by Ernst Jünger
My complaint is not housed in my brain. It is lodged in my body and, beyond that, in society — the cause of my illness. I can do something about it only when I have isolated myself from society. Perhaps society itself will help by casting me out. Perhaps I will soon be interned. I am still cautious, even with Bertha. I also have to pay heed to my soliloquies — when I recently said, "But I want to enter a prison, not a sanatorium," she was momentarily taken aback.
In a cell, I could keep elaborating, working on the material without disruptions from the outside. Whether or not this effort will produce results is beside the point; I watch over and preserve the treasure in the cave, in solitude — all by myself. Then I could step forth like an anchorite from his fantastic world. However, my reclusion would be closer to fiction, to poetry, and stronger than actual events.
Let the world go under; it is mine, I destroy it in myself. As the skipper, I could steer the ship into the reef — this would not mean awakening, it would mean sinking to a new depth of dreaming. The cargo would then be all mine. Even Alexander was more powerful in his dreams than at Issus — India was not enough for him.
Something flies up, riches pour in. I have to decide how to cope with them. But it shall not be in Aladdin's manner.
78
Headaches, seizures, visions, strange voices, unexpected encounters, voluntary or forced isolation. Madhouses are the monasteries of our world. Whatever happens in laboratories is the work of the lay brothers and nothing more.
The lay brothers carry out orders; they know not what they do. Even in the realm of great politics, where millions of lives are at stake, the wretchedness of the actors is obvious. By what principles are they selected?
Aladdin was the son of a tailor in one of the countless cities of China, a playful boy — but only he could dig out the treasure. How was it that the Mauretanian, a man of profound knowledge, could hit upon this dreamer? He employed magical writings, the sandbox, mantic and astrological skills.
I do not regard Phares as a magus. I am unsettled by him, but I do not feel damaged. Naturally, we become suspicious when someone walks in and offers us a blank check. This is a major theme in fairy tales, legends, and religion. The issue is the decision between mental and physical, between spiritual and concrete power — in a word, the issue is salvation.
Perhaps it was an ordeal for which Phares led me into his grotto. It bordered on the Terrestra territory; the walk or the vision must have occurred at the time that the business with the dead left me extremely dissatisfied. Incidentally, our treasure chambers cannot be compared to Aladdin's — they are bursting with energy. Aladdin's lamp was made ofpewter or copper, perhaps merely clay. Galland's text reports nothing about this matter — all we learn is that the lamp hung from a grotto ceiling. It was not lit, but rubbed, to make the genie appear. He could put up palaces or wipe out cities overnight, whatever the master of the lamp commanded. The lamp guaranteed dominion as far as the frontiers of the traveled world from China to Mauritania. Aladdin preferred the life of a minor despot. Our lamp is made ofuranium. It establishes the same problem: power streaming toward us titanically.
79
So Phares is no magus? Then what is he? Perhaps a suggester of extraordinary power? He shows a pebble and transforms it into gold. Yet does not every pebble contain gold just as every woman contains Helen of Troy? All we have to do is advance to the godhead.
We must also ponder whether we are dealing with auto-suggestion. A deep desire projects its dream image into the world. It intensifies, supplants, concentrates reality. For the people around you, you become a pathological case, unless you convince them. They even desire this.
Genesis must be based on very ancient lore. Reading it is like looking at a new building constructed on the ruins, and with the rubble, of a pre-Babylonian palace. We can leave Jehovah aside. But the rib that could not have been made up. Adam is the perfect human being, neither male nor female, but androgynous like the angels — he had the female branch off from him as a dream image. Our desire is merely the perception of loss — a shadow of that first desire, which bore fruit.
80
A nebulous yearning for other worlds is as ancient as man himself. Today it has technological features; our expectations of alien guests and their landing have been haunting our imaginations for some time now. We must take this seriously, firstly as a symptom.
Bizarre aircraft are depicted, challenged, exposed as mirages. They serve as a bait and a mechanism for the imagination; on the other hand, they indicate wishful thinking. The automatic apparatus is consistent with the spirit of the times. The end of the world, a vision at every millennium, likewise presents itself as a technological catastrophe.
How bizarre that alien guests are expected now of all times, when astronomical investigations seem to have demonstrated that the stars not only are not, but cannot be, inhabited. This simply indicates the depth of our yearning. People feel more and more strongly that pure power and the enjoyment of technology leave them unsatisfied. They miss what used to be angels and what angels gave them.
A propos, I do not think that technology contradicts the great change. It will lead to the wall of time and it will be intrinsically transformed. Rockets are not destined for alien worlds, their purpose is to shake the old faith; its hereafter has been shown wanting.
81
My encounter with Phares was preceded by a growing disquiet or agitation. The disturbances were both optical and acoustic. We must distinguish between the external and the internal images that we regard as mirages; yet they can assume shapes that ultimately convince. In the deserts, the transition was produced by mortification of the flesh. In my case, it was involuntary; I had lost my appetite long ago. For years, I have been convinced that we are living in a desert, with technology contributing more and more to its size and monotony. And, incidentally, that the imagination is provoked by monotony.
