Under the Spell of Circular Movements

I will simply begin here and now. Where and when else? So I will also begin in the here and now, and think from the here and now. I take the here-and-now as the starting point for my investigation into philosophy and madness and their mutual relationship. And from the here- and-now, I will make four attempts to reach the distant ends of philosophy and madness, there-and-then. First, I will make a parodic attempt on psychiatric discourse to unveil and veil the secrets of madness, after which I will, secondly, venture a poetic-mystical attempt to say something of a philosophical and mad nature. Thirdly, I will delve into history and autobiography with the help of an ironic narrative circular movement. After these three attempts from the perspectives of psychiatry, poetry and narrativity, I will make a fourth attempt in a paradoxical and self-referential manner and proclaim four firm propositions about philosophy and madness.

Parodic Attempt

Here I discuss some research data on experiences of reality and reality distortion in the spectrum of psychotic disorders. Led by leading brain scientists Longonoso and Fulmocchi, an interdisciplinary research group in Turin operates in the challenging borderland between crypto-phenomenology, schizoanalysis, trans-cranial engineering and folli-logi(c)a, Italian for what we would call mad studies or folly logics. Their research focuses on what is known as “disturbed sense of reality” or, in DSM-V terms, diminished reality experience syndrome (DRES). We know that people on the schizophrenic spectrum are not present, or only to a very limited extent, in everyday reality. Their lack of a sense of reality is described in various ways in the literature: as a disorder in a so-called “minimal self”;[1] as an impaired or fragmented feeling of being;[2] or as the rejection of the so-called reality principle (in much psychoanalytical literature). Such terms correspond to what most schizophrenics sooner or later, often reluctantly, have to admit after phenomenological assessments, namely that they lack an essential sense of vital contact with the here and now.[3] They are less present in the present and give a strong impression of absence or “non-being” to others.[4]

What Longonoso and Fulmocchi have now demonstrated is that in the cerebellum there is a cluster of neurons that is barely visible to the naked eye but extremely important for daily functioning, where all our sense of reality resides. They describe this in their much-discussed research article “Crossing the Frontiers of the Brain and Discovering Earth, Wind and Fire”. It is this neurological correlate of our deepest sense of reality that functions well in normal people but is severely disrupted in schizophrenics with DRES. The researchers aptly call the nerve cells involved reality neurons. If these do not function properly, you lose that simple but oh-so-important sense of “existence”, and you no longer know that everything is “real”. The expectation in Turin is that the meme of these reality neurons will become even more popular and will have an even greater impact on reality than the earlier theory of mirror neurons from the competing city of Parma.[5]

For psychiatry, the Turin findings are a tremendous breakthrough. Finally, we can show our patients that they are truly not present in reality. With these research data, we can also show them that their absence is due to their brains, which means that they cannot help it and do not need to be ashamed of it. Their unreality is simply hard-wired into their actual brains, which is something they cannot escape, regardless of whether they accept our explanation or not.

However, the Italian studies have also revealed that there remains a small but stubborn group of patients who are robustly resistant to our research data; they cannot be convinced of their own unreality. Their neurology shows convincingly that they do not exist, their brains show no sign of presence, yet these patients insist that they do exist. We put our tongues and other sensors deeply into cheeks when we murmur that these people dress themselves in DRES. But the tragedy remains that even when we offer them supportive reality by promoting compulsory medication or when we urge isolation in one of our care units, their illusions of existence seem indestructible. Longonoso and Fulmocchi[6] say the following about this difficult group of patients:

The most important question posed by Longonoso and Fulmocchi with regard to this subgroup is: how do patients with such a serious disorder manage to pretend that they exist, given their nonperception of reality? To find out, Longonaso and Fulmocchi have developed new techniques, which fall under the broad heading of “deep soul stimulation” (see below). These techniques appear to be very effective in this patient population. Longonoso and Fulmocchi say the following about this:

With these latest findings the boundaries of traditional brain research have been crossed and we have entered an extra-cranial zone, beyond parody. Outside the skull, everything begins anew, and we must start again from scratch. We leave the brain and its fanatics behind and search for a fresh new beginning, in the brave new world where we seek a new starting point from where to explore philosophy and madness.

