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Of Cosmogonic Eros
Theion Publishing is proud to release the first-ever English translation of one of the most important metaphysical works of the 20th century: Of Cosmogonic Eros by the German visionary Ludwig Klages. This monograph is dedicated entirely to an in-depth examination of the mysteries of Eros and the most powerful forms of ecstasy. Here Klages presents a pandaemonic vision of becoming which is inextricably linked to an Eros whose elemental power shatters everyday consciousness and mates the individual to the secrets of the cosmos. The author seeks to restore Eros to his true status and function by carefully distilling his essence against all falsifications and distortions. Showing how Eros is related to Thanatos and integral to every true cultus of the dead and ancestral worship, Klages leaves no doubt that only the Eroto-Gnostic holds the keys to authentic Life and the daemonic empowerment of the Cosmos.
Of Cosmogonic Eros is an indispensable work for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of Eros and ecstasies and the metaphysical conflicts we face in modern times. For researchers and practitioners of Esoteric Traditions and Eroto-Magical systems of spirituality this book must be considered a treasure chest of insights and knowledge. It is a true rune of an Eros of whom Klages says that
“He can be roused while awake as if in the most stupefying dream. He celebrates his orgies beneath the breeze of spring storms, in the light of a star-studded heaven, in a hailstone shower, on a flaming mountain ridge, in the raging surf, in the lightning flash of “first love”, but not least in the embrace of fate that smites its carrier.”
Of Cosmogonic Eros greatly impressed and influenced thinkers and artists like Walter Benjamin and Alfred Kubin but also German esoteric circles and literaries such as the great Hermann Hesse who wrote that in this book “the nearly unutterable has been forged into words”. Spiritual teachers like the Tibetan Buddhist Anagarika Govinda and occult masters like David Beth received important impulses from this empowering work.
This first English edition of Of Cosmogonic Eros will also feature a substantial contextualized introduction by Professor Paul Bishop of the University of Glasgow and the first-ever English translation of parts of Alfred Schuler’s esoteric talks on the nature and essence of the Telesmatic Light directly relevant to Of Cosmogonic Eros. Alfred Schuler, who formed the core of the Kosmiker-Kreis with Klages, was a magician and mystagogue whose oracular language and visions provided much of the esoteric symbolism of Klages’ work. It was this vilified, feared but also admired correspondent of Papus and self-confessed ‘ultimus paganaorum’ (last pagan) who brought forth such mysterious concepts as Blutleuchte, the blood-lamp. The Auric ‘deluxe’ edition will include an exclusive booklet with an essay by David Beth entitled “Katabasis and Eroto-Gnosis: A Short Consideration.”
Of Cosmogonic Eros is an indispensable work for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of Eros and ecstasies and the metaphysical conflicts we face in modern times. For researchers and practitioners of Esoteric Traditions and Eroto-Magical systems of spirituality this book must be considered a treasure chest of insights and knowledge. It is a true rune of an Eros of whom Klages says that
“He can be roused while awake as if in the most stupefying dream. He celebrates his orgies beneath the breeze of spring storms, in the light of a star-studded heaven, in a hailstone shower, on a flaming mountain ridge, in the raging surf, in the lightning flash of “first love”, but not least in the embrace of fate that smites its carrier.”
Of Cosmogonic Eros greatly impressed and influenced thinkers and artists like Walter Benjamin and Alfred Kubin but also German esoteric circles and literaries such as the great Hermann Hesse who wrote that in this book “the nearly unutterable has been forged into words”. Spiritual teachers like the Tibetan Buddhist Anagarika Govinda and occult masters like David Beth received important impulses from this empowering work.
