Svenssongalaxen: The magnesium burns in the night

tisdag 14 maj 2024

The magnesium burns in the night

This is about my novel Burning Magnesium.

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Burning Magnesium was published in 2018. The original presentation on the blog can be found here.

An episode of Red Ice Radio, covering the novel, was also made in 2018.

Today we will add some quotes and reflections and whatnot. It will be an impressionistic collage, hopefully capturing the gist of the novel.

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Burning Magnesium gives you the adventures of a German soldier on the Eastern Front in WWII. His name is Arno Greif.

This is company, platoon, and squad level combat in the east 1942-1945.

This is about crossing the abyss and reaching solid ground on the other side.

Tou could say: Arno Greif is like a Hadean flower in the night, illuminated by burning magnesium.

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Magical realism... philosophical actionism... karma yoga on the Eastern front... all this, and Ringo Badger, in Burning Magnesium.

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Initiation into the warrior’s way, symbolic death – rage and ecstasy – inebriation, inspiration... he is Arno Greif, constantly living at storming distance, raising himself spiritually by living on the edge.

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A soldier must be prepared to die… he must even want to die, desiring death on the battlefield. Why else be a soldier? Dying in battle is the ultimate, transcendent goal. Dying in the elevated state of consciousness that is typical of the soldier in combat; to die in a mental boost, dying in a higher state of consciousness, and thus go from this world to the next with that enhanced consciousness intact.

[p. 262]

From Chapter 38:

As a soldier in the combat zone you had to do what had to be done, above and beyond the mere duties of your position at hand. The whole German Army was educated in this spirit ... and now Arno incorporated this in his creed, taking it to a higher, spiritual level.

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“Burning magnesium ... burning in the night, shining with a metallic green lustre, lighting up the battlefield so that the soldiers can see each other and kill each other. It’s the last chivalry, the sacred bond: young men killing other young men...” This is a quote from page 388 of the novel, probably the only novel of the Eastern Front of WWII written by a current author.

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“Distance between the groups! Smokes away! Single file after me!” – This is the way ahead, the way of the future... in other words, rigoristic militarism.

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This is Battle as an Actionist experience...

This is snow on the ground... and BURNING MAGNESIUM in the sky...

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Go east, young man... and fight under skies of burning magnesium...

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I write about war – because – war stands for the archaic in the modern.

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The enemy soldiers were unable to form a line to defend themselves. The field with its patches of snow and its mud offered no protection whatsoever. Among the blackened wheat stalks many soldiers were mown down, shot full of lead. Gaping, ragged holes in the broken bodies.

Arno took in this scene of destruction and thought: when in the combat zone, combat. It could remind you of Clausewitz’ remark: the worst errors in battle stem from benevolence. For example, allowing the retreating Russians to escape in this situation would have been operationally absurd.

Arno ordered Karnow, who he had with him, to “clear the field.” They pulled out among the blood and guts, among the twisted corpses and dying Russians, with Karnow on the left wing and Arno on the right. The wounded enemies they encountered could still shoot back, so every one they passed was given the coup de grace. According to international law you, as a victorious combatant, should give them first aid, but shooting the wounded was the custom on the Eastern Front.

This was no “hands up”-war. This Arno knew already. It meant that if you wanted to survive in the combat zone you had better shoot to kill than act according to International Law. Also, front soldiers knew that wounded Russians would sometimes play dead, only to suddenly live up and shoot you in the back. Hearing about this Arno was determined never to fall for such a bullet. The worst errors in combat stem from benevolence.

[p. 102-104]

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He is Arno Greif,
constantly living at storming distance,
raising himself spiritually
by living on the edge.

Superomismo – inititation inspiration inebriation –
initiation into the art of Action as Being.

Battle as an inner experience –
death as an adviser –
the warrior way of truth.

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I meditate by pushing 7.92 mm rounds into the magazine of the StG, buckling up the mechanism, securing and looking out over the forefield. Then you’ll come to rest, thus you’ll shape your life according to an actively esoteric worldview. While I act, I have my mind rooted in the cosmic calm. Such is my way of esotericism. And it never takes time off. An Operational Scout lives his creed in every second, every moment. Similarly, you can argue that the combat zone is a spiritually heightened zone, a zone of devotion, inspiration, initiation and inebriation. A combat zone is a temple, an open-air temple, an endless temple. Hoc omne templum. In this sacred zone the Operational Scout conducts operations, finding rest in action.

There’s no religion, no morality, no transcendence, no promise of how good everything becomes after death. Because, everything is present in the here and now, immanently. All that is needed is to take responsibility for your actions and have knowledge of cause and effect. If I do this, this will happen. If I decline to do this, that will happen.

This is the ethics the combat zone teaches every soldier.

[p 372-373]

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Astral war, frequency war, energy war...
cold war in a country garden...
war games, combat 24/7... learn to love it –
live it – forever at storming distance, forever
burning with the burning magnesium in the sky,
the illumination round lighting up a diameter of 800 m...

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Intuition, inspiration, inebriation... Rivers of blood, crescendo of doom... “the spirit of song is war”...

Apocalypse Now on the Eastern Front...

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Trying to capture Leviathan, the Midgard Serpent, something elusive: that's the leitmotif of Burning Magnesium. Hereby a quote from it, attempting to describe this indescribable feeling:

It was a metal harsh reality, a bronze shimmer on a statue, the deep sapphire blue of the sky and a twilight luster over the things. It was a pathos-filled existence, neither ‘good’ nor ‘evil’. Arno had long since left dualism behind. He wasn’t a saint but he was a man who strove towards liberation from indignation, indulgence and bitterness. Patrol with an SPW and a rifle squad, scout over A to B, getting to grips with the enemy, observe and report... this was Arno’s reality and he affirmed it fully.

One word summed it up: elegy. And ‘elegy’ for its part isn’t equal to ‘lament,’ not exclusively. It’s a mixed feeling of euphoria, longing, passion and something undefined thereto, possibly the ‘apateia’ of stoics.

[p. 58]

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Jünger and Evola... lived to tell the tale of WWII... and so did Arno Greif... the hero of my novel.

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A roaring bomber in the sky doing a fly-past ... with the casual appearance of a flying dinosaur – with its grey, green and brown camouflage, the gaping engine nacelles, the glass windshield, the MG in the nose mounting, the radio antenna and everything – it was like a cry from another world – a world of steel and bronze, armol and magnesium, gunpowder and lead.

[p. 8]

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I live in the grey area, the borderland. This is the land of lightning warfare, astral warfare. It’s fought with symbols, not brainy abstractions. The weapons are the Sword of the Seraphim, earth, wind and fire -- and Arno Greif, standing in the ersatz moonlight...

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The T-34 advanced against them. And then, another unexpected salvation that reminded Arno that he wasn’t going to die in this war. A roar like he’d never heard before thundered overhead. A plane he’d never seen before flashed low over the trees. The plane spotted the tank, banked round and swept back in attack mode, dropping its two 250 kg bombs bang on target. Direct hit! The turret flew off with a bang and the chassis was set on fire. High flames licked up from the wreckage. The smell of cordite and burning flesh filled the air.

[p. 225]