[email protected] wrote:
>
> Ernst Juenger, Die Schere
>
> > 29
> >
> > Der Vorschauer nahm also zwei Mal an seinem Begräbnis teil: zunächst in
> > der Schau, als er am Fenster stand, dann in der Wirklichkeit. Das
> > Verhältnis hat sich verschränkt: die Schere der Atropos, vorerst in der
> > Potenz gesehen, wirkte nun in actusie schnitt zu. Doch das tut dem
> > Vorschauer nicht mehr weh.
> >
>
> 29
> The pre-visionary thus attended twice his own funeral, once while standing
at
> the window, then in reality. The relation has interlocked, the scissors
of
> Atropos, at first seen in its potential, then took effect in actu - the
> scissors cut. But the visionary is hurt no more.
>
And the meaning? Again I think EJ is in difficulty, because the seer
cannot really know the truth of his vision until it becomes real, and
then when it does he can only say, "I foresaw this!" His memory might
change in the process, the vague presentiment shaping itself distinctly
into what has just occurred.
"Doch tut dem Vorschaeur nicht mehr Weh." So in this case the Shears do not
hurt in action but perhaps they do in the preview of their future action,
that is, when the visionary is made to understand what his end will be, that
it will be. Seeing the inevitability of an event is when the pain begins -
and it continues until fully accepted, which in the case of death is
probably an instant before it actually happens. For most of us. The most
self-evident and yet the most difficult lesson of all to accept. It takes no
visionary quality to know that one will die - but now I digress too far...
le will hardly believe the seer at either end: either the present
("X is going to happen") or the future ("I foresaw that X would
happen"). In the case of his own funeral, the seer cannot complete the
loop except to himself. When he dies, he cannot say to the world, "I
knew this would happen!" And if he perceives anything of his funeral,
he has to keep quiet about it. So Jünger is only theorizing that such
things do happen, even though they can't be demonstrated.
I am at all not sure that "theorizing" is the right word - shamans and other
types of mystics have experience of both their coming and going into the
world. In fact, shamans die and return to life at will, according to their
reports. I think we misunderstand the real, experiential side of Junger's
wisdom. This is a man who learns equally from doing as from reading and
thinking. In fact, I think the mystical side of Junger is wholly
underestimated, or better, completely overlooked. It is fundamental.
Since I am no different from anyone else, in that I think I have certain
presentiments of things, I have to go along with him. My experience has
almost always been that the vision or preview presents itself as
something trivial, a flash, a stray thought. Then when the thing
happens it is recalled as something significant, even monumental. But
that means that possibly there were a whole lot of other trivial, stray
images that never led to anything, were not recalled and vanished in
oblivion. So was the vision a preview, or a lucky hit?
The seeming significance of the vision may derive entirely from it having
been one among many that were entirely forgotten and therefore not
recognized in their moment of realization. A presentiment of a trivial
detail will seem monumental in its "happening" if only because the
experience powerfully impresses upon us the link between future and present
and our relative lack of free will, or, conversely, the force of destiny.
This metaphysical lesson is as powerful if it concerns the corpse or the
little fish swimming around it. As Junger implies, the verification of the
detail tells us that much more important things were also pre-established
without our choice.
Perhaps the insignificant details are even more educational since they are
more neutral in their happening - one speculates more easily on the
weirdness of the foreseen trivia than on one's foreseen car accident whose
at-that-moment gravity will swamp one's consciousness.
Thomas Friese
Association Eumeswil
Vancouver, Canada - Florence, Italy
"I am not a nonbeliever, but a man who demands something worth believing in.
On this point, I am like a bride in her chamber: she listens for the softest
step."
Ernst Juenger, Eumeswil
