Die Übersetzung des Textes „Es werde Licht!“ (Rubikon, 24.8.2022)
The cosmos is here!
In his anthology of essays “KoSMoS” Jochen Kirchhoff shows ways out of the world consciousness crisis that underlies all political crises.
Text by Uli Fischer, first published on 24th of August in 2022 by rubikon.news
Are we senselessly whirling up from the cosmic night, or do we have the dignity of a meaningful and intended form of existence?“ Jochen Kirchhoff’s philosophical work is linguistically and intellectually demanding, but the examination of its deep content is definitely worthwhile. If we regard the cosmos as a soulless black space – with the earth as the only oasis of life – and our own existence as a chance product of material „self-organization“, then this dark interpretation of the world also encourages political designs that trample on human dignity. The anthology of essays „KoSMoS“ by Jochen Kirchhoff was published by OVALmedia in June 2022. He unfolds a compendium of Kirchhoff’s rich intellectual world, a fascinating and often surprising view of what is. (Teaser written by the editorial department of RUBIKON.news)
The constant escalation of the world consciousness crisis, and only as such can the present be understood in its essence, does not allow the question of a deeper why and where from the problems of mankind to come to rest. Political, social, economic and cultural analyzes alone are not sufficient to find penetrating, sustainable answers that also open up directions for action. Something is obviously going completely wrong and is now finally out of control in human development to date, no matter how much the impression is given that the current situation is „scientifically“ and „technically“, even „politically“ under control and that we are walking on the path of progress.
The more or less openly transhumanistic perspective of all efforts of the power elites and their accomplices in politics and business marks the step towards a complete turning away from the genuinely human and its higher possibilities and goals of consciousness – even if these are not anchored in social consciousness or even communicated and striven for in a targeted manner. They were and are the unconsciously resonating background of all emancipatory efforts throughout the ages.
A good half century of intensive philosophical work
For more than half a century Jochen Kirchhoff has been dealing with the question of the causes of the crisis of consciousness in mankind, which, like other sensitive authors, such as Ernst Jünger or Erwin Chargaff, accompanied and drove him in his intensive work as a philosopher with his very own, unmistakable colour.
A large number of essays have been written and published on the path of natural-philosophical research and thinking since the late 1960s. They supplement of his natural-philosophical tetralogy in Drachenverlag, which is a kind of „4 plus 1 compendium“ of fundamental philosophical, metaphysical and scientific discussions, and the impressive monographs on Giordano Bruno, Schelling and Kopernikus, which were published by Rowohlt.
The „KoSMoS“ essays highlight fundamental themes such as consciousness as a primal phenomenon, the integral realization of human beings in their difficult processual nature, the criticism of natural science and the formation of viable alternatives in terms of cosmology and anthropology.
„KoSMoS“ – published by OVALmedia
Texts from the years 1993 to 2019 have been included in the volume of essays now published by OVALmedia entitled „KoSMoS“ (1).
There is probably hardly any other well-known thinker of the present time in the German-speaking area – perhaps and probably also worldwide – who has worked on the topic of the crisis of consciousness of man and humanity in such breadth and intensity – with astonishing, enlightening findings, insights – and questions, which reach deep into the foundations of modern societies, which were also built by the natural sciences and into the depths of humanity in general.
Ultimately, Jochen Kirchhoff is always concerned with the individual and a reorientation along the lines of „cosmic responsibility“, which takes into account and expresses a fundamentally different attitude towards being in the cosmos.
In the essay „My Thinking“, a text about the basic lines of his thinking, the philosopher writes:
„The human-cosmos relationship in its basic constellation: Are we senselessly whirled up out of the cosmic night, or do we have the dignity of a meaningful and intended form of existence? How are we laid out cosmically? When I say ,cosmic‘, I mean primarily spiritual-cosmic, without now negating the physical-sensual. I set the premise that man has the dignity of a spiritual-cosmic existence, even if he disregards it or thinks it is pure fantasy. All great human creativity has its origin here.“
In the medium term, the volume of essays is also to be published in English and other languages, thus enabling and catching up on Jochen Kirchhoff as an important source of inspiration internationally. It combines texts that deal with the quality and deepening of perception of human subjectivity, its integration into the big picture, as well as with the cosmological questions of the origin and real nature of the celestial body and human beings. It is divided into three groups of text:
- I The living cosmos
- II Man – a cosmic anthropos
- III Persons
Criticism of the prevailing concept of science
In the texts, weak points of the prevailing physics as a leading science are touched on, the fundamental questions of space and time are asked again in a new and at the same time ancient way. In the essay „Impulses for a lively conception of time“, which touches on the dimension of consciousness, the author writes:
„Science, as the systematized search for formal connections, for the abstract deconstruction and reconstruction of the world in the usual understanding, has so far not been able to make the mystery of time understandable. Time escapes this kind of access. The ,fortress of time‘ cannot be conquered from the outside: all the battering rams of the analytical spirit of reductionist science shatter against time like against a steel wall.“
