2nd Edition. 272 pages, 165×235 mm. Printed on wood-free high quality paper (115gsm). b/w illustrations and photo reproduction. Surbalin endpapers.

Cloth Hardcover Edition. Bound in ruby red fine cloth. Gold embossing on front and lettering on spine, headbands, silk ribbon. Limited to 870 copies only. Theion Publishing.

Ludwig Klages’ seminal monograph on the true elemental nature of Eros as a world-shaping power and its related states of intoxication and ecstasy was one of Theion’s past bestsellers. Highly in demand since it sold out and due to its importance to researchers and practitioners alike, we decided to make this influential work available again.

Theion Publishing is proud to release the first-ever English translation of one of the most important metaphysical works of the 20th century: Of Cosmogonic Eros by the German visionary Ludwig Klages. This monograph is dedicated entirely to an in-depth examination of the mysteries of Eros and the most powerful forms of ecstasy. Here Klages presents a pandaemonic vision of becoming which is inextricably linked to an Eros whose elemental power shatters everyday consciousness and mates the individual to the secrets of the cosmos. The author seeks to restore Eros to his true status and function by carefully distilling his essence against all falsifications and distortions. Showing how Eros is related to Thanatos and integral to every true cultus of the dead and ancestral worship, Klages leaves no doubt that only the Eroto-Gnostic holds the keys to authentic Life and the daemonic empowerment of the Cosmos.

Of Cosmogonic Eros is an indispensable work for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the nature of Eros and ecstasies and the metaphysical conflicts we face in modern times. For researchers and practitioners of Esoteric Traditions and Eroto-Magical systems of spirituality, this book must be considered a treasure chest of insights and knowledge. It is a true rune of an Eros of whom Klages says that

“He can be roused while awake as if in the most stupefying dream. He celebrates his orgies beneath the breeze of spring storms, in the light of a star-studded heaven, in a hailstone shower, on a flaming mountain ridge, in the raging surf, in the lightning flash of “first love”, but not least in the embrace of fate that smites its carrier.”

Of Cosmogonic Eros greatly impressed and influenced thinkers and artists like Walter Benjamin and Alfred Kubin but also German esoteric circles and literaries such as the great Hermann Hesse who wrote that in this book “the nearly unutterable has been forged into words”. Spiritual teachers like the Tibetan Buddhist Anagarika Govinda and occult masters like David Beth received important impulses from this empowering work.

This first English edition of Of Cosmogonic Eros will also feature a substantial contextualized introduction by Professor Paul Bishop of the University of Glasgow and the first-ever English translation of parts of Alfred Schuler’s esoteric talks on the nature and essence of the Telesmatic Light directly relevant to Of Cosmogonic Eros. Alfred Schuler, who formed the core of the Kosmiker-Kreis with Klages, was a magician and mystagogue whose oracular language and visions provided much of the esoteric symbolism of Klages’ work. It was this vilified, feared but also admired correspondent of Papus and self-confessed ‘ultimus paganaorum’ (last pagan) who brought forth such mysterious concepts as Blutleuchte, the blood-lamp.