Chronicles From The Future: The amazing story of Paul Amadeus Dienach

According to this view, Dienach had put his own thoughts in the mouths of his heroes (Jaeger, Silvia, Lain, Cornelius, Stefan, Astrucci, Hilda, Syld and so on) of a rather novel narration. This, however, is hardly believable by anyone who had the chance to meet Dienach in person and was aware that he was not some exceptional genius and that his level of education was not so unique. This Central European, and he alone, assigns such a sublime meaning and such exceptional content to the world and life that he not only beautifies life, but he also even exceeds the conceptions of ancient Greek classical education and humanistic tradition, which does not, however, correspond to anything inexistence.

If one accepts the more rationalistic of the two explanations, one must say that Dienach’s texts are pages of applied futuristic sociology and an optimistic perspective in metaphysics. Some of the writer’s convictions are quite characteristic. We present them directly below.

Dienach does not foster the slightest appreciation for human cognitive abilities. He even considers a priori

perceptions of the mind, for instance, time, space and classifications, too narrowly human. He says that the succession of time periods, yesterday, today, tomorrow, and even the concept of space are what is apparent. They appear to us in this form because they correspond to the perception sensors of human-receivers, to their mental capacities, that is, to their cognitive potential, intellect and rationality. The objective reality of time eludes us. It may very well not be our familiar linear time, with the sequence that we consider rational, with its rational flow, but deep down be an everlasting present. Similar is the case with space. It is impossible for man to perceive anything existing beyond three-dimensional space. There are, however, huge realities, which are included in this notion. For example, the dimension of depth eludes us. According to Dienach, underlying Kant’s simple moral demands of practical reason are excellent and unperceived realities, quite real, even though they are not accessible to human intellect. The new faculties, which the

Homo Occidentalis Novus managed to acquire, added, as Stephan would tell Dienach, an endless ontological depth to reality, where the once moral demands of the old cognitive-theoretical version are included.

Objective ontological reality suffers no harm—it is just we

that are incapable of perceiving it—because the perception sensors, the mind, human reason happens to be finite and imperfect. An objective being suffers no harm because the entire cognitive and psychic human structure, the entire rational organisation, happens to be weak by nature. In exactly the same way, for instance, ultraviolet and infrared rays suffer no harm regarding their objective existence and reality because the perception abilities of the human vision sensors happen to be inadequate.

He disapproves of the rise of rationality to an almighty cognitive power. He does not agree that human intellect is the only safe origin of spiritual life or that the cognitive function is the highest or that only what is acceptable by means of rational proof is related to ontological reality.

Regarding all science, if one excludes mathematics, as he says, Dienach has doubts about whether it gives us the real, objective picture of the natural universe. He stresses its fluid nature and speaks not of one natural science that is the most objectively valid—as it was believed in the 19th century—but of many subjective natural sciences, one for each different period. He considers the achievements of physics very useful to our empirical knowledge, their technical applications in the various fields of natural sciences and to the progress of material culture, but not to the knowledge of the true nature of beings. Fate has not provided us with the key to perceiving their objectivity. Our knowledge of all this is too human by definition. The proper knowledge of actual Being goes beyond our potential. As was the above mentioned case of the colour rays in the solar spectrum, such is the case here as well with the perception of the natural universe: for the living beings that humans are, senses are tools within nature, but also barriers. Our mental capacities, our knowledge potential, intellect, rationality, are tools within the worlds of existing things for the biological species of rational beings to which we belong, but they are also obstacles.