Whenever I was writing, at the Terrestra office or, even better, at home, and I closed my eyes, the afterimage of the page and its letters appeared to my mind's eye. This is a universal experience; the script becomes illegible, it looks ornamental.
However, the sentences that appeared to me were legible, yet they did not correspond to my text — communications virtually dictated in automatic writing. They were mostly unpleasant. "Your hands are dirty" or: "The dogs are calling you." Also: "Think of Liegnitz" and: "You misunderstood Bertha." Often I could not tell whether I was hearing or reading these things.
It was the same with the visions: they followed a mental clouding that turned into daydreams. Gradually, everyday life became less persuasive and dreams more so.
I sensed a world to which Phares would lead me, and I heard his voice: "Soon you will learn what you do not know yet."
82
Why did he address me of all people? Were there contacts? I recall the Liegnitz park and my basic nihilistic mood. Nihilism must not be followed by any new idealism — it would be doomed from the very outset or it would lead, at best, into a romantic cul-de-sac. The break must be radical.
And then the world of graves. I have noticed that constant dealings with the dead lend a spiritualistic aura to even the lower forms ofwork. This aura has concentrated, perhaps partly because Terrestra succeeded as something more than simply an extension of Pietas. Graves are the beginning of humanity and not just of culture.
Be that as it may, my encounter with Phares must have been prepared, albeit in a dreamlike way. As we exchanged greetings, I already had a strong sense of déja-vu.
83
Happiness is imparted to us only fleetingly. In euphoria, time passes us without a trace; it is annihilated by high degrees of pleasure and knowledge. On the other hand, pain and time are inseparably blended. This touches on the imperfectness of Creation; the religions have recognized this. A few blame the gods, others mankind, still others fate. We live in a world without peace.
How was it that the moments of happiness in Phares's garden increased? I
almost said, "expanded" — but that is not the apt word; bliss knows no measurable time.
I should have been surprised that the garden had trees and flowers, but not animals. Phares said: "We can integrate them, but we do not bother." Now whom did he mean by that "we"? Himself and his ilk or even himself and me?
If the garden had no animals — then why blossoms in their marvelous splendor, such as one senses behind the rose and the hibiscus shortly after awakening? The garden lacked bees and butterflies, for which their labella and calyxes are formed, and even the pollinating wind. Perhaps it was the fragrance that united them, or else they faced one another like magnetic mirrors. I could sense their strength even in the darkness, indeed more sharply then.
"Phares said" — but did he actually speak? I saw him move his lips, I could understand him from far away, in thunderstorms and naturally also in dreams, with my inner ear. So I do not know whether I heard him or whether he spoke. I mused about it for a long time and my guess is that he knows the primal text, of which all human as well as animal languages are merely translations or effusions. As are the rustling of forests and the murmuring of wellsprings; the souls of plants are still closest to the divine world. They convince as metaphors.
Phares probably aims at bridging, if not overcoming, dualism and reaching back through the dichotomies including the divisions into plants and animals or into sexes; but first, the foundations of good and evil had to be shaken. Then the barrier between men and gods could also collapse.
I could already feel that our encounter satisfied my nihilism. I could tell by symptoms too — especially a new affection that both surprised and delighted Bertha and me. It was as if we had never known one another before.
I noticed in general that the people I dealt with as well as strangers I encountered in the street had more to say to me than a bit earlier. And even Terrestra appeared to me, indeed in a new light, as a worthwhile task.
84
My being animated by a new spirit is something I perceive in the fact that I have jumped ahead, for I am still with my problem — say, with the decisions demanded of us by the power that streams toward us. Aladdin could limit himself to comfort; with Budur he had nothing more than a happy marriage. That is how simple minds behave: they remain untouched by stronger temptation. Even concern about society, say, "the welfare of the fatherland," on which they could focus their power, is alien to them. I thought about that, albeit only for an instant, but my nihilism leads to other considerations.
A description that designates itself as a problem can offer no solution. Deeds and images still attack one another. "I am in action," Jellicoe radioed to the Admiralty when it demanded reports from him during the naval battle.
Today, solutions are really white lies, for they do not belong within the framework of our times: perfection is not their task. The approach can only be gradual. Aladdin's problem was power with its delights and dangers; yet it seemed to me that Phares had nothing in common with the genie of the lamp. It makes a difference whether demons or messengers knock at the door.
85
The initial contact was fairly banal; it resulted from one of the letters that arrived at Terrestra. The precipitous development of the firm required more and more advertising for open positions. It is an old experience that mid-level positions are easy to fill. But top-level positions are a different story. The China market had soon reached first place. It began with inquiries and orders from the peripheral areas: Taiwan, Korea, Singapore, scattered communities in South East Asia, New York's Chinatown. Plus the Chinese restaurants, the silk and porcelain boutiques in all the big cities around the world. Their proprietors along with their staffs wanted to do something for themselves and their ancestors. A coffin was once again considered a nice present.
