Re: EJ on religion, on death and more

[abdulbar@execpc.com]

Greetings one and all!

Bertil wrote:

>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.

        Somehow I feel that this is certainly not as difficult to grasp as
it would seem. If we ask ourselves about the "Grosse Passage", It would
seem that there is certainly in EJ's view a "going on" as it were. At least
in this description it is not outright, BANG! You're done. For that matter
if EJ didn't believe in something after death, then why would he even write
in such a manner? Wouldn't he rather do as others have done, and dismiss
and defame such a matter as this?


>"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.

        This is interesting as it has to do with freedom and not
metaphysics. Could we go a step further and say that because freedom is
worth dying for, then there is also a reward beyond a humanitarian
do-goodness as laid out in a "communist manifesto" or its like. I know that
this is reading more into this passage than could be contained therein,
just some thoughts.



>"Der Tod gleicht einem fremden Kontinent, ueber den niemand berichten
>wird, der ihn betrat."
>
>Das abenteuerliche Herz, zweiter Fassung, p. 280, SW, Vol.9.

         I would say that this quote is similair to the first, again we
have the soul makeing a "passage" to a new world. Dosen't seem to be much
skepticism here, on the contrary it points to a certain belief in the
immortality of the soul. In other words, there is something to be
discovered on the other side. Even if there will never be verifiable
reports.
        As always with Jünger pinpointing a specific meaning is never easy,
and as we have mentioned before this in the list. He remains uncannily
vague in points which then leaves the greatest amount of room for personal
meaning, not unlike Nietzsche. Although the "taint" of fascism is probalbly
to strong for the left to take hold of Jünger any time soon.



>> 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.

With millenial fever, I had only meant that the passage you sight is of
this quality. Though, I don't believe personally that he would succumb to
such a thing.
        As for this metaphorical sense of the "return", I must believe that
there is also a real sense being spoken of. For an intersting discussion of
the nature of the divine in the great "myths", (which is not to be
understood, as the moderns would have us believe, as being synonimus with
untruth.) see Walter Otto's "Dionysus, Myth and Cult". His perspective is
that the gods had to be present to have reality and that the rational idea
of made up gods is far to complex to be left at that. Or as Otto quotes
Williamovitz, "The gods are there!" The introduction deals with this
question quite remarkably


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

Abdalbarr Brown
Murabitun of Madison, Wisconsin. America

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"But where  the danger is, there too grows
        the saving ."   Hoelderlin


"Aber wo die Gefahr ist, waechst
          das Rettende auch."    Hoelderlin
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