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“It is the greatest truth of our age: Information is not knowledge.”
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“May the frightfulness become so great that it can turn men's eyes inward, so that their will no longer seeks the self in others but in themselves.236 I saw it, I know that this is the way: I saw the death of Christ and I saw his lament; I felt the agony of his dying, of the great dying. I saw a new God, a child, who subdued daimons in his hand.237 The God holds the separate principles in his power, he unites them. The God develops through the union of the principles in me. He is their union.
If you will one of these principles, so you are in one, but far from your being other. If you will both principles, one and the other, then you excite the conflict between the principles, since you cannot want both at the same time. From this arises the need, the God appears in it, he takes your conflicting will in his hand, in the hand of a child whose will is simple and beyond conflict. You cannot learn this, it can only develop in you. You cannot will this, it takes the will from your hand and wills itself Will yourself that leads to the way:238 '
But fundamentally you are terrified ofyourself and therefore you prefer to run to all others rather than to yourself I saw the mountain of the sacrifice, and the blood poured in streams from its sides. When I saw how pride and power satisfied men, how beauty beamed from the eyes ofwomen when the great war broke out, I knew that mankind was on the way to self-sacrifice.
The spirit of the depths239 has seized mankind and forces self-sacrifice upon it. Do not seek the guilt here or there. The spirit of the depths clutched the fate of man unto itself as it clutched mine. He leads mankind through the river of blood to the mystery: In the mystery man himself becomes the two principles, the lion and the serpent.
Because I also want my being other, I must become a Christ. I am made into Christ, I must suffer it. Thus the redeeming blood flows. Through the self-sacrifice my pleasure is changed and goes above into its higher principle. Love is sighted, but pleasure is blind. Both principles are one in the symbol of the flame. The principles strip themselves ofhuman form.24o
The mystery showed me in images what I should afterward live. I did not possess any of those boons that the mystery showed me, for I still had to earn all of them.241
finis. part. prim. (End of part one)”
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If you will one of these principles, so you are in one, but far from your being other. If you will both principles, one and the other, then you excite the conflict between the principles, since you cannot want both at the same time. From this arises the need, the God appears in it, he takes your conflicting will in his hand, in the hand of a child whose will is simple and beyond conflict. You cannot learn this, it can only develop in you. You cannot will this, it takes the will from your hand and wills itself Will yourself that leads to the way:238 '
But fundamentally you are terrified ofyourself and therefore you prefer to run to all others rather than to yourself I saw the mountain of the sacrifice, and the blood poured in streams from its sides. When I saw how pride and power satisfied men, how beauty beamed from the eyes ofwomen when the great war broke out, I knew that mankind was on the way to self-sacrifice.
The spirit of the depths239 has seized mankind and forces self-sacrifice upon it. Do not seek the guilt here or there. The spirit of the depths clutched the fate of man unto itself as it clutched mine. He leads mankind through the river of blood to the mystery: In the mystery man himself becomes the two principles, the lion and the serpent.
Because I also want my being other, I must become a Christ. I am made into Christ, I must suffer it. Thus the redeeming blood flows. Through the self-sacrifice my pleasure is changed and goes above into its higher principle. Love is sighted, but pleasure is blind. Both principles are one in the symbol of the flame. The principles strip themselves ofhuman form.24o
The mystery showed me in images what I should afterward live. I did not possess any of those boons that the mystery showed me, for I still had to earn all of them.241
finis. part. prim. (End of part one)”
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“2] When the desert begins to bloom, it brings forth strange plants. You will consider yourself mad, and in a certain sense you will in fact be mad.88 To the extent that the Christianity of this time lacks madness, it lacks divine life. TalThis is how I overcame madness. Ifyou do not know what divine madness is, suspend judgment and wait for the fruits.90 But know that there is a divine madness which is nothing other than the overpowering of the spirit of this time through the spirit of the depths. Speal< then of sick delusion when the spirit of the depths can no longer stay down and forces a man to speak in tongues instead of in human speech, and makes him believe that he himself is the spirit of the depths. But also speal< of sick delusion when the spirit of this time does not leave a man and forces him to see only the surface, to deny the spirit of the depths and to take himself for the spirit of the times. The spirit of this time is ungodly; the spirit of the depths is ungodly; balance is godly.”
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“There are just as many people who become neurotic because they are normal, as there are people who are neurotic because they cannot become normal. That it should enter anyone’s head to educate them to normality is a nightmare for the former, because their deepest need is really to be able to lead ’abnormal’ lives.”
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“Depths and surface should mix so that new life can develop. Yet the new life does not develop outside of us, but within us. What happens outside us in these days is the image that the peoples live in events, to bequeath this image immemorially to far-off times so that they might learn from it for their own way; just as we learned from the images that the ancients had lived before us in events.
Life does not come from events, but from us. Everything that happens outside has already been.
Therefore whoever considers the eventfrom outside always sees only that it already was, and that it is always the same. But whoever looksfrom inside, knows that everything is new. The events that happen are always the same. But the creative depths ofman are not always the same. Events signify noth- ing, they signify only in us. We create the meaning ofevents. The meaning is and always was artijicial. We make it.
Because ofthis we seek in ourselves the meaning ofevents, so that the way of/ what is to come becomes apparent and our life canpow again.
That which you need comes from yourself, namely the meaning o f the event. The meaning o f events is not their particular meaning. This meaning exists in learned books. Events have no meaning.
The meaning o fevents is the way o fsalvation that you create. The meaning o f events comes from the pOSSibility oflife in this world that you create. I t is the mastery ofthis world and the assertion ofyour soul in this world.
This meaning ofevents is the supreme meaning, that is not in events, and not in the soul, but is the God standing between events and the soul, the mediator oflife, the way, the bridge and the going across. 92
I would not have been able to see what was to come if I could not have seen it in myself
Therefore I talce part in that murder; the sun of the depths also shines in me after the murder has been accomplished; the thousand serpents that want to devour the sun are also in me. I myself am a murderer and murdered, sacrificer and sacrificed.93 The upwelling blood streams out of me.”
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Life does not come from events, but from us. Everything that happens outside has already been.
Therefore whoever considers the eventfrom outside always sees only that it already was, and that it is always the same. But whoever looksfrom inside, knows that everything is new. The events that happen are always the same. But the creative depths ofman are not always the same. Events signify noth- ing, they signify only in us. We create the meaning ofevents. The meaning is and always was artijicial. We make it.
Because ofthis we seek in ourselves the meaning ofevents, so that the way of/ what is to come becomes apparent and our life canpow again.
That which you need comes from yourself, namely the meaning o f the event. The meaning o f events is not their particular meaning. This meaning exists in learned books. Events have no meaning.
The meaning o fevents is the way o fsalvation that you create. The meaning o f events comes from the pOSSibility oflife in this world that you create. I t is the mastery ofthis world and the assertion ofyour soul in this world.
This meaning ofevents is the supreme meaning, that is not in events, and not in the soul, but is the God standing between events and the soul, the mediator oflife, the way, the bridge and the going across. 92
I would not have been able to see what was to come if I could not have seen it in myself
Therefore I talce part in that murder; the sun of the depths also shines in me after the murder has been accomplished; the thousand serpents that want to devour the sun are also in me. I myself am a murderer and murdered, sacrificer and sacrificed.93 The upwelling blood streams out of me.”
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David’s 2025 Year in Books
Take a look at David’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
1,265 books
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153 friends
424 books
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81 friends
46 books
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76 friends
109 books
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79 friends
1,800 books
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164 friends
63 books
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103 friends
355 books
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53 friends
125 books
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5 friends
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