The game hermann hesse

Hesse is a bit more sensible and admits that once you have east, then you have to have west, and perhaps north and south too, that these things are separate, distinct and an inseparable whole all at the same time and that such a scheme can be carried across to analogous situations, which possibly can be represented in a Game which despite being the title of the book, is never explicitly described.

The principal character experiences his Castalia directly, then formally has to address himself to it and argue for it consciously as a utopia, then has to experience it as dystopia, then has to go forth and inherit the earth: "The two tendencies or antipodes of his life, its Yin and Yang, were the conservative tendency towards loyalty, towards unstinting service of the hierarchy on the one hand, and on the other hand the tendency towards 'awakening', towards advancing, towards apprehending reality" p The short stories in which the main character might be imagining other versions of himself, might be arguing that the reconciliation of opposites or the conflicting tugs we experience in life may not be resolvable in one life, but if one could or does live many lives then perhaps on average, they might even out, but one might need a certain set of skills to appreciate that in any one life in particular.

Writing and reading novels might be one of those skills. This exists on the great, sprawling family tree of books, reading I felt there was something I thought that I could mention in a review with regards to Tolstoy, but I can't remember what, the dialogue in the second of the two short stories reminded me, particularly in the childlike nature of much sin, of the Grand Inquisitor in The Brothers Karamazov - another novel that the author claims he didn't write with a supposedly limited narrator who has apparently omniscient knowledge.

Conclusion view spoiler [ because if you introduce something then one has to conclude it too hide spoiler ] But as I said, I didn't fall off my chair laughing. Notes from reading view spoiler [ a war time novel. What letters he writes Framing devise, distancing. Relationship between author and frames, how are we to think of the dialogues and details do we take these seriously or regard them as fictions with in a fiction?

Introduction denial of value of biography. Knecht servant and knight. Meditation as a substitute. Writing the same novel? Utopia, dystopia. Isolation and engagement. Tradition and change. Interesting for different conceptions of time or differing timeframes in which characters operate. View all 15 comments. Nov 19, picoas picoas rated it it was amazing Shelves: If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review.

I suppose it depends on whether working through the difficulty brings you genuine insights into the human condition. Woolf is a bit daunt If you're into stuff like this, you can read the full review. Woolf is a bit daunting, but Mrs. Dalloway is superb. View all 4 comments. May 02, David Katzman rated it liked it. Allow three stars to stand for my ambivalence.

Not for the quality of this book, which is indeed quite excellent. We live in a time of urgent political and environmental catastrophe. The Republican party has been working its gradual gerrymandering way toward authoritarian control for a long time. Right wing becomes more right becomes more right, each step leading to the next.

Trump dismisses the rule of law as an irritation that interferes with his goals. At the same time, his party sees the environment as a resource to plunder. Global warming is an illusion and nothing to worry about, not while there is money to be made.

In their shallow, greedy maneuvers they lead us off a precipice that may in fact be the downfall of civilization and much of our species. In some ways as brilliantly written and erudite as this book is, it felt quaint to me. It portrays a fictional country in some vague future where the primary concerns are intellectual matters. And despite the fact that view spoiler [the main character in the end rejects this world for the world of history and the struggles of humanity, hide spoiler ] the greatest majority of the book lives in this intellectual realm.

And yet here we live right now in the age of the brute. If literature is to matter it must somehow relate to the core struggles of our age and in that this book misses the mark. Those we struggle against right now are the rich barbarians who pursue ever greater wealth and power. These intellectuals are relatively irrelevant right now. We struggle with political movements, the media, and power.

Who is Hesse writing to convince? The professor of comparative literature or philosophy? Is that his audience? The Glass Bead Game is primarily a fictional biography.

This game seems to be a bit like…intellectual tennis. A slow, live debate that crosses media from music to linguistics to math and other apolitical studies. The debate is so slow paced that competitors meditate between responses. We never actually see an example game, but it does sounds incredibly tedious and boring. Admittedly, at times, the excessive details of these theoretical intellectuals playing intellectual games became borderline comedic.

There were subtle touches of satire in The Glass Bead Game , but the overwhelming story was just so full of these obsessive intellectual thought processes that I found the actual content overwhelmed what may have been a satirical intent. The debates are definitively and intentionally disconnected from history. Notably, Knecht lives for several years in a Catholic monastery, and the abbot of the monastery, who becomes his friend, challenges him on this disconnection from history.

