Occult & Esoterica
[ALKSNIS, Gunnar] Chthonic Gnosis. Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All (Auric Edition of 80 copies)
[ALKSNIS, Gunnar] Chthonic Gnosis. Ludwig Klages and his Quest for the Pandaemonic All (Auric Edition of 80 copies)
Munich: Theion Publishing, 2015. First Edition. Hardcover. Small quarto. 207pp. Auric Edition hand-bound in full "Kosmic Blue" leather (looks black) complemented by a consecrated silver talismanic pendant in the shape of a three-legged spinning, rotating sun wheel spraying telesmatic light, to front panel, enclosed within a blind-stamped border. Same border design to back panel. Limited to 80 hand-numbered copies, this being No. 50. With b&w photographs. A near fine copy.
This groundbreaking release is the first authoritative work on Ludwig Klages and his pagan metaphysics ever to be published in English. Without a doubt Klages is one of the most intriguing and enigmatic pagan thinkers of the early 20th Century. A figure of great controversy he radically rejected Christianity and Monotheism in favor of a pan-daemonic paganism. Advocating the return to primordial states of consciousness through magico-erotic encounters with the living powers of the ensouled cosmos, Klages was a driving force in the notorious Cosmic Circle of German mystics. Masterfully expounding his vision of daemonic Life in disciplines as diverse as philosophy, poetry, metaphysics, psychology and graphology, he influenced many important contemporaries such as Hermann Hesse, Walter Benjamin and the Frankfurt School, C.G. Jung, Martin Heidegger and others. The work of esoteric teachers such as Lama Anagarika Govinda, Michael Bertiaux and David Beth has been deeply inspired by the magical antinomian biocentrism of Klages. Misinterpreted, vilified and slandered, this great heretic and ‘high priest of the irrational’ remains virtually unknown in the English speaking world although his work may have never been more relevant.