Abstract
Nietzsche, Steiner, and Jung are not generally considered mystics of the first rank, as are their approximate contemporaries, Ramakrishna, Ramana Maharshi, and Krishnamurti. However the projects that the former engaged in throughout their lives have religious, spiritual, and mystical overtones, and one can ask the question: were they (in various degrees) on the mystical path, or were they engaged in some other task, perhaps even diametrically opposed to the mystic endeavour? In order to focus this debate the concept of the One in the mystical path will be explored, and the relationship of Nietzsche, Steiner, and Jung evaluated with respect to it.

The One in mysticism
In the study of mysticism considerable attention has been paid to the seeming diversity of accounts and experience of the mystics, with the perennialists proposing a central 'core' experience from which different accounts derive because of personal and cultural contexts and the contextualists who propose that there is no 'core' experience, and that all experience arises from the context. This paper will follow a middle path, assuming that there is a core experience, which moreover can be characterised as some encounter with the One, but that expressions of it are not so much culturally mediated but fall broadly into only two categories determined by the (mostly) culturally-independent orientation of the individual: descriptions of the One mediated through love, and descriptions of the One mediated through awareness. This is to say that the experience of the mystic is of some kind of unity, but reached through two different orientations (heart orientation or head orientation); the inner representation of the experience by the individual flavoured either by love or awareness, and the final oral or written report presented in a language that will be more or less culturally dependent. Thus the final accounts are very diverse: a head-oriented mystic may have to express their experience in the language of a heart-oriented religion, for example Dionysius the Areopagite and the author of the Cloud of Unknowing are clearly head-oriented (or on the via negativa), but have to use the language of Christianity which is love-oriented and theistic. The theistic mystics (or heart-oriented mystics or devotional mystics) in Christianity, such as Richard Rolle and Teresa of Avila, don't have a much easier time because their love-mysticism goes too far for the language of their religious tradition.

It is important to expand a little on the theme of head- and heart-orientation, as it may appear at first glance too crass a distinction to be useful. It is not intended here to carry any value-judgement: neither orientation is 'better' than the other. Nor is it intended here to imply that a heart-oriented person is over-emotional, or incapable of rational thought or logical exposition, or the appreciation of things intellectual. Nor is a head-oriented person devoid of feeling, love, or compassion. It is more a question of balance: one characteristic is stronger in one individual than another, and tends to dictate their first response to situations. The idea relates to Gurdjieff's 'three brains', and his three paths: the path of the fakir (corresponding to the body 'brain'), the path of the monk (corresponding to the heart 'brain'), and the path of the yogi (corresponding to the head 'brain') [1]. Gurdjieff's work was to bring these three parts of the human being into harmony, that is to restore to each part its correct functioning. His teachings also involved the concept of the Fourth Way, as a synthesis of the three existing ways. I disagree with him in this: firstly I don't believe that the path of the fakir is a path in its own right, and that a fakir must, to be successful, adopt one of the other two ways. Secondly, I believe that the head/heart distinction is so universal that it is pointless for a head-oriented person to attempt a heart-oriented path or vice versa, and hence a synthesis of ways is not possible, at least not in the early stages. What is clear from some mystics is that at the end of their journey the distinction may disappear. Gurdjieff is also right in attempting to balance out body, head, and heart, where the imbalance is pathological. The picture may also be confused by mystics or others who attempt an over-correction, but we are left with so many clear examples of the two orientations that it seems absurd not to work with the distinction. The Buddha was head-oriented, Christ heart-oriented. Ramana Maharshi was head-oriented, Ramakrishna heart-oriented. Krishnamurti was head-oriented, Mother Mira heart-oriented. I would suggest, (to take some examples) that many of the mistakes that Otto and Zaehner make are because they do not understand the head-oriented mystic, and many of the mistakes that Bharati makes are because he does not understand the heart-oriented mystic.

