A Reflection on Mystical Anarchism in the Works of Gustav Landauer^223conditions that allow for multiplicity and becoming, but it is,
rather, to increase knowledge of reality. According to Voegelin,
“the ultimate, essential ignorance is not complete ignorance. Man
can achieve considerable knowledge about the “order of being”,
and not the least part of that knowledge is the distinction be-
tween the knowable and unknowable.”^132 While the ultimate
essence of reality, which has neither cause, matter, form, nor at-
tributes, cannot be known by humans, the knowledge that can
be gained is that of seeing the world no longer as self-subsistent
truth, but understanding that its various phenomena and events
refer to and reflect the reality that belongs to the realm of mys-
tery.^133 The thingness of the world conceals and reflects the meta-
physical truth beyond and a higher level of meaning. Voegelin’s
Anamnesis and Landauer’s Separation are the processes by which
these levels of meaning can gradually be unveiled, moving from
outwardness to inwardness, penetrating into what appears as fact
to move beyond the purely external level of meaning and reach
inner significance. The true community, then, not only allows for
infinite becoming in a mysterious universe, but for making it more
intelligible through direct experience.
Conclusion
This meditation on the works of Landauer and Voegelin serves to
suggest a common line of argumentation in two thinkers whose
works have not yet been brought into contact with one another,
and thereby aims to contribute to a discussion on mystical anar-
chism. The focus of this meditation was Landauer’s and Voegelin’s
critique not just of a particular type of politics, but of politics
as such, constituting a surrogate for true community. Initially,
Landauer and Voegelin each sought diagnosis and therapy for the
political ills of their respective societies. Yet, rather than finding
a particular type of politics to be at fault, they argued that poli-
tics as such was symptomatic of a more profound disorder. Only
when the relationship between direct experience and knowledge
of reality was lost did politics arise with the purpose to create a
new, imaginary reality in which this loss was hidden and, ulti-
mately, through conserving and protecting the division between