The Forest Rebel Today: Part II

The second part of my essay on Ernst Jünger's 1951 book, "The Forest Passage."

The Forest Rebel

Who is the forest rebel? He is the one who traverses through the forest passage. He is:

that individual who, isolated and uprooted from his homeland by the great process, sees himself finally delivered up for destruction. This could be the fate of many, indeed of all—another factor must therefore be added to the definition: this is the forest rebel's determination to resist, and his intention to fight the battle, however hopeless. The forest rebel thus possesses a primal relationship to freedom, which, in the perspective of our times, is expressed in his intention to oppose the automatism and not to draw its ethical conclusion, which is fatalism (25).

If you are a young man like myself, you no doubt feel the isolation Jünger writes of here. We feel as if we have been uprooted. We are told our homeland is unimportant, that it is not ours, that we ought not to be proud of it, and that if we are proud of it, we are bigots and racists. We see our homeland being radically changed in a number of ways. For most of us, we can only look back upon what it once was, and see how far it has fallen. The future seems rather bleak. The world is an increasingly dangerous, expensive, exhausting, and suffocating place. Yet, we do not want to despair. We do not wish to give in to the nihilism and fatalism of modernity. In internet terms, we do not want to blackpill, though we often do. There has to be more. There must be another way. We must resist. But how?

Who He Is

First, we must begin by talking about precisely what, or who, the forest rebel is. What is he like? What are his qualities? What does he believe and stand for?

The forest rebel is a “beleaguered individual.” He is introspective. He understands himself and his essence. He is a truth seeker. He is also someone in relationship with others. He is a minority, meaning, the majority of people are not forest rebels. He may often be a normal member of society, at least on the surface. He is also spiritual.

Let us dwell on this idea of the “beleaguered individual” for a moment.

An Individual

Jünger writes that it is in art that we see this theme of the “beleaguered individual” represented more and more. Just think of some popular movies which have this theme, such as Falling Down, Fight Club, Drive, Taxi Driver, Joker, Conan the Barbarian, Die Hard, Convoy, Rambo, and more. Think of all the books which feature this theme (there are too many to name). You get the idea. Stories about a man who is pushed to his breaking point or who must take drastic measures to save himself and those around him against all odds. I think the example par excellence of the “beleaguered individual” is Patrick McGoohan's Number 6 in The Prisoner. In The Prisoner, Number 6, the protagonist is the arch-individualist against the forces of collectivism and control, and each episode is about the forces of the system attempting in myriad ways to break his will and bring about his conformity. However, he stands firm against them, famously declaring, “I am not a number, I am a free man!” and, “I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!” These quotes fit perfectly with the themes of the forest rebel that we find in The Forest Passage (and that is why Number 6 is my anon profile picture). Jünger writes, “To have a destiny, or to be classified as a number—this decision is forced upon all of us today, and each of us must face it alone” (31).

It is very important to understand what Jünger actually means when he writes of the individual, though. He says,

In speaking of the individual here, we mean the human being, but without the overtones that have accrued to the word over the past two centuries. We mean the free human being, as God created him. This person is not an exception, he represents no elite. Far more, he is concealed in each of us, and differences only arise from the varying degrees that individuals are able to effectuate the freedom that has been bestowed on them. In this he needs help—the help of thinkers, knowers, friends, lovers (32).

Jünger expresses a very Catholic understanding of the human person in that passage. Paragraph 1700 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church tells us, “The dignity of the human person is rooted in his creation in the image and likeness of God…”

Therefore, to be forest rebels, we must be free individuals, free men, though this does not mean we must be isolated, as Jünger points out that the individual needs help from others around him. The forest rebel believes that all men are free beings, that they are God’s creation, and that we need help to be fully ourselves.

A Man in Relationship

At the end of the passage I just quoted, Jünger says the forest rebel needs help, though he is an individual and must ultimately make decisions that only he can choose to make, he is not an individual in total isolation. To realize his freedom, he requires relationship, whether it be fraternal or romantic.

