Re: [ejlist] DIE SCHERE #38: Text, translation, notes

[Rene de Bakker <rbakker@bs18.bs.uva.nl>]

>In intoxication advance time is snatched from the gods.  A hint ex
negativo:  in 
>atheistic periods drug consumption will swell.  The Tree of Life is touched.
>
>That the demons inflict pain, but are overcome, serves as a sign that in 
>themselves they are powerless.  They are unmasked as phantoms.  One step 
>further, in the realm of shears that do not cut, they arouse curiosity
rather 
>than fear.  They become domesticated and adorn the fireplace.
>
>
>Notes by Günter Rebing
>
>EJ  inserts here insights from his own experiments with drugs. The truism
that 
>every addict pays dearly for his flights into other spheres EJ translates
into a 
>mythical way of speaking. Time spent in ecstasy is prematurely spent and 
>snatched from the gods because they grant ecstasies to man only after his
death >when he has joined them in elysium.>

Günter,

I don't think the "after" is Juengers concern. In "Die Schere" Juenger
stands between the domain where the shears  are cutting, which is the
domain of time, and the domain where they don't "anymore", which is the
domain of timelessness, (and not eternity, as J. keeps on saying). Whether
there are gods in elysium is questionnable, at least there are no temples
in the promised city. The gods represent the timeless, which somehow we are
connected to. All Annaeherung is directed to the timeless, or "Das
Ungesonderte" or the absolute. Names of gods are only symbols, means of
expressing the unexpressible, which have to be left when the passage stands
before.
We are dealing here with a man, who 75 years ago lay heavily wounded on the
battlefield and watched the stones around him, which showed to him a secret
order (somewhere in the WW1-diaries) and who, since then didn't desist from
the question of life _and_ death.    

>So the drug addict incurs the wrath of the 
>gods and will be punished, by the depression afterwards, the "turkey", by 
>delirium, by premature senility. 

Sure, but in the meantime he is able to steal something precious, like
Prometheus. In "Annaeherungen" Juenger says, that a single experience can
change permanently your view of things. But repetition would only weaken it.

>The next four lines are so enigmatic because they refer tersely to ideas 
>discussed in more detail in EJ's earlier book on drugs and intoxication
(1). I 
>read them as follows: In periods when atheism is widespread people will
take to 
>drugs more readily because they no longer fear the punishment of the gods
nor do 
>they respect the divine prerogatives any longer. The Tree of Life,
forbidden in 
>paradise by God, is no longer taboo to atheists.

This is really complicated. One can, like Bertil did some time ago,
complain about the lack of explination, but I think that this evocative
pointing, that Juenger practises, corresponds to the "object' concerned. 
This is how I read it: We live indeed in atheist times. But Juenger prefers
the "Dieu se retire" (Bloy) above the "God is dead" of Nietzsche. The tree
of life is touched: God(s) or the transcendental concerns life in its
essence. It belongs to the nature of man (Kant). Man, when kept in
immanence, where he only meets himself (subject), feels the need of
transcendence in him. Drugs are a compensation, but they bear the risk of
mechanization. They should be used as keys, which, after using, are thrown
away. 
Juenger cites several times Goethe's reservation against magic (something
like: "Koennt'ich Magie von meinem Pfad entfernen." - Faust). In
Annaeherungen he says: Goethe would go to India, but not to Mexico. Now
about Mexico he says, that it is probable that what is in the ground there
is retroactive on the West, especially in times like these, when the West
has lost its own ground.
Here everything is complicated and mysterious: there are several layers in
Annaeherungen: the order of the drugs, which are also distuinguished
geographically, and the time (of Europe, the world and of the individual)
when they become accute. So mescalin, peyotl and LSD are "Mexican". But
somehow Nietzsche's, Dostojewski's and Van Gogh's experiences are related
to these, because they find themselves in a great transition.   
(Does anybody know, if Juenger mentions Carlos Castaneda?)

>The demons that tempted Anthony, though causing him pain, were defeated by
his 
>steadfastness. Anthony's demons, however, were more real thatn those
phantoms 
>that may appear in accounts of second sight. Such phantoms make merely
curious 
>instead of instilling fear. 
>
>Since EJ does not give any example of such accounts it is not clear what
demons 
>he refers to in the last lines. What demons, seen in moments of second
sight, 
>are domesticated and their images are put as knick-knack on the
mantelpiece or 
>hung over the fireplace?

In second sight, which everybody "possesses" more or less, no demons
appear, as Roberto justly claims. In demons is the threat of death. One has
to endure this to reach the realm, where the shears do not cut. Then the
demons can't scare anymore and become familiar. The "fireplace" is in the
timeless house. Here only evocation is possible, not explanation.
("Hinweis", no "Beweis") "Der Einzelne" has to face his "problem". Juenger
is clear, that we won't take the individual with us to the other side. But
also: life doesn't end. So Juenger's concern seems rather to be: what can
be developed here, in order to take along? J's "conversion" to catholicism
doesn't change this.
J's practices, the productive "seeing" and "dreaming" in the late diaries
must be seen in this respect, I think.   
(There is a link here to Castaneda - Does anybody know, if Juenger mentions
Carlos Castaneda?)

In second-sight, as will appear a bit later (#41), is a time-jump (?) -
Zeitsprung. In it the same things and people are seen as in "normal" life.
The Zeitsprung has jumped through the timeless dimension, but too fast to
be noticed. Seen from there, everything has already happened. So the
Vorschau is memory. That's why the details are so startling.


-----------------------------------
drs. René de Bakker
Universiteitsbibliotheek Amsterdam
Afdeling Catalogisering Faculteiten
tel. 020-5252368