The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acéphale and Lectures to the College of Sociology

by Georges Bataille, Roger Caillois (Contributor), Pierre Klossowski (Contributor)

This book collects together, for the first time in any language, a representative selection of texts by Georges Bataille, and the writers associated with him, in the years leading up to the Second World War. At a pivotal moment of history when an enormous catastrophe was obviously inevitable, Bataille confronted the most intractable problems of human existence head-on. How to live an integrated existence in a ruthless, absurd and indifferent universe? How to oppose repressive social structures given the failure of the democracies, the political left, and with the rise of the Nazi ideology?

The texts in this book comprise lectures given to the "College of Sociology" by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris, and a large cache of the internal papers of the secret society of Acéphale founded by Bataille in 1937.

The College of Sociology was a semi-public reading and discussion group attended by the cream of Parisian intelligentsia in the ominous atmosphere of the oncoming war. Bataille and Caillois produced some of their greatest texts for these sessions. Acéphale was its "dark", occulted side, a genuine secret society that conducted torch-lit rituals in a forest at night intended to confront death itself. Until the remarkable discovery a few years ago of its internal papers — which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and interdictions and even a membership list — almost nothing was known of its activities. This book reveals the history of one of the strangest associations in "literary", or any other history.

In these texts the narrative of a desperate adventure unfolds, of a wholly unreasonable quest: "What we are starting is a war." Bataille risked all in this undertaking, and death was not absent from it; with a few fellow travellers he undertook what he later described as a "journey out of this world".

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Theory, Sociology, Anthropology, Politics, France

480 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1997

About the author

French essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.

Reviews

[0 · Rating 1 out of 5]

As a historical document, the book is outstanding. The ideas it expresses are extremely embarrassing. A group of Nietzsche acolytes in their 30s and 40s form a "secret society" to worship edginess. They write a lot of essays about how awesome it would be to do bad stuff and kill God and become violent supermen and die without fear, but are too scared to actually *do* anything else, so they disband.

I'm reminded of Lacan's remark that the Marquis de Sade, in his obsessive quest to violate all sacred and social norms, was actually the ultimate Kantian. Obviously, if you derive your self-worth from raging against God and the Law, you haven't freed yourself from them, you've simply chained yourself to them from the rear entrance. If you get pleasure from burning flags, it's only because you've first elevated them to a sacred emblem.

This is why I'm bored to death by "transgressive" literature. Marie shits on her vomit in a drunken expression of violent ecstasy during the orgy? Yawn. Let me know when Marie regains her faith in life after coming to terms with the fact that the Absolute is only ever realized incompletely...

[xDEAD ENDx · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely essential for understanding what an intellectual, non-conservative secret society might look like.

This book is much less about Bataille's ideas and more about the story behind the practices. I don't want to suggest Acéphale and the College of Sociology are a model to follow, but they are certainly great examples of attempts at tapping into something mystical in the absence of a positive/progressive/hope-driven orientation.

Also the book itself is very physically appealing and the pictures/sketches are some of the best cataloguing Acéphale.

[Michael A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book jampacked with information (though as the authors admit, Denis Hollier's collection of the College is much more complete) but the theme is Acephale the secret society and how it connected to Acephale the journal and the College of Sociology.

The texts for Acephale are very bizarre, even for Bataille. Due to the fact that it was a secret society and people part of it were still keeping quiet (a rule of the society) in the 80s and 90s, not a whole lot is known about what exactly happened. His attempt at meditating "joy in the face of death" are particularly absurd... Despite his apparent "black humor", Bataille is very self-serious, maybe to a fault.

Masson, in an interview, said that he was pretty sure they did sacrifices of animals, but it is hard to definitively say. A few things seem to be known:
-A group of 12 (later 7, then 4, then no one) people took a convoluted route in a forest at night to meet around a fire that could be "sulphurous". What this seems to mean is that Bataille would burn sulphur in a mortar & pestle or something.
-The members took a vow of secrecy.
-In order to join you had to cut yourself and agree that you could be a "possible" victim of sacrifice or the executioner. At first people think Leiris was the willing victim. At (maybe their last) meeting, Bataille wanted the other 3 to sacrifice him, who refused.
-An agenda that seems purposely vague, emphasizing "being" and later on "joy in the face of death".