Nature mystics, such as Walt Whitman and Richard Jefferies, may represent a third type of orientation; these spurn existing religious language and invent their own, which places them on the fringes of religious discourse. It may be that nature mystics on closer examination can also be divided into those with a head orientation and those with a love orientation. Whitman's attitude to nature, and in particular, to people, is that of love, while Jefferies remains detached from his fellow-men, and separate from nature. That Whitman writes poetry (and even calls them songs) confirms his heart-orientation: Jefferies writes prose. That God is absent from Whitman's poems in no way makes him less heart-oriented than the same absence in Jefferies' prose proves him head-oriented. The evidence for their orientation comes from the warmth and coolness respectively of their work, and would need much more space to explore properly. It is just worth mentioning in passing that few Western commentators on mysticism have taken Whitman's mystical credentials seriously, the exception being Bucke [2] (who is in turn not taken seriously, partly because of his claims for Whitman) and Dorothy Mercer [3]. Two scholars of Indian extraction have however produced detailed and convincing studies of the parallels between Leaves of Grass and Advaita Vedantism: V.K.Chari [4] and V.Sachitanandan [5].

Indian mystics, because of the richness and variety of their inheritance, may find it easier to use the ready-made language of either the devotional or non-devotional path, and someone like the devotional Ramakrishna will continuously debate 'God without form or God with form' as an object of worship. Ramana Maharshi, an 'awareness' type couches his experience in the language of 'seeing who you are'. Krishnamurti, perhaps suffering from the over-abundance of religious language and metaphor of his tradition (and also from the extremes of his training) dumped it totally, and presented a non-devotional system that looks more as if it came from the cognitive sciences.

To sum up: the perennialist view will be taken in this essay that the experience itself is 'core', or a priori, but that the varieties of expression of the mystical experience may arise more from the orientation of the individual than from their culture. The core experience is some way or other of the One, which may express itself (for the heart-oriented) as God, or for the awareness-oriented as the Void, or Nirvana, or of Wholeness. To introduce a useful shorthand, the terms panenhenic, monistic, and theistic mysticism will be used to describe nature-mysticism, awareness-mysticism, and love-mysticism respectively. These terms derive from Zaehner [6] , but will be used on equal footings, rather than with his connotations of sacred and profane, with the resulting value implications. In examining the question of whether Nietzsche, Steiner, and Jung are engaged in projects that have a mystical endeavour, their concern with the One will be examined. The orientation of each will be examined, not just in terms of the panenhenic / monist / theist distinction, but also from the point of view of humility. The term humility here will be used to suggest, not a conventionally 'humble' ego (as we can find many great mystics who seem to be anything but humble in this sense, Gurdjieff for example), but an orientation to the One of receptiveness. This humbleness is that of making oneself available, for example a Richard Rolle or Rumi will express this through sighs of longing for the 'Beloved'; a Zen or Yoga adherent may force themselves to sit in great discomfort for hours on end for the slightest glimpse of the void; while a Richard Jefferies will tramp for hours around his beloved Wiltshire to refresh his soul-longings. We have refined our original question a little now: what characterises the orientation of Nietzsche, Steiner, and Jung towards the One, and to what extent are they receptive towards it?

The lives and work of Nietzsche, Steiner, and Jung
In their different ways all three men have had a profound impact on Western thought this century, though in the case of Steiner one could argue that his influence is more of an undercurrent. Nietzsche's pronouncement that 'God is dead' may have only captured the middle-European mood of the middle-to-late 19th Century, but the more general impact of his works, and particular his model of the 'Superman' have left an indelible mark, though perhaps less so in the United States where the mood was more expansive and optimistic, and perhaps dictated by those who had left behind a peculiarly European contraction of the soul. Steiner's work could never achieve the wider reading that Nietzsche attracted, because of the 'occultist' tag to it, but his influence probably has touched more lives directly, through his pedagogy, his bio-dynamic farming, his art and architecture, and through the surviving Steiner industries. Jung's work, though not quite in the household-name-category of Freud, is widely known for his theory of the collective unconscious and the archetypes, and has touched many directly through his psychoanalytical therapy.

The three men have some important characteristics in common. They came from humble middle-European backgrounds, with religious influences on them, either directly from their fathers (Nietzsche and Jung) or from those close to the family (Steiner). They stood out as academically brilliant from an early age (though not necessarily in a conventional sense), and read voraciously in philosophy, literature, and the sciences of their times. All were influenced by Goethe (whose shaping of the middle-European soul is evident in them). All were loners, in the sense of having a profound inner life which they found hard to share, though Nietzsche stands out as suffering most from loneliness.


