GRGR(19): demian metaphysics (- abraxas)

[Lorentzen / Nicklaus]

Jeremy schrieb:

> p. 403 "ready to accept Hitler on the basis of Demian-metaphysics": my
> memory of Demian is a bit hazy -- anyone care to expand on it?

  sure. "demian. die geschichte einer jugend von emil sinclair", novel by   
  hermann hesse (1977-1962), written in 1917, published in 1919. anonymously,   
  hesse wanted to test whether the book would work without his name. it did.   
  received the fontane preis. personally i was, like in the case of "der   
  steppenwolf" [1927], the novel leary used as inspiration for his psychedelic  
  arrangements, quite impressed by the book when i was 15 or so. really had the 
  feeling of being introduced to something very important. in those days, early 
  80s, lots of people my age were reading hesse. the aesthetic qualities of the 
  text nevertheless might be limited. the name sinclair refers to one of   
  hölderlin's friends. [- this i got, like most of the following summary, from 
  the old edition of "kindlers literaturlexikon"].
  the pupil emil sinclair, seeking his higher self & suffering from the 
  conventions of society, meets demian, who's a few years older & more 
  experienced. demian teaches sinclair a kind of nietzschean amor fati (- in 
  "der steppenwolf" nietzsche's influence is more dominating than here). helps  
  him with problems of puberty. one day emil sinclair finds in one of his school 
  books a note saying: "the bird fights itself out of the egg. the egg is the 
  world. the one who wants to be born has to destroy a world. the bird flies to 
  god. the god is named abraxas". (- right, this is also the title of santana's 
  best record, 1970). in search for this abraxas sinclair meets the organ player 
  pistorius who understands sinclair's dreams & tells him about the mystical 
  god who unites the divine & the develish, the male & the female, the human & 
  the animal, good & evil. near the end of the novel, after a number of mystical 
  events, sinclair seems to experience abraxas in contact to demian. & in 
  contact to demian's mother eva. she, who serves as a virtual mother & virtual 
  lover alike, is to sinclair a kind of anima figure. he experiences her as a 
  "symbol of his inner being". but then it's not her desired presence but a 
  projectile from ww 1 that's, by hurting him seriously, finishing the great 
  work of re-creation. once more sinclair meets demian in the war hospital. 
  demian's kiss, also transmitting the one of eva, is sealing the initiation. 
  it's this catastrophy affirming war metaphysics (- & perhaps also the fact 
  that the last word of the text is "führer") which makes p's connecting to 
  hitler somehow plausible. post crimen.   
  abraxas: a secret name of god. its letters do count in greek counting to 365, 
  the numbers of days in a year. the seven letters of the word can also be put 
  in relation to the seven ("classical") planets & to the seven days of the 
  week, a cultural form we received from babylon.
  in "demian" hesse is modelling healing experiences he made with c.g. jung, to 
  whom he, i think, went as a client (- keith?). jung is quoted in the notes in 
  my demian paperback edition. he compares the book's influence with "the light 
  of a lighthouse in a stormy night". in his "septem sermones ad mortuos" 
  [1916], given as a private printing to friends (- &, probably, also to hesse & 
  other interested cultural workers) & re-printed in the german edition of 
  "memories, dreams, thoughts" (- also in the gnosis reader edited by 
  sloterdijk/macho), jung writes, among other things, about abraxas 
  [m.o.p.a.t.]:
  "the abraxas is effect, nothing is against him but the unreal, so he can 
  realize fully his creative nature. the unreal is not & does not resist. the 
  abraxas is standing above the sun & above the devil. abraxas is the improbable 
  probable, the non-effective effecting. if pleroma would have an essence, 
  abraxas would be its pointing out. 
  though he is the effecting itself, he is no special effect, but effect as 
  such.
  he is unreally realizing, because he has no special effect.
  he is also creature, because he is differenciated out of the pleroma.
  the sun has a special effect, also the devil, - that's why they seem to be 
  much more effectful than the undeterminable abraxas.
  he is power, lastingness, change.
  (...)
  the abraxas is the god which is difficult to recognize. his power is the 
  greatest, because man does not see it. from the sun he sees the summum bonum, 
  from the devil the infimum malum, but from abraxas the in all perspectives 
  undeterminable l i f e, which is the mother of the good & the evil. (...) the 
  abraxas is sun & also the always sucking mouth of emptiness, of the minimizer 
  & up cutter, of the devil. 
  the power of abraxas is two-folded. but you don't see it, because in your eyes 
  the contradictive of this power is neutralizing itself.
  what god sun speaks is life,
  what the devil speaks is death.
  but the abraxas speaks the honorable & dammed word, which is life & death at 
  the same time. 
  (...)
  he is the revealed contradiction of the creature against the pleroma & he is 
  its nothing.
  he is the horror of the son in front of the mother.
  he is the mother's love for the son.
  he is the joy of earth & the cruelty of heaven.
  (...)
  the human being is a gate, through which you from the outer world of gods, 
  demons & souls are stepping into the inner world, from the greater to the 
  smaller world. small & idle is the human being, right away you have him in the 
  back &, again, you are in the infinete space, in the smaller or inner 
  infinity.
  in unmeasurable distance stands a single star in the zenith.
  this is the one god of this one, this is his world, his pleroma, his divinity.
  in this world the human being is the abraxas, who gives birth to his world or 
  does swallow it. 
  (...)".
  at the very end of his text, jung gives us an anagramma which, as far as i 
  know, has still not been decoded yet. you may have a try yourself:
  "nahtriheccunde
   gahinneverahtunin
   zehgessurklach
   zunnus".

  archetypecally yours, kai