There are more, but I floated around the idea that maybe there was a human sacrifice. It would seem odd to be so tight-lipped about it afterwards if something awful hadn't actually occurred. (UPDATE: I think nothing really interesting or shocking happened, but they want the appearance of something interesting having happened.) But ultimately, I have no idea what the secret society was trying to accomplish. I guess start a new cult which grows into a religion based on the Death of God (Bataille describes Acephale as "essentially Nietzschean" and in "The Tricephalous Monster" describes the desire to stamp out Christianity, Fascism, and Socialism - the latter probably being synonymous with Marxism-Leninism, as he was a member of Souvarine's left-communist group at one point).

The worries by other members (Especially Pierre Andler, I think it was) that Acephale was merely an aesthetic project was, I think, on point. It seems to me that functionally it was an elaborate performance art project, an attempt at myth by those who no longer believed in myth, and was thus a failure, and not a spectacular failure, but a whimper rather than a bang (it dissolved itself around the start of WW2. obviously people had much more pressing things to do than to go 2 hours deep into the woods at night to perform a meaningless ritual with a perverted librarian [somehow!])

The aesthetics of the book were good, and is astoundingly researched (I believe the authors said they got a lot of stuff from Pierre Andler, who was an inner member).

I think that Acephale being a useless failure may not have been what Bataille intended from the beginning, but it ends up influencing his thought deeper. "The College of Sociology" text near the end reads to me like a really nice primer for what he ends up doing post ww2 with the Accursed Share (though that itself was already prefigured in his Notion of Expenditure from the early 30s).

There are more than a few articles not by Bataille, and I found Leiris's lecture on what he considers to be the sacred the best of the non-Bataillean writings. Caillois's theory of the festival was interesting as well and no doubt influenced Bataille later on.

Would recommend to anyone interested in weird secret societies that fall apart in 2 years, Bataille and/or that WW2-era of French intellectuals on the fringes of the avant-garde.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fascinating for the detailed chronologies and the breakout pieces organized around them. While most of the College documents have already been translated and published by Denis Hollier, these are the lesser additions.

This collection really stands out in attempting to place the few times these dorks wandered into the woods to do Acephale rituals into the proper "intellectual" context/progression. Galletti's research and interviews and persuasive prowess are on full display. Her ability to have teased out of surviving Acephale members scraps of directions, outlines, and questionnaires relating to the "secret society," are the true contributions of this text. Her introductions are acute summaries, binding together a coherent story of what and how Bataille attempted to force a "myth" into existence.

Of course, he failed.

He was barking up the wrong lightning struck tree. He was prancing around artificial tourist ruins. Ultimately, he could not survive the death of god that he so desperately wanted to trumpet.

While there were some new pieces to me, I really found useful the timeline outlines that introduced each chapter. While I read everything written by and about Bataille, I found these thumbnail sketches illuminating and helpful, both by informing my past reading and helping to orient future research. Plus, I am always excited to read any scrap by Klossowski.

I would be remiss in failing to mention how beautiful this book is - the layout is interesting, the photographs amazingly clear, and the Andre Masson drawings are the best reproductions I have seen. Well done.

[Johannes Lilover · Rating 4 out of 5]

Historic French tradegy from nearly a decade ago full of irony and... something.

This is the worst review!

[Jess · Rating 3 out of 5]

Four stars for remarkable scholarly effort and gorgeous layout, two and small change for the actual content (one hopes Bataille comes off as a more substantive figure in full-length solo works). Mostly a case study in the extreme difficulty of getting intellectuals to actually do anything.