Nietzsche
Nietzsche was born in 1844 as the son of a Protestant pastor. His father died of a brain disease when the boy Nietzsche was young, and so he grew up mainly in the company of women. He was unusually intelligent, and gained a scholarship to Schulpforta (one of the best schools in the country) in 1858 at the age of 14, where he was mostly first in the class. He was often ill as a boy, and had a conspicuous stare, often with a wild or threatening look. He was very serious however, and nicknamed 'the little pastor' because of his religious interests, but his passion was for books and writing: he wrote an autobiography at the age of 14 and named it after Goethe's autobiography (who was to remain one of his heroes). He also liked to play war-games with toy soldiers, and would invent games with his sister and childhood friends, taking a dominant role in these. He went on to University to study theology in his father's footsteps, in 1864, and attempted to enter the usual social life of students in those days including the joining of an undergraduate fraternity. He persisted in spite of a lack of natural gregariousness, and apparently even visited a brothel with his fraternarians, though he confined himself to playing the piano which he discovered there to his great relief. His physical and mental deterioration in later life may have been partly due to syphilis, so a return visit to the brothel may have taken place with less piano-playing. Theology did not satisfy him however, so he changed to philology at which he excelled, and transferred to Leipzig under the tutelage of Professor Ritschl. He founded the Leipzig Philological Society and contributed a paper to it, which impressed Ritschl. Despite his brilliance at philology, he began to take more of an interest in philosophy, and read Schopenhauer, who was an important early influence, but whom Nietzsche never met. In 1867 he entered the army, but after serving for a few months he fell of his horse, broke his ribs, and suffered an infection that probably also weakened his health in later life. Nietzsche met Wagner, whose music impressed him greatly, and entered a period of orbiting this great man, writing to him and about him, and spending time with him and his mistress Cosima. In 1869, at the age of 24, Nietzsche was appointed to the chair of classical philology at Basel, and received an honorary doctorate for his writings in philology. He was noted for being a good and kind teacher to his students, who may have appreciated him also for being closer to their age than most of their lecturers. He even received a raise for excellence in teaching.

In 1870, France and Prussia went to war, and Nietzsche enlisted as a medical orderly. This was quite voluntary, as he had given up his Prussian citizenship in order to work uninterrupted at Basel, an act that left him officially stateless up to his death. The human carnage of both French and German soldiers challenged his patriotism, and had a great impact on him, turning him to philosophy for consolation. He soon became ill himself, with dysentery and diptheria, and he was discharged to recuperate at home. It may have been this experience that made him a critic of both militarism and statism.

In his teaching years at Basel he continued his friendship with Wagner. Wagner was enthusiastic about one of Nietzsche's early books The Birth of Tragedy, but the friendship eventually waned, as Nietzsche considered that Wagner had 'sold out' to the German public. Nietzsche grew impatient with philology and began to consider that philosophy was more important to him, but the University refused to let him transfer. In 1876 Nietzsche's health deteriorated to the point that he had to give up teaching, and from then on he lived on the tiny University pension he received, publishing his works at his own expense.

In 1881 he started on Thus Spoke Zarathustra, but his health worsened and only a few works follow this (which he reckoned to be his finest achievement) before his complete breakdown by 1890. In 1888 the first signs of madness appeared, and in his very last letter dated 6th January 1889 he begins: 'Dear Professor, in the end I would have much preferred being a Basle professor to being God. But I did not dare to carry my private egoism so far that for its sake I should omit the creation of the world ...' He caused a public commotion soon after this letter by throwing his arms around an old cart-horse whose misery aroused in him such pity that he was overcome. Pity was one of the emotions he railed against endlessly in Thus Spoke Zarathustra.

He was nursed, first by his mother, and then by his sister, up to his death in 1900. In the last twelve years of his life he was considered insane, and was unable to converse or even dress himself.

