Views and Perspectives

{This is a pre-publication from Rico Sneller, Into It: Perspectives on Synchronicity, Inspiration, and the Soul , Cambridge Scholars Publishing 2020} Nobody One may be reminded here of the infamous Cyclops Polyphemus, who was outsmarted by Ulysses in Homer’s Odyssey . The race of the Cyclopes was notorious for its brutality and inhospitality. Reminiscent of Max Picard’s description of Modernity in the previous chapter, one might say that, at least from the Cycloptic perspective, people “treffen aufeinander im Raume ohne Sinn, durch Zufall. Die Menschen sind darum fremd nebeneinander.” [1] We will see shortly that Polyphemus is making a serious mistake by interpreting his meeting with Ulysses as Zufall , mere chance or coincidence. In the Homeric narrative, Polyphemus had captured Ulysses and his comrades. He promises to swallow them one by one, Ulysses the last. On his turn, Ulysses had made Polyphemus believe that his proper name was Outis (= Nobody). He and his su...

‘Suffering’ designates an original, subliminal self-experience of the soul which may surface in limit experiences of conscious awareness. Consciously suffering pain, loss or loneliness actualises primordial suffering which confronts the soul with an original void ‘with which’ it as it were skirmishes (as though this void were an object – which it is not). This primordial suffering aggravates ‘superficial’ sorrow ( sit venia verbo ) by doubling it with radical despair. Clearly, this insight is not new; it has been indirectly brought to light by psychoanalysis and existentialist philosophy. My claim, however, partly goes beyond psychoanalytical or existentialist concerns.  Suffering, I argue, testifies to unconscious resistance against subliminal enhancement (which is my definition of 'death'). I agree with Freud, Sartre or Heidegger when they highlight the despair which exacerbates suffering. But at least Freud and Heidegger cannot do justice to suffering as inverted e...