Approaches: Drugs and Altered States

by Ernst Jünger

Translated by Thomas Friese
Edited and with an Introduction by Russell A. Berman

Also available in Kindle ebook format from Amazon.com.

In Approaches, Ernst Jünger describes his experiences with drugs over the course of his life, ranging from youthful drinking sprees, through experiments with hashish and morphine, to more powerful psychotropic substances like mescaline, peyote, and LSD. Combining elements of memoir and critical reflection on the history of mind-altering substances in society, Approaches attests to Jünger’s belief that drugs can facilitate a deeper spiritual journey into dimensions of human existence that have been eclipsed by the ambient noise of modern life.

Praise for Ernst Jünger's Approaches: Drugs and Altered States

"No other author of the past century has explored the dimensions of being 'on the verge' more fully than Ernst Jünger. Unlike the typical secular intellectuals of modernity, Jünger never abandoned the desire to reach zones of reality and truth inaccessible to the rational ways of the human mind. In Approaches, Jünger gives us an existentially moving and epistemologically sophisticated impression of how far he got in this effort through different forms and degrees of self-intoxication. In a present whose intellectuals tend to abandon transcendence as a dream and illusion of the past, this work deserves our attention."
—Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, Albert Guérard Professor in Literature, Emeritus, Stanford University, and Distinguished Professor of Romance Literature, the Hebrew University, Jerusalem

"Jünger's penetrating intensity makes him a fascinating writer on any subject. Approaches, a book that could at first glance be mistaken for Jünger marginalia, turns out to be gripping and timely as the veteran of the trenches turns his attention to the varieties of intoxication. Opiates may remain the opium of the masses, but hallucinogens like LSD and peyote, which Jünger chronicles, are more like battlefields for armies of peacetime moderns; sites of mystery and exuberance. Drug taking is no longer the preserve of philosopher-adventurers and mystical aesthetes. But at a moment when addicts are dying by the thousands in the wealthiest cities in the world, Jünger reminds readers that intoxication promises a way of trading suffering and boredom for transcendence, and for many of us the risk is worth it."
—Jacob Siegel, senior writer at Tablet magazine, columnist for UnHerd, and cohost of Manifesto! A Podcast with the novelist Phil Klay

"As psychedelics crest back into the mainstream, Ernst Jünger's heady tales of intoxication, exhilaration, and pure ecstasy provide an articulated lens for altered states of consciousness unmatched by any modern-day writer in the so-called psychedelic renaissance. Exemplified through Approaches, Jünger was masterful at working with psychedelics, his capacity to translate the untranslatable, superb. A true Jedi before his time, Jünger utilized the revelatory insights from altered states as an impetus for genuine reflection on the truth of what is. The Dionysian self—that sensual, spontaneous, and emotional self—is in deep gratitude for bringing such a beautiful piece of German literature to the worldwide canon."
—Paul F. Austin, founder of Third Wave, psychedelic pioneer, and author of Mastering Microdosing

"Ernst Jünger is increasingly recognized as one of the great conservative writers and thinkers of the 20th century. It might surprise some of his admirers, then, that he indulged extensively in psychoactive drugs throughout his life. His account of these experiences is now available in English as Approaches: Drugs and Altered States. The book documents Jünger’s experiences with everything from alcohol to hashish and mescaline and LSD. What drove his experimentation was a conviction he shared with other modernist artists, as well as other conservative critics of modernity (two categories with considerable overlap): that the most vital parts of human experience lie outside the scope of the rational mind."
—Adam Lehrer, Compact Magazine

“Jünger understood the fundamentally religious nature of drug-taking, and its origin in the thirst for some form of transcendence. He spent much of his life seeking escape from a monstrous, nameless, all-encompassing, homogenizing global tyranny that most of us now think of as modern American culture. Politics was only one means of escaping this; drugs were another; Jünger was trying to figure out whether intoxication and religion were complementary or incompatible. Approaches is an attempt to arrive at an answer.”
—Jaspreet Singh Boparai, The Lamp

Contents

Translator's Preface
Thomas Friese

Acid and the Officer: An Introduction to Ernst Jünger's Approaches
Russell A. Berman

Entry

Skulls and Reefs
Drugs and Altered States
The Plant as an Autonomous Power
Altered States: Homeland and Journey
Exploratory Pathways—A Reconnaissance of Death
Light from over the Wall

Europe

Dosages
Early Entries
Beer and Wine I
Books and Cities
Great Babylon
Singed Wings
Beer and Wine II
On Uncouth Behavior
On the Trail of Maupassant
Narcoses
White Nights

The Orient

Opium
Notes on Opium
Carp à la Polonaise
Providence and Judgment
On Hashish

Passages

The Marriage of Figaro
The Case of Wagner
Optical Models
The Surrealistic Foray

Mexico

Dilated Pupils
Surrogates
Chinese Gardens
Psychonauts
A Retrospect on Godenholm
A Mushroom Symposium
LSD Once More
Peyote
Refined Matter
Skepticism as Required

Parerga to Approaches

Cats and Dogs
On Gambling
Power and Prosperity ∙ Turnover and Capital
The Prussians and War
Books and Readers
Disease and Demonic Possession ∙ Notes on Walter's Misfortune

ISBN 978-0-914386-86-5 (paperback) • ISBN 978-0-914386-87-2 (ebook)
Pub. date: December 5, 2022
406 pages