Accusing the scholars essentially of living in an abstract inhuman world. Disconnected and unengaged from what really matters. I found it interesting to note that even when Hesse speaks about the abstract intellectual versus the dirty human realm of politics, he generally references the personal characteristics of leaders and needs of communities or countries vying for power.

In this realm he has invented, Hesse has completely obliterated political systems. That is to say, ideologies and systems such as Capitalism, Socialism, Communism, Anarchism. Trump would not be our President without the promotion of Fox News and other right wing online media outfits.

These forces are generally ignored in this story of the intellect versus the body, the life of the mind versus the life of politics. But further, this game is also related to the fantasy of the Renaissance man…that famed personality from the Renaissance who was able to learn everything that has ever been learned about all of the sciences and literature, was well read in every subject, and could speak on any topic extemporaneously. This fantastical creature is now dismissed today as unimaginable because each of the disciplines is so deep that it would take a lifetime to delve into any single topic and still only scratch the surface.

Hence all the graduate level departments across the country. Women are repeatedly positioned in the story as temptations. They are objects that pull men from their higher aspirations. In general, I found the overall context to be a disappointingly male-dominant perspective. One might call it anti-feminist or at a minimum, Hesse presents a patriarchal system.

Marriage is portrayed as the man marrying the woman. Despite this criticism there is one very powerful social critique that occurs about three-fourths of the way through the book. When Knecht is considering leaving the scholarly order to pursue engagement with the greater world of humanity, he writes in a letter on the subject of political power which is rarely referenced in the story because politics is not supposed to intrude into this abstract scholarly world.

But here he pointedly and with foresight illuminates our current moment in time. He notes how propaganda is the death of truth and that this results when a political power seeks to assert domination. Hesse or Knecht speaks to the pursuit of truth which we might think of as meaningful journalism and how when men fail to pursue truth, they become diabolical Fox News.

Despite my overall distaste for the book, Hesse has his brilliant, insightful and powerful moments. Meditation is something that the masters of this scholarly world are trained to participate in every day. It is intended as a way to both soothe and calm their anxieties and to keep them productive. It reminded me of the tension between Zen Buddhist meditation, which I participated in frequently when I was a member of a Zen temple, and how meditation is encouraged simply as a stress release tool by hipster Silicon Valley startups.

And regardless of intention, when properly applied, meditation can be an accidental back door to enlightenment. Meditation is worth doing in and of itself without any ideology associated with it yet because it is a practice it can lead to personal intimate experiences. In The Glass Bead Game , we see it primarily as a tool that is almost the opposite of the way Buddha would suggest it. The scholarly masters describe it as a way to submit your individuality to the hierarchy.

Whereas Buddha would say there is no hierarchy. I will conclude my review by touching on my own experience with graduate school. I loved English Literature as an undergrad. We read great books and discussed them as if they were meaningful. Weighing what the author was trying to say and what the story was trying to communicate. We were theory analysts rather than literary analysts. It was a snake eating its own tail.

An incestuous world of meaningless jargon. Not only was Knecht trapped in this scholarly abstraction, but I felt that too much of The Glass Bead Game kept me, as a reader, trapped in this abstract intellectual realm. View all 12 comments. Mar 02, Chloe rated it it was ok Shelves: list , fiction , philosophy. I feel that I must open this review by stating that I am an unabashed fanboy of Hermann Hesse.

I read everything that he had ever written at a whirlwind pace several years ago and still return to my favorites, Steppenwolf , Siddhartha and Demian , on a rotating yearly basis. The purest expression of the themes that he had highlighted in his other works. If one were to read only one book by Hesse it should I feel that I must open this review by stating that I am an unabashed fanboy of Hermann Hesse.

If one were to read only one book by Hesse it should be this one, I had been told. No offense to those earnest recommendations, but I could have gone a long time without reading this dull retread of every one of Hesse's other books. So many of the same character types and situations appear in these pages that I can't help but feel I'm reading a Cliff's Notes version of his oeuvre.

The intense friendship between two geniuses; one sheltered and naive, the other worldly and brash like those in Demian? They're here too. A Westernized attempt to understand the mysticism and philosophical underpinnings of Eastern religions a la Siddhartha and Journey to the East?

