“‘I teach you the Superman…’: Self-Sacrifice and the Alchemical Creation of Nietzsche’s Übermensch.”

Dr. Melanie J. van Oort – Hall
https://www.girard.nl/texts_online/v/Van_Oort-Hall_Melanie_2.pdf

I. Übermensch as Divine Ideal

a. A Process of Self-Divinization
In this paper, we would like to explore the historical background of sacrifice and divinity in Friedrich
Nietzsche’s philosophy. Peter Berkowitz, in Nietzsche: The Ethics of an Immoralist, has shown how
Nietzsche’s philosophy is oriented towards the process of self-divinization. Nietzsche’s philosophy is
an attempt to work out what kind of human beings would be necessary, if “God is dead,” (The Gay
Science, § 125) and “the world is the will to power – and nothing besides!”1
 (Will to Power § 1067)
Berkowitz says that based on Nietzsche’s love of truth, “which he sometimes calls his gay science,” he
comes to the conclusion that the final good or perfection “for human beings consists in the act of selfdeification.”2
 Lucy Huskinson has suggested that Nietzsche’s later teaching on the Übermensch is
really his re-interpretation of the esoteric doctrine of the Higher Self, which is the understanding of
“God” in the Hermetic Tradition.3
 A point we will explore later on in this paper.
Although Nietzsche mentions the Übermensch in his early Notebooks, in the Prologue of Thus
Spoke Zarathustra, he officially announces the Persian prophet’s teaching on the subject.4
 Zarathustra descends his mountain cave, out of his so-called love for humanity. Knowing in his heart that “God is
dead,” he wants to bring humanity a gift. In the next section § 3, we learn that the so-called gift is
Nietzsche’s Übermensch, which he announces in a market square. For Nietzsche, the Übermensch is
the answer to the “death of God” (Z, I, “Of the Bestowing Virtue,” 3), and the destiny of humanity
itself depends upon its realization on earth (The Will to Power § 987).5
 The Übermensch is not a transcendent ideal, but a superhuman species (Z, I, “Of the Bestowing Virtue,” 1)

SELF DIVINIZATION COULD ALSO BE SEEN IN MARXIST TERMS AS SELF VALORIZATION

SELF DIVINIZATION SOUNDS A LOT LIKE TRANSHUMANISM

AND OF COURSE.....