[cosima concordia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Everything about and behind The Sacred Conspiracy is just so cool that I can barely handle it. Georges Bataille, who obsessed over (and indulged in) all manner of societal taboos and was ;the neurotic philosophical contemporary of French bigwigs like Camus and Sarte, was also known for being a staunch Marxist. He thought that fascism in its many manifestations was a cultural hydra that had to be defeated, but was sure it would continue to win because it excelled in one area Marxism severely lacked: mythology. Bataille got together with a bunch of surrealists and decided the answer to this was to make a secret society centered around the "Headless Man," who, among other things, represented the Nietzschean death of God. They literally wanted to sanctify the society by sacrificing one of the members, only to fail when some volunteered to be the martyr but none were willing to be the executioner. Because it was a secret society, most of this was kept hidden until a whole bunch of documents were found a few years ago. The Sacred Conspiracy collects all of these newly translated gems alongside Bataille's more public efforts in his founding of the College of Sociology, which sought to explore the sacred in a more academic setting. The point is that Bataille and his cohort dreamed big, and the result is absolutely WILD.

[David · Rating 3 out of 5]

Despite being frustrating and fractured this was absolutely worth the time investment - if only to get an accurate image of the ideological soup that marked the interwar period.

Bataille and his ragtag intelligentsia gathered under an oak tree struck by lightning in former royal hunting grounds on the outskirts of Paris to worship at the foot of self (or interchangeably - an indifferent universe, a violent and vengeful god, the void, the ubermensch, etc). Rebelling against Christianity, Fascism and Socialism (in that order, I'd imagine) they gathered in secret to read Nietzsche, Freud, Durkheim and Mauss with religious zeal. Everything about Acéphale was an illusion. Its leaderless vision was strictly ruled by Bataille. Its call to violence was stalled by complete passivity. Its ritual was without myth and history and most of all, belief. The magazine and school that partnered the secret society put out contradictory works bogged in prolix circular academic thought.

This is a collection of works by the school and magazine, with correspondence between members of the secret society. It is a very pretty book to own. Intellectually, it is almost entirely garbage, interesting only to outline the confused ideological landscape of Europe in the 1930s.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

se face aproape un an de cand am citit story of the eye si a inceput obsesia mea cu filosofia lui bataille si cred ca the sacred conspiracy e numai buna sa fie cireasa de pe tort inainte sa iau o pauza de la el(si probabil cea mai stufoasa carte pe anul asta);
evident o sa trebuiasca sa citesc si tears of eros si theory of religion si alte magarele de ale lui, dar pana atunci cred ca nicio carte pe care am citit o nu o sa fie atat de plina de informatii care obiectiv nu ma ajuta cu nimic in viata ca asta. a inchegat tot ce stiam despre el si mi-am folosit la greu post it urile cumparate din jumbo. am invatat tot ce imi trebuia despre saturnalii, dionysus si meditatie heraclitica, imi ajunge

lasandu-l pe Bataille la o parte cel mai mult m-au atras textele lui klossowski (macar pe el sunt sigura ca va trebui sa l citesc la un moment dat, deja era in reading list) si caillois (el e mai stiintific si mai mult pe sociologie si nu stiu daca ma incanta mai mult de atat); evident prezenta si laure desi nu au inclus vreun text de-al ei, dar multe fun facts

(acum am aflat si eu de ce s-a despartit societatea acephale si are complet sens bataille era dus cu capul, ma rog cam naspa sa iti moara gagica si sa ti se desfinteze 3 mari proiecte din viata intr o perioada relativ scurta de timp)

[Perry Ruhland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Uneven texts, but a great historical document. Loved Bataille's 'Practice of Joy in the Face of Death'.

[Abril Estapé · Rating 5 out of 5]

la biblia para las acéfalas

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Invaluable and surprisingly exhaustive collection of documents, many of which I'd read before in French but that, even so, gain a great deal from the manner in which they're assembled here. I love that the two editors each provide a separate intro for each section of the book, as it provides much-needed perspective on an often fractious group of intellectuals. The chronologies are similarly broken up, one per section, which is so much more useful than providing a single, unnavigable uber-chronology that's just begging to be ignored.

And for the book-fetishists--admittedly, I'm one myself--Atlas has done an amazing job with the design. The printed boards are weirdly appropriate, as if this were a textbook for the outlandish schooling that we're always revisiting in our dreams...

