Spiritual reading; yes, I sired a son in 1917; Novalis and I; remembering Margi a year later

Spread the love

Today one year ago my wife left this horrid jew world (and her throat-cancer pain) after a 4 1/3-rd  year struggle, thence to be with her angels, her deceased loved ones, and other beautiful and kind people like her — to learn and grow further in this, her current interlife.

Novalis (see more below about this German poet):

Glory to the queen of my world, to the great prophet of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love—she sends thee [love] to me—thou tenderly beloved—the gracious sun of the Night

Now am I awake—for now am I thine and mine—thou hast made me know the Night— made of me a man—consume with spirit-fire my body, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and then our bridal night endure forever.

.

.

.

….spiritual reading for September 12

Dear ones, stop fighting yourselves. Stop struggling against the inevitable. Stop clinging to that which
is sinking. You, who are wiser and more conscious than many, are still holding tight to the outmoded notions of what is necessary to live, to enjoy, to relish your time in form. You look around and you see others who have no idea what is going on stockpiling against a disaster that will surely sweep away all that they have acquired.

And you know that this is an unwise strategy. Yet, it is so hard for you, even with all of your insight, to let go and devote yourselves to matters of the heart. Well, you say, we need to eat. We need to feed our children, we need to live in this world. And, of course, you are correct. You do need to live on earth right now (unless you are planning a respite) and you need to give consideration to those who depend upon you, no matter their age.

But there is no end to the abundance on your planet. This may sound odd, given the mess it is currently
facing, the mess which arises from nothing more or less than human greed.

But you see, the greed comes from fear. And the fear can only be countered by love. There is nothing else which can stop it. Reason is helpless in the face of fear. Kindness does little to slow it. More fear can hold it in check briefly, but in the end, more fear only creates more fear, and then it grows exponentially as a result. So unless you find a way to end the fear which is rampant now, there frankly isn’t much hope.

But you know how to reach into your own heart. You know how to touch the place where love and the
divine exist within you. We are not saying that you should pick up a begging bowl and begin wandering.
We are not saying that you should leave those who rely upon you in the lurch. We are not saying that there are no material considerations which require your attention.

We are saying that unless you—as the crest of the wave—are able to live more and more from a place of
love, the greed and the fear are likely to triumph this time around. We do not want to sound like the voice of doom, nor are we particularly pessimistic. But it is time, beloved ones, for you to make the shift. It is time to end the half-measures, the experimentation, the dabbling. We have said it before and will without doubt say it again—you are needed. Your love is needed in the world. In the atmosphere.

The vibrations are growing stronger in both directions—there is more love and there is more fear. You can feel this, we know. It is hard to miss.

There is so much support for a shift into a higher vibration. You would be amazed if you could see or feel it all. There is a giant wave of love, many of them, in fact, washing over your planet. The power of it would take your breath away could you see it all. And so many inhabitants of the earth are struggling hard to keep their feet on the ground. We say, stop struggling.

Let yourself become one with the love that is already flooding your planet. It may feel unsafe in moments, it may feel odd. But if you are in a heart space, we promise that you are as safe as you have ever been. Do not fear that which arises from love.

Please. Make no more fear. Add no more fear to the air around you. Instead, suffuse it with love. If you
do, you will begin to find yourself joined with so much more. Remember that fear is about limits; love is about the infinite.

More on this later. That is enough for today. We are part of one of those waves, and our love for all of you
is constantly flowing. Please receive it and pass some on. All our blessings.

.

.

….Mark Felton will never deviate much from the Allied narrative

Felton, who has a big WWII channel on Jew Tube that always bashes Germany but tries to seem to be balanced, has that sinister-leprechaun look one also saw in Tony Blair.  He has a video (below) debating if Hitler sired a son with a Frenchwoman in 1917 as a German soldier stationed and fighting in WWI in northeastern France.

A guy who looks like this won’t be for anything nordic. Is he part-jewish? Sadly, so many Brits are.

 

The jews and their goy lackeys have always wanted to depict me in that life as NOT a man with a normal sex drive and attraction to women, but as some kind of sexual weirdo, or closet gay, or slander me with the claim I had incestuous sex with my niece, Angela Raubal, or that I had just one descended testicle, etc.

A Pole wrote me that Hitler had his penis bitten off by a goat while masturbating….

….another to my face that I and Goering “diddled little kids.” I nearly slugged the guy. That is the most serious accusation one can make, and, when false, the vilest, most evil slander.