Oh yes, they too are here. This repetition in itself does not make The Glass Bead Game unappealing. This isn't a bad book and might actually be a good one. But coming into it expecting something unique would be a mistake. This has all been written before, and far more engagingly. View all 6 comments. Sep 08, Stephen P who no longer can participate due to illness rated it it was amazing Recommends it for: Those who see the battle of the mind as the worthiest battle of all. Shelves: re-read , favorites , german-lit.

This, his final novel makes it clear that all his works need to be read in their order as one edition leading up to his final life conclusion! A man caught within the depths of thought striving for something beyond his sight captures his heroic journey through his written words. A different voice from the Hesse of my college days.

No longer redirecting my compass eastward toward a spirituality with a promise to enlarge consciousness. This is a firm clear voice that looks back to arrive at an unde This, his final novel makes it clear that all his works need to be read in their order as one edition leading up to his final life conclusion!

This is a firm clear voice that looks back to arrive at an understanding. His own truth. One ground and distilled from a life of thought.

But the voice wavers at times as the story foretold has a waver of its own. Joseph Knecht is selected as a student of promise. As his achievements are recognized, much to his surprise and glee, he is selected to the highest consecration of the intellectually elite, Castalia.

Supported by the government those enrolled or encumbered in Castalia have in some way sworn to dedicate themselves to maintaining its well ordered hierarchy. The hierarchy supplies Castalia with serenity, a static but comfortable stability, built to prevent any disordered flow of disruptive emotion while dedicated to a life of contemplation, research, study of any subject worthy of intellectual exploration.

Come on, there must be somebody else. Do I see a hand raised? Joseph Knecht enjoyed learning for learnings sake. Due to this, his steadfastness, lack of any ambition where it came to a rise in status, was hauled upwards into the higher brackets of the hierarchy where his tasks were no longer oriented around his passionate love for teaching, teaching especially the young.

As he left his friends behind in the world when he left for Castalia he now left his beloved profession. Of course he dedicated himself to his new duties, gradually rising to a position so lofty it can barely be discerned by the outside world, in its abstract ether; Magister Ludi. The holy trinity exalted into blends of knowledge, philosophical thought, aesthetic creation, their intertwining, interweaving into the multitude of countless interstices.

The games as drawn up in competition are archived. Abundant and frequently referred to, they are held with reverence. The Glass Bead games not only singles out the best players but insures the continous enlargement of consciousness, wisdom, knowledge. The world wonders, as the intellectual elite of Castalia expects, what good is pure intellectual pursuit for the sake of pure intellectual pursuit?

Castlia is repulsed by the sordid life of the working class with their lack of curiosity, non-questioning obeisance to the trifles of meaningless conventions and dully repeated jokes; their ant-like drive to follow whoever is in front of them in the long endless moving line to avoid any flint of individuality lurking around dark corners in danger of being lit.

Castalia readily points out, in the current twenty third century, it was properly born from the previous years of conflict and destruction evolving into a means of avoiding such an occurrence.

Indeed there has not been. He and his colleagues, in their monk-like quasi religious life, having sacrificed any iota left of individuality to the order, preserving the knowledge of what to do and how to behave in all circumstances, the comfort of effacing stability, also follow what they are told. However, with the stamp of elite buried in their brow they are held and hold themselves in a higher status. Do they contribute except for responses to papers written and studies summarized within their hallowed halls?

The resounding answer within these halls is, of course we do. The pure pursuit of truth is always elevated to the highest. Besides, dealing with life in the world is a lower pursuit and one not worthy of following. Understanding that the world and its production enables Castalia to exist, does not alter their view. The world with its bustling jobs based on fear and ambition thinks the same of Castalia.

And where is Knecht? The dramatization is furthered by attention to detail and the apt planting of narrative seeds barely recognized at first, then the enjoyment of its first lucid buds and flowerings thereafter. The more I write the more there is to be said in this glass bead game of my own that I have created and fallen into.

Nov 22, Elenabot rated it it was amazing Shelves: know-thyself , favorites. This is surely one of the most beautiful dreams depicted in literature. It is also a reminder that even the most beautiful dreams cannot feed our longing, which is ultimately for a reconciliation with the Real.

The Glass Bead Game is an allegory of the relationship between symbol and reality, between life and the magic lantern of the mind. Hesse's Castalia is a utopia of mind, which is born of and supported at great expense by a society recently ravaged by a terrible war. It is an enclosed place This is surely one of the most beautiful dreams depicted in literature. It is an enclosed place in which this society has deposited for safe-keeping all the greatest values of the spirit in a hermetically-sealed harmony immune from the ravages of worldly change.