Poetic Preamble

But where can that beginning be, and how do you get there? From what starting point can we begin to search for the beginning? And once you have reached that beginning, how do you get away from it again? How could we then move from such a beginning towards philosophy and madness and distinguish between them? How do we reach philosophical landscapes, those worlds of wonder, bewilderment and madness?

One thing is certain. As long as we continue to hesitate and procrastinate at the beginning, we will not get there. A leap is needed to get outside the mirror worlds of ourselves.

Or a psychiatric, well-defined case, then we have data that speak for themselves and a foothold in reality, which creates identities and enables narratives with names and surnames, beginning and end.

Or perhaps not a case, not a leap, not a path or access route, but a meta-leap or meta-path, a ‘meth-od’ for responsibly choosing the right path from all possible access routes.

Or we redefine the situation and give our standstill at the starting point a different name. We call it ‘blocked desire’, then we identify and destroy the blockages, and then let the desire flow freely.

Or we create blockages, call them ‘symbolic forms’ or ‘linguistic elements’ in order to express the inexpressible beginning of philosophy and madness in a first word, and many subsequent ones, in order to get the flow of words going. And then, given the possibility of a conceivable first word, a first act of symbolisation, we explore the area where those same symbolisations are up for discussion.

Or we murmur something about an irreducible great Other, unattainable, but with the spoken word giving clues as to where to look for it.

Or we wait for a tiny stimulus of whatever kind, something that awakens us from our pre- philosophical slumber, our complacent state of mind, the smallest signal from outside. Without such a stimulus or initial spark, there is no drive, no energy conversion, and nothing gets off the ground. Then we would never reach the bird’s-eye view, and we would not understand the castles in the air.

Or we call the beginning a problematic situation. And then we let the problem branch out itself, rhizomatically, ecologically responsibly, and generate ideas. Then we reject the temptation of the bird’s-eye view. Then we choose not the air but the churned earth, the trenches and the mole, which goes its way underground.

Philosophy and madness: self-generative and self-referential; self-contained.

Philosophy and madness: always fleeing to the other, the further, the incessant, rolled out of itself.

And forever banging on the doors of the isolation cell to be let in, or rather, left out.

As if you kept staring into a mirror, watching yourself for so long until you catch yourself being absent.

As if you remained awake, and want to remain awake, always, in order to penetrate ever deeper into the light of the night.

As if you could see through broken eyes.

As if you could catch a glimpse through a crack.

As if you could shake off the night, the dark, to let the light come in.

The renowned philosopher, classicist and expert in pre-Socratic philosophy, Peter Kingsley, writes in his book Reality:

As if there were two worlds, and not one, or four, or 23, or an infinite number.

As if the as-if world, the veil of text and signs, dissolved, and everything could truly become what it is.

As if reality could ever become truly real.

But you understand, these are only suggestive, quasi-mystical considerations and poetic allusions. Everything is only figurative. Everything is as if it could be, even if you don’t speak.

Narrative sources

Therefore, away with all poetry and mysticism. Otherwise, this story will fall apart into loose sand and remain poetically free-floating, consisting of unhindered images. And then it is no longer philosophy but falls back into paradox, parody and ultimately madness. And then the madness is thrown down unreflectively, smeared on the canvas, without reflection and mediation by understanding, intellect and reason. No, it cannot go on like this, because we demand more from philosophy than a vivid presentation of the real thing, more than a re-experience or metaphorical transfer of psychotic fragments. In philosophy, we want the one, seen through, plus the whole around it, thought through, hen kai pan, one and all.

There is already a madman, who already knows, who can shout whatever he wants, but it is still madness. There is also already a psychiatrist, who has a practice, a professional profile and a social mission. There is also already a poet, who has the words and finds his words sufficient. But we, philosophers, are not there yet. We want more—and we have less. We base ourselves on nothing. That is why we must manoeuvre carefully: treat our themes with caution and not rush straight towards our goal. Self-critical and thoughtful, we choose a slow, deliberate approach. For a good philosopher, the path to madness is neither the most travelled main road nor the golden mean but the detour. And the most appropriate movement for this is the so-called “circular movement”. Before we really get started with philosophy and madness below, first a short story about my earliest memory of the circular movement.