Then, with the return to capitalism and the loosening of borders, the flood of mail came from the Middle Kingdom itself. It was overwhelming. We needed a senior executive who both had special experience and was a genius at planning.
In such cases, it is hard to choose. Some people waste their time and energy on secondary stipulations, others wreak havoc with outlandish ideas. The category to which each belonged was usually apparent in the applications, which were read by various people in the company, including graphologists; I received the digests.
Thus, Phares's application likewise reached my desk after being routed through numerous offices. Good knowledge of languages, many years in the Far East, excellent penmanship. Several passages were painted in ideograms. This was not unusual, for some of the applicants were Chinese. We had special readers for them.
The question about nationality was answered with: "Cosmopolitan." Place of residence: "Adler's Hotel." While, or rather before, reading it, I saw that the letter was addressed to me personally. The impression was that of an afterimage: we close our eyes, and the inner text appears. I read it like a painting and discovered unmistakable engrams — for instance, among the positions previously held: "Landscape gardener in Liegnitz, Silesia." Some details could be known only to Bertha and myself, others to myself alone.
I remembered the signs as if I had carved them into a tree trunk years ago. Now they became visible; I did not notice that they were in the Chinese text. But I grew more and more dumbfounded as I read the letter if it was a dream, then it was no ordinary one. It dawned on me that I could not invite the sender to come to my office, for I was the recipient of the invitation — so I immediately dropped what I was doing and walked through the Tiergarten to Adler's Hotel. It was a spring morning, and I was gratuitously cheerful — elated.
Wilflingen, January 6, 1982
AFTERWORD
The Parable
of Aladdin's Problem
BY MARTIN MEYER
A major influence on the German novelist Ernst Junger was the philosophy of Swedenborg, who presented his cosmic spirituality in De commercio animae et corpods (1769): God must envelop all spiritual things in visible garments, for that is the only way a finite human being can perceive the intention of Creation. Hence, matter must also be viewed as the reflection of the spiritual. The soul is the organ that must forge the link between the phenomena and their divine origin — but it can only be the soul of an initiate, whose "internal breathing" carries thoughts. In this manner, the mystical experience ofin-tuition "reconstructs" the primal images. What we have here is the neo-Platonic notion ofthe soul.
Junger, haunted by the issue of matter in the modern materialistic world, rejected any metaphysical deprecation of that concept. And that was the start of the "problem" — a term he even considered worthy of being used in a title: Aladdin's Problem, initially published in 1983. At first, this brief four-part novel seems to have little to do with a metaphysical "appreciation" of matter. In his habitual way, the author introduces a first-person narrator who, although not yet forty, has already dealt with and transcended a number of experiences. Friedrich Baroh begins his story by mentioning a "problem," one that bedevils him, casting gloom on his existence. He is forced to spend more and more time mulling over it, whereby his everyday life becomes secondary to this preoccupation. He therefore recalls his past, filling us in on his background. However, we learn nothing about the nature of his problem.
Baroh has served in the Polish People's Army — originally as a soldier, bullied by a vicious sergeant; then as an officer. In the military, he makes no waves, living as what Junger labels an "anarch," conforming unenthusiastically to the system; he spends quiet hours with a friend, a Polish officer, meditating on historical events and on their causes and premises. One day, Baroh flees to the West, where he attends university, marries, and eventually becomes an executive trainee in his uncle's funeral parlor.
After realizing that people without history have no peace and that even our graves fit in with the "chauffeur style," Baroh attempts to compensate for this lack. He starts deepening his knowledge of funeral customs and — in "a countermove to the motor world" — he founds Terrestra. His firm offers interested clients r
esting places for all eternity, permanent gravesites. Terrestra buys an extensive and intricate catacomb system in Anatolia; and before long, business is booming. "A primal instinct was rearoused."
But ultimately, success merely increases Baroh's frustration, and the fewer the demands placed on him, the more his problem gains the upper hand. In the last part of the novel, he admits, or at least hints at, the location of his pain.
My complaint is not housed in my brain. It is lodged in my body and, beyond that, in society — the cause of my illness. I can do something about it only when I have isolated myself from society. Perhaps I will soon be interned.
Baroh is spared this fate not only by camouflaging his existence as an outsider. In the end, he also finds salvation. He tells about "messengers" knocking on the door. The response to his vague yearning for the absolute are voices and inspirations.
Something wishes to alight — an eagle, a nutcracker, a wren, a jester? Why near me of all people? Perhaps a vulture — I have liver problems now too.
The delicately ironical allusion to myth does not cloak the issue for long. Baroh, now living in an expectant mood, receives a letter of application from a man named Phares. He knows — although he cannot really know it — that this person will initiate him into the mysteries of a world that conceals meaning behind the phenomena. For Phares, we are told, is conversant with the "primal text, of which all human as well as animal languages are merely translations or effusions."
Now we understand what this "problem" is all about: the narrator is tormented by the both personal and social dilemma of having to live in a nihilistic culture that, in the wealth of available knowledge, has lost all connection to "meaning": "Aladdin's problem was power with its delights and dangers." And also: "Aladdin too was an erotic nihilist...."