Alexander of Bernus

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Alexander Freiherr von Bernus (born February 6, 1880 in Aeschach near Lindau , † March 6, 1965 at Donaumünster Castle in Donaumünster ) was a German writer and alchemist or spagyrist .

Life

Birth, childhood, youth

Neuburg Abbey

Alexander was born as the second child of the Bavarian major August Grashey and his wife Johanna, née Freiin von Bernus. His mother's brother, Friedrich Alexander Freiherr von Bernus (1838–1908), and his wife Helene, née du Fay, had remained childless and adopted the nephew as an infant.

Shortly after the birth and adoption of Alexander, the von Bernus family moved to Manchester for four years and then took up residence in Ziegelhausen from 1884 to 1886 . In 1886 the move to the Neuburg Abbey , which came into the possession of the Friedrich Alexander Freiherr von Bernus family by inheritance . Alexander received home schooling there. An eight-year high school in Heidelberg and Speyer followed, until he completed his military service from 1898 to 1902 as a flagjunker and later as a lieutenant in the Baden Leibdragonerregiment in Karlsruhe .

Further life

In March 1902, Alexander von Bernus married the writer Adelheid von Sybel . On November 21, 1903 the first child Alexander Walter ("Alwar") was born. From 1902 to 1907 he studied literary history and philosophy in Munich, and from 1912 to 1916 he also studied medicine and chemistry. As early as 1902 Bernus published his first poems together with Stefan Zweig , followed in 1903 by his first volume of poems Aus Rauch und Raum (published by Schuster and Löffler in Berlin). From 1902 to 1907 he also acted as editor of the quarterly publication Die Freistatt . At Ricarda Huch's house , Bernus, who lived in house number 31 on Ainmillerstraße from 1903 to 1909 , met Karl Wolfskehl in 1905 , with whom he remained closely connected until his exile and death in New Zealand, and whose bibliophile expertise was at the beginning of his own book collection gave essential suggestions.

From 1907 to 1912, Bernus ran his own small theater in house number 32 on Ainmillerstraße, the Schwabinger Schattenspiele . Between 1916 and 1920 he published the philosophical- anthroposophical journal Das Reich . When he inherited the Neuburg Abbey in 1908 after the death of his adoptive father Friedrich Alexander von Bernus, where he had spent large parts of his childhood, he continued to run the “Schwabinger Schattenspiele” there for two years after moving to the Neuburg Abbey.

On August 12, 1912, his son Alexander Walter "Alwar" had a fatal accident while playing in the palace chapel of Neuburg Abbey. In the same year he divorced his wife and married the Baltic artist Imogen von Glasenapp . In 1913 his daughter Ursula Pia von Bernus was born, who later achieved media fame as a "black magician" and was also known posthumously as the immediate neighbor of Armin Meiwes , the "cannibal of Rotenburg".

From 1914 to 1921 Bernus worked with Conrad Johann Glückselig (1864–1934) on the development of spagyric medicines. After the First World War , on July 1, 1921, the alchemical-spagyric "Laboratorium Soluna" was founded at Neuburg Abbey. On September 1, 1926, Bernus sold the monastery to the Benedictine Abbey of Beuron and in the spring of 1927 relocated the laboratory together with his residence to Stuttgart .

In 1929 Bernus separated from his second wife and met his future third wife, the actress Isolde Oberländer , known as Isa (1898–2001). In 1921 he had already acquired the small Baroque Donaumünster Palace near Donauwörth , which he lived in during the summer months until 1943. On the night of October 7th to 8th, 1943, his two houses in Stuttgart (apartment and laboratory) were completely destroyed by the first bomb attack on the city. As early as the spring of 1939, Bernus had set up a branch on his estate at Schloss Donaumünster, so that the company could continue to operate in Donaumünster, where it has been since then, without experiencing any interruption. As a result, he also withdrew there privately with his wife and muse Isa and his daughter Marina, who was born in 1933.