Isolation from life is intended to safeguard Castalia's status as a radiant Ark that can secure the continued existence of these supreme values of human life, transporting them unharmed and untainted across the darkness of historic flux. But each of us should be on the way toward perfection, should be striving to reach the center, not the periphery.

The goal of Castalia is to give concrete expression to the unity of the mind in all its manifold manifestations. Every province of the mind finds its concrete expression here, from the arts, to mathematics, to the contemplative disciplines, to the most recondite special sciences. One can feel fully at home in this environment. A cross between a Platonic academy and a Zen monastery, this is a place in which the entire structure of the mind finds its fullest expression by being concretized in actual institutions.

Life here is placed entirely in the service of the mind. Here, life exists merely to fuel the progressive unfolding of mind's capacity for the ever-progressing elaboration of existence into form. The consummation of life, and Castalia's ultimate goal, is a supreme formalism that can encompass the essence of life, thereby containing it in a supreme super-structure. This formalism is expressed in the Glass Bead Game. It realizes Leibniz's dream of a universal language or characteristica universalis , which, he thought, once attained, would bring us to the consummation of the philosophical quest: a universal science.

The goal of the Game is to lead us to the great Terminus of all seeking, a universal system "capable of reproducing in the Game the entire intellectual content of the universe. This would make Chomsky's dream of a universal grammar pale in comparison. The Glass Bead Game is a language that can reduce to a single logico-grammatical plane a motif from classical Indian music and a mathematical formula, the structure of the future perfect tense and the biological structure of a rhizome, a cosmogonic myth and a logical proof.

Hesse puts before us this dream of dreams, the possession of a language of thought that would give us the symbolic tools with which we could at last compare every possible datum of human experience, so that we could see what the myth and the logical proof can say to each other, and how the structure of a leaf is like a symphony and like a mathematical model.

It is like Babel undone, the reduction of all universes of discourse to one meta-discourse, offering us a genuine basis for the comparison of all meanings accessible to the mind. The closest philosophic vision to Hesse's Castalia that I can think of is Cassirer's philosophy of symbolic forms, which similarly seeks to express the unity of human knowledge into a single philosophical language.

It is, by the way, significant that music and meditation have such a prominent place in this scheme. It arises from equilibrium. Equilibrium arises from righteousness, and righteousness arises from the meaning of the cosmos. Therefore one can speak about music only with a man who has perceived the meaning of the cosmos.

Hesse's universal language manages to bring even the seemingly formless domain of music into dialogue with the most formal of disciplines, like mathematics, and to reveal their relations as parts of a larger systematic whole.

Music has to do with establishing a relationship with the world characterized by equilibrium. Music expresses the unity in difference that characterizes the realized mind. In this symbolic universe, Hesse tells us, music comes closest to disclosing the form of the real.

And the emphasis on meditation expresses Hesse's effort to reconcile East and West, Plato and Buddha. He seems to have struggled his entire life to form a philosophical outlook that placed these two cultural traditions in dialogue, such that each could comment on the significance of the other. Meditation is the ground of intellection in his Castalia; it unlocks the true meaning of cognitive form. Every transition from major to minor in a sonata, every transformation of a myth or a religious cult, every classical or artistic formulation was, I realized in that flashing moment, if seen with a truly meditative mind, nothing but a direct route into the interior of the cosmic mystery, where in the alternation between inhaling and exhaling, between heaven and earth, between Yin and Yang, holiness is forever being created.

History is hard to integrate into this shimmering edifice of Castlian symbolic-play because it consistently gestures beyond this serene, unperturbed province to the larger, dark continent of life that it is part of. It keeps pointing to the connection between the two, and to Castalia's paradoxical need for that messy, trouble, war-torn world. It is significant that the work was conceived in the nightmarish period leading up to, and culminating in, World War 2 the first attempt at publication being This is more than historical coincidence; Hesse's narrative continually gestures to this historic background, and to a fundamental escapist motive, as the source of Castalia.

It turns out that this lotus could only bloom from the dark flux of historic muck. The horror of the war is, ironically, an integral part of the significance of the beautiful Game of symbols. Historical awareness is what ultimately awakens Knecht's ethical consciousness, sending him to turn his back on Castalia and return to the world to serve it. Through this sacrificial renunciation of his calling, Knecht the servant resembles Nietzsche's Zarathustra and the Buddha, both of whom had to leave the clear beauty of the heights in order to return to the uncaring world in order to offer it their unwanted service.