The year was 1974 and there was only television and radio. If you wanted to listen to a piece of music, a story or a speech several times, you had to buy the long-playing record, the LP. One of my favourite LPs from that time was about Pipo the Clown, and that LP also featured the life story of Klukkluk the Indian, an iconic character from that era.

This story about Klukkluk has marked my life. After my traumatic admission to a psychiatric institution in 2007, and after my successful escape from the discursive and medicinal stranglehold of psychiatry in 2008, I spent some time in a recovery group, also inspired by Tyler Durden’s investigations in the movie Fight Club. Under the leadership of a spiritual counsellor, a certain Kristel Kastanjekruik, we learned how to reach deeper layers in our own confused, chaotic lives and discover invisible patterns. Kastanjekruik was one of the first in the Netherlands to apply the hypno-induced trans-seductive mnemo technique to severe psychoses. Thanks to her deep soul stimulation, some archetypal ground frequencies started moving towards an impersonal level of unreality. And then, after a few sessions of unsuccessfully tuning into trans-marginal zones, a trauma suddenly emerged in me, accompanied by a repressed narrative, foaming at the mouth and shocking. It felt like a kind of birth or, rather, a self-birth or a rebirth. Finally, I learned who I really was, and that I really was, my deepest soul. Thanks to the hypno-induced trans-seductive mnemo technique, I received a story, a recovery story with a beginning and an end.

Anyone who has a story counts. With a story of recovery, you can run away with yourself. Without a story, you are nothing, even less than real, under-dressed. Unrealistically hanging around, no foothold, floating from one pipe dream to another. Not in the world, but strayed from the world, ascended, floated away. No, that is no longer possible, no longer allowed. Create a story, say what is real and say what is not real, and firmly state your recovery, because you must express yourself. You have to say something, something real. You have to answer and justify yourself.

So tell us what’s going on with you! Tell us how it is! In your own words, openly and honestly, go on, tell us, the real story, inform us how it really was for you. Reality, the most dangerous, seductive and numbing drug in unreality.

The Story of Klukkluk

Klukkluk lived with his father and mother and his brothers and sisters on the prairie in a wigwam. Klukkluk’s mother gathered berries and roots, and his father occasionally went hunting for deer. When Klukkluk was eight years old, he was allowed to go hunting with his father for the first time. It would be his first and last hunting trip.

Early in the morning, when the sun cast its first rays over the prairie, Klukkluk senior set off with Klukkluk junior by his side. Both armed with bows and arrows, big and small, and both wearing a feather on their heads, they went in search of the bear. After a long search, Father Klukkluk stopped. He pointed into the distance, Klukkluk looked in the direction his father was pointing, and saw something moving. When he looked closely, he saw that it was a bear, unsuspectingly sniffing around. Whispering softly, because the wind carries far on the prairie, Father Klukkluk told Klukkluk Junior what he had to do.

“Klukkluk, you must get behind the bear. When you get behind him, make the sound of a hissing snake. When the bear gets scared, he will run away and come towards me. I will hide here and shoot him with my bow and arrow. Then you come back and together we will drag the bear to your mother, and tonight we will have a big Indian feast.”

“Yes, but father, how do I get behind the bear?”

“Klukkluk, you make a very large circular movement,” as Father said this, he drew a semicircle in the air with his hand, and continued, “but Klukkluk, be careful not to get too close to the bear, make a wide turn around him, keep an eye on him, but don’t let him see or hear you.”

“… don’t let him see you or hear you,” those would be the last words Klukkluk would hear his father say.

We know the saying about the bear, if only from the film The Big Lebowski, where at one point the sheriff says to Lebowski: “Either you eat the bear, or the bear eats you.” And at this point in the story, we might expect the bad ending to be that father would be eaten by the bear. This would give us a fine Freudian myth about patricide and the beginning of a sketch of a semi-Oedipal developmental history, in which, within a dreamlike narrative setting of an animalistic bear orgy or human lynching, there is room for an elaboration of madness. But that would be another story. Because there was no patricide at Klukkluk in the 1970s. Other stories were circulating at the time, more poignant and profound.

