Visit to Godenholm

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Visit to Godenholm is a story by Ernst Jünger published in 1952 . It takes place on the fictional Scandinavian island of Godenholm, where the researcher and philosopher Schwarzenberg receives guests. They experience surreal and scary things. Without being explicitly stated, it stands to reason that it is a drug experience . The narrative thus ties in with the chapter The Laurel Night in the novel Heliopolis and offers an outlook on approaches. Drugs and Intoxication , in which Jünger directly describes his experiences with various drugs.

content

The psychologist Moltner, the prehistorian Einar and Ulma, a farmer's daughter from the neighborhood, come by ship to the island of Godenholm. Moltner is mentally dissatisfied, he obviously has great expectations of the time he wants to spend at Schwarzenberg, but the location and staff seem inappropriate or inadequate to him. He would have preferred to meet in a more southerly place.

Schwarzenberg entertains the three in a large octagonal room on his estate. Tea is served. As a result, various forms of physical discomfort develop in all four participants, the noises of the surroundings appear louder and more haunting, they find it more difficult to classify them, the room appears to them ever colder.

Moltner initially announced that he wanted to leave because the climate did not suit him, but Schwarzenberg advised him against it. Various visions now appear to Moltner: First he sees large amounts of water breaking into the room, a hideous animal attached to an anchor, then a blue shark , and finally whole schools of fish with all kinds of peculiar colors and shapes float past him. Several times, when the visions subside and he perceives his surroundings better, Schwarzenberg calls out to him that he knows more. A second vision shows him a golden, sun-drenched palace. Before a possible third vision is canceled.

Meanwhile, Einar believed he was visiting his parents, and it is not mentioned whether Ulma or Schwarzenberg also experienced visions.

When everyone is restored, dinner is served. It is said of Moltner: "He had experienced a change, that was undoubtedly". Among other things, he has a “new perception of himself” and his hand is now “inherent in healing”.

Evidence of drugs

The sequence of experiences and sensations of the four corresponds very well to the effects of LSD , which can also be taken with drinks such as the tea mentioned, or of mescaline :

After tea, Moltner soon becomes sick: “Moltner felt a swaying like when seasickness began”, and the sensory impressions appear to him intensified: “His hearing had become sensitive like a network of strings that answered before it was touched. He felt strongly addressed, ... “There is a changed sense of time and hallucinations. “Things began to charge themselves and to gain life, they grew from the objects as they had appeared to him to be questioning, even judicial power.” Typical euphoric omnipotence fantasies also arise: “Moltner felt power while looking; he was the party to whom the elevator was intended. "

background

Jünger had had numerous drug experiences. Among other things, he carried out a mescaline experiment with several friends at his publisher Ernst Klett jr. In 1951 he took part in an experiment with LSD under medical supervision with his friend who discovered LSD, Albert Hofmann . They repeated this several times until 1970. A detailed edition of the correspondence between Jünger and Hofmann appeared in 2013 from the papers of Jünger and Hofmann, which are available in the German Literature Archive in Marbach .

Remarks

  1. ↑ All works. Volume 15, 1978, p. 418.
  2. ↑ All works. Volume 15, 1978, p. 419.
  3. ↑ All works. Volume 15, 1978, p. 399.
  4. ↑ All works. Volume 15, 1978, p. 400.
  5. ↑ All works. Volume 15, 1978, p. 406.
  6. ↑ Kiesel: Ernst Jünger. 2007, p. 586f.
  7. ↑ LSD. Albert Hofmann and Ernst Jünger. The exchange of letters 1947 to 1997. , Ed .: Deutsche Schillergesellschaft , Marbach am Neckar (2013), ISBN 978-3-937384-99-3

literature

expenditure
  • Visit to Godenholm. Klostermann, Frankfurt 1952.
  • Visit to Godenholm. In: Complete Works. Volume 15: Stories. Klett-Cotta, Stuttgart 1978, ISBN 3-608-93485-5 , pp. 363-420.
Secondary literature