Approximations. Drugs and intoxication
In his aphoristic essay Approaches. Drugs and Intoxication from 1970, Ernst Jünger spans a picture-puzzle-like arc, starting from personal intoxicating experiences over metaphysical, mythological and historical reflections up to approaches to the phenomena of the unseparated, the universe of intoxication and ecstasy, which Jünger understood as broad . In the ostensibly chronological level of the 315 sections, Jünger reflects on autobiographical experiences with beer , wine , nicotine via ether , laudanum , cocaine and cannabis extract up to mescaline and LSD .
Younger is not concerned with a lexical listing of intoxicating drugs and their cultural significance, but based on his own, often coincidental approaches, he takes the reader into a world in which almost all aspects of the entire younger universe, shaped by two world wars, are reflected . The straightness of the memories is broken through and supplemented again and again by kaleidoscopic excursions and highlights in literature ( Thomas de Quincey , Maupassant , Baudelaire and splinters from his own works), mythology and philosophy .
For disciples, excursions into this terra incognita are fraught with danger; He already makes this clear at the entrance by titling the first section of the work "Skulls and Reefs", with which he denotes the nearness of death, which is also the last approach that interweaves spiritual adventure. The work coined the term psychonautics , which later became effective beyond the immediate reception of disciples .
This book, which Jünger originally began as a brief memorandum to Mircea Eliade , was criticized by its regular readership when it was published in 1970 and, in return, brought new readers to it.