On The Secret of the Runes, Guido von List.

Let us begin at the very beginning; - with the title of  Guido von List's [GvL] book, 'The Secret of the Runes' [SR]. The original title in German is 'Das Geheimnis der Runen', and in this word 'Geheimnis' [Secret], I believe we have the essence of GvL's runology.












Ø So the occult hides for a good reason:







to *empower!

This is not to be confused with obscurantism, verbiage etc., which only seeks to befuddle and obscure a lack of real power.

The occult seeks to *enhance* the inherent power of its central message by secrecy, by code and by concealment.

This is why it often speaks in terse aphorisms and cryptic rune-staves.




5









GvL was certainly *aware* of the Elder Futhark though, hence his reference to the exclusively Elder runes Eh, Gibor and Othila.


Q. How are these Armanic runes "exclusively Elder"?



A.; In that they were excluded by those who created the Younger 16 stave Futhark from out of the Elder 24 stave Futhark .





GvL used two of these exclusively Elder runes [Eh and Gibor] to add to his version of the Younger so as to make it up to 18 staves for reasons already given [the 18 'songs' of Odin's Rune Tally].





That GvL drew these two extra runes from the Elder is made clear if we look at SR, the page of illustrations at the beginning called by the translator;







'Plate of runic symbols with original illustrations by GvL' etc.,















The very top line has the Armanen Futharkh depicted in a row; the Eh rune has an explanatory bracket, containing two Laf staves, one reversed.



Put together, these make the *Elder* stave form of Eh [GvL says that they are "two bound together by law"].



This is a clear indication that;







1) GvL was aware of the Elder [Common Germanic] Futhark, and that,







2) He derived his additional two runes from that Elder source.



Therefore his Armanen Futhark is a synthetic row, derived in the main from the Younger;







"The Scandinavian 16 stave rune row ... has had great influence in magical traditions through the Armanen Futhark of Guido von List".



[T. Karlsson, 'Uthark' page 26]







"GvL's 'Armanen Runes' are clearly a version of the 16 Mixed Runes that were once used in Scandinavia. All List did was to add two more ... GvL's runes give similar results to those of the Younger Futhark, on which they are based. He also reversed runes by turning them the other way around and thereby gave them additional meanings".



[Nigel Pennick, Runes, Element]


















6

Trifoil









Staying with the book's title, let's look at the title page.

Note that a symbol is placed below the book's title; it is the symbol GvL calls the 'Flamboyant Trifoil'.

This is significant for at least two reasons.

Firstly, it emphasises the importance of what GvL sees as the tripartite nature of Aryandom; secondly, it is a Gothic figure, thereby adverting to GvL's allegiance to the 'Gothic' outlook.

Going back to the import of the triadic, Flowers says forcibly in his introduction to the SR;

"Things to GvL not only had a 'hidden meaning', but ... this occult significance was everywhere threefold".
[SR page 24]

This is all pervasive, as GvL himself writes;

"This ideological classification into three levels;
a) arising,
b) being ...
c) passing away to a new beginning ..."
[ib., page 68-9]

Basic to GvL's own ideology, says Flowers, was a complex triadic conception;

1) The bifidic [split in two] - biune [two in one] dyad [set of two].
2) The trifidic [split in three] - triune [three in one] triad [set of three].
3) The multifidic [split into many] - multiune [many in one] multiplicity [manifold variety of the whole].

This totalising ideology works itself out in the realms of
Cosmology, Sociology, Theology and Language, for example.

GvL uses the old Aryan triad of social castes, calling them by the names that Tacitus mentions in his Germania.

So the ruling caste [i.e., the kings and priests of the nobility] is the Armenen [this is derived from the tribal name Herminonen in Tacitus].
Next is the military caste [Istavaeonen in Tacitus].
Thirdly is the peasantry [the Ingavaeonen in Tacitus].

As Flowers points out, the Edda provides a source for this outlook in the Lay of Rig.

We might discuss the placing of the 'intellentsia' as Flowers has it, above the military, though.

In 'theology', GvL noted the various triads in the Eddic conceptions;
Woden-Wili-Weh; Odin-Thor-Loki etc.,
[see Flowers SR page 23]

In language, GvL uses a system he calls 'Kala' [deriving from the 16 'fractions' of the moon as it waxes and wanes].

As Flowers explains;

"In this [kala] system, each runic sound is put through a
*threefold* permutation in order to yield its hidden meanings on three distinct levels of arising, being, and passing-away to new beginning. These were also the (1) exoteric, (2) esoteric, and (3) Armanic levels of understanding ..."
[ib., page 23-4]

We will come to see that when GvL examines the 18 rune songs, he gives a three part analysis each time in the manner explained above.

Going back to our Trifoil symbol on the title page, we see that it is very apt given this Aryan triadic-obsession.

