Acéphale
| Acéphale |
|---|
| André Masson |
| Magazine (1st edition 1936), Paris
Link to the picture |
Acéphale (from Greek ἀκέφαλος , aképhalos , "without head" - cf. Acephalous society ) is the name of one of the French writer Georges Bataille in 1936 launched secret society in which, among others, Jacques Lacan and Benjamin Walter was a member. In addition, Acéphale is the title of amagazine founded in1936 by Bataille, Pierre Klossowski and André Masson , which sought to “make amends to Nietzsche ” and was the public offshoot of the Collège de Sociologie . The main purpose of the magazine was to save Nietzsche from theattachment of the work to the National Socialists, which was favored and forcedby his sister Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche and others.
The Acéphale organization in Paris - as the documents recently compiled by Marina Galletti show - kept its meetings top secret and saw itself as a spiritual - occult , but secular and anti-religious organization in which - among other things, at nightly meetings in the woods - mythical and orgiastic rites were held. Bataille once even demanded his own sacrifice to death in one of these nocturnal rituals staged with sulfur steam ; This request was denied him by the other members.
The name Acéphale ("without a head") underlined the anti-authoritarian and anti-fascist character of the organization. According to Bataille, it was about creating a progressive counter-myth to the regressive mythology of National Socialism .
At the time of its inception, Georges Bataille , Georges Ambrosino, Jacques Chavy, René Chenon, Henri Dubief, Pierre Dugan, Henri Dussat, Imre Kelemen and Pierre Klossowski were members of the secret society. In 1938/39 Patrick Waldberg , Michel Koch and Isabelle Farner were inducted into the company. Waldberg also attests to the inclusion of Taro Okamoto , but there is no written evidence of this in the group's internal correspondence.
The founding of Acéphale was preceded by the Contre-Attaque group , led by Bataille and the surrealist poet André Breton , a fighting group against National Socialism.
literature
- Rita Bischof : Tragic Laughter: The Story of Acéphale , Berlin: Matthes & Seitz, 2010, ISBN 3-88221-689-1 .
- Stephan Moebius : The sorcerer's apprentices. History of sociology at the Collège de Sociologie , Konstanz: UVK 2006.
- Acéphale , réédition des numéros publiés et du numéro final non publié, éd. Jean-Michel Place, Paris 1995.
- Georges Bataille: L'Apprenti Sorcier (textes, lettres et documents (1932–1939) rassemblés, présentés et annotés par Marina Galletti), Éditions de la Différence, Paris 1999.