It is so hard for the jews and their lackey, Mark Felton, to admit that I was a normal man in every single way possible, including genuinely liking and respecting women, such as these two daughters of composer Richard Wagner.

And, OMG, yes, I enjoyed sex with the right women. 😉

And nothing would have pleased me more than to have forgotten my dharma — the mission I accepted, the gigantic task to try to save the white race while it vilified me, and instead to just go and marry this beautiful girl in Linz, Austria with her dark golden-blond hair, Stefanie Isak.

.

(No, “Isak” in her case was not a jewish name at all; the major American rockabilly singer Chris Isaak is paternally of German descent: ) Even the name “Goldmann” is not necessarily jewish; it could literally refer to a German ancestor who was a goldsmith.)

How happy I would have been to become a successful architect, and to build beautiful homes, buildings, train stations, and bridges — and raise a big family with Stefanie. But I made no moves, because I knew it was not my destiny, and so Stefanie married a young Austrian army officer, Max Rabatsch, who eventually rose to colonel.

As you can seem from the video below, Mark Felton at the end reluctantly refuses to rule out that the Lorets, father and son, descended from me, which they did.

And he is right: no one in his twenties, such as Jean-Marie Loret, becomes a high police official (in France or anywhere) without someone in the background pulling strings for him. It gave me pleasure to at least do this for my son, and I was proud that before the war he had made the rank of staff sergeant (E-5) in the French Army.

After a German victory, when it would have been safe for him, I would have met with Jean-Marie Loret and acknowledged him as my son.

It also would have been good for Franco-German relations, and also for eugenics. And it was for these pragmatic, eugenic reasons that I was always in favor of healthy young white soldiers having offspring BEFORE they went into combat, because war is a killing machine that is so horribly dysgenic.

All militaries always draft the best young men — who then get killed. In the US, infantry units in the Army and Marines are still 80% white and the elite commando units are 95% white and often nordic.

.

Meanwhile the “sick, lame and lazy” whom the military has rejected for various mental and physical drawbacks, or for violent-felony records, go out and THEY father kids. Sometimes they reproduce with lonely women whose boyfriends, husbands and sons fell at the front or who have been gone for months or years!

A lot of sex happens in wartime that otherwise would not happen…sweet moments when the horror of war goes away.

(And on this day where I commemorate Margi’s death a year ago, I will say this: MY LIFE HAS BEEN NON-STOP EXTREME STRESS FOR 45 YEARS, and she was such a good woman in every way.)

And it is NOT at all true that I was “anti-French.” I only accepted the bitter fact that ever since the War of 1870, the French had hated US Germans, and that is a big difference.

Part of this was that French jewry was part of the overall jewish plot to destroy the Germans.

But also it was because, while the French had lost wars before 1870, it had always been against a huge coalition of enemy countries PLURAL. There is no shame in losing when outnumbered 3-1, which is what happened to us in 1945, or, for that matter, to Napoleon at Leipzig and at Waterloo.

But in 1870, France was beaten by just one power, by a Prussian-led Germany, and this defeat 1-1 pricked French pride.

There was also a feeling that the Dreyfus affair — which was about a venal jewish officer in the French army who sold vital French military secrets for cash to the Germans — had so divided France that a war with Germany at least would reunite the country. It did that, but it also cost 1.6 million young French lives!

At one of the many huge cemeteries in Verdun in 2004; white fratricide is appalling

And Léon Degrelle, the charismatic, French-speaking Belgian fascist, writer, publisher, Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS  hero — the most highly decorated soldier of the 400,000 non-German citizens in the Waffen-SS — was indeed like a son to me.

Margi and I translated his memoirs for this magazine

Do you know what we Germans say if a person is having an incredible vacation or a great time? He is living it up “wie der Herrgott in Frankreich” –“like the Lord God in France.”

The French truly know how to enjoy life, and friends, and wit, and food, and ….. the opposite sex. 🙂

Here is the truth: I had huge respect for the French soldiers we fought; I loved my mother and women in general; I ran into the person who was Ms. Lobjoie in WWI in Boston in a modern incarnation; I and a noble French soldier together saved the life of a severely wounded German soldier groaning in a thicket of trees near Artois, France,  and my visit to the Garnier Palace in Paris was one of the high points of my entire life.

World War One in color — egoic madness; my French girlfriend then and who she is now; “my” grandson today

.

.

.

…..Paris then and now

.

A dedicated, generous, very smart French supporter sent me  a copy of this photo he took of the beautiful Paris Opera at night:

I know this building well, also called the Garnier Palace. The tour guide was baffled by the details I knew by heart of this magnificent Aryan structure.