Also, it is Gothic: that very Germanic stylisation which preceded the Renaissance, and was supposed to relate to the Goths, the Swedish tribe who have been seen by some to have invented the runes.

To GvL many of the runic staves which were not used in the Futharks were transmuted into Gothic ornamentation and heraldry, a theme developed in SR.

Not only that, the Gothic is associated with the macabre, the irrational, and the Dark-side. By emphasising the Gothic in this opening Trifoil, GvL is placing his allegiance to the Left-Hand Path.

All this and more can be derived from that simple symbol on the title-page!










*


7


The Runes and the Runes














List’s Armanen Futhark is a synthetic row, derived in the main from the Younger.





Of course the runes as *mysteries* are prehistoric – they are a "gift" - refer to the rune Gibor itself.







But the point is that the *particular rows* were/are the creation of men at particular times in history.



Pollington has argued this well as regards the 'fit' between the Elder and early Germanic.







So clearly, the rune rows are created in time, whether the Elder Futhark of the Gothic Herulians, the Younger Futhark of the Vikings, the dotted Rows of the Scandinavians, the 33 runes of the Anglo-Saxons, the Adulruna of Bureus, or indeed the 18 stave Futharkh of GvL.







But they *all* show clear derivation from that original Elder row described so well by Pollington - *that* is the template for all variations - even Kosbab's.







Before this deliberate creation of the Elder, there was but a mass of symbols, as we see in the 'Hallristningar' of Bronze Age Scandinavia. It was the genius of one man/group who only some 2 millennia ago invented the particular Order which is the Futhark.










But don't confuse the Runes [i.e., the mysteries, which are timeless] with the Rows [i.e., the staves, which are man-made].


The runes indicate that there was very much a unified ethnic culture which spoke early Germanic and utilised the Elder Futhark.


As that culture spread out, then variations occurred which led to the different languages of Old Norse, Old English, Gothic etc., - and accordingly to the variant futharks.


However, the template was the same - early Germanic and the Elder Futhark.






The source for the rune-staves of the Futhark is the Elder Futhark.


Again, don't confuse the timeless mysteries with the invented staves.






Even in the Havamal, Wuotan does not specify the particular rune row - he sings charms, or power-songs, which are open to wide interpretation.






GvL says that the songs reveal the 16 stave row with two added, whereas Freya Aswynn puts the Elder row to the same rune songs, saying that more than one rune is applicable to each song.


Both GvL and Freya work on inspiration of the mysteries.






However, it is self-deceiving to pretend that the Elder Futhark in terms of its *staves*, was not a human invention in recent historical time.


One thing about Nordic spirituality is that it doesn't have time for the vanities of 'revealed scriptures' and the like.






There are no 'revealed scriptures' in the Nordic spirituality.



There are no Nordic equivalents to Moses, Jesus, Mohammed or Joseph Smith.






Read what Caesar had to say about the Germans of the Elder era.


The Eddas contain old heathen material filtered through, and written down by, *Christian* scribes; even Snorri was a Christian.


Since when were Christians vehicles for the revelation of 'Nordic scripture'?


The very term 'Nordic scripture' is an oxymoron, and is the stuff of pagans who use Christian models to invent their 'Nordic' religions which are just versions of Cross-tianity.




None of these - Eddas, Sagas etc., could be called with any sincerity or sanity, "revealed scriptures".


I think it self-defeating that a so-called religion would need to have its scriptural revelations carried out by the enemies of its faith!


Nordics do not bow down to books - they only bow down to the Sun, the Moon and the Stars.






You could use the word 'revelation' to describe the 'winning' of the runen by Guido von List [despite its Christian connotations], but you could not call GvL's books "revealed scriptures"; he certainly didn't make that case himself - he was more modest than that.






I repeat, there are no equivalents to the Torah, the Bible, or The Koran in Nordic Spirituality; nor should there be - we leave such brainwashing to the Slavish Races.














8











Armanen Runes


On the so-called 'Bible of Aryan Invasions' [which is no longer on the 'net].






I agree that one's heart sings when sadism is imputed to the Aryan races by the Enemy - what a compliment!






I had a similar feeling when reading recently about the practices of the Druids before the Romans put them down [but who was crueler, the mighty Romans of the Druids?].






I was wondering whether these Druids were related to the Germanic priesthood posited by von List, his Armanenschaft.






The whole question of what is actually Kelt and what is German is one that must be pursued in the future.






Going back to the so-called 'Bible of Aryan Invasions' - thanks for reminding me about that source, I read through it some time ago, and had forgotten it - it certainly ranks as one of the greatest back-handed compliments on the 'net.










I tend to go along with Nietzsche on the Vedas - ultimately they are the work of priests.






When I said that Nordic spirituality [and by extension Aryan] has no 'Bibles', I was speaking in the context of those works which are considered 'the word' of 'God', and a word of which cannot be changed.