The forest passage is in large part a process of encountering one’s true Self by going beyond the surface level, and this actually involves encountering the other. There is a beautiful paragraph where Jünger elucidates this point:

The forest rebel is the concrete individual, and he acts in the concrete world. He has no need of theories or of laws concocted by some party jurist to know what is right. He descends to the very springs of morality, where the waters are not yet divided and directed into institutional channels. Matters become simple here—assuming something uncorrupted still lives in him. We already saw that the great experience of the forest is the encounter with one’s own Self, with one’s invulnerable core, with the being that sustains and feeds the individual phenomenon in time. This meeting, which aids so powerfully in both returning to health and banishing fear, is also of highest importance in a moral sense. It conducts us to that strata which underlies all social life and has been common to all since the origins. It leads to the person who forms the foundation beneath the individual level, from whom the individuations emanate. At this depth there is not merely community; there is identity. It is this that the symbol of the embrace alludes to. The I recognizes itself in the other, following the age-old wisdom, “Thou art that.” This other may be a lover, or it may be a brother, a fellow sufferer, or a defenseless neighbor. By helping in this manner, the I also benefits itself in the eternal. And with this the basic order of the universe is confirmed (82).

Man’s embrace of another is when he truly encounters himself.

When it comes to the forest rebel’s relationship with his fellow man, Jünger does not imagine that the forest rebel leaves others out to die. In fact, quite the opposite. He imagines that the forest rebel:

[steps] out of the lifeless numbers to extend a helping hand to others. This has happened even in prisons, indeed especially there. Whatever the situation, whoever the other, the individual can become this fellow human being—and thereby reveal his native nobility. The origins of aristocracy lay in giving protection, protection from the threat of monsters and demons. This is the hallmark of nobility, and it still shines today in the guard who secretly slips a piece of bread to a prisoner. This cannot be lost, and on this the world subsists (83).

In this way, we can see that the forest rebel is not a man all for himself, but a man for others. He is noble, not in some snobbish or superior way, but in the same way that a knight protects a lady, or a strong man protects the innocent. Extending a hand to another, Jünger says, is true nobility. The forest rebel, being a noble man, must be understood as acting on behalf of others in addition to himself.

Jünger writes more about the power of love and relationship in his essay Across the Line:

The second fundamental power is eros; when two individuals love, they seize ground from Leviathan, creating a space it cannot control. Eros will always triumph as the gods’ true messenger over all titanic constructs.

And,

Eros is also alive in friendship, which, confronted with tyranny, is subjected to the ultimate ordeal. Here it is purified and tested, like gold in the furnace.

I wrote in my essay, Jünger on Eros in “Across the Line,” that:

The Leviathan—seeking to control and annihilate, with modern technology and machines at its disposal—is thwarted by eros because eros defies the Leviathan in that two individuals form a bond so strong and so unbreakable that it brings those individuals to act outside the boundaries set by the Leviathan. It is unpredictable, wild, passionate and full of life, all things that Leviathan hates. Eros, as Jünger says, creates a space that the Total State cannot control. This is why Leviathan actually prefers a world where men and women do not love one another, where families disintegrate and where individuals are lonely and isolated. Two people in love are a force to be reckoned with, while lonely, frustrated atoms floating around aimlessly are easy to control and manipulate.

Here is that essay in full, if you wish to read it, as I believe it connects perfectly to what Jünger talks about as far as love and relationship goes:

A Minority

Though each person is an individual, free and created by God in his own image, not all are capable of seeing this. Not all are capable of resistance and of fighting for freedom. The fact is that very few men are forest rebels. “Only a small fraction of the great masses will be able to defy the mighty fictions of the times and the intimidation that emanates from them…the initiative will always pass into the hands of a select minority who prefer danger to servitude” (35). However, as I pointed out just moments ago, the forest rebel does not hold this against his fellow man, and ought to be ready to assist those who, for whatever reason, have not entered the forest passage themselves.

A Spiritual Man

Another vital aspect of the forest rebel which must be grasped is his spiritual nature. Jünger says that:

it is important for anyone intending to undertake a risky venture that he first gain a precise idea of himself...the man involved in the movements and historical phenomena must refer back to his latent supra-temporal essence, which incarnates into history and is transformed within it. A venture of this kind will appeal to strong spirits like the forest rebel. In this process, the mirror image contemplates the primal image, from which it emanates and in which it is inviolable...This is a solitary meeting, and therein lies its fascination; no notary, priest, or dignitary will be in attendance. In this solitude man is sovereign, assuming that he has recognized his true station. He is the Son of the Father, lord of the earth, the issue of a miraculous creation...As in the most ancient times, man reclaims the priestly and knightly powers for himself. He leaves behind the abstractions, the functions, and work divisions, and places himself in relation to the whole, to the absolute—and a profound happiness lies in this” (67).