We rushed through the divine Paris in just three hours, fearing a communist assassin in this just-conquered capital city, or an RAF surprise air raid.

The word obviously would get around fast: Hitler est à Paris!

Albert Speer:

We drove through the extensive suburbs directly to the Opera, Charles Garnier’s great neobaroque building. . . . It was Hitler’s favorite and the first thing he wanted to see. Colonel Speidel, assigned by the German Occupation Authority, was waiting at the entrance for us.

The great stairway, famous for its spaciousness and ornamentation, the resplendent foyer, the elegant, gilded parterre, were all carefully inspected.

All the lights glowed as they would on a gala night. Hitler had undertaken to lead the party. A white-haired attendant accompanied our small group through the deserted building. Hitler had actually studied the plans of the Paris opera house with great care. Near the proscenium box he found a salon missing, remarked on it, and turned out to be right. The attendant said that this room had been eliminated in the course of renovations many years ago. ‘There, you see how well I know my way about,’ Hitler commented complacently.

He seemed fascinated by the Opera, went into ecstasies about its beauty, his eyes glittering with an excitement that struck me as uncanny.

The attendant, of course, had immediately recognized the person he was guiding through the building.[…]

Afterward, we drove past the Madeleine, down the Champs Elysees, on to the Trocadero, and then to the Eiffel Tower, where Hitler ordered another stop. From the Arc de Triomphe with its tomb of the Unknown Soldier we drove on to the Invalides, where Hitler stood for a long time at the tomb of Napoleon.

Finally, Hitler inspected the Pantheon, whose proportions greatly impressed him. […]

Tourist Hitler poses at the Eiffel Tower
Albert Speer is at the left.

The end of our tour was the basilica of Sacre Coeur on Montmartre […]

.

Here Hitler stood for a long time surrounded by several powerful men of his bodyguard squad, while many churchgoers recognized him but ignored him.

After a last look at Paris we drove swiftly back to the airport. By nine o’clock in the morning the sightseeing tour was over. ‘It was the dream of my life to be permitted to see Paris. I cannot say how happy I am to have that dream fulfilled today.’

For a moment I felt something like pity for him: three hours in Paris, the one and only time he was to see it, had made him so happy though he then stood at the height of his military triumphs.”

 

…More reincarnation? A young American of Lithuanian blood, but in love with all things German, reminds me keenly of a great German poet

A friend of mine here in Ontonagon runs an AirBnB. (This is a kind of business where, going online, you can rent out the empty bedrooms in your own house to paying guests, becoming a kind of hotelier.)

He had an interesting paying guest there when I chanced to pop over in to say hello.

He is an American from Marquette, a small city in the center of the UP, and is of part-German ancestry but mostly Lithuanian.

However, he turned out to be a huge, passionate germanophile who speaks German with a flawless accent, which is very rare for Americans who are not raised in a bilingual house in German, such as having a GI father and a German mother.

As you know, I am deeply into reincarnation studies, and what struck me speechless the second I met him in my friend’s kitchen was that he looked almost EXACTLY like the German nobleman, poet and philosopher Novalis: in his facial shape and features, hair color, hair style even (!), and eye color.. but most of all in his nature!

We ended up conversing deeply for about four hours!

He was very sympathetic when I mentioned the death of my dear wife and comrade, Margaret Huffstickler, and he was enthralled by the “fox incident.”

J[] was very interested in Near-Death Experiences, reincarnation, and also in German neo-folk music. (Remember, this is a Michigan kid, all fascinated with Germany, with almost no German ancestry!)

He also got me to listen to a striking song, which I kind of liked, strange as it seemed, by the German band “Zwischenlichten” (which would mean “Between lights”) and their song “Dämmerschwellen,” meaning (English being a cognate language related to German) “Dimmer swells”…

What struck me was that this young man, who was fascinated by our afterlife discussion, was in this regard not unlike Novalis, who lost his beloved fiancée, Sophie von Kühn, who died young of tuberculosis in 1797. Novalis (Friedrich von Hardenberg) grieved deeply for her, and wrote a lot about God, the afterlife and seeing his beloved again! He also died of tuberculosis, just four years later, in 1801.

In fact, Novalis believed deeply that love must motivate everything we do, and if one included tough love, then I could not agree more.

It was an act of love in 1915 to hang the Atlanta jew and B’nai B’rith official Leo Frank for raping and strangling his 13-yyear-old, virginal employee Mary Phagan, who vehemently and properly rejected his sexual lust.