Thus Spoke Zarathustra was written in short periods and in unusual circumstances. According to his notes on the subject in Ecce Homo, it was in August 1881, while walking in the woods by lake Silvaplana that the concept of eternal recurrence (a redemption of the past based on affirmation) came to him, and which forms a theme in the book. Nietzsche lived in a quiet bay of Rapallo, not far from Genoa, and spent his mornings, health permitting, walking in the woods up in the hills above, and in the afternoons in walking around the bay. The concept of Zarathustra grew on him in this period, or crept up on him, as he says. He considers that the book came from him almost as an act of revelation:

- Has anyone at the end of the nineteenth century a distinct conception of what poets of strong ages called inspiration? If not, I will describe it. - If one had the slightest residue of superstition left in one, one would hardly be able to set aside the idea that one is merely incarnation, merely mouthpiece, merely medium of overwhelming forces. The concept of revelation, in the sense that something suddenly, with an unspeakable certainty and subtlety, becomes visible, audible, something that shakes and overturns one to the depths, simply describes the fact. One hears, one does not seek; one takes, one does not ask who gives; a thought flashes up like lightening, with necessity, unfalteringly formed - I have never had any choice. An ecstasy whose tremendous tension somehow discharges itself in a flood of tears, while one's steps now involuntarily rush along, now involuntarily lag; a complete being outside of oneself with the distinct consciousness of a multitude of subtle shudders and trickles down to one's toes; a depth of happiness in which the most painful and gloomy things appear, not as an antithesis, but as conditioned, demanded, as a necessary colour within such a superfluity of light; an instinct for rhythmical relationships which spans forms of wide extent - length, the need for a wide-spanned rhythm is almost the measure of the force of inspiration, a kind of compensation for its pressure and tension ... Everything is in the highest degree involuntary but takes place as in a tempest of a feeling of freedom, of absoluteness, of power, of divinity ... The involuntary nature of image, of metaphor is the most remarkable thing of all; one no longer has any idea what is image, what metaphor, everything presents itself as the readiest, the truest, the simplest means of expression. It really does seem, to allude to a saying of Zarathustra's, as if the things themselves approached and offered themselves as metaphors (- 'here all things come caressingly to your discourse and flatter you: for they want to ride upon your back. Upon every image you here ride to every truth. Here the words and word-chests of all existence spring open to you; all existence here want to become words, all becoming here wants to learn speech from you -'). This is my experience of inspiration; I do not doubt that one has to go back thousands of years to find anyone who could say to me 'it is mine also' [7].

Nietzsche's insights alone might make Zarathustra a book of wisdom, but there is also an expansivity and inspiration in it. There are many ecstatic passages scattered throughout the book, of which parts of the 'Night Song' are good examples:

It is night: now do all leaping fountains speak louder. And my soul too is a leaping fountain.


It is night: only now do all songs of lovers awaken. And my soul too is the song of a lover.


Something unquenched, unquenchable, is in me, that wants to speak out. A craving for love is in me, that itself speaks the language of love.


Light am I: ah, that I were night! But this is my solitude that I am girded round with light.


Ah, that I were dark and obscure! How I would suck the breasts of light!


And I should bless you, sparkling stars and glow-worms above! - and be happy in our gifts of light.


But I live in my own light, I drink back into myself the flames that break from me.

We gather that Nietzsche himself was moved by the 'Night Song', because in 1884, when he gave a copy of Zarathustra to Resa von Schirnhofer (one of his female companions of the time) he immediately asked her to read it out to him, upon which he was left silent and emotional for some time. In another passage Zarathustra looks beyond the stars:

'You, however, O Zarathustra, have wanted to behold the ground of things and their background: so you must climb above yourself - up and beyond, until you have even the stars under you!'


Yes! to look down upon myself and even upon the stars: that alone would I call my summit, that has remained for me as my ultimate summit!

Compare this with a passage by Jefferies from The Story of My Heart [8] :

I now became lost, and absorbed into the being or existence of the universe. I felt deep down into the earth under, and high above into the sky, and farther still to the sun and stars. Still farther beyond the stars into the hollow of space, and losing thus my separateness of being come to seem like a part of the whole.

Jefferies uses the same imagery of going beyond the stars, but seems to have already achieved Zarathustra's ultimate summit. Another lyrical passage in Zarathustra reminds one of Jefferies:

O sky above me! O pure, deep sky! You abyss of light! Gazing into you I tremble with divine desires.


