Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume I (Collected Short Stories by Hanns Heinz Ewers)

by Hanns Heinz Ewers

  Hanns Heinz Ewers

  Volume I

  By

  Joe E. Bandel

  Hanns Heinz Ewers

  In Print

  Anarchist Knight:Apprentice

  Magister Templi

  Modern Survivalism

  Alraune

  The Sorcerer’s Apprentice

  Hanns Heinz Ewers Brevier

  Hanns Heinz Ewers Volume II

  Hanns Heinz Ewers Illustrated Stories

  The Synagogue of Satan

  Book of Shadows

  Coming Soon!

  Vampire

  Fundvogel

  Hanns Heinz Ewers

  Volume III

  Translation by Joe Bandel

  Copyright 2009 by Joe E. Bandel

  All Rights Reserved

  Bandel Books

  2nd Revision 2014

  This book is dedicated to my children and step-children., Lyssa, Crystal, Whitney, Dylan, Sarah and Jason. Dreams can come true. Even if it is four pages at a time. Don’t ever give up!

  Visit

  Anarchist World

  on the web at

  http://anarchistworld.com

  Der gekreuzigte Tannhäuser 1901

  Die Knopfsammlung 1902

  Delphi 1904

  Die blauen Indianer 1908

  Die Spinne 1908

  Der Tod des Barons Jesus Maria von Friedel 1908

  Mein Begräbnis 1910

  Anthropoovaropartus 1910

  Die Kurve 1910

  Bibelbilli 1910

  Meine Mutter, die Hex 1922

  Sibylla Madruzzo (from Der Zauberlehrling)

  Intoxication and Art

  Edgar Allen Poe

  Hanns Heinz Ewers

  Volume I

  Translated

  by

  Joe E. Bandel

  Hanns Heinz Ewers

  Hanns Heinz Ewers was born in Düsseldorf Germany on 3 November 1871. Both of his parents were artists. His father was a painter and a singer. His mother was a painter and a gifted storyteller. He, himself, was a writer, poet, playwright, filmmaker and comedian.

  His film, The Student of Prague, was the first film ever to make use of a double. His most famous novel, Alraune, has been translated into twenty languages and made into a film five times. He is mostly known as a horror writer in the tradition of Edgar Allan Poe.

  Why then have most people not heard of him?

  The easy answer is that he was a strong supporter of German nationalism during the Second World War even though he was also a strong supporter of the Jewish cause as well. In the end Ewers books were banned in Nazi Germany and he died in 1943 persona non grata in poverty.

  After the war his Nazi affiliation caused his literary works to be shunned and he has been largely forgotten.

  This is the easy answer. The harder and more accurate answer is very complex because he was a very complex person. As I translate more of his material I will try to find more answers to the life of this very interesting person as well.

  [Translator’s note: This 2nd revision corrects some needed errors, changes the title The Crucified Minstral to The Crucified Clown and adds Sibylla Madruzzo which is taken from The Sorcerer’s Apprentice and published as a short story in Geschichten des Grauens. This was my first book of German translations and I have learned quite a bit since then.]

  Hanns Heinz Ewers and the Nation of Culture

  In the translation work I’ve done so far some of the most striking things are Hanns Heinz Ewers references to a Nation of Culture that stands over all nations, all races and all religions. It has its own citizens, government and laws. It alone is worthy of the artist’s love, loyalty and creativity.

  How did this sacred dream erode into obsessive German nationalism?

  It is generally accepted that most of his work is autobiographical in nature. Hidden within his stories we can find glimpses into his worldview and into his world. This question has puzzled me and I’ve come to a rather startling conclusion.

  Hanns Heinz Ewers was interested in the occult at an early age. What does this mean? What occult? What did he study? While we may never know the answers completely, we can shed some light on the world in which he lived.

  But first it is worth mentioning the three stages or degrees of occultism in general that comprise the Western Mystery Tradition. The first stage is spiritual work as you attempt to connect with your Higher Self or Holy Guardian Angel as it was sometimes called. It is called the mystical path as well.

  The second stage was the integration of the Shadow and connection with the earth. It is at this stage a person’s fears and demons are confronted and subdued. This is called the magickal path. It is a path of personal empowerment.

  The third stage is group energy work. While the first two stages might be solitary this third stage is never solitary. This is called the Path of Freemasonry or Rosicrucianism. It involves linking with others in some type of hierarchy for a common purpose.

  Ewers like Crowley sought personal empowerment rather than service to others. His shadow aspect shines much more strongly than his spiritual side, but they are both there, as well as his longing to belong, to belong to a Nation of Culture.

  In My Mother the Witch we see that he is firmly an advocate of the Western Mystery Tradition and does not think much of the movement to embrace Eastern thought like the Theosophists were doing.

  The blissful public runs to all these swindlers and enlightened congregations, yet becomes deeply offended when you ask them to believe in witches. They will gladly wrap a sacred Indian cloak around themselves without feeling how strange and unsuited the Indian teachings are to the West.