The lynching (by the top citizens of the Georgia establishment!!!) ended his sexual crime spree — for his own karmic good and that also of white society. And his execution — which had been legally approved by three juries and five levels of the US court system, but had been endlessly delayed by bribes from jewry — re-established law and order and cosmic justice.

Leo, you filthy jew, we are hanging you out of love for you, God, and all His creatures.

Novalis

Novalis

Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg, commonly known as Novalis (May 2, 1772 – March 25, 1801), was one of the earliest of the German Romantics.

Although Novalis’ life would be tragically cut short, his poetic and philosophical works would go on to inspire many of the principal figures of Romanticism, among them SchillerGoethe and Friedrich von Schlegel. In particular, Novalis is notable for contributing to the notion of “Romantic love” through his moving and lyrical love poetry, as well as for his far-reaching ambitions to unify the arts, sciences, and religion. Novalis’ impassioned and ambitious temperament would make him a role-model for European artists of the nineteenth-century, and his considerable literary talents have cemented his reputation as one of the pre-eminent German poets of his times. Novalis also contributed to the development of poetic form, in particular pioneering the use of poetic fragments as an art-form. His radical ideas and boundless enthusiasm left deep impressions on his friends, many of whom would go onto shape the literary tastes of nineteenth-century Germany.

Biography

Novalis was born in 1772 on the château Oberwiederstedt located in the Harz Mountains near modern-day Saxony-Anhalt.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

 

Novalis descended from ancient, Low German nobility. In the different lines of his family, many important, influential magistrates and ministry officials can be found, including the Prussian chancellor Karl August von Hardenberg (1750-1822).

In a church in Wiederstedt he was christened Georg Philipp Friedrich. Novalis spent his childhood on the family estate and used it as starting point for his travels into the Harz Mountains. Novalis’ father, Heinrich Ulrich Erasmus Freiherr (1738-1814), was devoted to Pietism, a German Christian sect somewhat analogous to the English Quakers.

At first Novalis was taught by private tutors, including Christian Daniel Erhard Schmid (1762-1812), whom he met again at the beginning of his university education. Novalis attended the Luther grammar school in Eisleben, where he acquired training in rhetoric and ancient literature. Family troubles disrupted Novalis’ childhood years, and from his twelfth year on, Novalis was cared for by his uncle Friedrich Wilhelm Freiherr von Hardenberg at the château Lucklum.

Novalis studied law from 1790 to 1794 at the universities of Jena, Leipzig, and Wittenberg. He passed his exams with distinction. During his studies he attended Friedrich Schiller’s lecture courses on history. During a period where Schiller was convalescing from a bout of illness, Novalis visited often to continue conversations begun in the classroom, and the two men became friends. During this time Novalis also met Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

and Johann Gottfried von Herder, and he became friends with Ludwig TieckFriedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling and the brothers Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel.

In October 1794 Novalis did not become a civil servant—contrary to his plans—but instead worked as actuary for August Coelestin Just, who was not only his boss, but also his friend and later his biographer. During this time Novalis met the young Sophie von Kühn(1783-1797). On the March 15, 1795, he became engaged to her.

The following January, Novalis was appointed auditor to the directorate of the saline in Weißenfels. The early and cruel death of his fiancée in March 1797 had a deep impact upon him. During this period he produced his earliest and most haunting volume of love poems, Hymnen an die Nacht (Hymns to the Night), published in 1800.

In the hymns, Novalis laments the loss of Sophie as if were a mortal wound—he expresses his heartfelt belief that, without her, he will never be what he could have been; yet he also expresses hope that, with his own death, he will not only be reunited with her but with the whole world in a paradise of joy. 

Hymnen an die Nacht, in addition to setting a standard for what would become a long tradition of Romantic love poetry, also introduced a number of stylistic innovations that were to become characteristic of the radical era of Romanticism. Most notably, the volume included six prose poems, a form of poetry which at the time was still very new to European literature.

Immediately after college, Novalis concerned himself with studying the scientific doctrine of Johann Gottlieb Fichte. Fichte would have a large impact on Novalis’ worldview. He not only read Fichte’s philosophies, but also developed Fichte’s concepts further. Novalis transformed Fichte’s Nicht-Ich (“not I”) to a Du (“you”), an equal subject to the Ich (“I”).

This was the starting point for his Liebesreligion (“religion of love”), in which Novalis argued that the “I” and “not I”—in other words, the Self and the Universe—form a bond precisely analogous to the bond between two lovers and that the ultimate state of the human soul was one of endless love for the world.

