Description

The first authoritative study of Ludwig Klages ever published in English — a landmark work introducing one of the most enigmatic and controversial pagan philosophers of the early twentieth century to the wider esoteric and academic world.

Klages (1872–1956) was a graphologist by profession and a formidable intellectual, authoring fourteen books and sixty essays across his lifetime. A driving force in the notorious Cosmic Circle of German mystics, he radically rejected Christianity and monotheism in favour of a pan-daemonic paganism, advocating a return to primordial consciousness through magico-erotic encounters with the living, ensouled cosmos. His influence rippled outward to figures as diverse as Hermann Hesse, Walter Benjamin, the Frankfurt School, C. G. Jung, and Martin Heidegger, and continues to shape the work of contemporary esoteric teachers.

Thoroughly edited and annotated by David Beth, this edition includes additional essays by Dr. Volker Zotz (successor to Lama Anagarika Govinda and head of the Aria Mastery Mandala Order of Tantric Buddhism) and Prof. Paul Bishop of the University of Glasgow, alongside eight grayscale photographic reproductions.