Grave site Donauwörth municipal cemetery

Marina von Bernus married Peter Harry Fuld (1921–1962), son and heir to Harry Fuld (1879–1932), the founder of today's Tenovis , in 1957 . The marriage was divorced on July 27, 1961. Marina von Bernus then moved to Canada.

Since Bernus grew up in England for a time, he translated a lot of English poetry into German. His own lyrical oeuvre includes around 1,000 poems. He also created verse plays and short prose. His memoirs, Growing by Miracles , remained unfinished.

In 1954, Bernus joined the PEN Club. Since 1950 he was a member of the German Academy for Language and Poetry . His legacy of documents and the part of his extensive library relating to alchemy are now in the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe .

Incisive and defining

As a high school student, Bernus discovered the romantics who greatly inspired him. The most important of her works for him were Brentanos Godwi or The stone picture of the mother , Arnim's Isabella of Egypt , Arnim's and Brentano's Des Knaben Wunderhorn and especially Eichendorff's poet and her journeymen .

His summer stays with his grandmother were important to him, during which his special love for nature developed.

When he was sixteen, it was important for him to learn that his “uncle” August Grashey and his “aunt” Johanna are his biological parents. Through this he learned that he was related to Goethe .

The fact that he was accepted into an illustrious literary circle at an early age promoted his development as a poet, as did friendships and the like. a. with Karl Wolfskehl, Stefan Zweig, Frank Wedekind , Rainer Maria Rilke , Thomas Mann , Hermann Hesse , Joachim Lutz , the publisher Erich Lichtenstein and Stefan George , who stayed several times at Neuburg Abbey, where he also took part in spiritualistic sessions.

The foundation for most of these contacts was laid during Bernus' studies in Munich.

From 1908 to 1926, his friends visited him regularly in the summer at Neuburg Abbey. He describes this time as the gift of wonderful spiritual conviviality.

After the death of his son in 1912, he devoted himself to occult and alchemical studies.

Bernus had joined the German section of the Theosophical Society , an offshoot of the Adyar-TG , around 1911 and, without being a member, followed the Anthroposophical Society after 1913 , ie he wanted to explore the supersensible world. In his magazine Das Reich wrote u. a. Alfred Kubin , Rudolf Steiner and Else Lasker-Schüler . Steiner liked to be a guest in the Bernus house. The cultural scientist Günther Däss was a pupil of Bernus, who was encouraged by him, among other things, to confront Rilke.

Works (selection)

Bernus has written 450 works, including dramas, short stories, shadow plays, mystery plays, 20 volumes of poetry, other prose texts and the alchemical work Alchymie und Heilkunst . In his laboratory he developed 30 spagyric remedies from plants, metals and minerals. With them and his research results he tried to prove in the 20th century that alchemy is more than medieval superstition.

  • The black picture book . Reprint of the 1911 edition, edited and with an afterword by Monika Schlösser. Agora, Darmstadt 1978, ISBN 3-87008-081-7
  • Neuburg Abbey , series of poems with ten woodcuts by Joachim Lutz , Gengenbach & Hahn - Verlag Mannheim
  • Novellas. Castle legend and other unusual occurrences . Hans Carl, Nuremberg 1949/1984
  • Grow by miracles. Heidelberg childhood and youth . HVA, Heidelberg 1984
  • Alchemy and healing arts . Extended new edition, ed. by Marino Lazzeroni and Irmhild Mäurer. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 1994, ISBN 3-7235-0757-3
  • From the world and beyond . Poems, ed. by Isa von Bernus and Irmhild Mäurer. Verlag am Goetheanum, Dornach 1995, ISBN 3-7235-0899-5
  • The magician's flowers. Night pieces and fantasies . Urachhaus (Rosen Library 13), Stuttgart 2002, ISBN 3-8251-7711-4
  • The secret of the adepts. Information about the Magisterium of Alchemy, the preparation of the major Arcana and the way to the Lapis Philosophorum . Wolfgang Roller, Langen 2003, ISBN 3-923620-15-2
  • Old herb booklet . About the power and effects of herbs. Verlag Eugen Salzer, Heilbronn 1935
  • All souls . Narrative. Preface by Sebastian Paquet. Kessler-Verlag, Mannheim 1952
  • Gold making , "True alchemical events", Eugen Salzer Verlag, Heilbronn 1936
Translations
  • William Blake : Poems . Transferred from Alexander von Bernus and Walter Schmiele. Lambert Schneider Publishing House, Heidelberg 1958
  • Dante Gabriel Rossetti : Poems and Ballads . Transferred from Alexander von Bernus and Stefan George. - Christina Rossetti : Selected poems . Transferred by Wolfgang Breitwieser . Lambert Schneider Publishing House, Heidelberg 1960