This first English edition of Of Cosmogonic Eros will also feature a substantial contextualized introduction by Professor Paul Bishop of the University of Glasgow and the first-ever English translation of parts of Alfred Schuler’s esoteric talks on the nature and essence of the Telesmatic Light directly relevant to Of Cosmogonic Eros. Alfred Schuler, who formed the core of the Kosmiker-Kreis with Klages, was a magician and mystagogue whose oracular language and visions provided much of the esoteric symbolism of Klages’ work. It was this vilified, feared but also admired correspondent of Papus and self-confessed ‘ultimus paganaorum’ (last pagan) who brought forth such mysterious concepts as Blutleuchte, the blood-lamp. The Auric ‘deluxe’ edition will include an exclusive booklet with an essay by David Beth entitled “Katabasis and Eroto-Gnosis: A Short Consideration.”
272 pages, Hardcover
First published February 1, 1922
About the author
Ludwig Klages
51 books64 followersLudwig Klages was a German philosopher, psychologist and a theoretician in the field of handwriting analysis. Part of the Munich Cosmic Circle, he was known for his Lebensphilosophie. He was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
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December 1, 2022"The external is an internal raised to a level of mystery." -- Novalis
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." -- William Blake
"These sudden intimacies with Immortality, are expanse - not Peace - as Lightning at our feet, instills a foreign Landscape." -- Emily Dickinson
Klages' Of Cosmogonic Eros (translated by Mav Kuhn) is a very dense and rewarding life-affirming work. As a result of studying The Biocentric Worldview, a collection of Klages' essays translated by Joseph D. Pyrce, I came prepared with a great deal of background knowledge. I also read the introduction by Paul Bishop multiple times, and I found watching his video interviews to be very helpful. In his vitalistic philosophy, Klages criticized 'logocentrism', which emphasizes the fixed and discrete and its need to segment, separate, and categorize everything.
Klages describes Eros as the ever-renewing cosmic force that generates life out of chaos. Like the Dao, Eros involves the complementing of polar opposites (i.e., coming and going, growing and fading, illuminating and extinguishing), and the continual transformation of bringing together and tearing apart primal images. During the ecstasy brought on by Eros, one's sense of self is shattered, and one experiences primordial images, which are metamorphoses that do not have conventional existence since they are non-corporeal, non-touchable, and non-conceptual. Ecstasy liberates the soul (the primordial image of life) from the shackles of spirit (reason, concepts, ideas, abstractions, will, purposefulness).In one of Bishop's interviews, he noted that while spirit has a monotonous machine-like beat, soul's primal images have variety built into the patterns of beats, the rhythm of push and pull, where elasticity is life. In authentic ecstasy, you are transported beyond yourself ('unselfing') to experience the primordial image as a living and breathing ensouled universe where All is meaningful. Despite their transience, these experiences reveal a life-pulsing, ever-renewing reality of images.
Klages argues that the "soul is the meaning of the body, the image is the manifestation of the soul". Elsewhere in his magnum opus The Spirit of Adversary of the Soul (not yet fully translated), he stated, "Body and soul are poles of the life-cell which belong inseparably together, into which from outside the spirit, like a wedge, inserts itself, in the endeavour to split them apart, to 'de-soul the body, to disembody the soul, and in this way finally to kill all the life it can reach." The intellect devalues and mechanizes life, making it hostile (e.g., an administrative mindset that emphasizes statistics and a psychoanalytic mindset of slotting people into overarching categories). In Klages' view, the pre-classical Pelasgians were the roots of Western civilization and a symbol for indigenous communities as far back as we can trace, and he considers the analysis of symbols superior to reason when conveying man's downfall from soul to spirit (from the soulful Pelasgians to the modern technocratic age of spirit). As Klages argues, the ego is infiltrating into our being more and more and becoming who we are. Spirit and ego are like vampire invasions outside of life, which separate us from our soul and devitalize us.
According to the book, there is an "Eros of Distance", which decouples the spirit's 'I' from the soul, leading to a sense of "fullness" and being outside oneself: "Eros is 'cosmogonic' because it is 'a state of fullness pouring out of itself, according to which the inner -- inasmuch as it gives birth to itself -- becomes in a moment something external, world, and phenomenal reality... [it] is [a] continual revelation of something that continually flows forth from the most hidden part of the soul." There is no way to grasp or touch an image, so it remains at a distance, hence the term "Eros of Distance". In other words, we enjoy things from afar; we observe them without trying to grasp them or doing violence to them. When we observe them, enjoy and appreciate them, and recognize their uniqueness, we can view the world as art in our own idiosyncratic way (such as when we see an awe-inspiring image of a glowing wood, bathed in a setting sun on a particular day, at a particular time).