[Volbet · Rating 4 out of 5]

God is dead, and now We, the murderers of all murderers, have found a way to amuse ourselves.
And that amusement is meeting up in butt-fuck nowhere, among sulphureous fire and having a weird Frenchman offer himself up for beheading.

What is the secular answer to totalitarianism? When rationalism and enlightenment values would lead to the mass-slaughter of innocent people, the answer might not be all that easy to find.

In the 1930's Georges Bataille and company tried to figure out the answer. By combining equal parts Friedrich Nietzsche, Marquis de Sade and Émile Durkheim they tried to form a religion, sociology and mysticism in the face of the death of God and on the brink of total annihilation.

The collected texts of both Acéphal and the College of Sociology have been published and critiqued to no end in the past, but what this book does different is that it contrasts the works of both groups with the political turmoil of the age they existed in.
It's a great framing device to show that ideas, no matter how esoteric and lofty they might be, are still a product of the time they come from.

While all the primary texts contained in here are all very interesting, they would all be surpassed by the work the authors would write on their own, without having to adhere to the framework of study group or secret society.
Like Bataille's main ideas about the sacred and expenditure would be much more freely analyzed in The Accursed Share: An Essay on General Economy, Volume I: Consumption and Caillois' biologism would be much more present in his work after WWII.

But as historical relics, all the text are very interesting. Not only do they show that political turmoil can play into intellectual life, they show a pivotal time in French intellectual life.
The texts of both Acéphal and the College of Sociology show a move away from the rational and dialectic, in favor of a more Nietzschean and structuralist methodological approach.

[Fnaught · Rating 3 out of 5]

Georges Bataille was a weirdo.
A pornographer of explosive images (see The Story of the Eye), he was also a devout Nietzschean who was appalled by the philosopher’s full appropriation by the National Socialists and rejection by the Communists, his plebeian friends. Thus began the cult of the Acéphale, perhaps one of the most interesting failed spiritual projects of the 20th century. Based on the image of Dionysius as the dead Christian God, Bataille’s cult seriously intended to incubate a kind of dark spiritual centrism in genuine opposition to the tyrannies of right and left; in essence, he wanted Acéphale to become the society that the Jesuits used to be and the Masons were rumoured to be: a world-controlling minority of scholars.
What follows, in this book at least, is a compilation of divergent failures. Because, of course, a society which desires to represent ‘the leaderless crowd’ will always remain incapable of pulling itself together and actually doing anything.
Roger Caillois’s meditations on the general occultism of childhood might be superb, yet the only really divine texts in this selection come from Bataille himself.
The society of the headless god, ironically enough, remains at the behest of its leader’s brains.
In my opinion, he should have just ruled the damned thing with an iron fist and saved the beheadings for his enemies.
Especially when he alone can write like this-

“I AM JOY IN THE FACE OF DEATH

The depths of the galaxy are joy in the face of death.
I imagine myself carried away in the giddily spinning explosion.
My head bursts into pieces. My body is standing upright in a world of violent acts.
My laughter echoes back from the depths of the galaxy in festival.
I imagine the silence of my death in the wasted silence of the galaxy.
The violence of Acéphale transports my death to the unimaginable festival of the galaxy.”
(453-4).

[Ryan (Glay)]

Bataille is one of those intellectuals who I have been as interested to hear about his life as his ideas.One of the many reasons for my fascination with him was that he set up a secret society called the 'Acephale' (derived from Headless in Greek) apparently meant to promote some form of Nietzschean/Dionysian Post - "Death of God' religion/intellectual working group/boys night out group. ... Oh ... and there was something about a Human Sacrifice associated with this group....

I really just gave a flick through of some of the articles from both the Acephale and College of Sociology, some of the big articles written by Bataille such as the one defending Nietzsche from Fascism are not included in here.

I was very impressed with the editing, which includes a great chronology of the various twists and turns and personal relationships that led to the creation of the Acephale and College of Sociology in the 1930s. There were also great summaries at the begining of sections that explain succinctly what the issues and articles will be covering. Also there are even some great black and white photos of the various contributors to the journals, even creepily the last photo of Laure (Collete Peignot) a financier and lover of Bataille who was dying of tuberculosis.

