Friedrich Nietzsche: “The Dawn of Day”
Nietzsche v/s St Paul.
His book “Beyond Good and Evil” was, in his own words “in all essentials a critique of modernity, the modern sciences, the modern art, not even excluding politics.” (Ecce Homo). All in all, it was his diagnosis of contemporary existence as worthless, and an account of decadence and degeneration. And nowhere was this decadence for him more obvious than in Christianity as practiced and preached in the church through the ages (Which was, according to Nietzsche, a grotesque distortion of Christ’s own version.) Thank God, Christ was not a Christian?
Despite his new year resolution of “I do not want to wage war against what is ugly, I do not want to accuse; I do not even want to accuse those who accuse, … All in all and on the whole: some day I wish only to be a Yes-sayer”, he realized how little there was to celebrate in the world around him, and how much it nauseated him, and this brought a gusto to his demolitions, especially to his demolition of Christianity.
“Nietzsche passes up no opportunity for emotionally charged attacks, he repeatedly blasphemes what is held most sacred in the culture, he freely deploys offensive anti-Semitic tropes (turned back, ironically, against anti-Semitic Christians themselves), he fairly shouts, he sneers between scare quotes, he repeatedly charges bad faith and dishonesty on the part of his opponents, and on and on.” (Anderson, R. Lanier, “Friedrich Nietzsche”)
And when he attacked Christianity, and especially when he vented his anger on St Paul in “The Dawn of Day”, he repeatedly charges bad faith and dishonesty on the part of Paul whom he calls “one of the most ambitious and importunate souls that ever existed, of a mind full of superstition and cunning.”
To him Paul was a total fraud, and an epileptic fraud at that, prone to visions and dreams, a man claiming to be able to hear God talk to him and being able to talk to God. “During the whole of the Middle Ages it was believed that the real distinguishing trait of higher men was the faculty of having visions—that is to say, of having a grave mental trouble” he said.
The meeting between Saul, who became Paul after the event, was, according to Nietzsche, a sham: “And at last a liberating thought, together with a vision – his mind was suddenly enlightened, and he said to himself: “It is unreasonable to persecute this Jesus Christ! Here is my means of escape, here is my complete vengeance, here and nowhere else have I the destroyer of the Law in my hands!”
Paul and people like Paul are ridiculed by Nietzsche and called mad, of having grave mental trouble.
But then you read Nietzsche’s letter to his friends Lou Salomé and Paul Rée, and a light goes up for us mere mortals struggling to understand this wise man, a man considered to be one of the greatest philosophers of our time, if not of all time.
“Consider me,” he wrote, “the two of you, as a semilunatic with a sore head who has been totally bewildered by long solitude. To this, I think, sensible insight into the state of thighs I have come after taking a huge dose of opium – in desperation. But instead of losing my reason as a result, I seem at last to have come to reason …” (Peter Sjöstedt ; Antichrist Psychonaut: Nietzsche and Psychedelics).
And then you read the sad story of is life of addiction to various chemicals to stem the onslaught of severe pain which he suffered from, from the age of about fourteen. At the age of 24 he joined the Prussian army where a serious injury caused by a horse introduced him to morphine what he later came to call ‘milk of Paradise’ (which he confessed to using at dangerously high doses), as well as other psychoactive drugs like chloral hydrate (his preferred poison) and a mysterious Javanese concoction, all of them psychoactive drugs causing strong psychedelic trips.
It is interesting to note that it was a horse that introduced him to morphine to which he became addicted, and in the end it was again a meeting with a horse in Turin that drove him over the edge and landed him in an asylum and his eventual demise – though most people believe that is was VD that he contracted in a brothel early in his life, that killed him and not the drugs.
So, our friend the “semilunatic” and famous philosopher was having visions – visions induced by psychoactive drugs! One wonders in what way St Paul’s visions then differed from the visions of Nietzsche? Why should we deem his visions good and authentic, while Paul’s visions were the mark of a mad man? According to him, “ the rules of life of all the higher natures of the Middle Ages (the religiosi) were drawn up with the object of making man capable of vision!” And that was, according to Nietzsche, not only wrong, it was evil.
