“What the Mountain Taught Me This August”: René Daumal’s (Meta)physical Alpinism

Abstract

French writer René Daumal’s (1908–1944) unfinished novel, Mount Analogue (Le Mont Analogue, 1952), tells of a group of mountaineers who set out to find an invisible mountain, the Analogue. All mountains have lost their analogical power, and thus a new mountain is needed. Daumal’s mountain serves a metaphysical goal and is linked to the desire for a change of consciousness, to be achieved through conquering the mountain. Even as a student, Daumal sought to expand his consciousness, not only through experimenting with drugs but also by means of sleep deprivation and somnambulism. In this regard, he was influenced by the Russian-Armenian esotericist George I. Gurdjieff (1866?–1949). Gurdjieff dealt with altered states of consciousness; he believed that the real world is hidden from us behind the wall of our imagination and that we therefore live a mechanical existence that we must break up by reaching our authentic selves. Mount Analogue is about this change of consciousness, and its ascent can be regarded as a metaphysical adventure. Daumal was also a passionate mountaineer who viewed mountains as a source of inspiration, stimulation, and physical adventure, but also as a place for recreation where he could rest his brain and heal his body, which was ill with tuberculosis. The idea for Mount Analogue came to him during a stay in the Alps in 1937. This contribution traces the genesis of Mount Analogue as an interplay between a physical and a metaphysical adventure.