I said [maybe rashly] that this was alien to the Aryas; it certainly *was* alien to the Nordic Aryans by all accounts.






I was also trying to get away from treating the Eddas as if they were 'our Bible' as the rather cloying New Ager Asatru paint them.






Let's face it, the Eddas are mythological [in the best sense of the word], not theological. They were written down, as we know, by Christians, and so cannot have the kind of "revealed to a Prophet" status that some want to give to them.






But again, I could be wrong - someone may be able to show me that the Eddas are indeed the divine Bible of Nordic Aryans!






One of the reasons I am doing this study of von List is to demonstrate how bad at *reading* so many of the present-day Asatru are - they talk of von List, and yet have not even read a page of his from beginning to end.






The nearest to a Nordic Bible we have is probably Thus Spake Zarathustra [the book by Nietzsche, of course]; and that is a thoroughly ironic suggestion; indeed, it sums up what I take to be the real Aryan attitude to 'Bibles'.


*


I regard notions of purity etc., as goals, rather than absolutes.



It is the Platonic concept of absolutes in general that I recoil against.



But then my philosophy is of Nietzsche, rather than Plato.



Nietzsche said, for example, that "there are no pure races, races only *become* pure".



And it is that sense of 'Becoming' that is all important.



Even at rest [such as sleep], the mind is active in dreaming. It is forever listening and reacting to the rhythms of the blood - diastole systole.

As it says in the Havamal;






Cattle die and kinsmen die,


thyself eke soon wilt die;


but fair fame will fade never,


I ween, for him who wins it.


...


One thing, I wot, will wither never:


the doom over each one dead.







*






Laughter have I pronounced holy; you superior humans, *learn* from me - to laugh! [TSZ IV; 13]


Stephen Flowers [translator of SR] glosses 'Wihinei' as;






"A Listian word for 'religion' in its exoteric level as practiced in ancient times".










GvL himself writes;






"One can never forget that Wuotanism grew out of the intuitive recognition of evolutionary laws in natural life, out of the 'primal laws of nature', and that 'Wihinei' (exoteric religious system) formed by Wuotanism spread a teaching and conducted a mode of living based on the laws of evolution. It set for itself a final goal of bringing into being a noble race ..."


[GVL SR pages 95-96]






*


I would say that shamanism is essentially Aryan; but then my understanding of it is probably not as great as your own.






I tend to think that the Aryans initially used various forms of intoxication [dance, music, liquor, drugs, and orgy] to expand their [already broad] spirits/minds.






They may have given this art of auto-intoxication as a gift to other races, as symbolised in the Prometheus myth.


I would aver that the first and purest Aryans [i.e., the gods/goddesses and heroes] were of great spirit/mind without intoxicants.


Therefore intoxication was always an attempt of those post-the Golden Age Aryans to become like the gods.






Forgive my vagueness on this question - there is much work to be done on it, and I welcome comment from those far more learned than myself on this, especially on the question of Soma amongst the Indo-Aryans etc.,.






Of course, the runes themselves signify a form of this intoxication.










Guido von List certainly sees the Pentagram [he calls it the 'Thruthenfuss'] as an important Aryan symbol.






For him it says 'Return' - a vital Aryan notion, as anything from the Eddas to Nietzsche demonstrates.

A Moral Primer II: A Critique of Nietzschean Ethics

I have said in the first Moral Primer that Nietzsche's position on morality is one of virtue ethics. Here I therefore opine that his moral genealogy is not so successful in its historicist claims, but rather more successful in its affective perspectival dualism.

[The following abbreviations [in brackets] of the works of Nietzsche used in this essay will be in the text with the requisite chapter and section number, while footnotes will refer to the actual translations used which are listed in the Bibliography].

The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, 1872-6 [PPP]

Human All Too Human, 1882 [HA]

The Gay Science, 1882 [GS]

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1883 [TSZ]

Beyond Good and Evil, 1886 [BGE]

On the Genealogy of Morality, 1887 [GM]

The Writings of the Late Notebooks, 1885-8 [WLN]

The Twilight of the Idols, 1889 [TI]

The Antichrist, 1895 [A]

I

The Moral Duality

"Twofold prehistory of good and evil.

"The concept of good and evil has a twofold prehistory:

"firstly in the soul of the ruling tribes and castes ...

"Then, in the soul of the subjected, the powerless ..." [HA 45](1)

Here begins Nietzsche's challenge to the assumption underlying most religions - that of a single 'moral world order', of a 'universal good' and a 'universal evil';

"And philosophers supported the church: the lie of 'the moral world order' runs through the entire development of philosophy, even modern philosophy." [A 26](2)

Instead, to Nietzsche, there are two different moralities which are the products of masters and slaves both respectively and symbiotically; so that morality is viewed in terms of the power relations between rulers and ruled.

