Inner Experience (SUNY series, Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory)

Description

Outlines a mystical theology and experience of the sacred founded on the absence of god. Originally published in 1943, Inner Experience is the single most significant work by one of the twentieth century's most influential writers. It outlines a mystical theology and experience of the sacred founded on the absence of god. Bataille calls Inner Experience a "narrative of despair," but also describes it as a book wherein "profundity and passion go tenderly hand in hand." Herein, he says, "The mind moves in a strange world where anguish and ecstasy take shape." Bataille's search for experience begins where religion, philosophy, science, and literature leave off, where doctrines, dogmas, methods, and the arts collapse. His method of meditation, outlined and documented here, commingles horror and delight. Laughter, intoxication, eroticism, poetry, and sacrifice are pursued not as ends in and of themselves but as means of access to a sovereign realm of inner experience. This new translation is the first to include Method of Meditation and Post-Scriptum 1953 , the supplementary texts Bataille added to create the first volume of his Summa Atheologica . This edition also offers the full notes and annotations from the French edition of Bataille's Oeuvres Complètes , along with an incisive introductory essay by Stuart Kendall that situates the work historically, biographically, and philosophically. Review: Atheists and Boring Religious People: A Must Read - Bataille has a way of terrorizing us with the sublime--with ecstatic movements that leave us dazzled and anxious. Sublime or totally destructive? One could answer "Yes". Not for the faint of heart. But I challenge anyone that believes themselves to be an "rational" atheist to approach this work with an empty mind and let Bataille's black sea of mysticism wash over them. You will beg for liberation after most pages, and you will see the end of an active atheism, void of all humanism and scientific faith. No free will, no gods, only the night terrors of one who has given himself over completely to Chance. Mediocre religious people should be required to read this in Sunday school so that they might be stripped of their bourgeois, dead god and have the opportunity to return again to the spirit of ancient religion. Review: In this way his viewpoint reminds me a lot of someone like Jiddu Krishnamurti and/or other great sages - Bataille challenges us to free ourselves from as many mental categories as possible and to experience the raw, naked moment just as it is, even if it is intolerable. He challenges us to throw away all of our pre-concieved notions about... everything, and to enter into the endless unknown. In this way his viewpoint reminds me a lot of someone like Jiddu Krishnamurti and/or other great sages. What makes Bataille different from someone like Krishnmurti, Alan Watt, or related people is that his communicative style is much more along the lines of a continental philosopher than a "sage" or "guru". His teachings are not all that radical for people familiar with the aforementioned "guru's" but his method and communicative style are different enough to make this a worthwhile read even for those of us who practice this sort of spiritual path.