(The first part of an essay from the second chapter of the book titled GENEALOGY AND FOUNDATIONS OF THE THOUGHT OF ETERNAL RETURN, in which an as yet unexplored genealogy of the thought of Eternal Return in Nietzsche’s philosophizing is, for the first time, attempted to be reconstructed.)

This altogether extraordinary, almost ectoplasmic event in Nietzsche’s life, connected first with premonition and formation, then with illumination and complete obsession, and finally with the fading and near-total abandonment of the thought of Eternal Return, can be discerned above all from the records of Nietzsche’s literary estate, as is often the case with the legacies of other great thinkers, and to a far lesser extent from what Nietzsche himself published during his lifetime. Only in three places in his books — The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and Beyond Good and Evil — and there in a rather enigmatic-mystical tone, does Nietzsche explicitly refer to the idea of Eternal Return, which, let us recall, came to his mind in the summer of 1881. Admittedly, in the late work Ecce Homo, he nevertheless somewhat clarifies how this thought “came” to him — or, more precisely, occurred to him.

Here, however, we must point out that, contrary to the prevailing interpretations, we hold that Nietzsche intended to expound the doctrine of Eternal Return in Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but ultimately abandoned that idea during the very process of writing the book. That unusual, still today for many incomprehensible and enigmatic work seems somehow to have remained unfinished in spirit. It truly appears as though something great was begun within it, only to be left incomplete. In our view, the book contains numerous allusions to the thought of Eternal Return, yet they are expressed through such a dense network of metaphors and symbols that they cannot be interpreted unambiguously. At the same time, it cannot escape our notice that in certain places Zarathustra is explicitly proclaimed — or at least treated — as the Teacher of Eternal Return, which lends further support to our interpretation of this book.

On the other hand, many interpreters of Nietzsche have recounted the genealogy of this, for us the most important of Nietzsche’s thoughts, in their own distinctive ways within their writings; and they too will assist us in achieving the aim of this chapter, already indicated in its title. In this respect, the most exhaustive and, to us, the most interesting approach appears to be that of Martin Heidegger. The second volume of Heidegger’s four-volume work devoted to Nietzsche’s philosophy is entirely dedicated to the thought of Eternal Return. For this reason, Martin Heidegger deserves credit for being among the first to emphasize the decisive importance of this thought within the philosophy of the German thinker.

Alongside Heidegger, it is also worth mentioning here other authors whom Nietzsche’s thought of Eternal Return inspired to write books of their own, such as Karl Löwith (1935), Pierre Klossowski (1969), Joan Stambaugh (1972), Bernd Magnus (1978), Lawrence Hatab (2005), and finally Bevis E. McNeil (2021), to name those presently known to us. In this context, we must not forget the modest and most likely pseudonymous George Fraser, whose small books on Nietzsche’s philosophy — among which The Eternal Return stands out in particular — offer entirely unique insights. All of these authors found their own reasons for contemplating the idea of Eternal Return, writing books from their own specific perspectives, and their works deserve mention in this book — a kind of relative to their own works. We shall discuss their views on the “idea,” thought, doctrine, or teaching of Eternal Return in greater detail in the sixth chapter. Here, however, we shall focus primarily on those parts of their texts that help illuminate the genealogy of the thought of Eternal Return in Nietzsche’s philosophizing.

But for now, let us return to Heidegger and, through him, begin our journey into the genealogy of the thought of Eternal Return in Nietzsche’s thinking. How, then, could such a thought ever have occurred to him?

(To be continued…..)