Nietzsche's task was how to account for a clear distinction between the two moralities, particularly as he went on to state that, while "there have been very different moralities", morality itself "is the herd-instinct in the individual." [GS 116](3)

Notes:

1) 1986 pp. 36-7

2) 2005B p. 23

3) 2001 p. 115

II

'Good' and 'Bad'

How then can a separate morality of the 'ruling tribes' emerge from out of the gregarious drive to the herd instinct? (4)

Nietzsche will seek to solve this with the following definitive statement;

"While perusing the many subtler and cruder moral codes that have prevailed or still prevail on earth thus far, I found that ...

"two basic types were revealed and a fundamental difference leapt out at me.

"There are master moralities and slave moralities ...

"In the first case, when it is the masters who define the concept 'good' ... 'good' and 'bad' means about the same thing as 'noble' and despicable' ..."

Whereas:

"Slave morality is essentially a morality of utility. It is upon this hearth that the famous opposition 'good' and 'evil' originates ...

"According to slave morality, then, the evil person evokes fear; according to master morality, it is exactly the 'good' person who evokes fear and wants to evoke it, while the 'bad' person is felt to be despicable ...

"Within a slave mentality a good person must in any case be harmless."

[BGE 260](5)

In effect, the two moralities are actually radically different perspectives of the same phenomena: that of the master and slave; one seen from above - the master, and the other seen from below - the slave. The masters regard themselves as 'good' and their slaves as 'bad', while the slaves view their masters as 'evil' and themselves as 'good'. This is called by Nietzsche a 'transvaluation of values'. (6)

Notes:

4) cf. Deleuze, p. 140

5) 1998A pp. 153-6

6) Diethe p. 211

III

Virtue Ethics

Nietzsche claims "that moral value distinctions everywhere are first attributed to people and only later and in a derivative fashion applied to actions." [BGE 260](7)

Therefore he is really making a distinction between two different classes of people more than anything else, and this puts him with the 'virtue ethics' of the ancient Greeks [cf. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics], where "the central questions are about character: what traits of character make a good person?" (8) - and, we might add, a 'bad' person too.

This approach to ethics was eclipsed by the system of Divine Law and its secular version, the 'Moral World Order';

"With the coming of Chrsitianity a new set of ideas was introduced. The Christians like the Jews were monotheists who viewed God as a lawgiver and for them righteous living meant obedience to the divine commandment", (9) an obedience tantamount to slavishness, according to Nietzsche.

How do 'virue ethics' translate into a moral code? Of course, they cannot, as they depend purely on the type of man they are dealing with. As Nietzsche asserted in one of his last works;

"A virtue must be our invention, our most personal defence and need: in every other sense it is merely a danger." [A 11](10)

Notes:

7) 1998A p. 154

8) Rachels p. 159

9) ib. p. 160

10) 2000 p. 12

IV

Master Morality

Essentially, master morality is instinctive; it doesn't look back, it takes joy in struggle and war, it regards inequality as natural and it maintains a strict hierarchy.

The master will have a noble code amongst his equals, but behave ruthlessly towards inferiors. He does note hate, nor does he harbour grievances, as he always acts immediately. He believes that the mass of lower beings ought to serve the elite, and that high art - such as monumental architecture, [TI IX:11](11) should glorify the existence of that elite.

Note:

11) 1998B p. 12

V

Slave Morality

Slave morality would express a reversal of the above positions; being timid, retroactive, pacifist and egalitarian in nature. It would put compassion towards all human beings - 'the greatest happiness of the greatest number', as the Utilitarian would have it - before what it considers to be the luxury of art.

Importantly, slave morality reproaches masters on the basis of 'free will'. The slave says that the master can - and therefore ought to - do other than he does. He could be peaceful and take pity on those he otherwise despises. That he doesn't chose to do this makes him 'evil' in the eyes of the slave [hence Nietzsche's use of the word 'evil' and not 'bad' for this kind of morality].

To the master, this is ridiculous as one can only act according to the dictates of one's character, or 'become what you are'. [EH subtitle] (12)

Note:

12) 2005B p. 69

VI

A History of Morality

 But Nietzsche is not advancing only a psychological/physiological thesis; he is also making a case for an actual historical origin and historical development of two divergent moralities. If this could be shown, then the long-held prejudice of a single moral world order would be undermined and finally done away with - allowing one to pursue one's own morality. Then Nietzsche could prove his assertion that "there is no such thing as moral phenomena, but only a moral interpretation of phenomena." [BGE 108](13)

He will enlarge on the 'twofold prehistory' in his On the Genealogy of Morality, so entitled because moralities are "descended and evolved." (14) 

Here, Nietzsche posits primordial warrior-bands who are the genealogical prototypes of his 'masters', and therefore carriers of the seeds of 'good' and 'bad';

"At the centre of all these noble races we cannot fail to see the blond beast of prey ... avidly prowling round for spoil and victory", [GM I:11](15) who "unscrupulously" lay their "dreadful paws on a populace which, though it might be vastly greater in number, is still shapeless and shifting." [GM II:17](16)

This 'populace' will be enslaved and will in turn create 'good' and 'evil'.

