The Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence
in the form of a pantheistic religious-philosophical teaching intended for all free spirits…
Selected Texts
Begin here...
PREFACE (pdf)
The Eternal Return: A First Determination
On the Philosophical Character of the Thought of Eternal Return
Why the Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence Does Not Conflict with Other Religions (On Introducing the Particularities of the Whole)
On Nihilism — the Uncanniest of All Guests (as the Reason Behind This Book)
Only one who no longer believes in an otherworldly immortality and eternal life beyond this world, and who cannot bear even the thought of transience or the final mortality as assumed by science, might find solace in the only remaining — this-worldly — form of immortality: the Eternal Reccurrence.
“Would you be able to desire this once more — and again — for all eternity?” (Nietzsche)
-
§19 Eternal Recurrence as the Religion Behind Religions
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 9) And although at first glance it seems that the doctrine or teaching of Eternal Recurrence draws its “blood” from other religions—above all from Hinduism and Buddhism—and that it borrows from them its basic outline, perhaps the opposite… Read more
-
§16 On the Philosophical Character of the Thought of Eternal Return (part II)
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 5) Those who choose to believe in the Eternal Return are those for whom neither religion nor science is sufficient. Only for those to whom ancient religious texts appear unconvincing and mean nothing — but who, on the… Read more
-
§15 On the Philosophical Character of the Thought of Eternal Return
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 4) The most ambitious intention of this book is not to point to new moments or aspects that would render the thought of Eternal Return rationally more comprehensible. This can scarcely be achieved under conditions in which science… Read more
-
§14 On the Human Endurability of the Eternal Return
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 3) Yet since this book is addressed, first and foremost, to those free spirits who still carry within themselves that never-sufficiently-mourned spirit of Enlightenment—the spirit that seeks to dispel the “post-structuralist darkness” that has come to dominate the… Read more
-
§13 On the Existential Unbearability of Eternal Recurrence
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 2) Beyond its rational incomprehensibility, disbelief in the Eternal Return rests upon yet another unease — the existential unbearability of one’s own life, consciously imprisoned within a hopeless circle: a life that meaninglessly “repeats itself” ad infinitum, without… Read more
-
§12 The Eternal Return: A First Determination
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — INTRODUCTION, aph. 1) According to its most general formulation, the Doctrine of Eternal Return holds that everything that has ever “existed” or will “exist,” everything that has unfolded or will unfold as a “process,” in the most diverse modes of… Read more
-
§11 On the Eternal Return of the Same — or the Eternal Departure into the Different?
(Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence — Preface, aph. 11) And so — is it the Eternal Return of the Same that is “at work,” or the Eternal Departure into the Different? And since we have already mentioned this second possibility — the one that, at this… Read more
The Doctrine of Eternal Recurrence 