His ultimate sacrifice for his one pupil at the end shows the last word of wisdom: wordless sacrifice in the service of life's inscrutable progress. For a long time I have puzzled over Hesse's choice to conclude this novel with three fictional autobiographies written by Knecht in his school days.

They symbolize Knecht's attempt to project himself into different historical periods, to really enter into the life of mind as it transpired in other times. One can see the pedagogical point: until we, too, do the same, we do not understand ourselves. History holds the key to our story. It is by transporting ourselves into other times that we can really discern where we are, the shape of our horizons, through an act of comparison.

But why these three lives After ten years, I still don't have an answer. The most moving, to me, was the first, which is Knecht's attempt to transport himself into the mind of the earliest humans, as a rain maker. The rain maker represents the wisdom of primary, pre-symbolic or minimally-symbolized and differentiated experience. For him, there was no differentiation between self and world, nature and soul.

Reality was perfectly contained in the totality of experience. For all these ways of comprehending the world through the mind no doubt lay within him, nameless, unnamed, but not inconceivable, not beyond the bounds of presentiment, still in the germ, but essential to his nature, part of him, growing organically within him.

And if we were to go still further back beyond this Rainmaker and his time which to us seems so early and primitive, if we were to go several thousand years further back into the past, wherever we found man we would still find - this is our firm belief - the mind of man, that mind which has no beginning and always has contained everything that it later produces.

Now it seemed to be the young man who showed honour and obedience to the old man, to authority and dignity; now again it was apparently the old man who was required to follow, serve, worship the figure of youth, of beginning, of mirth. And as he watched this at once senseless and significant dream circle, the dreamer felt alternately identical with the old man and the boy, now revering and now revered, now leading, now obeying; and in the course of these pendulum shifts there came a moment in which he was both, was simultaneously Master and small pupil; or rather he stood above both, was the instigator, conceiver, operator, and onlooker of the cycle, this futile spinning race between age and youth.

The relationship between the boy and the master, their cyclical change of roles, and their ultimate identity, is Atman. Such recurring passages throughout the work give glimpses into a level of insight that is of no use to Castalian inquiry. They suggest that from the very beginnings of culture, this primal ground of insight was available to us, and that it remains with us unaltered even in the highly sophisticated intellectual culture of Castalia.

This order of insight connects us to the deepest past and to the remotest future, being something no education can give though it can perhaps take it away. Hesse, having learned from Eastern philosophy, is very sensitive to all the domains of wisdom that cannot possibly receive symbolic representation, even in the perfect formalism, the meta-language of the Game. What is the point of telling the story about the labyrinth of mind? For many years, I thought Knecht's leaving Castalia was anticlimactic.

I couldn't get why he would leave, expecting, as he did, so little from the world. He had the promise of making his life a perfect unity in that reclusive world.

He left that meaning and unity behind in order to commit himself to the dark flux of the world, and, in the end, to be destroyed by it. It seems his leaving is a jarring break in the unity of the work. We cannot follow him where he goes, or discern any meaning to his ultimate sacrifice. But now I think that IS Hesse's point: this is Hesse's movement from a purely theoretical, to a moral existence. And moral action often shows no overt consummation; often the sacrifice seems to have no discernible point.

We long forever for the right to stay. But all that stays with us is fear, And we shall never rest upon our way. View all 14 comments. The Glass Bead Game is the ultimate work of Hermann Hesse, who took nearly ten years to complete. Perhaps this is why a large part of the novel escaped me. Too much. Too esoteric. Reading the Glass Beads Game was a torment as this book is so wordy and repetitive.

However, I got attached to this real false biography of Joseph Valet, a talented student, then a distinguished member of the Order of Castalia, a fictitious intellectual elite whose goal is to learn universal knowledge. This spirit of synthesis of science expresses through the game of glass beads, in which the participants combine music, mathematics, poetry and philosophy. The author takes up the themes developed in these previous novels: Self-realization, the opposition between Nature and Culture, sensuality and spirituality p.

Hindu and Nietzschean philosophy, the myth of the eternal return p. The emptiness of intellectual work for those who dedicate their existence to austere studies. The book ends with three short stories that Joseph Valet would have written. This fact is the part that I preferred; the reader will find their ancient philosophical tales in the manner of Siddharta. Jul 23, John rated it it was amazing Shelves: german , modern.