Notes:

13) 1998A p. 64

14) Danto p. 162

15) 1994 p. 25

16) ib. p. 63

VII

The Priest

Given this scenario, a theoretical problem arises: if the slaves are intrinsically herd-like, and dominated by master morality, how are they able to create slave morality and then to exercise it as a system?

Nietzsche finds the solution to this in the figure of the ascetic priest. The priest has power, albeit at first only secondary to the warrior masters. He has therefore a parasitic power as he serves the masters in being able to keep the herd in line with his pia fraus, or 'pious deceit'. [TI VII:5](17)

However, inevitably "the priestly caste and warrior caste confront one another in jealousy and cannot agree on the prize of war." [GM I:7](18)

The priest sees in the herd the potential for achieving victory over the masters - remembering that at this stage slave morality has yet to be created. The enslaved herd is necessarily prone to a particular emotion - that of resentment - or ressentiment, as Nietzsche always uses the French word following Dühring who did the same in his 'The Value of Life' (1865), a book that Nietzsche made a "detailed reading" of in 1875. But whereas Dühring endorsed ressentiment, Nietzsche "had come to see values based on reactive affects like ressentiment as unhealthy and harmful." (19)

As Nietzsche was to say in his Genealogy;

"The beginning of the salves' revolt in morality occurs when ressentiment itself turns creative and gives birth to values: the ressentiment of those beings who, being denied the proper response of action, compensate for it only with imaginary revenge." [GM I:10](20)

The priest unites his cunning with the aforementioned resentment, channelling the latter to use as a weapon with which to defeat the masters. The priest is the "direction-changer of ressentiment." [GM III:15](21) With the mass of the herd now behind them, the priests - "the greatest haters in world-history" [GM I:7](22) - are invincible, and are authors "of the most malignant conspiracy - the conspiracy of the sufferers against the sound and the victorious." [GM III:14](23)

Nietzsche says that this slave revolt actually occurs in history during the Roman Empire with the advent of Christianity which is described as a conspiracy invented by the Jewish priests to overthrow the noble Romans;

"A revolt which has two thousand years of history behind it and which has only been lost sight of because - it was victorious." [GM I:7] (24)

Out of "Jewish hate - the most profound and sublime hate, which creates and changes old values to new creations" came the Christian religion of so-called "love", which "grew out of that hate, as its crown, as its triumphant crown." [GM I:8](25)

Jesus of Nazareth himself was manipulated;

"Has not Israel really obtained the final goal of its sublime revenge, by the torturous paths of this 'Redeemer', for all that he might pose as Israel's adversary and Israel's destroyer?" [GM I:8](26)

And so slave morality is created and then brought to power and remains so to this day.

Notes:

17) 1998B p. 36

18) 1994 p. 18

19) Small p. 106

20) 1994 p. 21

21) ib. p. 99

22) ib. p. 18

23) 2003A p. 88

24) 1994 p. 19

25) 2003A p. 17

26) ib. p. 18

VIII

A Critique of the Genealogy

This makes a gripping narrative, but there are some counter-arguments. For example, while slaves were thought of as inherently "corruptible" and "criminal" by the Roman elite (27), it is also true that apart from the celebrated Spartacus, slave revolts were quite rare in Rome, individual rebelliousness being far more common;

"Rebelliousness, however, must not be confused with notions of class solidarity among slaves, and there is no indication that resistance was fuelled by ideological programmes rooted in the desire to secure radical alteration to the structure of society." (28)

Also, at this time the Jews had long been in contact with Hellenic culture, there being "Jews who ... had two languages and two cultures, like ... the Pharisee Saul-Paul of Tarsus" (29), while "the process of Hellenisation" had "an open and direct influence" on the Jewish priesthood. (30)

The point being that there was not such a clear-cut distinction between the Classical and Judeo-Christian cultures as Nietzsche had it when he wrote;

"Rome against Judea, Judea against Rome." [GM I:16](31)

Notes:

27) Bradley p. 123

28) ib. p. 130

29) Hengel p. 105

30) ib. p. 310

31) 1994 p. 34

IX

The Poetic Truth of the Genealogy

I maintain that the force of Nietzsche's moral theory still depends largely upon its psychological - and poetic - truth, rather than on any historical verity it might have.