After finishing his personal studies of Fichte, Novalis entered the Mining Academy of Freiberg in Saxony, a leading academy concerning science at the time, to study geology under Professor Abraham Gottlob Werner (1750-1817), who soon befriended him.

During his studies in Freiberg. Novalis learned about mining, mathematics, chemistry and other subjects. He also received hands-on schooling in mines.

In 1798 Novalis’ first fragments were published in the Athenäum, a magazine edited by the brothers Friedrich and August Wilhelm Schlegel, who were also part of the movement of early Romanticism. This would be the first time Novalis would publish under his pseudonym, which he would retain for the rest of his life.

In December 1798 Novalis became engaged for the second time. His fiancée was Julie von Charpentier (1788-1811), a daughter of Johann Friedrich Wilhelm Toussaint von Charpentier, a professor in Freiberg. On December 6, 1800, the 28-year-old Novalis was appointed as a provincial magistrate for the Thuringian District.

Novalis had suffered from incurable tuberculosis since mid-1800, and he had to resign from his position as the Thuringian magistrate almost as soon as he had received it. On March 25, 1801, he died and was buried in Weißenfels.

Novalis lived to see only the publication of the Blütenstaub-FragmenteGlaube und Liebe oder der König und die Königin, and Hymnen an die Nacht. His unfinished novels Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Die Lehrlinge zu Sais, as well as his political speech Europa were published posthumously by his friends Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich Schlegel.

Poetry

In August 1800, eight months after completion, the revised edition of the Hymnen an die Nacht was published in the Athenaeum. They are often considered to be the climax of Novalis’ lyrical works and the most important poetry of early German Romanticism.

The six hymns contain many elements which can be understood as autobiographical. Even though a lyrical “I”—rather than Novalis himself—is the speaker, there are many relationships between the hymns and Hardenberg’s experiences from 1797-1800.

The topic is the romantic interpretation of life and death, the threshold of which is symbolized by the night. Life and death are—according to Novalis—developed into intertwined concepts. So, in the end, death is the romantic principle of life.

*** Example:

First, in the original German, and then in English:

Welcher Lebendige, Sinnbegabte, liebt nicht vor allen Wundererscheinungen des verbreiteten Raums um ihn, das allerfreuliche Licht – mit seinen Farben, seinen Strahlen und Wogen; seiner milden Allgegenwart, als weckender Tag. Wie des Lebens innerste Seele atmet es der rastlosen Gestirne Riesenwelt, und schwimmt tanzend in seiner blauen Flut – atmet es der funkelnde, ewigruhende Stein, die sinnige, saugende Pflanze, und das wilde, brennende, vielgestaltete Tier – vor allen aber der herrliche Fremdling mit den sinnvollen Augen, dem schwebenden Gange, und den zartgeschlossenen, tonreichen Lippen. Wie ein König der irdischen Natur ruft es jede Kraft zu zahllosen Verwandlungen, knüpft und löst unendliche Bündnisse, hängt sein himmlisches Bild jedem irdischen Wesen um. – Seine Gegenwart allein offenbart die Wunderherrlichkeit der Reiche der Welt.

Abwärts wend ich mich zu der heiligen, unaussprechlichen, geheimnißvollen Nacht. Fernab liegt die Welt – in eine tiefe Gruft versenkt – wüst und einsam ist ihre Stelle. In den Saiten der Brust weht tiefe Wehmut. In Tautropfen will ich hinuntersinken und mit der Asche mich vermischen. – Fernen der Erinnerung, Wünsche der Jugend, der Kindheit Träume, des ganzen langen Lebens kurze Freuden und vergebliche Hoffnungen kommen in grauen Kleidern, wie Abendnebel nach der Sonne Untergang. In andern Räumen schlug die lustigen Gezelte das Licht auf. Sollte es nie zu seinen Kindern wiederkommen, die mit der Unschuld Glauben seiner harren?

Was quillt auf einmal so ahndungsvoll unterm Herzen, und verschluckt der Wehmut weiche Luft? Hast auch du ein Gefallen an uns, dunkle Nacht? Was hältst du unter deinem Mantel, das mir unsichtbar kräftig an die Seele geht? Köstlicher Balsam träuft aus deiner Hand, aus dem Bündel Mohn. Die schweren Flügel des Gemüts hebst du empor. Dunkel und unaussprechlich fühlen wir uns bewegt – ein ernstes Antlitz seh ich froh erschrocken, das sanft und andachtsvoll sich zu mir neigt, und unter unendlich verschlungenen Locken der Mutter liebe Jugend zeigt.

