The Forest Passage, Ernst Jünger

[R Crowley the White]

Even assuming the worst possible scenario of total ruin, a difference would remain like that between night and day. The one path climbs to higher realms, to self-sacrifice, or to the fate of those who fall with weapon in hand; the other sinks into the abysses of slave pens and slaughterhouses, where primitive beings are wed in a murderous union with technology. There are no longer destinies there—there are only numbers. To have a destiny, or to be classified as a number—this decision is forced upon all of us today, and each of us must face it alone.

 

[R Crowley the White]

On Voting,

Let us return to the image of the election. The electoral mechanism, as we saw, has been transformed into an automatized concert under the direction of its organizer. The individual can—and will—be compelled to take part. He must only remember that all the possible positions he can assume on this field are equally null and void. Once cornered, it makes no difference whether the game runs to this or that spot in the net.

 

[R Crowley the White]

Although we will not deny that it is imagination which leads the spirit to victory, the issue cannot be reduced to the founding of yoga schools. This is the vision not only of countless sects but also of a form of Christian nihilism that oversimplifies the matter for its own convenience. For we cannot limit ourselves to knowing what is good and true on the top floors while fellow human beings are being flayed alive in the cellar. This would also be unacceptable if our position were not merely spiritually secure but also spiritually superior—because the unheard suffering of the enslaved millions cries out to the heavens. The vapors of the flayers’ huts still hang in the air today; on such thingsthere must be no deceiving ourselves.