EJ on religion, on death and more

[Bertil Haggman <bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se>]

abdulbar@execpc.com wrote:

> This brings us to a point at which Jüngers theology arises. What are EJ's
> references to God and the divine? Any thoughts?

Abdalbarr,

Good questions not in focus when I read EJ. But he is a critical person
and personally I doubt EJ is a Christian. On May 28, 1944, he recorded
in his
journal that he had finished reading the bible begun on  September 3,
1941.
The undertaking is described as worthwhile as it was entirely his
own'decision and went against considerable resistance, by which he means
his education
and the influence of his fathers pubtilious realism an positivism.

EJ writes extensively on death an I have nowhere seen the belief
expressed
that there might an afterlife. EJ is a sober, critical skepticist.

A few EJ quotes on death:

"Der Tod is nicht durchaus als Feind zu sehen; er ist zum mindesten
ein guter Bekannter und endlich sogar Freund. Diese Sicht eröffnet Wege,
dem Kranken die Grosse Passage zu erleichtern, ihm einen Beistand
zu leisten, zu dem die blosse Heilkunst nicht genuegt". 

Siebzig verweht II, p. 571 (1981), SW, Vol.5.

"Die Ueberwindung der Todesfurcht ist also zugleich die Ueberwindung
jedes anderen Schreckens; sie alle haben nur Bedeutung hinsichtlich
dieser Grundrage."

Der Waldgang, p.331 (1951), SW, vol. 7.

"Der Tod gleicht einem fremden Kontinent, ueber den niemand berichten
wird, der ihn betrat."

Das abenteuerliche Herz, zweiter Fassung, p. 280, SW, Vol.9.

> Although I haven't read this far, I don't think that this is at all an end
> with regards to the humans on the planet. The technological process will
> certainly burn out, as EJ has stated. What remains is alway the return of
> the gods in the metaphorical and real sense. It does seem that Jünger has
> been struck by a degree of millenial fever here. Would this all have
> something to do with Revelation?

When EJ writes about Gods and Titans he does it in a metaphorical sense,
as you point out. But EJs has always been prognosticising catastrophy in
his diagnostical writing. It is not a millenial fever in my opinion.

 
> What strikes me at the moment about Nevin's book and I would wonder if the
> particpants might agree, that the leitmotiv of EJ's work from begining to
> end is our overcoming the titanic. Earlier on he seems to be more positive
> in our relationship to the nature of technology, but later after the tract
> of the Arbeiter, we find a more pessimistic approach to technology in his
> work, and finally its utter rejection. It seems though that all of this
> stems from his experience on the battlefield and  in the trenches. Or that
> is where this ideas find their first formulation.

Would it not be possible to say that he is under influence of his
brother
FGJ, who was always on the ecological barricades, and Klages. And of
course
Oswald Spengler. But his WWI experience is certainly important.
 
> In over the line, for example Jünger sites eros as a means to overcome
> (überwinden) technology:
> Jünger says:
>         The second basic power is eros.  Where two people are in love, they
> take away territory from the Levithian, and create from it uncontrolled
> space.  Eros will always triumph as the true messenger of the gods over
> every titanic formation.  One will never fail, when one steps onto its
> side.  It is this relationship that the novels of Henry Miller touch upon.
> Sex is sent to battle against technology.  It brings salvation from the
> iron force of the time; one destroys the world of machines, in that one
> turns to eros.   The fallacy lies in that this annihilation is selective
> and must be steadily increased.  The sexus doesn't contradict but
> corresponds to the technical courses in the organic.  On this level it is
> related to the titanic, something like senseless bloodshed, because the
> drives only contradict there where they lead out.  Be it for love, be it
> for sacrifice.  It frees us.
>         Eros also lives in friendship, which experiences the last tests
> opposite the tyrannis.  It is tested here as gold is tested and purified in
> the oven.  In times when suspicion penetrates even into the family.  Man
> conforms to the structure of the state.  He arms himself like a fortress,
> from which no sign appears to the outside.  There where a joke, yes even
> the omition of a gesture could mean death, there a great guardedness
> reigns.  Thoughts and feelings remain locked in the innermost heart; one
> even avoids wine, because it wakes the truth. In such situations
> conversation with an intimate friend not only infinitely comforts but also
> confirms and brings back the world in its free and just measure.  One man
> is sufficient as a witness that freedom has not disappeared.  But we need
> his type.  Then the powers of resistance increase in us.  The tyrannts know
> that and seek to break up the human in general and publicly-  that keeps
> the unpredictable, the exceptional at bay.
> 
> E. Jünger/Over the Line.
> 
> This is one form of many which Junger gives us as a means to surpass this
> era of titanism, what remains is how we understand it and are able to
> react. It might just end as Bertil quotes.

But the question of overcoming Titanism is of course the whole question
of
nature and our relation to Mother Earth.

Best wishes

Bertil
bertil.haggman@helsingborg.se