The The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Acephale and Lectures to the College of Sociology - Hardcover

Bataille, Georges; Leiris, Michel; Caillois, Roger

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1900565951 ISBN 13: 9781900565950

Publisher: Atlas Press, 2018

Synopsis

This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual intellectual journeys of modern times, in which Georges Bataille, having spent the early Thirties in far-left groups opposing the rise of Fascism, abandoned that approach in order to transfer the struggle on to "the mythological plane". In 1937, he founded two groups in order to explore the combinations of power and the "sacred" at work in society (Bataille associated the sacred with expenditure, eroticism and death). The first group, the College of Sociology, gave lectures that were intended to reveal the hidden undercurrents within a society on the verge of catastropheThe second group was Acephale, a genuine secret society whose emblem was a headless figure that in part represented the death of God. This "ferocious" antireligion enacted torch-lit rituals in a forest at night beneath an oak tree that had been struck by lightning. Until the discovery a few years ago of the group's internal papers (which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and prohibitions and even a membership list), almost nothing was known of its activities. Here is the story of what must be among the strangest associations in political, literary or occult history. This book is the first to collect a representative selection of the writings of Bataille, and of those close to him, in the years leading up to the war. They judged that the time was right to confront the most intractable problems of the human condition head-on: how to live an integrated existence in a universe that is ruthless, absurd and indifferent? And how to oppose repressive and unequal social structures given the obvious impotence of the democracies and the political left when faced with far-right ideology? Such themes have a renewed resonance today.

About this title

Product Description

Georges Bataille's secret society, long the stuff of legend, is now revealed in its texts, meditations, rules and prohibitions

This book recounts what must be one of the most unusual intellectual journeys of modern times, in which the influential philosopher, cultural theorist and occasional pornographer Georges Bataille (1897-1962), having spent the early 1930s in far-left groups opposing the rise of fascism, abandoned that approach in order to transfer the struggle onto "the mythological plane."

In 1937, Bataille founded two groups in order to explore the combinations of power and the "sacred" at work in society. The first group, the College of Sociology, gave lectures that were intended to reveal the hidden undercurrents within a society on the verge of catastrophe. The second group was Acéphale, a genuine secret society and anti-religion whose emblem was a headless figure that, in part, represented the death of God. Until the discovery a few years ago of the group's internal papers (which include theoretical texts, meditations, minutes of meetings, rules and prohibitions and even a membership list), almost nothing was known of its activities.

This book is the first to collect a representative selection of the writings of Bataille, and of those close to him, in the years leading up to World War II. The texts published here comprise lectures given to the College of Sociology by Bataille, Roger Caillois and Michel Leiris, essays from the Acéphale journal and a large cache of the internal papers from the secret society. A desperate narrative unfolds, wherein Bataille risked all in a wholly unreasonable quest--with a few fellow travelers, he undertook what he later described as a "journey out of this world."

Edition details

• Publisher: Atlas Press
• Publication date: 2018
• ISBN 10: 1900565951
• ISBN 13: 9781900565950
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 480
• Editor: Brotchie Alastair, Galletti Marina
• Illustrator: Masson Andre