To cast myself into your height - that is my depth! To hide myself in you purity - that is my innnocence!


The god is veiled by his beauty: thus you hide your stars. You do not speak: thus you proclaim to me your wisdom.
(Before Sunrise)

Jefferies also loves the sky:

Then I addressed the sun, desiring the soul equivalent of his light and brilliance, his endurance and unwearied race. I turned to the blue heaven over, gazing into its depth, inhaling its exquisite colour and sweetness. The rich blue of the unattainable flower of the sky drew my soul towards its, and there it rested, for pure colour is rest of heart. [9]

The whole of 'Before Sunrise' is of a mystical flavour, and would not compare badly with passages from Whitman or the Gita. The last section of Part Three is similarly buoyant: here is the seventh and last part of it:

If ever I spread out a still sky above myself and flew with my own wings into my own sky:


if, playing, I have swum into deep light-distances and bird-wisdom came to my freedom:


but thus speaks bird-wisdom: 'Behold, there is no above, no below! Fling yourself about, out, back, weightless bird! Sing! speak no more!


'are not all words made for the heavy? do not all words lie to the light? Sing! speak no more!'


Oh how should I not lust for eternity and for the wedding ring of rings - the Ring of Recurrence!


Never yet did I find the woman by whom I wanted children, unless it be this woman, whom I love: for I love you, O Eternity!


For I love you, O Eternity!


('The Seven Seals', part 7)

It is worth remembering that these would have been the last words in Zarathustra, had Nietzsche not chosen to add Part Four the following year. Zarathustra is not however a book of light alone, there is much darkness in it, and in Part Four we see the unmistakable signs of Nietzsche's impending breakdown.

There are many passages in Zarathustra that suggest, at least on the surface of it, that Nietzsche is expressing some fundamental insights into the nature of man's existence. We may accept that Nietzsche had a contempt for the mediocre - so did Krishnamurti for example; however, it is crucial in considering Nietzsche's reality that we have a clear idea of his feelings for others, and we cannot overlook his consistent and monumental expressions of contempt. Let us look at some examples of his intolerance:

Much about your good people moves me to disgust, and it is not their evil I mean. How I wish they possessed a madness through which they could perish, like this pale criminal.


('Of the Pale Criminal')


There are preachers of death: and the earth is full of those to whom departure from life must be preached.


The earth is full of the superfluous, life has been corrupted by the many-too-many. Let them be lured by 'eternal life' out of this life!


('Of the Preachers of Death')


Many too many are born: the state was invented for the superfluous!


Just see how it lures them, the many-too-many! How it devours them, and chews them, and re-chews them!
...
Just look at these superfluous people! They steal for themselves the works of inventors and the treasures of the wise: they call their theft culture - and they turn everything to sickness and calamity.


Just look at these superfluous people! They are always ill, they vomit their bile and call it a newspaper. They devour one another and cannot even digest themselves.


Just look at these superfluous people! They acquire wealth and make themselves poorer with it. They desire power and especially the lever of power, plenty of money - these impotent people!


See them clamber, these nimble apes! They clamber over one another and so scuffle into the mud and the abyss.


('Of the New Idol')


Flee, my friend, into your solitude: I see you stung by poisonous flies. Flee to where the raw, rough breeze blows!


Flee into your solitude! You have lived too near the small and pitiable men. Flee from their hidden vengeance! Towards you they are nothing but vengeance.


No longer lift your arm against them! They are innumerable and it is not your fate to be a fly-swat.


Innumerable are these small and pitiable men; and raindrops and weeds have already brought about the destruction of many a proud building.


[and so on for a while ...]


Your neighbours will always be poisonous flies: that about you which is great, that itself must make them more poisonous and ever more fly-like.


Flee, my friend, into your solitude and to where the raw, rough breeze blows! It is not your fate to be a fly-swat.


('Of the Flies of the Market-Place')


But that which the many-too-many , the superfluous, call marriage - ah, what shall I call it?


Ah, this poverty of soul in partnership! Ah, this filth of soul in partnership! Ah, this miserable ease in partnership!