Wie arm und kindisch dünkt mir das Licht nun – wie erfreulich und gesegnet des Tages Abschied – Also nur darum, weil die Nacht dir abwendig macht die Dienenden, säetest du in des Raumes Weiten die leuchtenden Kugeln, zu verkünden deine Allmacht – deine Wiederkehr – in den Zeiten deiner Entfernung. Himmlischer, als jene blitzenden Sterne, dünken uns die unendlichen Augen, die die Nacht in uns geöffnet. Weiter sehn sie, als die blässesten jener zahllosen Heere – unbedürftig des Lichts durchschauen sie die Tiefen eines liebenden Gemüts – was einen höheren Raum mit unsäglicher Wollust füllt. Preis der Weltkönigin, der hohen Verkündigerin heiliger Welten, der Pflegerin seliger Liebe – sie sendet mir dich – zarte Geliebte – liebliche Sonne der Nacht, – nun wach ich – denn ich bin Dein und Mein – du hast die Nacht mir zum Leben verkündet – mich zum Menschen gemacht – zehre mit Geisterglut meinen Leib, daß ich luftig mit dir inniger mich mische und dann ewig die Brautnacht währt.

EN:

Before all the wondrous shows of the widespread space around him, what living, sentient thing loves not the all-joyous light—with its colors, its rays and undulations, its gentle omnipresence in the form of the wakening Day?
Ontonagon beach

The giant-world of the unresting constellations inhales it as the innermost soul of life, and floats dancing in its blue flood —the sparkling, ever-tranquil stone, the thoughtful, imbibing plant, and the wild, burning multiform beast inhales it—but more than all, the lordly stranger with the sense-filled eyes, the swaying walk, and the sweetly closed, melodious lips.
Like a king over earthly nature, it rouses every force to countless transformations, binds and unbinds innumerable alliances, hangs its heavenly form around every earthly substance.— Its presence alone reveals the marvelous splendor of the kingdoms of the world.
Aside I turn to the holy, unspeakable, mysterious Night.
Van Gogh
Afar lies the world—sunk in a deep grave—waste and lonely is its place. In the chords of the bosom blows a deep sadness. I am ready to sink away in drops of dew, and mingle with the ashes.—
The distances of memory, the wishes of youth, the dreams of childhood, the brief joys and vain hopes of a whole long life, arise in gray garments, like an evening vapor after the sunset. In other regions the light has pitched its joyous tents. What if it should never return to its children, who wait for it with the faith of innocence?
What springs up all at once so sweetly boding in my heart, and stills the soft air of sadness? Dost thou also take a pleasure in us, dark Night? What holdest thou under thy mantle, that with hidden power affects my soul? Precious balm drips from thy hand out of its bundle of poppies. Thou upliftest the heavy-laden wings of the soul. Darkly and inexpressibly are we moved—joy-startled, I see a grave face that, tender and worshipful, inclines toward me, and, amid manifold entangled locks, reveals the youthful loveliness of the Mother.
How poor and childish a thing seems to me now the Light—how joyous and welcome the departure of the day—because the Night turns away from thee thy servants, you now strew in the gulfs of space those flashing globes, to proclaim thy omnipotence—thy return—in seasons of thy absence.
More heavenly than those glittering stars we hold the eternal eyes which the Night hath opened within us. Farther they see than the palest of those countless hosts—needing no aid from the light, they penetrate the depths of a loving soul—that fills a loftier region with bliss ineffable.
Glory to the queen of the world, to the great prophet of the holier worlds, to the guardian of blissful love—she sends thee to me—thou tenderly beloved—the gracious sun of the Night,—now am I awake—for now am I thine and mine—thou hast made me know the Night— made of me a man—consume with spirit-fire my body, that I, turned to finer air, may mingle more closely with thee, and then our bridal night endure forever.
***
Novalis was clearly influenced by contemporary literature. The metaphors of the hymns are closely connected to the books Novalis had read at about the time the hymns were written. These are prominently Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet (in the translation by A. W. Schlegel, 1797) and Jean Paul’s Unsichtbare Loge (1793).

The Hymnen an die Nacht display a universal religion with an intermediary. This concept is based on the idea that there is always a third party between a human and God. This intermediary can either be Jesus—as in Christian tradition—or the dead beloved, as in the hymns.

These works consist of three sets of two hymns. These three sets can be structured according to the following principle: in each case the first hymn shows—with the help of the Romantic triad—the development from an assumed happy life on earth through a painful era of alienation to salvation in the eternal night. The following hymn tells of the awakening from this vision and the longing for a return to it.