  They don’t have the slightest idea that the small grain of truth that does lay in these swindles is descended out of the Middle Ages. Let alone that the Middle Ages corrupted the wisdom of the Gnostics who in turn got it from the Chaldeans, the Babylonians and the Akkadians.

  Mother knows all about these devil sects, the Gnostics, Manichaeins, Ophites, Marconists and Priscillians. She knows what they are called and even little things like how they celebrate the memories of their prophets and magicians. She knows their names, Irenaeus, Simon Magus, Apollonius, Valentinian, Marcus, Montanus and others. She knows them well enough to converse about them in Flaubert’s own words.

  In The Eleven Thousand Virgins and the Four Holy Three Kings we find the main character as a Rosicrucian Master deeply knowledgeable about the Early Christian Mysteries.

  My truth radiates from the light of the old Rheinish Masters—When instructing people from California it is easy—I rummaged through all my knowledge, every possible long forgotten and fallen bit of information. I don’t know if everything was right, if I had it all right, but in any case I was making an excellent impression on Finchen.

  That is until I started talking about the Master of the Holy Family and St. Bartholomew’s Altar. With Hawk eyes I referred to Stephen Lochner which contained difficult words in the Liesdorfer School of Speech. A museum attendant couldn’t have done it more beautifully, only more correctly.

  All I really knew was the fellow with the big hole in his leg was St. Rochas and the Lady with the tongs was St. Apollonia who suffered from a toothache. It was so well done that Finchen’s regard for my knowledge climbed to an extraordinary degree.

  I rushed from room to room as the Rosicrucian Master and the portly Bertha whose lover waited at the “Eternal Lamp” valiantly rushed along with.

  In The Sorcerer’s Apprentice we find a d
eep knowledge of Christian mysticism and some of its more bizarre practices.

  Now consider that the Western Mystery Tradition, especially at that time before World War I was strictly initiatic. You learned through initiations. You did not learn through books that you found in your local bookstore or at the public library.

  The Western Mystery Tradition was essentially Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry and Kabalistic studies. Of these Freemasonry was dominant. Someone was always claiming to have a new and higher degree to offer. Secret Orders and societies were everywhere. When you traveled to any place in the world you carried a letter of introduction and instructions on how to meet other Freemasons or Rosicrucians or whatever.

  There were no certificates of initiation. The only proof was to know the correct tokens, gestures and passwords for the appropriate grade you belonged to.

  The York Rite and the Scottish Rite dominated all of the others and the Grand Lodge was in France. The fastest a person could progress through the various degrees was one initiation per year if they were lucky and got the endorsements they needed.

  To say that Hanns Heinz Ewers was a student of the occult and of the Western Mystery Tradition from an early age means that he was in all likely hood both a Rosicrucian and a Freemason, most likely a Scottish Rite Freemason. He was an initiate.

  It is very likely as well that the Nation of Culture he speaks of is either the Rosicrucian Order or Freemasonry or both. They were both truly global, had their own laws and their own governments and were indeed nations of culture.

  Here is what he said in the essay Edgar Allan Poe:

  …Such art can no longer be dressed in nationalistic colors. First of all we need to realize that Poe’s art was not for the people of America, but for the thin cultural layer whether it be German, Japanese, Latin or Jewish. We all wish and believe that no artist creates just for his people but for the entire world.

  Velazquez and Cervantes are as completely unknown to the large masses in Spain as the English writers, Shakespeare and Byron, the French Rabelais and Moliere or the Dutch Rembrandt and Ruben are.

  The German people don’t have the slightest idea who Goethe and Schiller were and have never even heard of Heine. We hear the small blunt questions of soldiers in the regiments, “Who was Bismark? Who was Goethe?” When will blissful blind trust finally open its eyes?

  Entire worlds separate the people of culture in Germany from their fellow countrymen, which they see daily on the street. There is only water that separates them from the people of culture in America.

  …The artist that tries to create for his people strives for the impossible neglecting something much more accessible and higher, to create for the entire world. Over the Germans, over the British, over the French stands a higher nation to create for, the Nation of Culture. It alone is worthy of the artist. The awareness of Poe is as solidly grounded there as Goethe but in a different, not as modern sense.

  …Everything around me and everything that is beautiful on this earth is the sacred everlasting property of the Nation of Culture that stands above the masses. It is ruler. It is owner. The beauty does not speak to anyone else. Understand this command and dare to live. Edgar Allan Poe did.

  Here is what he said in Vampire:

  Was he International? No, that didn’t feel right. There was a higher nation that stood over all peoples, with different citizens, higher, more chivalrous and greater. He called it the Nation of Culture. It belonged to everyone, towered over the masses. He knew it well, had found its citizens in all parts of the world. It existed, those people existed. There was certainly no doubt about it.

  It was so near, you could almost reach out and touch it with your hands. That was yesterday. And today? It was gone, as if it had never existed! There were only Germans, Russians, Frenchmen, Englishmen and they were all mutually killing each other.