If the last sentence made any sense to you, chances are you have already read the book. Though once the book is read, that is about all it is about. The book is written by an unknown member of the Castalian Order who is retelling the story of Joseph Knecht.

The Glass Bead Game is an intellectual game played encompassing all major are This is Hesse's epic novel that tells the story of Joseph Knecht, a boy who passes through the system of the Castalian Order to become the Glass Bead Game Magister. The Glass Bead Game is an intellectual game played encompassing all major areas of learning, though its origins lay in music theory. The Castalian Order is a monastic like society whose one goal is to learn. They produce no real products of worth outside of teachers for the outside society.

Knecht, with his bright intellect and the guiding hand of the Music Master a seemingly futuristic Buddhist , rises to become the Magister of this game and arguably the best that ever was. The book deals with ideas of spiritualism, elitism, intellectualism, and how best to deal with the problems of society. I recommend this book for fans of Bildungsromans, Hesse and those that have toyed with Buddhism. Though if you are a bit bored and wanna pick up a page book to see what it is like, go for it!

View all 3 comments. Aug 01, Syl Sabastian rated it it was amazing. My review is based not on the book itself, as it was read it so long ago, I don't remember details, which is somewhat remarkable, as I remember the effect of the book. I was transformed into worlds of thought, deep thought, worlds where intent and meaning reigned. The book required a serious commitment from the reader of Attention and willingness-to-truth, a remarkable requirement, adding to the books magic.

A classic that li My review is based not on the book itself, as it was read it so long ago, I don't remember details, which is somewhat remarkable, as I remember the effect of the book. A classic that lived up to it billing. Sep 07, Owlseyes rated it really liked it Shelves: german-lit. Nice hat! A good Tratactus on Society; on what distinguishes the normal ones from the elite ones.

An elite member renounces material wealth That is what Joseph Knecht did. Students of the Order, most often, renounce m Nice hat! Students of the Order, most often, renounce marriage.

Language of that period is researched. View all 8 comments. Dec 05, Manny rated it liked it Shelves: transcendent-experiences. A friend of mine a pure mathematician says that the Glass Bead Game is obviously pure mathematics in a thinly disguised form.

It's not exactly a slam-dunk, but I'm still surprised how few people there are who seem to believe this theory. You'd think it would at least be a respectable minority opinion. Turn it around: if the Game isn't pure mathematics, what is it? Just something he made up, that doesn't refer to any real intellectual discipline in particular, but is a hypothetical synthesis of A friend of mine a pure mathematician says that the Glass Bead Game is obviously pure mathematics in a thinly disguised form.

Just something he made up, that doesn't refer to any real intellectual discipline in particular, but is a hypothetical synthesis of all of them? Are there any other reasonable alternatives?

Personally, I rather like the "pure mathematics" account. Jul 01, Mundy Reimer rated it it was amazing Shelves: art , science-fantasy , favorites , music , philosophy , history , mathematics , philosophy-of-math , highly-regarded , philosophy-of-sci.

For philosophical scholarly types, thoughtful aesthetes, anybody in academia, and perhaps even spiritually-adjacent folk. Discusses the external-oriented life of action vs. The Glass Bead Game is thus a mode of playing with the total contents and values of our culture; it plays with them as, say, in the great age of the arts a painter might have played with the colors on his palette. All the insights, noble thoughts, and works of art that the human race has produced in its creative eras, all that subsequent periods of scholarly study have reduced to concepts and converted into intellectual property on all this immense body of intellectual values the Glass Bead Game player plays like the organist on an organ.

And this organ has attained an almost unimaginable perfection; its manuals and pedals range over the entire intellectual cosmos; its stops are almost beyond number. We do not guarantee that these techniques will work for you or not. Some of the techniques listed in Siddhartha may require a sound knowledge of Hypnosis, users are advised to either leave those sections or must have a basic understanding of the subject before practicing them.

DMCA and Copyright : The book is not hosted on our servers, to remove the file please contact the source url. The British universities were the engine room of empire, their exemplary rational approach to thought providing an intellectual environment based on ratiocinative inquiry which could not always be said for our cousins, the French. But today the universities are not for inquiry, but instead have been converted into the seeding grounds and hatchling nurseries for a malevolent, grievance-based, anti-rational ideology which will soon pollute the water supply of the public sector, and will in time direct the course of nations.