All this they call marriage; and they say their marriages are made in Heaven.


Well, I do not like it, this Heaven of the superfluous!


('Of Marriage and Children')


Alas! They are always few whose heart possesses a long-enduring courage and wantonness; and in such the spirit, too, is patient. The remainder, however, are cowardly.


The remainder: that is always the majority, the common-place, the superfluity, the many-too-many - all these are cowardly!


('Of the Apostates')

These selections make for depressing reading, and there are many more. They are of course scattered throughout the text, and have a different effect because of it: they tend to cancel out the ecstatic or otherwise benign sense of the sections they are found in. Nietzsche is so graceless in his despising of the common people that we are ashamed for him. Even worse is his attitude to women: as an admirer of Schopenhauer we may not expect him to rise above the attitudes of his time (any more than Jung did in this respect), but the following passages show that he did not just learn well from his teacher, but added his own measure of bile:

Is it not better to fall into the hands of a murderer than into the dreams of a lustful woman? ('Of Chastity')


In woman, a slave and a tyrant have all too long been concealed. For that reason, woman is not yet capable of friendship: she knows only love.


In a woman's love is injustice and blindness towards all she does not love. And in the enlightened love of a woman, too, there is still the unexpected attack and lightning and night, along with the night. [and may this continue!]


Woman is not yet capable of friendship: women are still cats and birds. Or at best, cows.


Woman is not yet capable of friendship. But tell me, you men, which of you is yet capable of friendship? ('Of the Friend')


Man should be trained for war and woman for the recreation of warriors: all else is folly.
...
The man's happiness is: I will. The woman's happiness is: He will.


'Behold, now the world has become perfect!' - thus thinks every woman when she obeys with all her love.


And woman has to obey and find a depth for her surface. Woman's nature is surface, a changeable, stormy film upon shallow waters.


But a man's nature is deep, its torrent roars in subterranean caves: woman senses its power but does not comprehend it.
...
'Give me your little truth, woman!' I said. And thus spoke the little old woman:


'Are you visiting women? Do not forget your whip!'


('Of Old and Young Women')

The 'whip' passage is possibly the most famous in Zarathustra and should really be forgotten, but it is not an isolated comment as we see, and is part of our picture of his views on women. It should be noted that Nietzsche does not even have the courage to put the words into Zarathustra's mouth: they are spoken by a woman, and an old woman perhaps to lend authority to them. Nietzsche slips up though: he follows the whip statement with the usual 'Thus spoke Zarathustra', which he leaves out in other sections where another person is the last to speak. Interestingly women who knew him have defended this statement in a variety of ways, in particular his sister [10] . But if women are cows at best, why not use a whip?

As the book progresses there are a growing number of contradictions, and of course the continuing antipathy to the ordinary person, and women. Zarathustra is maturing however in himself and in his teachings, so can we not accept these blemishes, blemishes that make him possibly endearing to us? The life-affirming nature of his teachings do seem to grow, to the point where he even accepts the idiocy of the Higher Men's ass-worship in a good-humoured and friendly way. Perhaps all the faults can be redeemed in the finale of the book, perhaps Zarathustra finally reveals the depth of his wisdom, that would cause kings, popes, philosophers and poets to revere him. Perhaps all the contradictions and disparagements are to be resolved. What actually happens then, at the end of the book, that could redeem Zarathustra as a true seer, and the founder of a new vision? What actually happens is that the Higher Men are 'healed' by Zarathustra's wisdom (or the fresh air in the mountains, we are not sure): they become convalescents, and their first act as Zarathustra's disciples of the affirmation of life is to invent a new ritual: the Ass festival. Zarathustra takes it in his stride - this must mean that the real teaching is about to come. Not a bit of it: they eat, drink and make merry, and the following morning when Zarathustra gets up before his guests he walks out to a rock, and is flocked about by gentle birds, and in the midst of this confusion, he finds himself stroking a lion.

But, as he was clutching about, above and underneath himself, warding off the tender birds, behold, then something even stranger occurred: for in doing so he clutched unawares a thick, warm mane of hair; at the same time, however, a roar rang out in front of him - the gentle, protracted roar of a lion.


