[lbo-talk] On Witchcraft

[James Heartfield]

'Once during the first world war Scheler visited me in Heidelberg, and we had an informing conversation on this subject. Scheler maintained that phenomenology was a universal method which could have anything for its intentional object. For example, he explained, phenomenological researches could be made about the devil; only the question of the devil's reality would first have to be "bracketed." "Certainly," I answered, "and when you are finished with the phenomenological picture of the devil, you open the brackets - and the devil in person is standing before you." Scheler laughed, shrugged his shoulders, and made no reply.' Marxism and Existentialism, 1947, p 246-7 in Georg Lukacs, Marxism and Human Liberation, Dell Publishing, New York, 1973, edited by E San Juan Jr