg, August 171 Swafford, Jan 221, 356 Swanson, Paul L. 156, 348 Swedenborg 267 Tallmadge, Nathaniel 88, 346 Taubhorn, Ingo 45, 51, 356 Taylor, Charles 9, 201, 230, 356 Taylor, Eugene 173, 285, 356 Tenenbaum, Joshua B. 224, 347 Tenhaeff, W.H.C. 20, 29, 356

Index Teresa de Avila 157ff, 162, 299, 322, 332, 356 Thomas à Kempis 60 Thomas Aquinas 54, 283 Thothmes 250 Tieck, Ludwig 162 Tiglath-Pileser 250 Tokarczuk, Olga 185, 356 Turner Jr, H.A. 176, 178f, 357 Ulysses xx, 6f, 103, 142, 149, 166, 192, 234, 240, 245ff, 255, 257, 272f, 293, 295, 298f, 305, 313, 326ff, 339, 349 Ume, Kayo 69, 189 Valtchinova, G. 169, 357 Vaughn, Alan 209, 357 Velleius Paterculus 211 Verlaine, Paul 163 Vermeer, Johannes 74, 76f, 81, 146f, 154, 357 Vinci, Leonardo da 171 Virgil xx, xxiii, 7, 246, 267, 272, 306, 333 Vishniac, Roman 242, 245, 254, 256, 342 Visser, Gerard viii, 160, 357 Voltaire 71, 250 Waddington, C.H. 196 Waelhens, Alphonse De 2, 78f, 180, 186, 357 Wagner, Richard 171, 228 Wagstaf, Graham F. 286, 357 Wanderley, Lulu 84 Weber, Max 106 Weil, Simone xii, 162, 192f, 331f, 335, 357 William the Conqueror 171 Williams, Bernard 111, 357 Winfrey, Oprah 172 Winnicott, Donald 247 Woischnik, Brigitte 45, 51, 356 Wolfe, Thomas xx, 21, 63, 90, 102, 108, 113, 119, 250, 266f, 272, 291, 300, 315f, 319, 326, 357 Wolfson, Elliot R. 96, 357

Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul Woodman, Francisca 34ff, 46, 74, 76, 115f, 220, 256, 342, 345, 357 Wright, S. 195

365

Yasuo, Yuasa 199, 233, 357 Zaehner, R.C. 74, 153ff, 162, 357 Zimmer, Dieter E. 76, 357