Continually the pairs of hymns increase and with each step show a higher level of experience and knowledge.

Prose

The novel fragments Heinrich von Ofterdingen and Die Lehrlinge zu Sais clearly reflect the idea of describing a universal world harmony with the help of poetry.

The novel Heinrich von Ofterdingen is the most notable of Novalis’ prose works. It is set in an idyllic version of the European medieval ages, and focuses on the life of its eponymous hero Heinrich von Ofterdingen, a struggling poet. The novel, a traditional bildungsroman, describes Heinrich’s development into a Romantic poet through a series of highly allegorical adventures. In particular, Heinrich experiences a series of continuous visions focusing on a blue flower. Following Novalis’ death, “the blue flower” would become a universal symbol among the Romantics, symbolizing the ultimate, unattainable goal of all artistic strivings. Originally the novel was meant to be a response to Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, a work that Novalis had read with enthusiasm but later judged to be highly unpoetical. In particular, Novalis disliked the fact that in Goethe’s novel the practical and economic needs of the characters ultimately win out over their impractical, artistic yearnings. He wrote Heinrich on Ofterdingen primarily to support his point of view.

Philosophical insights

Unlike most philosophers in history, Novalis did not develop a systematic exposition of his ideas, and consequently was not generally considered as a philosopher. This does not imply, however, that Novalis did not have notable philosophical insights. His ideas were buried and dispersed in fragmentary notes and sentences that took shape in poetic verses and mystical stories. Novalis held the idea that all knowledge culminates in philosophy and philosophy culminates in poetry. What distinguished Novalis from other literary writers was the awareness that while philosophy was limited in its ability to express truth, poetry has the unique ability and power to do so.

Modern philosophy and Novalis

Modern philosophy turned away from the ontological orientation of Medieval philosophy and focused on developing a theory of knowledge, that is, a study of cognitive capabilities of man as the subject of cognition. In the process of developing theories of the cognitive mechanism of the human subject, the self was presented in contrast to the world. The division or the separation of the man as the subject of cognition and the world as the object of cognition began with René Descartes and reached its peak with Immanuel Kant.

Subsequent thinkers after Kant tried to develop an ontology which could explain man and the world as integral parts of reality.  Fichte constructed idealist speculative metaphysics, which were succeeded by Schelling and culminated in Hegel. These German idealists posited an absolute spirit or absolute idea comparable to God as the reality of existence, and attempted to explain man and the world as the manifestation, or as parts, of this existence.

Novalis, however, realized the limitation of language and conceptual theories in the form of philosophy. Since antiquity, philosophy has developed many abstract concepts and conceptual vocabularies such as subjectivity and objectivity, universal and particular, part and whole, and others. Thus, the perception of philosophers has been filtered through the lens of these conceptual tools that limit the way they can see the world. Novalis recognized the limitation of philosophy, or conceptual understanding in general, and recognized poetry and poetic novels as the forms that could more accurately imply and indicate genuine truth.

Some philosophers who recognized the limitation of philosophy’s conceptual understanding paid considerable attention to poetry, including Martin Heidegger, who had studied Friedrich HolderlinZen Buddhism and other forms of Eastern thought were built upon the recognition of the limit of conceptual understanding and the limit of linguistic expression. They often use poetry to express the religious experiences that concepts and words cannot adequately describe and explain.

Records indicated that Novalis widely studied mysticism, including the works of Boehm and Kabala, as well as Neoplatonism, and other works of modern science.

Heart as the universal field of beings

Novalis identified heart as the field where all faculties of the mind, such as understanding, reasoning, imagination, and feelings, are integrated. Furthermore, he asserted that heart is not only the internal basis of human existence but also the internal aspect of all beings in the universe.

Because heart was, for Novalis, an all encompassing field of all beings in the universe, poetic language rich in emotion could freely describe things in the world. Novalis presented stones, birds, flowers, and all other beings in nature in the way that human beings can feel with their heart using language indicative of love.

Novalis was also convinced that each being in nature exists with its own creative power, and that the human being’s fundamental faculty is that of imaginative creativity. Thus, poetry is the result of the resonance of these two powers in man and nature.

The visible and the invisible

For Novalis, language—which is finite and relative—can indicate what it cannot explain and express, that is, the infinite and the absolute. In other words, language can imply that which is not expressible by being aware of the limitations of what language can explain. Thus, the visible and the invisible, expressible and inexpressible, finite and infinite, relative and absolute, conceptual and imaginary can all be presented in the form of poetic languages.