„The assertion that the world coordinate time is only ,in the head‘ refutes itself: the head is in space and in time.“
„The cosmos as a whole is not subject to a process of becoming that binds all details to an absolute time scale, as might be inferred from the Big Bang fiction. But all cosmic ,systems‘ and forms, all large organisms (celestial bodies) and the living beings on the respective spherical surfaces, insofar as these can be addressed as enabling life, are subject to their own time scales and time rhythms. And even if this cannot be verified with absolute certainty, it can be concluded that these scales and rhythms are ,goal-oriented‘, i.e. teleologically assigned to a point that resembles a large attractor.“
The fundamental misdevelopment of the mathematically oriented natural sciences with all its consequences in the attempt to master the technical world are countered by powerful thoughts and pointers for a metaphysically based uniform field conception, which, among other things, derives its outstanding penetrating power of genuine knowledge of the world and of oneself. Quote from the essay „Nuclear power as a challenge“:
„In the massive counteraction of the space energy fields of the stars, splitting up into particles occurs again and again, while at a somewhat lower level of intensity the space or radial energies, which are waveless in the original state, are stimulated to a transverse wave movement, which manifests itself, among other things, as light. Thus, almost inevitably, a transition or overlapping zone of no-longer-radiation and not-yet-matter arises, which means that waves are almost particles and particles are almost waves and that one fluctuates and flows into the other.“
The all-living cosmos
The fundamental idea of the all-living, spiritual as well as material cosmos appears again in its full dignity and power and experiences a renaissance with the acceptance and further development of the impulses especially from Giordano Bruno, Friedrich W. Schelling and Helmut Krause with hardly foreseeable consequences for the view of the world and self and the mastering of the challenges of the one way or another necessary restructuring of the always one-sided material-technical existence of mankind on earth.
If the envisaged transhumanism, which is currently trying to be implemented, should dehumanize and also de-spiritualize us – and that obviously seems to be the goal – then this path of further consolidation of a fundamentally acosmic attitude to life can only be achieved through powerful, on the essential and a lively, pointing and effective philosophy, as presented by Jochen Kirchhoff in the volume of essays, to remedy the situation and defend the human being as the linchpin of the „cosmic drama“.
The human-cosmos relationship
The double thrust of the essays, once on the nature of man, once on the nature of the cosmos, proves to be a major, unavoidable concern if a new level of consciousness is to come within reach in the process of the development of the celestial body and mankind. Quote from the essay „Cosmic anthropos and the redemption of nature“:
„What kind of being is man? Where does it come from, what is it created for? We know he can be a beast. As an organic being, he is not ,automatically‘ a higher, cosmic being assigned to the divine. To become so, he must make a consciousness effort of his own kind. The high that the incarnation aims at must be achieved over many incarnations and then also asserted.“
The fact that this is still possible despite all the events of the present, which at the moment still seem to point in a completely different direction, is what the author and essays stand for with admirable clarity and philosophical consistency with unique intellectual strength and effective transformation ability, also and especially through a creative language that confronts the scientific vocabulary and the spirit behind it and masters it convincingly.
The necessary mental and spiritual awakening
We still need a spiritual awakening of hitherto unimaginable intensity if we not only want to stop the unconsciously or half-consciously-consciously targeted destruction of man and earth, but also want to initiate an upward movement of individual and collective consciousness.
For this process, Jochen Kirchhoff, with his texts appearing for the first time in this compilation, offers original and directly relevant natural-philosophical thinking, inspiration for one’s own path of knowledge – and one’s own orientation. Another quote from the essay „Cosmic Anthropos and the Redemption of Nature“:
„The drama of the deeper anthropogenesis is decided on the ego and in the ego. To put it in formulaic terms: The species that is given with the incarnation must develop upwards into the cosmic I-being, into the actual anthropos that is always intended. Being human is not a fact, but a task of consciousness. Perhaps you can also say ,order‘ for ,task‘.“
Jochen Kirchhoff – a signpost
This orientation towards a spiritual-cosmic self-understanding of man is in a cultural final phase like today, which is characterized by the overwhelming dominance of technical and scientific thinking and the derivation of actions from it – keyword „Great Reset“, transhumanism, „Green New Deal“ – is basically the only sensible way to stop the serious undesirable developments and to find a way out that introduces a more realistic new beginning for the further development of mankind.
Let us wish this wonderful compilation of texts, which also represents a kind of cross-section of Kirchhoff’s thinking, a grateful and interested reception – and fair, productive discussions that lead into deeper philosophical life practice.
In a self-statement, Jochen Kirchhoff once described Friedrich Nietzsche and his work as a loyal, albeit difficult, friend of his path. May Jochen Kirchhoff continue to be a friend of the path of many people through this publication of the „KoSMoS“-Essays – in his own always encouraging, inspiring and consistent way.
(1) Jochen Kirchhoff, „KoSMoS“ edited by OVALMedia in 2022 in german language