  The First World War did bring an end to many of the initiatory organizations that made up the Western Mystery Tradition. There were several efforts to revitalize them and save them but after World War II most of them were lost.

  Of possible interest is John Yarker’s Atient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim. This irregular branch of Speculative Masonry had temples and members around the world. It claimed to teach a more primitive type of masonry than the York or Scottish Rite. The Scottish Rite of course created by Albert Pike was highly kabalistic and supposedly predated the Masonry of the York Rite. Everyone wanted something more primitive. They wanted to go back further and further into the very birth of the human race. They wanted atavistic experiences.

  Theodore Reuss combined the Scottish Rite along with the Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim and created the OTO. In America H, Spencer Lewis created the Rosicrucian Order AMORC after receiving the higher degrees of Memphis-Misraim. The story By Gary Stewart, former Imperator, goes that H. Spencer Lewis first met Theodore Reuss on a ship traveling from France to England. Theodore Reuss was travelling under the name A. Reuss and working as ship’s steward. Could Theodore Reuss have been the mysterious Mr. R that tried to smuggle the Vampire script back to Germany? We may never know. It was a small circle of people that knew each other and trusted each other.

  The higher levels of the Scottish Rite are about being beyond “Good and Evil”. They teach the paradox of how life contains both in equal measure. The light and the dark must be balanced in ourselves and in the world as well. The Scottish Rite is also highly invested in directing the force of the masses in a conscious manner.

  In the writings of Hanns Heinz Ewers we see ample evidence of his deliberately contrasting horror and spirituality, good and evil, male and female. In Vampire we also see a desire to learn how to manipulate the force of the people.

  It would really be good if he could be over there, able to see, to feel, to experience the powerful ocean of the German masses, things that he could only see here in the raised beer glass. The immense power of suggestion, this delirious belief, on a hundred million people. Oh yes, now that could move mountains! That would be truly great! That would be beautiful!

  In just the few stories that I’ve translated so far I see ample evidence that Hanns Heinz Ewers is knowledgeable in the higher concepts of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. That implies initiation!

  Ewers was a known correspondent of Aleister Crowley. Two of his short stories appeared in Crowley’s Equinox, The Box of Counters and The White Maiden. Crowley of course took over the OTO from Theodore Reuss. Both Crowley and Ewers lived in New York during the same time period. They were interested in many of the same things.

  While Crowley credited his literary creativity to “Energized Enthusiasm” or tantric sex practices, Ewers credited his literary creativity to “Intoxication and Art”. It is highly probable that both experimented with various means of attaining the “artistic ecstasy”.

  What I’m trying to create is an image of Hanns Heinz Ewers as a person that never let go of the dream of a Nation of Culture. It was probably the only dream he ever cared about. He most likely sought it through Rosicrucianism, Freemasonry, Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim or the OTO. There is no way to prove it. No records exist but he was familiar with their concepts..

  Hitler’s Germany banned Freemasonry and other occult organisations. Ewers somehow became enmeshed in the dream of the third Reich. Nazi Germany had its own organization. Here is what I think happened.

  Dion Fortune tells us that occultism of the time believed that there was once a lost continent of Atlantis. That continent was destroyed in three stages over thousands of years. During that time three waves of refugees fled the continent and settled in various locations around the world.

  The first wave landed in northern Europe where they founded the Celtic/Germanic shamanistic traditions. The second wave traveled to Asia where they founded the martial arts and Eastern Religions. The last wave traveled to Egypt and were called Hebrews. In this way the Germanic peoples, the Hebrew peoples and the Asian peoples were genetically linked throu
gh their Atlantean ancestors.

  Ewers was always sympathetic to the Jewish cause and thought them equals to the Germanic races. The central core of the Western Mystery Traditions was the Jewish Kabalah. Nazi Germany allied with Japan.

  The Antient and Primitive Rite of Memphis-Misraim moved beyond the Kabalah and began to explore the Germanic and Nordic Mysteries as well. There were studies of the Runes and their hidden meanings. The OTO had already explored the mysteries of sex magick. The mysteries of blood and soil still remained, the Germanic mysteries.

  It is my belief that Hanns Heinz Ewers and others explored these mysteries of “Blood and Soil” and created an entirely new variant of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism based upon their own studies and research. Ewers explored Voodoo and blood rites in different parts of the world and had high contacts within the Third Reich.

  Contrary to popular opinion Nazi Germany studied all religions, all sciences, all spiritual traditions and synthesized them into something new, something that did not exist before. It did not believe in a return to the old ways but something new, something that had never been done before.

  This “Ultimate Freemasonry” was to belong to all those genetically descended out of Atlantis including the Asians and Jews. Its teachings and principles were integrated into the military structure of the third Reich. A strong part of it was “nationalism”. For Ewers this “Ultimate Freemasonry” would recreate the Nation of Culture on a higher level than it had ever existed before. It was a dream of world culture brought about by this new brand of “Ultimate Freemasonry”. This is why he became such a devoted German nationalist!