The The Sacred Conspiracy: The Internal Papers of the Secret Society of Aceph

Rien de nouveau dans ce recueil de textes pour un lecteur français qui disposait en VO de tous ces textes originaux déjà dans les différentes publications françaises de Bataille. Il faut donc être anglophone et ne pas savoir lire le français pour espérer trouver un intérêt dans ce recueil.

I can't say enough about how much I enjoyed this book. Such brillant writing and research into a beautifully dark corner of history.

Exquisite collection and design.

Featuring extensive commentaries and useful chronologies at the beginning of each chapter, this masterfully assembled book offers a comprehensive insight into one of the most complex and radical intellectual movements in the cultural history of modern France. Founded by Georges Bataille in response to the dangers of the rising Fascism, the shortcomings of Communism and the aestheticism of Surrealism, this cultural movement drew its energies from Nietzsche’s philosophy and Durkheim’s sociology, and had at its core Bataille’s theory of expenditure. There are two different but deeply interconnected areas where the intellectuals associated with Bataille pursued their researches and activities: the first one was the College of Sociology – a public platform for lectures open to wider audiences; the second, more esoteric area was represented by Acéphale – a review and a secret society whose members were actively pursuing the establishment of a leaderless (or headless) society and the development of a “community of the heart” functioning in stark contrast with both the structures of the Church and those of the Army. This utterly unconventional quest for the sacred has been marked by some obscure rituals and subterranean mythologies: the tree struck by lightning, the secret meetings in the forest, the unaccomplished human sacrifice and the joy in the face of death. It’s not easy to summarize the intellectual and existential richness that can be discovered within the pages of this book, and probably no one does it better than Patrick Waldberg, one of the participants in Bataille’s Sacred Conspiracy: “Never before, perhaps, had such an utter seriousness been combined with such immense puerility, with the purpose of raising life to a certain degree of incandescence and experiencing the kind of ‘privileged moments’ we have yearned for since childhood.”

Un libro imprescindible, único, para el lector de los textos de Bataille. Un periodo insólito de aquel siglo pasado, donde las palabras tenian todo poder de encantamiento. Edición de lujo