This was a particularly moving passage for me, and it must be commented on.

‘Der Astralmensch’ by Sascha Schneider

Our identity can only be found in our relationship to God. That is who we are, essentially. When Jünger says we leave behind abstractions, functions, and work divisions, he means that we have to separate ourselves, our true selves as sons of God, from our holding this or that ideology, working this or that job, and even our state in life, i.e., whether we are married or single. None of these things are unimportant, but they are not essential, they can end or change (our spouse can die, we can get another job, we can change our minds about things). Yet, our freedom and dignity as a human person with a soul, as a child of God, remains. When we realize this, and I mean realize in the full sense of the word, we gain true happiness. I am struck by Jünger’s repeated allusions to Christian ideas and God in The Forest Passage, as I believe it shows how foolish people are who discount his Christian character and late conversion. But that is neither here nor there.

Jünger goes on to point out that the forest rebel “cannot afford to wait for the churches, or for spiritual guides and books that might surface” (66). Anyone who understands how the Churches operate today understands this. Sometimes, it can feel as if the Church is hardly even standing up to modernity. At times, I know my own faith has not particularly been helped by certain actions of the Church or those within it. This is not to say the Church is unimportant or unhelpful, but the forest rebel must be willing to act even if his Church is not. He must be willing to undertake this spiritual experience alone if necessary. He cannot wait on influencers or bishops to tell him what to think or how to act.

Jünger also says that the forest rebel must be willing to “reckon with times and regions where the church simply no longer exists. The state will then see itself called upon to fill the gap that has resulted, or been revealed, with its own means—an enterprise in which it can only fail” (55). We are already seeing this today. We know just how far the churches have fallen and how man has turned from religion. Godly religion is replaced by the Civil Religion; the Church is replaced by the State. Of course, both are perverse and incapable of satisfying man’s deepest needs for God; nevertheless, the void must be filled, even if incompletely and in a harmful manner.

He writes that the church, as an institution comprised of men, is constantly threatened by “rigidification and the consequent drying up of its beneficent forces. This explains the gloomy, mechanical, and nonsensical aspects of many church services, the recurring Sunday torment, and of course sectarianism. The institutional element is at the same time the vulnerable aspect; weakened by doubt, the edifice crumbles overnight—if it has not simply been transformed into a museum” (55).

Think of all the once great and holy cathedrals and churches in Europe which have been turned into museums, and which may or may not even have mass or service held in them anymore. I also say, with great sadness, that it is probably the case that most church services today do more to drain a man of his faith than to strengthen him. If the forest rebel can find one which does not have this effect, he ought to take advantage of it, but ultimately the forest rebel must be able to persist in his faith even when the church fails to do so or encourage it.

When all institutions have become equivocal or even disreputable, and when open prayers are heard even in churches not for the persecuted but for the persecutors, at this point moral responsibility passes into the hands of the individuals. The forest rebel is the concrete individual, and he acts in the concrete world. He has no need of theories or of laws concocted by some party jurist to know what is right. He descends to the very springs of morality, where the waters are not yet divided and directed into institutional channels. Matters become simple here—assuming something uncorrupted still lives in him (82).

Indeed, today the church often collaborates with the State and the persecutors and even peddles the Civil Religion using Christian language to do so. Remember how rabidly Christians were scolded during the BLM Summer of Love, or how the churches cooperated with and pushed COVID tyranny, or how the churches are now demanding we allow infinite migration? The list goes on. With that being said, Jünger remarks that “greater force can be preserved in churches and sects than in what are today called worldviews” (59). In other words, we can place far more hope in churches to oppose modernity and serve as vehicles of change than we can ideologies and political movements, even if churches are faltering or failing in their duty to God and to truth. If you are Catholic like me, you believe that no matter what, the gates of hell will not prevail. The Church will stand strong. We must keep this in mind, and, as those wishing to become and live as forest rebels, take seriously the spiritual dimension of this resistance.

With that, we must conclude Part II. The next part will continue our discussion of the forest rebel, and conclude by explaining the rebellion undertaken by the forest rebel.

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