During an ecstatic rite, a mystes can engage in a divine marriage (hieros gamos) with a daemon in order "to be inspired by, or possessed by a god". This leads to the experience of the "Eros of Distance" through unselfing. A lot of what he said reminded me of a quote from Taintong Rujing: "The sky tips over like a jar flooding the inner vision."
Life and death are vital forms to be celebrated, and "Eros of Distance" applies to the present and past, not to the future which Klages considers a fabrication of the spirit. Past and present are interconnected, and the past matters because it lives on and is meaningful. Klages spends a lot of time analyzing ancestor worship from a hylozoist perspective. He argues that "time is the soul of space".
The book felt like a nice blend of Greek mystery schools and German philosophy. Eichendorff's sublime poem, quoted in the book, captures Eros' essence:
Whoever has deeply and thirstily drunk,
Is pulled down to the wondrous source,
And melodically swims along as a wave,
On which the world breaks into thousands of sparks.
With yearning grows the holy well, crashes,
Shines intoxicated, jubilant within,
At times forging through the chasm to dazzling light,
At times rushing cool then sunken in night.
So let it eagerly roar and rush!
For upon it floats the poet in golden bark,
Himself a holy sacrifice in songs.
The ancient rocks split with a crack,
From yonder greet us kindred ballads,
He guides us back to the eternal sea.
"A fool sees not the same tree that a wise man sees." -- William Blake
"These sudden intimacies with Immortality, are expanse - not Peace - as Lightning at our feet, instills a foreign Landscape." -- Emily Dickinson
Klages' Of Cosmogonic Eros (translated by Mav Kuhn) is a very dense and rewarding life-affirming work. As a result of studying The Biocentric Worldview, a collection of Klages' essays translated by Joseph D. Pyrce, I came prepared with a great deal of background knowledge. I also read the introduction by Paul Bishop multiple times, and I found watching his video interviews to be very helpful. In his vitalistic philosophy, Klages criticized 'logocentrism', which emphasizes the fixed and discrete and its need to segment, separate, and categorize everything.
Klages describes Eros as the ever-renewing cosmic force that generates life out of chaos. Like the Dao, Eros involves the complementing of polar opposites (i.e., coming and going, growing and fading, illuminating and extinguishing), and the continual transformation of bringing together and tearing apart primal images. During the ecstasy brought on by Eros, one's sense of self is shattered, and one experiences primordial images, which are metamorphoses that do not have conventional existence since they are non-corporeal, non-touchable, and non-conceptual. Ecstasy liberates the soul (the primordial image of life) from the shackles of spirit (reason, concepts, ideas, abstractions, will, purposefulness).In one of Bishop's interviews, he noted that while spirit has a monotonous machine-like beat, soul's primal images have variety built into the patterns of beats, the rhythm of push and pull, where elasticity is life. In authentic ecstasy, you are transported beyond yourself ('unselfing') to experience the primordial image as a living and breathing ensouled universe where All is meaningful. Despite their transience, these experiences reveal a life-pulsing, ever-renewing reality of images.
Klages argues that the "soul is the meaning of the body, the image is the manifestation of the soul". Elsewhere in his magnum opus The Spirit of Adversary of the Soul (not yet fully translated), he stated, "Body and soul are poles of the life-cell which belong inseparably together, into which from outside the spirit, like a wedge, inserts itself, in the endeavour to split them apart, to 'de-soul the body, to disembody the soul, and in this way finally to kill all the life it can reach." The intellect devalues and mechanizes life, making it hostile (e.g., an administrative mindset that emphasizes statistics and a psychoanalytic mindset of slotting people into overarching categories). In Klages' view, the pre-classical Pelasgians were the roots of Western civilization and a symbol for indigenous communities as far back as we can trace, and he considers the analysis of symbols superior to reason when conveying man's downfall from soul to spirit (from the soulful Pelasgians to the modern technocratic age of spirit). As Klages argues, the ego is infiltrating into our being more and more and becoming who we are. Spirit and ego are like vampire invasions outside of life, which separate us from our soul and devitalize us.