If we are dealing with an ethics based on character, as aforesaid, then another problem with Nietzsche's theory of master morality in particular presents itself - i.e., he typifies all morality as a 'self-overcoming' which turns 'against the instincts of life' [TI V passim.](32). So the doubt surfaces as to whether so-called master morality really is a morality, and the concept of two different types of morality therefore collapses. This ambiguity did not escape Nietzsche who often called the exemplars of 'master morality', such as himself and his Zarathustra, "immoralists". [TI V:6](33)

In the poetic treatise Thus Spoke Zarathustra, he wrote that;

A tablet of things held to be good hangs over every people.

Behold, it is a tablet of its overcomings:

behold, it is the voice of its will to power. [TSZ I:15](34)

Notes:

32) 1998B

33) 2005B p. 175

34) 2005A p. 51

X

Morality as Power

 So we return once more to the connections made between morality and Nietzsche's theory of power, which he called the 'will to power' - morality being merely a manifestation of that power;

"The will to power is thus introduced as the will to overcome oneself." (35)

At this point "the will to power is the driving element in all life: 'Where I found a living creature, there I found the will to power' [TSZ II:'On Self-Overcoming']." (36) However, Nietzsche subsequently came to treat the concept far more widely, as if instinctively returning to the Pre-Platonic notion of an arche. [PPP VI](37)

In BGE he explains his reasoning for this step, adverting to what Danto (38)[called his 'method of parsimony';

"Assuming that nothing real is 'given' to us apart from our world of desires and passions ... may we not ... ask whether this 'given' also provides a sufficient explanation for the so-called mechanistic [or 'material'] world? ... as a world with the level of reality that our emotion has - that is, as a more rudimentary form of the world of emotions, holding everything in a powerful unity ... as a preliminary form of life?

"We are commanded to do so by the conscience of our method: we must not assume that there are several sorts of causality until we have tested the possibility that one alone will suffice ...

"Assuming, finally, that we could explain our entire instinctual life as the development and differentiation of one basic form of the will [namely the will to power, as my tenet will have it] ... then we would have the right to designate all effective energy unequivocally as: the will to power. The world as seen from the inside, the world defined and described by its 'intelligible character' - would be simply 'will to power' and that alone." [BGE 36](39)

Note that the concept of the 'will to power' is presented 'from the inside' as a hypothesis. It was only in his late notebooks of the period 1885-8 that Nietzsche tried to work out the idea as a full-blown metaphysical/ontological arche.

Notes:

35) Kaufmann p. 173

36) Diethe p. 224

37) 2006 p. 27

38) Danto p. 216

39) 1998A pp. 35-6

XI

The Will of Power

The German phrase itself, 'der Wille zur Macht', is customarily rendered - and retained here - as 'the will to power'; but this has an unwanted teleological connotation. For Nietzsche, power doesn't will anything other than itself. It overflows, overcoming all resistances regardless of what they are. Perhaps a better version in English would be 'will of power', as coined by Chatterton-Hill (40). But such ultimate concepts begin to frustrate our languages anyway, which are - as Nietzsche liked to point out - based on the erroneous subject/object model. [GM I:13](41)

However, in the security of his notebooks, he tried to express this ultimate concept;

"And do you know what 'the world' is to me? Shall I show it to you in my mirror? This world: a monster of force, without beginning, without end ... as force everywhere, as a play of forces and force-waves simultaneously one and 'many' ... this, my Dionysian world of eternal self-creating, of eternal self-destroying, this mystery world of dual delights, this is my beyond good and evil, without goal ... do you want a name for this world? ...

"This world is the will to power - and nothing besides! And you yourselves are this will to power - and nothing besides!" [WLN 38:12](42)

The world as we know it almost evaporates here, as he would write in a later notebook;

"The will to power, not a being, not a becoming, but a pathos, is the most elementary fact." [WLN 14:79](43)

Notes:

40) Chatterton-Hill p. 190

41) 2003A p. 25

42) 2003B pp. 38-9

43) ib. p. 247

XII

Perspective

We return then to that inescapable aspect of Nietzsche's philosophy - that of perspective. The will to power is 'correct' as far as Nietzsche himself is concerned because "there is only a seeing from a perspective, only a 'knowing' from a perspective." [GM III:12](44)

That Nietzsche's argumentation could be seen as being trapped in the circularity of the 'Liar's Paradox' ["this statement is false"] did not thwart him - on the contrary;

"'Wisdom' as an attempt to get beyond perspectival appraisals (i.e. beyond the 'wills to power'), a principle that is disintegratory and hostile to life." [WLN 5:14](45)

Perspectivism is therefore to Nietzsche, life-affirming. And a perspective such as the will is therefore a particular interpretation;

"Such an interpreter would put to you the universality and unconditionality in all 'will to power' ...

"And given that he too is just interpreting - and you'll be eager to raise that objection, won't you? - then all the better." [BGE 22](46)

The real 'truth' in Nietzsche's theories of morality and power lay in their life-affirming quality - for him;

"The world as will to power, and more specifically as a heightened sense of will to power, is a miniature portrait of Nietzsche's life. It is described the only way he could describe it, that is, as reflected in him." (47)

And the question remains, can any philosophical 'truth claim' get beyond perspective?

