Ernst Jünger, Conservative Psychonaut

Ernst Jünger is increasingly recognized as one of the great conservative writers and thinkers of the 20th century. It might surprise some of his admirers, then, that he indulged extensively in psychoactive drugs throughout his life. His account of these experiences is now available in English as Approaches: Drugs and Altered States. The book documents Jünger’s experiences with everything from alcohol to hashish and mescaline and LSD. What drove his experimentation was a conviction he shared with other modernist artists, as well as other conservative critics of modernity (two categories with considerable overlap): that the most vital parts of human experience lie outside the scope of the rational mind.