Novalis’ awareness of the limitation of language is expressed by the imagery of ‘night’ in his work. While at night, visibility and the ability to make clear distinctions are limited, linguistic expressions have a similar “veiling” function. By placing the veil of words over the world, the world itself implies a meaning deeper than the text.

Novalis’ awareness of the limitation of language is also indicated by his use of color. While Goethe used specific colors in order to describe figures and clothing, Novalis did not. Instead, Novalis used natural objects to describe color. Natural objects constantly change their color or appearance, and the vocabulary is misleading because it turns the changing quality of natural objects into an unchanging property.

Similarly for objects that exist in dreams, Novalis tried to avoid attaching unchanging, stable definitions to images such as fish, trees, rocks, and others; he tried to express the fluidity of meaning and the playfulness of the world.

Poetic descriptions were, for Novalis, the only form that reveals the mystical reality of the world, and at the same time that allowed the dynamic synthesis of all the faculties of man including imagination, thinking, feeling, willing, and loving.

Novalis’ rejection of the conceptualization of his insights kept him in the realm of poetry, but his poetic intuition has been a source of inspiration for those philosophers who knew of the limitations of philosophy.

Novalis in print

Novalis’ works were originally issued in two volumes by his friends Ludwig Tieck and Friedrich von Schlegel (2 vols., 1802; a third volume was added in 1846).

Editions of Novalis’ collected works have since been compiled by C. Meisner and Bruno Wille (1898), by E. Heilborn (3 vols., 1901), and by J. Minor (3 vols., 1907). Heinrich von Ofterdingen was published separately by J. Schmidt in 1876.

Novalis’s Correspondence was edited by J. M. Raich in 1880. See R. Haym Die romantische Schule (Berlin, 1870); A. Schubart, Novalis’ Leben, Dichten und Denken (1887); C. Busse, Novalis’ Lyrik (1898); J. Bing, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Hamburg, 1899), E. Heilborn, Friedrich von Hardenberg (Berlin, 1901).

Novalis in English

Several of Novalis’ philosophical works have been recently translated into English.

  • Novalis: Philosophical Writings, trans. and ed. Margaret Mahoney Stoljar, State University of New York Press, 1997. This volume contains several of Novalis’ works, including Pollen or Miscellaneous Observations, one of the few complete works published in his lifetime (though it was altered for publication by Friedrich Schlegel); Logological Fragments I and IIMonologue, a long fragment on language; Faith and Love or The King and Queen, a collection of political fragments also published during his lifetime; On Goethe; selections from his unfinished encyclopedia, Allgemeine Broullion or General Draft; and his essay Christendom or Europe.
  • Fichte Studies, trans. Jane Kneller, Cambridge University Press, 2003. This translation is part of the Cambridge Texts in the History of Philosophy Series.
  • Classic and Romantic German Aesthetics, ed. Jay Bernstein, Cambridge University Press, 2003. This book is in the same series as Fichte Studies and contains a very good selection of fragments, plus it includes Novalis’ Dialogues. Also in this collection are fragments by Schlegel and Hölderlin.
  • Henry von Ofterdingen, trans. Palmer Hilty, Waveland Press, 1990.
  • The Novices of Sais, trans. by Ralph Manheim, Archipelago Books, 2005. This translation was originally published in 1949. This edition includes illustrations by Paul KleeThe Novices of Sais contains the fairy tale “Hyacinth and Rose Petal.”

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees
  • Ameriks, Karl (ed.). The Cambridge Companion to German Idealism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. ISBN 0521656958
  • Behler, Ernst. German Romantic Literary Theory. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. New edition, 2005. ISBN 052102191X
  • Beiser, Frederick. German Idealism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2002. ISBN 0674007697
  • Krell, David Farrell. Contagion: Sexuality, Disease, and Death in German Idealism and Romanticism. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998. ISBN 0253333717
  • Kuzniar, Alice. Delayed Endings: Nonclosure in Novalis and Holderlin. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1987. ISBN 082030901X
  • Lacoue-Labarthe, Phillipe and Jean-Luc Nancy. The Literary Absolute. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1988. (Note: This book does not discuss Novalis exclusively, but discusses the Early Romantic movement as a whole.)
  • Molnár, Geza von. Novalis’ “Fichte Studies”.
  • O’Brien, William Arctander. Novalis: Signs of Revolution. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. ISBN 082231519X

External Links

All links retrieved November 16, 2022.

8 Comments

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.


*