The groves of academe are now a territory to be fought for, and fought for hard. At the moment, however, only one army has shown up. What if they gave a culture war and nobody came? The media, even the ones notionally on our side, take a while to read the tides. Well, Greg, as the young people are fond of saying, duh. Where did you think they would find employment? Civil engineering? Anything even vaguely productive?

But then, there has long been a sub-plot to education reform which has been designed precisely to keep the best away from anywhere but the Ivy League and Oxbridge, where they can be trained to be the puppet-masters and not the puppets. But what would happen if university admission returned to being the meritocracy it used to be but is no longer permitted to be, a meritocracy which has not been machine-tooled into an ethnocracy?

Robert H. I asked why. You would imagine such a curriculum would be, if nothing else, extremely serious. Already famous in his native Germany, Hesse also went on to become known to many arts undergraduates in the s, at least for Steppenwolf, and to those of a more hippie persuasion also for Siddhartha and Narcissus and Goldmund.

The Glass Bead Game is an ascetic Bildungsroman set around a mythical province, Castalia, which is the elite of the elite universities. George McDonald Frazer would also use this device of editorship of a fictional character by a real writer in the Flashman series.

The title, The Glass Bead Game, refers to an intellectual exercise which is the sole focus of the students within the fictional province of Castalia. The Game itself is the preserve of the Castalians and the masters who mentor them. It is a hyper-intellectual game using symbolism and comparison, which takes its name from a rudimentary version once played using actual glass beads.

The author explains:. A Game, for example, might start from a given astronomical configuration, of from the actual theme of a Bach fugue, or from a sentence out of Leibniz or the Upanishads, and from this theme, depending on the intentions and talents of the player, it could either further explore and elaborate the initial motif or else enrich its expressiveness by allusion to kindred concepts.

Knecht has many worldly temptations along his intellectual odyssey. He has a friend who chooses the provincial life, the real world, rather than the cerebral confines of Castalia. Knecht loses interest in him, but his interest in the world outside Castalian walls has been piqued, and his travels outside Castalia threaten his relationship with the Game and its order.

Hesse has written an esoteric, affectionate novel, but it is also one which casts many questions we may want to listen to concerning the role of the university. Castalia is the result of social engineering of a sort — Knecht is reminded by an elder that the Game is paid for by the state — but represents the distillation of intellectuality rather than what we currently see, which is more a type of sedimentation whereby the truly creatively intelligent are forced to the bottom of the system in favor of diverse ideological fodder, worthless to the university and unable on the non-STEM side to think anything through in post-Enlightenment style, but instead there simply to be indoctrinated with neo-Marxist, flat-packed mottoes sugar-coated with the warm glow that comes with fighting social justice.

It protected the tradition, not because tradition is tradition but because tradition provides models of discussion on a uniquely high level. Also, tradition is seen as vital, and tradition is always white and therefore oppressive. There is no such disconnect between British universities and the political class, and it would be quicker to compile a list of influential UK politicians of the past 30 years who did not read PPE philosophy, politics, and economics at either Oxford or Cambridge than those who did.

The Glass Bead Game is about intellectual pursuit, but in a wholly dispassionate way. It is not practical philosophy. Philosophizing should be done only with legitimate tools, those of philosophy. Our game is neither philosophy nor religion; it is a discipline of its own, in character most akin to art. It is an art sui generis. The Game itself, however, does not arise sui generis, and Hesse sketches a cultural history of how Western civilization sees Castalian elitist intellectuality partly as redemptive, partly as an exotic item of expenditure for a state which seems to receive nothing back from the game-players of Castalia.

Noted chemists or piano virtuosos would be queried about politics, for example, or popular actors, dancers, gymnasts, aviators, or even poets would be drawn out on the benefits and drawbacks of being a bachelor, or on the presumptive causes of financial crises, and so on. Our age, however, has been somewhat more slippery. The university was based on an ideal of truth and the search for truth. Now campus is where truth goes to die.

The ivory towers of academia are now just an outmoded Potemkin village. A theme of the book is the worth of purely intellectual pursuit to the society that surrounds it and, as is stated , pays for it. But although The Glass Bead Game reads for all the world like a critique of the relative uselessness of universities, at least in terms of the humanities, ivory towers as they are set in the groves of academe, it is also a critique of technocracy and the levelling of the collective intellect.

As Father Jacob says to the young Joseph Knecht:. Come now, of theology we will not speak. You are much too far from that.