That is the question to which Nietzsche's philosophy constantly pushes us towards in an exhilerating fashion.

Notes:

44) 2003A p. 86

45) 2003B p. 108

46) 1998A p. 23

47) Thiele p. 34

Bibliography:

Bradley, K. Slavery and Society at Rome, CUP 1994

Chatterton-Hill, G. The Philosophy of Nietzsche, Haskell House 1971

Danto, A. Nietzsche as Philosopher, Columbia 1965

Deleuze, G. Nietzsche and Philosophy, trans. H. Tomlinson, Athlone 1983

Diethe, C. Historical Dictionary of Nietzscheanism, Scarecrow 1999

Hengel, M. Judaism and Helenism, SCM 1974

Kaufmann, W. Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist. Meridian 1956

Nietzsche, F. ;

Human All Too Human, trans. R. Hollingdale, CUP 1986

On the Genealogy of Morality, trans. C. Diethe, CUP 1994

Beyond Good and Evil, trans. M. Faber, OUP 1998A

The Twilight of the Idols, trans. D. Large, OUP 1998B

The Antichrist, trans. A. Ludovici, Prometheus 2000

The Pre-Platonic Philosophers, trans. G. Whitlock, Illinois 2006

The Gay Science, trans. J, Nauckhoff, CUP 2001

The Genealogy of Morals, trans. H. Samuel, Dover 2003A

The Writings of the Late Notebooks, trans. K. Sturge, CUP 2003B

Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. G. Parkes, OUP 2005A

The Antichrist, Ecce Homo, The Twilight of the Idols, trans. J. Norman, CUP 2005B

Rachels, J. The Elements of Moral Philosophy, McGraw-Hill 1993

Small, R. Nietzsche and Ree, OUP 2005

Thiele, L. P. Friedrich Nietzsche and the Politics of the Soul, Princeton 1990

Poet Possessed

Jim Morrison

A Poet's Manual

Jim Morrison evidently read Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' very closely, taking it almost as a manual of poetic method. When Nietzsche says that dreams are the inspiration for the "glorious divine figures" of which the poets write, [58] Morrison will adopt this as his mode of poetic creation.

The singer Nico [59] had a brief relationship with Morrison in 1967. She wanted to write her own songs but couldn't get started. Morrison "told her to write down her dreams ... This would provide her raw material." [60]


Nietzsche would assert: "The beautiful appearance of the dream-worlds, in creating which everyman is a perfect artist, is the prerequisite of all plastic art, ... and an important part of poetry also." [61]

For Nietzsche, dreams themselves 'interpret' life, and provide ‘training’ for life, [ib.] because "our innermost beings, our common subconscious experiences, express themselves in dreams." [ib.]

Enter again the sweet forest
Enter the hot dream
JDM [62]

"Dreams are certainly an activity of the mind struggling to circumvent the formal-logical law of contradiction."[63]


Dreams are
at once fruit & outcry
against an atrophy of the senses.
JDM [64]

In his book on Rimbaud and Morrison, Fowlie confirms that Rimbaud used this method:

"By use of the dream, Rimbaud adds his testimonial to the belief of Nerval, Baudelaire and Mallarme that the purest disinterestedness of poets manifests itself in the dream." [65]

Morrison was searching for the ability to write poetry automatically [66] , for, as Nietzsche said, the Dionysiac poet creates "unconsciously." [67]

Even when awake, the poet's world must have a dreamlike quality:

"The poet is a poet only in so far as he sees himself surrounded by forms which live and act before him, and into whose innermost being he penetrates." [68]
For "at bottom the aesthetic phenomenon is simple: if a man merely has the faculty of seeing perpetual vitality around him, of living continually surrounded by hosts of spirits, he will be a poet." [ib.]

And here we can see the connection with music too, it being used to enable and to enhance this 'faculty'.

Music inflames temperament
JDM [69]

Of Schiller, Nietzsche says that "before the act of creation he did not perhaps have before him or within him any series of images accompanied by an ordered thought-relationship; but his condition was rather that of a musical mood ... A certain musical mood of mind precedes, and only after this ensues the poetical idea." [70]

Morrison would then be drawn to working with musicians hoping to unlock the free flow of his poetic dream worlds, saying that "poetry is very close to music", and that music's "hypnotic quality" puts the poet in the right "state of mind" leaving him "free" to allow his "subconscious" to "play itself out wherever it goes." [71]
Not only that, but musical accompaniment gave Morrison the feeling of "a kind of security" [ib.] to recite his poetry.