[Domenico Francesco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una interessante raccolta di documenti dell'Acephale, la misteriosa società segreta fondato da Georges Bataille insieme ad alcuni suoi amici di cui vengono riportati numerosi articoli della rivista indipendente a loro nome (durata però solo cinque numeri più un sesto mai pubblicato). Gli articoli vengono riportati per tematiche e vi è un'introduzione complessiva per inserire gli scritti dell'Acéphale nel giusto contesto storico-politico e sociale. Erroneamente, soprattutto una certa critica americana ma non solo, ha sempre visto l'Acéphale come un club di villains che parlava di fare il male puro senza mai applicare le loro idee. Ovviamente non è così, per quanto per la Acéphale molte definizioni sono giuste ma riduttive allo stesso tempo, e la faccenda e molto più complessa di come spesso è presentata, venendo spesso astratta dall'epoca storica in cui furono scritti gli articoli e sulle riflessioni filosofiche fatte su autori e pensieri che all'epoca erano sotto le grinfie strumentali del fascismo.
Sono estremamente interessanti infatti le riflessioni su Nietzsche, riflessioni valide ancora oggi per far chiarezza quando erroneamente lo si definisce come "autore fascista", vi sono anche numerose riflessioni sul fascismo in sé e sul controverso principio dell'Acéphale della possibilità di combattere il fascismo con le sue stesse armi (non condivido infatti quando nell'introduzione si definiscono questi scritti come non più attuali seppur degni di interesse).

Un libro che si meriterebbe una ristampa, magari questa volta integralmente presentate in tutta la loro importanza.

[Mohammadreza · Rating 5 out of 5]

در میانهٔ قرنی که جهانِ خود را در آینهٔ نظم، پیشرفت و عقلانیت می‌دید، گروهی گرد هم آمدند تا اعلام کنند:
جامعه نه عقل است، نه سازش؛ جامعه میدانِ نیروهاست، تشنج است، اسطوره است، امر مقدس است.
در کالجِ جامعه‌شناسی (Collège de Sociologie) ،باتای، روژه کایوا، میشل لریس، ژرژ آمبروزل و دیگران، طرحِ دیگری از واقعیت ترسیم کردند. آن‌ها نه به جامعه‌شناسی در معنایِ دانشگاهی‌اش، بلکه به کالبدی از جامعه می‌اندیشیدند که نبضش با خونِ قربانی، تابو، آیین و مرگ می‌تپید.
ما در این کانال، پروژه‌ای را آغاز می‌کنیم:
ترجمه، بازخوانی، و احضار این متون؛
نه صرفاً برای خواندن، بلکه برایِ به لرزه انداختنِ دوبارهٔ زمین زیر پای‌مان.
مقدس،
اما بی‌خدا.
جمعی،
اما بی‌مرکز.
اندیشنده،
اما بی‌سر.

https://t.me/Acephalesociology

[Elijah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Provides an excellent collection of documents, correspondences (some never-before-seen), and attending commentaries, all of which shed great light on a particularly extreme period of Bataille’s life and career. Wouldn’t necessarily recommend to those not already familiar with the basics of Bataille’s theoretical persona, but it’s definitely worth a read for those who already know what it means to laugh in paroxysms of expenditure up until the point of complete laceration...

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is something I really wish existed today; a call back to secret societies and mystery religions.

This book outlines the start a new cult based on the Death of God (Bataille describes Acephale as "essentially Nietzschean" (with de Sade and Kierkegaard as other exemplars) and in the desire to stamp out Christianity, Fascism, and Socialism. It's about sacred sociology, Freud, and intellectuals meeting in the dark and making subversive zines.

[Benji · Rating 4 out of 5]

Une fois de plus, nos démarches nous
conduisent dans la forêt et dans la nuit
- à la recherche de la joie devant la mort.

à la recherche de

LA JOIE

devant

LA MORT

[Skylar Jon Izzard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably the most beautiful book in my collection. I love showing this to my friends