Klukkluk followed his father’s instructions. He walked counterclockwise and tried to draw a giant semicircle in his movement around the bear. And Klukkluk walked and walked and walked. And he went even further. One foot after the other. Quietly and carefully, that little boy with the feather on his head. Pre-programmed by his father: “Think of the bear, keep his image in mind, but don’t show yourself, take a detour.” And Klukkluk walked and walked and walked. And we walked and walked and walked. Here and now, and there and then, and always, it is already time. Walked on in our minds. Look at him walking, look at them walking, look at us walking, poor souls, the hopeful and the desperate, the runners and the imperturbable, back and forth, from pillar to post, from one chair dance to another.

And the sun went down, night fell. And Klukkluk walked through the darkness of the night. And he walked, with only one goal, to make a circular movement, to take up position on the other side of the bear. And he walked through the night and passed the deepest point of the night, just walking into the next day. And he walked even further. He walked past himself, he walked off the prairie and walked out of the story.

Then the story was over, but the LP was not. We children, glued to the gramophone’s loudspeaker, could hear Klukkluk’s footsteps on the grass, the twigs and the branches. In the background, you could hear the natural sounds of the birds, the insects and the wind on the prairie. But slowly, gradually, these sounds faded away as Klukkluk left the realm of nature and myth. He walked away from the repertoire of exciting Indian stories and arrived in our own sobering everyday world of the here and now, where the prairie can only exist far away, hidden in thoughts and poems. The LP slowly began to play more background noise. Less nature, more culture: snippets of human conversation, laughter, giggles, a snarl, a cry. Sounds of the city, of the street, cars and modern real life.

By now, Klukkluk understood that he had lost his way somewhere and that he would no longer catch the bear. He tried to adapt to his new environment with the knowledge and skills he had acquired in his early childhood. But wearing Native American attributes such as feathers, arrows and bows was forbidden in the city, and there was little else to remind him of the prairie. The only familiar place where there was still something natural was the city park. There Klukkluk saw a large tent, where he met Pipo. Pipo offered him a replacement home and a job at the circus.

And the bear? He was trapped in a cage. Klukkluk was certainly not unhappy; he had food and drink and a friendly circus audience. But every night, Klukkluk dreamed of getting behind the bear and scaring him. But when he woke up from his dream, he saw only Pipo’s joker clown face and realised that his dreams would never be the same again.

Klukkluk understood that his initiation ritual into adulthood had, in a sense, been successful, precisely because he had been removed from the prairie, separated, individualised and modernised. And he did realise that the paradise of pure immediacy was lost forever, if it had ever really existed. He was now allowed to participate, to get to work, as a productive member of the Prairie-Forget-Association. And the prairie became nothing more than a memory of an event that had never taken place, a secret unspeakable promise, a delusion, a compressed medium or membrane between dream and reality.

We, philosophers and madmen, want to explore the prairie again, map it, capture it in words, images and concepts, go bear hunting again. But every method we devise, every path we walk, every theory we work out, leads us via a long detour to the circus, to the jugglers, the magicians, the snake charmers, the fire-eaters, the clowning—and the madhouse.

Four Propositions

With this Native American story, I have made a wide detour, but once again I have overshot the mark. I started too quickly, went too far, overshot my goal and strayed from what it was all about in the first place. So let’s go back to the very beginning once more. Let’s start again, behave in a philosophically exemplary manner and refrain from using seductive poetic images or compelling Native American stories. Let’s pay close attention to our words and thoughts, otherwise we will lose ourselves in them.

It is customary in philosophy to begin with a quotation. So here is a quotation from Hegel. According to many, Hegel’s work encompasses, penetrates and reflects on both the beginning and the end of philosophy. At the beginning of his book Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences, Hegel says the following about the question of “how to make a beginning”:

This quote makes us think about the beginning. But before we start there, let’s pause for a moment. Why should we actually start with a nineteenth-century German philosopher? Philosophy as a discipline has much deeper roots. Long before our era, Greek philosophers contemplated the truth. It has been said that all philosophy consists of footnotes to Plato, so shouldn’t we go back to Plato? Or even further back? To Empedocles, Parmenides, or Pythagoras, as Peter Kingsley argues? Or instead of going back in time, shouldn’t we move forward? Shouldn’t we start with the more current philosophy, such as that of the French philosopher Gilles Deleuze? After all, Deleuze turned the whole of philosophy upside down, gave it a dizzying twist and thus made a new beginning. Admittedly, Deleuze’s philosophy is one of the middle, but it was precisely from the middle of that middle that he wanted to make a new beginning. In the middle of his book Difference and Repetition, Deleuze says the following about the beginning:

But isn’t Deleuze’s repeating circle the same as the form of Klukkluk’s circling movement in the narrative expression of an Indian story? And didn’t I already understand that when I was eight years old, captivated by the circling movement? We have only just begun with a new beginning, and already the interpretations are running wild. Philosophy and madness, no use trying. When does it really begin? We are now more than halfway through this text, and the reader may wonder whether the exposition has already begun or whether these are still preparatory hesitations. But in fact, the hesitations, the postponement of the beginning and the doubt about the possibility of finding the beginning were, ironically and paradoxically, the beginning itself, and what preceded was an implicit example of my four propositions on the relationship between philosophy and madness. The first one is:

Proposition One: Contemplation and Preoccupation

Reflecting on where you are; not immediately moving on in practice; turning around and looking into the distance that appears as depth. Stepping out of the flow of everyday life and turning inward to find yourself. Philosophers and madmen are those who start over and over again and just can’t get going. Hesitating a little longer, inserting something else, another preliminary consideration, a foreword, an introduction, an announcement, a line of poetry or a quote—ad nauseam.

Proposition Two: Reflection and Hyperreflection

Now that we have finally made a good start and are in the middle of it, we can move straight on to the second proposition:

Hyperreflection is a more intense and socially less appropriate form of reflection. Philosophical reflection has a transparent form and provides clear examples of how thinking should proceed. This reflection has a stable focus on a well-defined theme. But with hyperreflection, the focus does not remain on a single, fixed theme; instead, thinking expands across the entire experience, seemingly unmotivated and boundless. The terms hyperreflection and hyperreflexivity originate from the phenomenological-psychiatric literature of early twentieth-century German phenomenology. The American phenomenologist Louis Sass has revived these terms and describes them as follows: “Hyperreflexivity refers to a kind of exaggerated self-consciousness, a tendency toward objectifying attention that focuses on processes and phenomena that one normally experiences as part of oneself.”[11]

Philosophical reflection relies to a considerable extent on the authority of other philosophers, when Hegel, Deleuze, Plato, Adorno, or Wittgenstein are cited, or else on the authority of a particular logical or argumentative form. Philosophical concepts have a certain stability and are based on the habits and customs within an (imaginary) community of philosophers. Philosophical reflection is explicitly or implicitly linked to the interests and demands of a community. It often reflects the values and thoughts of a community and attempts to elevate and legitimize them to a higher level. Mad hyperreflection is essentially anti-social and anti-worldly. When ordinary philosophical reflection is critical of a community, that criticism is always aimed at improving or changing that community or, if necessary, at founding a new community. In philosophical reflection, there is usually a certain distance between the philosopher as a person on the one hand and the theme being reflected upon on the other. Philosophical reflection is thinking about something other than the real, concrete thinker himself.

Mad hyperreflection has in common with philosophical reflection that both revolve around major themes such as finitude and infinity, the one and the whole, free will and consciousness. In philosophical reflection, these remain subjects of thought, analysis, contemplation, and text for the sake of text. Schelling calls this “negative philosophy” because it is only criticism at the level of thought and real reality is never achieved. In mad hyperreflection, however, thought comes to life, empty concepts become full reality. Something is posited, created, and elaborated in a macabre way, beyond morality and community. Schelling would call this positive philosophy. The Buddhist psychiatrist Edvard Podvoll vividly describes this as follows when he talks about Michaux and other madmen and mescaline users: “Everything in the mind multiplies: by forming clones, branching out into endless varieties of itself, without ever tiring, producing a jungle of new types of thoughts, an insatiable evolution that fills the whole world.”[12]

In hyperreflection, the reflection immediately rebounds on the person reflecting, disrupting them, but also prompting them to further disruption. Consciousness and thinking are affected, shut down, bent, and twisted by that same hyperreflective consciousness and thinking. Hyperreflection consists of intense doubt about the nature and meaning of phenomena in the world, as well as about the form and meaning of words about that world. Hyperreflection usually leads to self-referential frenzy or to cognitive disengagement—also referred to as “flight of ideas” in older psychiatric literature. This manifests itself as associations of thoughts and language without any fixed basis or principle and without end or purpose. In hyperreflection, the thinker can hardly keep up with the reflection, let alone report on it in a way that is understandable to others. Hyperreflection has no thematic constancy, object constancy, or conceptual constancy. Unlike philosophical language, the language of hyperreflection does not rest in a supporting community of like-minded and well-meaning people.