Words & Music

"Words can lie. The mode of expression never lies."
Reich [72]

"Lyric poetry is dependent on the spirit of music."
FWN [73]

"When one talks about music its power is lessened, it loses its effectiveness, the smallest loss due to verbalisation occurs in tragedy, says Nietzsche."
Meltzer [74]


Nietzsche claimed there to be a gulf and an antagonism between words and music. In a posthumously published fragment from the time of 'The Birth of Tragedy' he wrote that

"there cannot ... be any question as to a necessary relation between poem and music; for the two worlds brought here into connection are too strange to one another to enter into more than a superficial alliance." [75]

For Nietzsche, "the origin of music lies beyond all individuation," [ib.] i.e. it is primal, non-Apolline.

"The Will is the object of music but not the origin of it." As Schopenhauer - Nietzsche's mentor during the period of 'The Birth of Tragedy' - says, music is a 'copy' of the will, [76] and it certainly shouldn't concern itself with the emotions - in the way that lyric poetry does: "The lyric poet interprets music to himself through the symbolic world of emotions." [75]

Words then are parasitic and inferior to musical tones, while poetry itself is generated by "melody." [77]

Once again, we see Morrison following Nietzsche; his song writing consists in his quickly putting words to an initial melody. [78]

"A song comes with the music, a sound or rhythm first, then I make up words as fast as I can just to hold on to the feel." JDM [79]

It is the music that comes first - and last.

Nietzsche will say that "language can never adequately render the cosmic symbolism of music, because music stands in symbolic relation to the primordial contradiction - primordial pain in the heart of Primal Unity, and therefore symbolises a sphere which is beyond and before all phenomena." [80]

Morrison accordingly would feel that "lyrics aren't that necessary in music." [81]

However, Nietzsche's views on 'folk song' were no doubt interpreted by Morrison as a positive endorsement of the blues:

"What is the folk-song ... but the perpetuum vestigium of a union of the Apollonian and the Dionysian? Its enormous diffusion among all peoples, further re-enforced by ever-new births, is testimony to the power of this artistic dual impulse of Nature: which leaves its vestiges in the folk-song just as the orgiastic movements of a people perpetuate themselves in its music. Indeed, it might also be historically demonstrable that every period rich in folk-songs has been most violently stirred by Dionysian currents, which we must always consider the substratum and prerequisite of the folk-song." [82]

Nietzsche waxed poetic on the awesome transfiguring power of music: "we find our hope of a renovation and purification of the German spirit through the fire-magic of music." [83]


Similarly, Morrison saw his musical performance as a striving "to break through to a cleaner, freer, realm." [84]

Notes to The Poet Possessed
58. Nietzsche 1995 pp. 1-2
59. German born Christa Pfaffgen - "the world's first supermodel" (The Times, 26/9/2008, 'The Perfect Sturm', J. Cale, pp. 13-15) appeared in Fellini's 'La Dolce Vita' before joining Andy Warhol's 'Factory' in 1967. She made solo recordings as well as recording with the avant-garde rock group 'The Velvet Underground'. Cale, of the Velvets and her producer remarked that Morrison "drew her into his poetic circle."(ib.)
60. ed. Rocco 1997 ('Nico: The Life of an Icon', R. Witts) p. 137
61. Nietzsche 1995 p. 2
62. Morrison 1989 p. 136
63. Brown p. 319. The 'law of contradiction', also called 'the law of non-contradiction': "In modern logic, the principle that no statement of the form (p and not-p) can be true. The classical defense of the law is in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' Book IV, 4f." (Dictionary of Philosophy, ed. T. Mautner, Penguin 1997 p. 390)
64. Morrison 1991 p. 131
65. Fowlie p. 72
66. Morrison 1989 (Prologue, 'self-interview', p. 1)
67. Nietzsche 1995 (BT 12) p. 45
68. ib. (BT 8) p. 26
69. Morrison 1991 p. 5
70. Nietzsche 1995 (BT 5) p. 14
71. Hopkins 2006 p. 214
72. Reich p. 176
73. Nietzsche 1995 (BT 6) p. 19
74. Meltzer p. 245
75. On Music and Words, F. Nietzsche, A Fragment from 1871. Available at http://users.compaqnet.be/cn127103/Nietzsche_various/on_music_and_words_and_rhetoric.htm(accessed 7/5/09)
76. Nietzsche 1995 (BT 16) p. 56
77. ib. (BT 6) p. 17
78. ed. Sugarman, 1988 p. 95
79. Rolling Stone p. 16
80. Nietzsche 1995 (BT 6) p. 19
81. Circus Magazine (1970) Interview by Stevenson available at: http://archives.waiting-forthe-sun.net/Pages/Interviews/JimInterviews/circus.html (accessed 25/07/2005) . Excerpts from this interview are also available in Henke on an enclosed CD called 'Jim Speaks'.
82. Nietzsche 1995 (BT 6) p. 17
83. ib. (BT 20) p. 75
84. Doe & Tobler p. 48