According to the book, there is an "Eros of Distance", which decouples the spirit's 'I' from the soul, leading to a sense of "fullness" and being outside oneself: "Eros is 'cosmogonic' because it is 'a state of fullness pouring out of itself, according to which the inner -- inasmuch as it gives birth to itself -- becomes in a moment something external, world, and phenomenal reality... [it] is [a] continual revelation of something that continually flows forth from the most hidden part of the soul." There is no way to grasp or touch an image, so it remains at a distance, hence the term "Eros of Distance". In other words, we enjoy things from afar; we observe them without trying to grasp them or doing violence to them. When we observe them, enjoy and appreciate them, and recognize their uniqueness, we can view the world as art in our own idiosyncratic way (such as when we see an awe-inspiring image of a glowing wood, bathed in a setting sun on a particular day, at a particular time).
During an ecstatic rite, a mystes can engage in a divine marriage (hieros gamos) with a daemon in order "to be inspired by, or possessed by a god". This leads to the experience of the "Eros of Distance" through unselfing. A lot of what he said reminded me of a quote from Taintong Rujing: "The sky tips over like a jar flooding the inner vision."
Life and death are vital forms to be celebrated, and "Eros of Distance" applies to the present and past, not to the future which Klages considers a fabrication of the spirit. Past and present are interconnected, and the past matters because it lives on and is meaningful. Klages spends a lot of time analyzing ancestor worship from a hylozoist perspective. He argues that "time is the soul of space".
The book felt like a nice blend of Greek mystery schools and German philosophy. Eichendorff's sublime poem, quoted in the book, captures Eros' essence:
Whoever has deeply and thirstily drunk,
Is pulled down to the wondrous source,
And melodically swims along as a wave,
On which the world breaks into thousands of sparks.
With yearning grows the holy well, crashes,
Shines intoxicated, jubilant within,
At times forging through the chasm to dazzling light,
At times rushing cool then sunken in night.
So let it eagerly roar and rush!
For upon it floats the poet in golden bark,
Himself a holy sacrifice in songs.
The ancient rocks split with a crack,
From yonder greet us kindred ballads,
He guides us back to the eternal sea.
February 23, 2022
Ludwig Klages explains extensively the nature and essence of Eros, the Primordial god of ecstasy. Ecstasy understood not just as euphoria but as the brief annihilation of the sense of I in a powerful rapture, where the world of daemons and gods is exposed and perceived by the Soul, in contrast to the blind and sterile life of the I, which is the domain of Spirit (in this sense, spirit is taken as reason or intellect, much alike the Urizen of Blake). Klages also gives the word erotic (pertaining to Eros) its true significance, a mystical and esoteric meaning far beyond our modern conception of the erotism as just sexual in nature. I think this book is important to understand the origin of the maladies of teh modern world, where a jaded humanity struggles against Nature and destroys it in a feverish dream of dominance and ignorance of humanity place in Nature, not apart from it.
March 23, 2017
Ich bin allein von der Tatsache einer modern reflektierten heidnischen Religionsphilosophie vollkommen begeistert. Hervorzuheben ist dabei vor allem Klages brillante Dekonstruktion des problematischen Transzendentalismus Platons (so viel wir ihm zu verdanken haben) bzw. dem seiner Interpreten: Nein, Ideen sind eben gerade qua Begrifflichkeit nicht das Absolute (im Sinne von Urgrund des Seins), sondern die demiurgische Reifikation zum Seienden. Hinzu kommen wertvolle Bemerkungen, die sich auch die leibenden unserer Zeit zu Herzen nehmen können. Die Bemerkungen zum Ahnendienst sowie allgemein die Religionshistorischen Exkurse, insb. jene, die die klassische Antike überschreiten, dürften mittlerweile größtenteils überholt sein. Bedenkenswert sind sie jedoch.
