Ernst Jünger: DIE SCHERE #28
Zu meditieren ist folgendes: Was geschieht, wenn die Schleife sich nicht
zum Knoten schürztdas heißt, wenn der Ausflug in die Zukunft, ohne zur
Gegenwart zurückzukehren, im Unvermessenen bleibt? Das wäre denkbar,
wenn der Vorschauer stürbe, ehe sich ihm sein Gesicht verwirklicht hat.
Zu den Einzelheiten des zukünftigen Erlebens hat auch seine Gegenwart,
seine Teilnahme gezählt. Demnach müßte, falls sich die Schau in der Zeit
bestätigt, seine Gegenwart unumgänglich sein.
Nicht selten wird das eigene Begräbnis in der Vorschau erlebt. Mit dem
Tode des Vorschauers verschränkt sich das Verhältnis: damals entsandte
er seine geistige Person zu einem zukünftigen Ereignis, nun kehrt sie
zur physischen Gegenwart zurück. Die Teilnahme verstärkt sich zur
doppelten Präsenz, vielleicht der üblichen.
Zwei Begräbnisse. Das erste lag in der Zukunft: an ihm nahm der
Vorschauer als Lebender teil. Das zweite ist gegenwärtig; es wiederholt
sich in den Einzelheiten zu denen auch die Anwesenheit des Vorschauers
gehört. Sie kündet sich durch ein tieferes Schweigen an. Nun wird es
nicht mehr ihm, sondern den Umstehenden unheimlich. Beide Mal ist es,
als ob er von irgendwoher auf Urlaub zurückkehrte.
DIE SCHERE #28: Thomas Friese's Translation
For meditation: what happens when the loop is not tied, that is,
when an
excursion into the future does not return to the present but remains in the
incommensurable. This would be thinkable, if the seer died before his
vision
was realized before him. The presence and participation of the seer must be
one of the details of the future episode. Consequently, if the vision is to
take place in time, his presence is indispensable.
Not infrequently will one's own burial be experienced in vision.
With the
death of the seer, the relationship is crossed: if, in that moment, he had
dispatched his spirit to a future event, it would now return to the
physical
present. The participation is strengthened by the doubled presence; perhaps
this is a commonplace.
Two burials. The first lies in the future: the seer participates as
a
living being. The second is now; it repeats itself in the details which
naturally include the presence of the seer. A more profound silence
announces it. But this time, it is uncanny not for the subject but for the
bystanders. In one case as in the other, it is as if he is returning from a
holiday somewhere.
Notes: does "Immerhin hat sich ein Knoten geschürzt" translate better in
the
colloquial "The plot has thickened"? I think not - comments? (I think you
are right, Thomas, because the idea is here to describe a trajectory that
returned to its starting point. G.R.)
DIE SCHERE #28: Notes
Up to now EJ has quite effectively prepared the reader for facing phenomena
wich are both uncanny and important for his quest for the meaning of life
and death. He refrains from trying to explain them, much less to explain
them away. Their uncanniness is a signal for him to keep at a respectful
distance. "The following should be meditated upon" sounds like an order to
himself to stick this respectful attitude. Moreover, he still labels his
reflections as "play of ideas" (Gedankenspiel): "das wäre denkbar".
Strange as those phenomena may be they do have an inherent logic of their
own. The Vorschauer, when witnessing a future event in his anticipating
vision, also must witness his own presence at the event. Ergo, when his
vision eventually happens in reality, he must be present, too.
This logic gets a weird twist when, as it is quite often the case, the
anticipated event is the Vorschauer's own burial. In his vision of this
event he sent out his spiritual self to witness it. Now, at his real
burial, his spiritual self returns (EJ does not say, from where) to witness
the burial for the second time. Now the Vorschauer is present in two ways:
physically, as the corpse, and spiritually, as the witnessing "eye". To be
sure, in everyday situations being there both physically and spiritually is
the usual way of being present (EJ qualifies ironically that "maybe" it is
the usual way). In the case of that burial, however, it is something
weirdly unusual and uncanny. The mourners, having been told by the deceased
long ago that he had seen his own burial in his Vorschau and them being
present at it, must now be aware of this double presence. They respond with
an silence more profound than usual. It is no longer the Vorschauer but
his mourners who sense the strangeness of the situation.
Both times, after his vision of his own burial, and during his actual
burial, the Vorschauer seems to be coming home from being on leave
"somewhere" in an uncharted dimension of reality. "The undiscovered country
from whose bourn no traveller returns": EJ seems to have found here an
exception to the rule which Hamlet believed to be absolute and
unquestionable even though he had seen the spirit of his father return to
our reality.
Günter Rebing