Hyperreflection cannot be confined or embedded. It originates from a transparent starting point and takes on a fluid substance. It emanates, flows over, and floods the land, the fields, and the houses. Shelters, churches, and shops are swept away. It goes from A to B to C to D; simultaneously from A to A1 to A2 to A3 and A4; and from A to E to I to O to U. Alpha, beta, gamma succumb in the delta, on their way to the oceanic and tsunamic. Or it evaporates from the sizzling starting point, alpha-alpha, circles around it in circles, then in wider circles, ever-expanding circumferential movements, in wider orbits, around the earth until it fans out like a spiral with a radius directed towards infinity, the big bear and the little bear. Or it arises from that glowing, glimmering starting point, and in a flash, it explodes. It sets itself ablaze, leaving itself scorched behind. Like a devilish, soulless Turing machine, it conquers and fills the entire world. Only the hypno-induced trans-seductive mnemonic technique of Kristel Kastanjekruik may offer counterbalance here.

Proposition Three: Wonder and Perplexity

My third proposition is:

It is often said that philosophy begins with wonder. In one of his dialogues, Plato has Theaetetus say: “By the gods, Socrates, when I think about these things, I am lost in wonder, and sometimes when I ponder them, it leaves my mind in confusion.”[13] Plato then has Socrates make the famous statement: “This feeling of wonder shows that you are a philosopher, for wonder is the only beginning of philosophy […]” This philosophical wonder has a complex history, sometimes buried under systems and ingrained ways of expressing and imagining. But in the background, it remains the driving force behind philosophy. The Dutch philosopher Cornelis Verhoeven says succinctly in his Inleiding tot de verwondering (Introduction to Wonder): “The whole of philosophy and its history lies in a large circle around the loose emptiness of wonder.”[14] Philosophical wonder is the flip side of philosophical reflection. Philosophical wonder tends towards pause, contemplation, and consideration. Wonder precedes language and its concepts and reasoning. Wonder has an indefinite intuition of unity and, at the same time, of totality and infinity, hen kai pan, one and all. According to Verhoeven, it revolves around a loose emptiness; you could also say that it revolves around an indescribable point, where you start over and over again and stray from; or around the wonder of existence, of the world, yourself, and the whole of the world and yourself. The image of wonder here is that of a point that rhythmically expands and contracts, from a point to a circle or sphere and back to a point.

The mad variant of wonder is rapture, bewilderment, or “perplexity” as it is called in psychiatric literature. This differs from wonder in that it is both more intense and less socially acceptable. In perplexity, there is no free position, no time or place left to take a stance towards wonder. You cannot escape it; perplexity does not exist outside yourself but breaks through the supposed distinction between inside and outside. In rapture, you are torn away from the here and now, and at the same time, paradoxically, you are fully present in that one point of obsession and concentration. In bewilderment, you have lost your way. In mad perplexity, wonder has become excessive or “derailed”, leading to an urgent state of panic, without it becoming clear “what is going on”. Philosophical wonder leads to philosophical reflections and profound dialogues. Mad perplexity leads to insane stammering and monologues that seem confused to outsiders.

There are various ways to deal with the inexpressible point of philosophical wonder and mad perplexity. You can forget it, conceal it, suppress it, and move on to the order of the day. But of course, you can also try to push your point through with rage and fury. Then you run the risk of being diagnosed as manic-psychotic, or you are a philosopher and your name is Empedocles, Slavoj Žižek, or Nietzsche. You can also try to formulate your point clearly and distinctly and to unravel and circle around it further and further. Wandering further and further away in the hope that you are getting closer and closer. If you do this in a clumsy, untrained, idiosyncratic way, you may be called schizophrenic, Daniel Schreber, or Adolf Wölfli. If you do this in a responsible, socially accepted way, you will end up in text genres that have also been explored by Plotinus, Sartre, and Schelling.