'The sign has come,' said Zarathustra, and his heart was transformed. And in truth, when it grew clear before him, there lay at his feet a sallow, powerful animal that lovingly pressed its head against his knee and would not leave him, behaving like a dog that has found his master again. The doves, however, were no less eager than the lion with their love; and every time a dove glided across the lion's nose, the lion shook its head and wondered and laughed.


('The Sign')

The Higher Men then get up to offer Zarathustra their greetings; surely now Zarathustra will enlighten us and them from the depth of his wisdom, that the lion must be a symbol of? Not a bit of it. The lion roars at them and they conveniently disappear, leaving Zarathustra alone to comment that his pity for them had had its day and now it was time to get on with his work, about which he enlightens us no further. The fact is that the finale to Zarathustra is a childish nonsense posing as wisdom. The lion is the last straw: for it to behave like a fawning dog would be a betrayal of its nature fit only for a circus, and a betrayal of the reality which the mystic is the sober inhabitant of. The lion here is no sign of Zarathustra's wisdom or 'voice of command' that he mourns the lack of earlier in the book, but a teddy-bear, a comforter and protector, a mummy. Zarathustra has returned full-circle to childhood. And in Nietzsche's case the return to childhood was an entry into madness, with the added poignancy that his mother was to nurse him in the early stages of it.

The episode of the tight-rope walker at the beginning of Zarathustra is a symbol for Nietzsche's eventual madness: Nietzsche is the buffoon who jumps over the tight-rope walker, despite his own advice:

There are diverse paths and ways to overcoming: just look to it! But only a buffoon thinks: 'Man can also be jumped over.'


('Of Old and New Law-Tables')

Nietzsche is the tight-rope walker who fell to his death. Nietzsche's best legacy is as destroyer of the false and hypocritical in his age, and previous ages. His rage against decadence is so profoundly expressed that he tears himself apart. He says:

O my brothers, am I then cruel? But I say: That which is falling should also be pushed!


Everything of today - it is falling, it is decaying: who would support it? But I - want to push it too!


(Of Old and New Law-Tables)

Nietzsche is hurling all the decadence of his age of a cliff, and himself with it. His exposure of decadence is to do with honesty:

There have always been many sickly people among those who invent fables and long for God: they have a raging hate for the enlightened man and for that youngest of virtues which is called honesty.


(Of the Afterworldsmen)

Why is honesty the youngest of virtues for Nietzsche? My guess is that it is a certain type of honesty that he is talking about, not the traditional honesty in financial matters, the distaste for lying, and the honouring of promises, but an honesty to oneself - the type of honesty that separates 20th century thought from the previous eras. This youngest of virtues became needed when man became false, and Nietzsche is one of the first prophets of this honesty, and partly for this reason is seen as the precursors of the existentialists. Perhaps Nietzsche sees it as the youngest of virtues because he cannot grasp it fully, existentially, in his own life; if he had, his writings would have amplified themselves in their meaning, and reduced in froth.

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References for Part 1

[1] Ouspensky, P.D. In Search of the Miraculous - Fragments of an Unknown Teaching, Arkana, ?, p. 46.
[2] Bucke, R.M. Cosmic Consciousness - A Study in the Evolution of the Human Mind, Olympia Press, London, 1972
[3] Dorothy F. Mercer wrote a series of articles on Whitman between 1946 and 1948 in the journal Vedanta and the West, published by the Vedanta Society of Los Angeles.
[4] Chari, V.K. Whitman in the Light of Vedantic Mysticism, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1976
[5] Sachitanandan, V. Whitman and Bharati: A Comparative Study, The MacMillan Company of India Ltd., Bombay, Calcutta, Delhi, Madras, 1978
[6] Zaehner, R.C. Mysticism Sacred and Profane: an Inquiry into some Varieties of Praeternatural Experience, Oxford 1957
[7] Nietzsche, F. Ecce Homo, Penguin Books, London, 1979, p.102
[8] Jefferies, R. The Story of My Heart, MacMillan St Martin's Press, London 1968
[9] Jefferies, R. The Story of My Heart, MacMillan St Martin's Press, London 1968, p. 3.
[10] Gilman, S.L. Conversations with Nietzsche, New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987 pp.123-124

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