EJ treading in very shady groves

[Rebing@t-online.de (Rebing)]

Not only in the recesses of our minds, Gary. Let us face it: this is basically a 
theological book. EJ himself suggested it is a kind of theodicy, a defense of 
God in spite of the only too obvious existence of evil in His world. (1) 


As early as in STRAHLUNGEN EJ is convinced that there is a divine power behind 
creation. Moreover, in the war diaries he comes closer and closer to a belief in 
a new life after death. There we finally see clearly what here we sense at best 
only "through a glass, darkly". To explore that border zone which may yield 
glimpses into the Beyond is for him as early as 1942 the "true science" above 
all others. (2) DIE SCHERE is in this sense his most "scientific" book. 


The idea of events foreseen having happened in the past of the visionary is a 
corollary of the idea that there exists an individual consciousness after death. 
The prophet or the man gifted with second sight looks back from a far-away 
future at a future which is closer, i.e. has already come true from that 
far-away point of view. This point of view can very well be beyond the death of 
that particular individual. 


But beyond death there exists no time any more. So the dead will resurrect, if 
they do, not in the presence of the living. Because the living still go under 
the yoke of time. 


All this will make sense to you if you share the foregone conclusion that there 
is a life after death. A life which is radically different from our reality: 
time does not exist and the Divine is revealed.
 

But even if you do not share that foregone conclusion DIE SCHERE might be 
fascinating food for your thought, as it is for mine. For EJ tries to sound the 
sea of death from a shoreline where we can follow him some way out if not all 
the way. He starts out from phenomena we all know and reckon with. To be sure, 
he may arrive at implausible conclusions like the one Gary is taking exception 
to. 


I share Gary'a scepticism in this point; EJ cannot persuade me either that his 
idea is any better than Schopenhauer's rigid concept of the absolute necessity 
of everything that ever happens. 


But in this book I find a host of other conclusions or suggestions which I find 
intriguing and often, by their powerful imagery, unforgettable. 


For example, the other day several school board members in Kansas became known 
to the world because they held that you cannot believe in Darwin and in God 
simultaneously. Maybe they would think differently if they had ever read (and 
comprehended) #144 of DIE SCHERE?




(1) I admit, EJs own wording is much more cautious: "…als Erwägung, ob nicht, 
trotz aller Wirren und allen Unheils der Zeit, sinnvolle, vielleicht sogar 
göttliche Kräfte mitwirken." (SIEBZIG VERWEHT IV, 380, 19 October 1989)



(2) "Das Leben liegt im Tode wie eine kleine grüne Insel im dunklen Meer. Das zu 
ergründen, und sei es auch nur an den Säumen und Brandungsgürteln, heißt wahre 
Wissenschaft, der gegenüber alle Physik und Technik Lappalie bleibt." 
(STRAHLUNGEN, 19 July 1942)