Everything about Acephale totally explained
Acéphale (from the Greek
a-cephalus, literally "headless") designates both a public review created by
Georges Bataille (which counted five issues, from 1936 to 1939) and a
secret and esoteric society formed by Bataille and some other members who had sworn to keep silence. Bataille himself maintained close links with the
Surrealism movement in
Paris.
Acéphale, the review
Dated 24 June, 1936, the first issue of
Acéphale was composed of only eight pages. The cover was illustrated by a drawing from
André Masson, which takes 80% of the page. This drawing openly inspires itself from the famous drawing by
Leonardo da Vinci, the
Vitruvian Man, but the latter is decapitated and his sex covered by a skull. Under the title
Acéphale, one may read the mentions
Religion. Sociologie. Philosophie followed on the next line by the expression
the sacred conjuration (
la conjuration sacrée).
Bataille's ambitions
The first article, signed by Bataille, is titled "The Sacred Conjuration" and calls "secretly or not... to become altogether other, or cease to be" Further on, Bataille wrote: "Human life is exceeded of serving as head and reason of universe. Insofar as it becomes this head and this reason, insofar as it becomes necessary to the universe, it accepts serfdom."
This reference to
Friedrich Nietzsche's philosophy should be contextualized in its era: while most of Europe had been conquered by
fascism, Nietzsche had been appropriated by
Nazism as one of its utmost thinkers — despite the various explicit attacks of Nietzsche against
anti-semitism,
nationalism and
racism. Thus, unsurprisingly, the German philosopher was unpopular at the time in France.
The second issue of the review begins with a large article titled
Nietzsche and Fascists, wherein Bataille starts by violently attacking
Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche, Nietzsche's sister who had married in 1885 a notorious antisemitic,
Bernhard Förster — the wedding had led to a final rupture between Nietzsche and his sister. Bataille hereby called Elisabeth
Elisabeth Judas-Förster, recalling Nietzsche's declaration: "To never frequent anyone who is involved in this bare-faced fraud concerning races."
The same issue contains an inedited text of Nietzsche on
Heraclitus from
Die Philosophie im tragischen Zeitalter der Griechen (Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks), as well as an article from
Jean Wahl titled
Nietzsche and the Death of God, which is a commentary of a text from
Karl Jaspers on Nietzsche.
The other issues are also centered on Nietzsche. The last one, prepared but ultimately not published, was titled
Nietzsche's madness (
La folie de Nietzsche).
Collaborators of the review
Apart from Bataille who signs most of the texts,
Roger Caillois (issue 3 and 4),
Pierre Klossowski (issue 1, 2, 3 and 4),
André Masson,
Jules Monnerot (issue 3 and 4),
Jean Rollin and
Jean Wahl (in the second issue) also participated in the review.
The Secret Society
Because of its very nature, it's difficult to describe the society's acts. Bataille referred several times to
Marcel Mauss who had studied secret societies in Africa, describing them as a "total social phenomenon". On this model, he organized several nocturnal meetings in the woods, near an oak which had been struck by lightning. Members of the
Acéphale society were required to adopt several rituals, such as refusing to shake hand with anti-semites and celebrating the decapitation of
Louis XVI, an event which prefigured the "chiefless crowd" targed by "acéphalité". Members of the society were also invited to meditation, on texts of Nietzsche,
Freud,
Sade and Mauss read during the assemblies.
The Encyclopaedia Da Costa
They also published
Encyclopaedia Da Costa (Da Costa Encyclopédique) meant to coincide with the
1947 International Surrealist Exhibition in Paris, but due to printing delays, the encyclopedia wasn't distributed until months after the exhibition ended. Ironically modelled after the format of a conventional encyclopedia, it lambasted social and individual conventions with an unprecedented fervor, as well as perpetrating more recondite clusters of ideas.
Perhaps its most insolent entry was the "License to Live", a faux governmental form requesting vital statistics from the bearer in order to enforce its legal fiat; the penalty for failing to keep the document "in order" was death. It is most likely another invention of the mind of
Marcel Duchamp, typographer for the
Encyclopaedia Da Costa, and a gesture that, in keeping with the best of Surrealism, had no obvious relationship to the
art object as it's commonly known. A precursor to "License to Live" appears in an earlier note in Duchamp's
Green Box, published in
1934 but written 20 years earlier, where he imagines a society in which people must pay for the air they breathe.
By the end of the century the encyclopedia fell into obscurity, partly because those who created it actively discouraged interested parties from procuring copies.
Further Information
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