Nach zweiter Lesung: Um die Tiefe der Gedanken und ihrer fast gänzlichen Andersheit zur Mentalität der christlich-platonsichen Moderne zu erfassen, bedarf es einer dritten Lesung.
Nach zweiter Lesung: Um die Tiefe der Gedanken und ihrer fast gänzlichen Andersheit zur Mentalität der christlich-platonsichen Moderne zu erfassen, bedarf es einer dritten Lesung.
August 7, 2021
I've written elsewhere about my former reading-experiences with the german original. Being one of the view books I have in a second language at home, I want to comment briefly on the edition by Theion Publishing. This is a true gem, both in form and content. The former should come as no surprise to anyone who is acquainted with the usual quality of Theion's books. The latter is elevated beyond the elementary core-text and it's significance as first translation into english by a comprehensive introduction by Paul Bishop and a short text of Alfred Schuler in the Appendix, a mentor of Klages, who is even more elusive a figure, having never really written extensively.
September 22, 2022
A challenging but rewarding read. This a rich and complex work that deserves your attention.
March 3, 2026
He does not cover the concept of the blood lantern as I had expected. It focuses on the Eros and connects it to several other esoteric concepts but doesn't really add much I haven't already read elsewhere.
January 12, 2026
(Theion publishing edition)
I cannot recommend this book. Maybe my expectations were different from what it is, or maybe it simply isn’t for me.
I found the book to be a very dry, theoretic and academic read, whereas the expectancy was for it to be exiting and poetic, like the subject itself (The god Eros and extatic states).
The actual book itself is about 100 pages and about 75 are introduction. Each page has copious annotations, most of which are of no interest to the reader. Like who Schopenhauer or Aristotle was, in case anyone missed them.
The introduction also sometimes cites about half a page from the essay itself, and feels like filler to form an actual book, along with many many footnotes.
It’s hit or miss sometimes when reading something unknown, this was a miss for me.
I cannot recommend this book. Maybe my expectations were different from what it is, or maybe it simply isn’t for me.
I found the book to be a very dry, theoretic and academic read, whereas the expectancy was for it to be exiting and poetic, like the subject itself (The god Eros and extatic states).
The actual book itself is about 100 pages and about 75 are introduction. Each page has copious annotations, most of which are of no interest to the reader. Like who Schopenhauer or Aristotle was, in case anyone missed them.
The introduction also sometimes cites about half a page from the essay itself, and feels like filler to form an actual book, along with many many footnotes.
It’s hit or miss sometimes when reading something unknown, this was a miss for me.
September 10, 2021
As interesting and important as the philosophy of Klages is, remember that this book is an "unfolding of intuitions" rather than an academic text. Thus, the support for his ideas mainly builds on fragments from myth, literature and poetry rather than cognitive science or psychology, both areas in which Klages was an important scholar. The introduction is very helpful in preparing the reader for this. The most interesting chapter is definitely the one on the veneration of ancestors.
One great thing I got from this text was that it made me discover the beauty of poetry in German.
One great thing I got from this text was that it made me discover the beauty of poetry in German.
October 30, 2026
Honest reaction to Of Cosmogonic Eros: I couldn't tell if I was reading a comedy or a horror story, and I think that's the point. Ludwig Klages takes an HOA meeting, yes, an HOA meeting, and turns it into the most stressful scene I've read all year, especially the moment where a neighbor reads out a "complaint log" that includes things nobody should know. The satire gets a little broad toward the end. Perfect for anyone who's ever hated a neighborhood email chain. Skip it if you like your humor subtle.
January 21, 2025
More poet than philosopher, Klages (b. 1872) had an effervescent mind. His essays on Eros go beyond historical analysis: they are outpourings of Eros in action. The takeaway is more exhilaration than understanding. What you get will likely depend on what you were looking for. If you like Nietzsche, you'll probably want to look at this.
September 15, 2022
Very important book I wished I had read at a younger age.
September 3, 2026
Amazing secular book
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews