W·O·R·L·U·N

“Mysticism is about the possibility of ecstatic life. For the last couple of centuries, with obvious exceptions like Nietzsche and, more recently, Georges Bataille, philosophy has more or less successfully inoculated itself against the kind of experiences of ecstasy we find in the mystics. It is time to reintroduce the virus.

Life strives incessantly to stay in contact with pain. Indeed, discipline means nothing other than this, whether it is of the priestly-ascetic kind directed toward abnegation or of the warlike-heroic kind directed toward hardening oneself like steel. In both cases, it is a matter of maintaining complete control over life, so that at any hour of the day it can serve a higher calling. The central question concerning the rank of present values can be answered by determining to what extent the body can be treated as an object.