literature

  • Words of friendship for Alexander von Bernus . Hans Carl, Nuremberg 1949
  • Franz Anselm Schmitt: Alexander von Bernus. Poet and alchemist. Life and work in documents . Hans Carl, Nuremberg 1971
  • Mirko Sladek, Maria Schütze: Alexander von Bernus . Hans Carl, Nuremberg 1981
  • Gerhard J. Bellinger , Brigitte Regulator-Bellinger : Schwabings Ainmillerstrasse and its most important residents. A representative example of Munich's city history from 1888 to today . Books on Demand, Norderstedt 2003, pp. 255-258 and 280. - ISBN 3-8330-0747-8 ; 2nd edition 2012, ISBN 978-3-8482-2883-6 ; E-Book 2013, ISBN 978-3-8482-6264-9 .
  • Christoph Proeller: A spiritual journey through the cosmos. Alchemy and spagyric after Alexander von Bernus . Hohenfurch 2007, ISBN 978-3-925967-32-0
  • Hannes Proeller: The SOLUNATE therapy manual. Alchemy and spagyric after Alexander von Bernus . 4th edition, Hohenfurch 2014, ISBN 978-3-925967-33-7
  • Annelies Stöckinger, Joachim Telle: The Alexander von Bernus alchemy library in the Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe: Catalog of prints and manuscripts , Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz 1977, ISBN 3-447-03872-1 .
  • Felix Geisler: Alchemy and Spagyric - a special collection in the Badische Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe . - In: Resources for Research: Special Collections in Libraries / ed. by Ludger Syré. - Frankfurt a. M.: Klostermann, 2018. - pp. 27–40. - (Journal of Librarianship and Bibliography. Special Volume 123).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alexander von Bernus: My meeting with Karl Wolfskehl . In: The change . A monthly journal, 3rd year 1948, p. 416
  2. ↑ [1] .
  3. ↑ Friedrich Schnack . Beatus and Sabine . J. Hegner, Hellerau 1927, pp. 40–49: Eighth chapter. In the middle of the month [May] a visit from a purring man broke off. It was a naturopath from Stuttgart. ...
  4. ↑ Nadine Englhart (Ed.) Hermann Sinsheimer . Lived in Paradise , Verlag für Berlin-Brandenburg, Berlin 2013, p. 138: ... or how Bernussen's gardener and laboratory servant with the unlikely name Glückselig stroked his thin, stringy beard and, bent over plants and spagyric retorts, anthroposophical wisdom of life and heaven from gave himself.
  5. ↑ Franz Anselm Schmitt. Alexander of Bernus . H. Carl, Nuremberg 1971, p. 130: Bernus has been doing alchemical experiments on the pen for many years. In 1914 he had an almost finished laboratory. In May of this year he picks up Conrad Johann Glückselig, a highly recommended alchemist from Stuttgart, with whom he produced the first remedia.
  6. ↑ Franz Anselm Schmitt. Alexander of Bernus . H. Carl, Nürnberg 1971, pp. 133-134
  7. ^ Laboratory Soluna Heilmittel GMBH. Retrieved August 15, 2018
  8. ↑ Alexander von Bernus, Growing on Miracles. Heidelberger Kindheit und Jugend, Heidelberg 1984, pp. 236-238; Pp. 242-245.
personal data
SURNAME Bernus, Alexander von
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German writer and alchemist
DATE OF BIRTH February 6, 1880
PLACE OF BIRTH Aeschach
DATE OF DEATH March 6, 1965
Place of death Donaumünster