But we learn that it was during conditions of intoxication with narcotics that the idea of his masterpiece “Thus Spoke Zarathustra” came to Nietzsche, in other words through a vision. He was then also a man “capable of vision” but according to Nietzsche, “They (the man capable of vision) have seen things that others do not see”—no doubt! and this fact should inspire us with caution where they are concerned, and not with belief!”( Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (pp. 22-23). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.)
We believe you sir, but we also take note of the research findings of doctor David Look of Cambridge University concerning the (positive) mind altering effects of psychedelics on psychonauts (people who take LSD or mescalin or any other psychoactive drug to deliberately induce visions). What Look (and other people using LSD and Mescalin – Oliver Sacks – Evelyn Waugh – Charles Baudelaire – Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Thomas De Quincey and others) describes is exactly what Nietzsche describes in the following excerpt from “The Dawn of Day”:
“The concept of revelation, in the sense that something suddenly, with unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightning, with necessity, unfalteringly formed – I have never had any choice. An ecstasy whose tremendous tension sometimes discharges itself in a flood of tears, while one’s steps now involuntarily rush along, now involuntarily lag; … a depth of happiness in which the most painful and gloomy things appear, not as an antithesis, but as conditioned, demanded, as a necessary colour within such a superfluity of light; … Everything is in the highest degree involuntary but takes place as in a tempest of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity.”
This “feeling of power, of divinity” brings us squire back to St Paul. According to Nietzsche, Paul had a vision and this brilliant insight: “And at last a liberating thought, together with a vision – his mind was suddenly enlightened,” And now we have Nietzsche himself struck by a divine vision (after ingesting opium), a vision of his Superman, and he was enlightened, but Paul was mad?
I believe that St Paul, if asked, would have given the same description of his experience on the road to Damascus. We know the story: Saul is on his way to Damascus to persecute followers of Christ, (he has already captured, tortured and murdered some followers of the new “Jesus sect” in the past. According to the account in the Acts of the Apostles, it took place on the road to Damascus, where he reported having experienced a vision of the ascended Jesus. A bright light, brighter than the Sun surrounded them and “He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’ He asked, ‘Who are you, Lord?’ The reply came, ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting’.”
After the encounter Saul was blind for three days, and when his sight was restored, he was enlightened, and he became a follower of Jesus Christ. Whether he used “soma” or any of the other hallucinogenic substances available, and used by truth sayers at that time, we will never know, though it is a known fact that some people can and do enter altered states of consciousness without taking any drugs (GS Jung was apparently one of them).
Paul became the most prolific mouthpiece for Christ after his vision, Nietzsche, on the other hand wanted to kill God, the false god of the church. “God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.” And then he promises; “I teach you the Superman (an unfortunate mistranslation of the word Übermensch that he actually used, meaning ‘super-human’ ). Man is something that should be overcome.” (Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra (p. 23). Penguin Books Ltd. Kindle Edition.)
I believe Christ and Nietzsche would have been good friends if they happened to live in the same era. They both wanted to change people, to make them better versions of themselves, to transcend the little “me” and step into the all-pervading, all inclusive “I”, which is God. “You are God” the Christ told people. You are the future Superman (Übermensch), you do not need God, you are gods, and “Thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever and ever” Nietzsche’s Zarathustra said.
Nietzsche used Zarathustra as his prophet. The Christ used Paul as prophet to spread his gospel.
“Nietzsche risked himself, his sanity, his life, so to touch the heavens and taste the Hades of human mentality – he may thereby have destroyed himself. But destruction is a joy to Dionysus, a deity who shall be born again ” said Peter Sjöstedt.
The Christ destroyed himself on the cross, and descended to Hell before rising into Heaven from where (according to the Gospels) He will come again one day.
But there is more to the story of our “Antichrist – Psychonaut – Philosopher and seer of divine visions” than meets the eye. Was he indeed anti-Christ, or was he merely but vehemently anti-church, driven by the same disgust of the church of His time as Christ was? It will be pursued in the next chapter of our investigation.
Interesting. Comparing Nietzsche with Paul was a real trip.
Glad you liked it Mr Philosopher Muse. I am going to conclude this discussion in the near future, so watch this space for more Musings.