Goethe's dictum "shuddering is humankind's best feature" 18 Thief
here shows up the wild Spanish Sierra -- this from Gary Lachman's blog post on Jan Potocki
Indeed, scenes and motifs of initiation and secret knowledge run through The Manuscript Found In Saragossa and one of its central figures - the great Sheik of the Gomelez family – is the head of a gigantic scheme that resembles the machinations of the Bavarian Illuminati. Potocki’s decision to set his bizarre novel against the wild beauty of the Spanish Sierra Morena may have been influenced by more than the fact that he passed through the area on his way back from Morocco.
. . .
I can only mention some of the many esoteric motifs that appear throughout the tales, as well as the encyclopedic philosophical discourses that accompany them. The gallows suggest the Tarot trump of the Hanged Man, a symbol of spiritual death and initiation; initiation rites and challenges appear in many forms throughout the book. The weird adventures and tales within tales, in which Alphonse is often unsure if he is awake, dreaming or under the influence of hashish, are a reminder of the ambiguous nature of “reality.” They also occupy the liminal space between sleep and consciousness, the hypnagogic realm of magic and the paranormal.
. . . .
Handke in his Sierra is not being an esoterist, but is using the Sierra to locate tales of the unreal, strange, dream-like, history and memory being as shifting as reality.
Lachman's post about this Count is excellent as always. And as always quite dizzying. Amazing that Lachman continues to trace all of these themes and topics, movements and cults. A helpful reminder about our troubles today in the sense that saying our present administrative cluster of idiots functions, indeed, like a cult, a crazed stream of anti-rationalists bent on being counter to as much as possible, in the name of loyalty to their golden performer.