Often, in language, the difference between madness and philosophy, between bewilderment and wonder, is only made by an internal or external corrector, who appropriately dots the i’s and crosses the t’s in the right places, but more importantly, inserts periods and commas between words and sentences, distinguishes between vowels and consonants, between nouns and verbs. It is important for every philosopher and madman in training not to allow the multitude of dots and commas to obscure the original point of unity. The renowned German philosopher Adorno understood this and wrote in his book Minima Moralia: “In a philosophical text, all sentences must be equally close to the center.”[15] And Plotinus, the Greek neo-Platonic philosopher from the third century AD, put it this way: “It is as if a line that seemingly runs into infinity actually depends on a point and moves around it. The point is reflected in the line, wherever it moves, while the point itself does not move, but is encircled by the line.”

But perhaps the philosopher differs from the madman only in that he knows how to maintain a proper distance from that center point, moving around it in a circular motion, while for the madman the distance between the circle and the center point has become zero point zero (0.0). That is why the circular movement of the madman may well succeed in reaching the center of the bear, with all the consequences that entails. In madness, every sentence is a direct and paradoxical expression of that one point; every word spoken is swallowed up again in madness, because as soon as it is spoken, too much of the point has already strayed. Every sound clicks away into itself in madness; normal aspiration splits in two. Linguistically speaking, the sound midfield splits into a dualism of frontal ejectives on the one hand and velar implosives and gutturals on the other until it goes beyond the limits of language, where it transcends into spitting and growling. The snake eats its own tail. It consumes and produces itself. The bear eats the bear. We have already begun and cannot begin, but we also cannot stop trying to begin, yet it is almost time to end.

Proposition Four: Infinity and the Isolation Cell

On philosophy, the lucid Wittgenstein said: “The true discovery is the insight that enables me to stop philosophizing whenever I want to—the insight that philosophy brings peace, so that it is no longer tormented by questions that cast doubt on themselves.”[16] Yet Wittgenstein did not stop, any more than many other philosophers and madmen, who simply cannot stop and do not know how to put an end to it. Think of Husserl, Sartre, and Schelling. They kept trying to explain exactly what their point was. For them, this led to endless philosophical work, to beautiful series of books that show you all sides of being and non-being, time and eternity. Madmen do not always make as much work of their point. Some make a mess of it. Or they are not heard, not known, not understood, and end up in isolation cells. That is why, for both philosophers and madmen, perhaps the highest wisdom lies in not speaking out. To leave the point as a point. Or to remain silent while you speak. Let them guess and wonder. What you cannot speak about, you must remain silent about, even if you speak about it.

The question now is how we can bring this article, driven by both philosophy and madness, to an end. If the text ends “here”, it thereby denies the proposition just put forward. But if the text goes on and on, this journal will become as big as Borges’ infinite library.[17] How do we get out of this entanglement, this paradox?

We cannot get out of it, and we are already out of it, below and above the prairie. As if you could simply walk out of the city again, away from the hustle and bustle.

As if all you had to do was walk through grassland, past an open cornfield, with the insects, the bees, and the flowers. The chatter dies down, behind you the fading noise of traffic and the waving voices of children. Before you, only the lion next to the lamb, the black swan and the white unicorn. On to the silence, where the road widens into a plain, to where there is no more road, finally the prairie, where the signposts no longer bear arrows and the bow hasn’t been bent yet.

Everything is a demonstration of itself, and of something else.

Philosophy and madness are like two snakes. One snake eats its own tail. This makes it shorter and thicker, until it has eaten itself completely and disappears, into itself, into a vanishing point. The other snake does exactly the opposite. It continues to regurgitate its own tail. This second snake continues to lengthen itself, growing in to an ever longer and thinner, ever wider circle. Until the snake becomes infinitely thin, infinitely long, and its tongue is released to hiss into infinity.

According to psychiatry, there are really two snakes.

According to philosophy, there is ultimately only one snake, from which all others originate.

According to madness, there is no snake and at the same time an infinite number of snakes.

It is the Möbius strip and the paradox.

As if a circle could be completed in a point.

But those who do not really begin do not really have to end.