The questions and psychic forces which tore at the soul of this mythic figure who dared to stand against the consensus of centuries, against the all-consuming power of the collective and its conventional pretensions, are burning issues for us still as we lonely individuals seek our rebirth amidst the rubble of Western civilization. Declaring the supreme value of the outstanding individual who towers above the herd courageously transvaluing all values, Nietzsche envisions his heroic 'Superman' standing at the pinnacle of history forging his destiny from the primary and godless Chaos of reality. Depth psychology, existentialism and the human potential movement: the idea and practice of the liberation of the self involving a necessary opening to the hidden Dionysiac depths; the necessary break with the collective in its conventional, conformist and often cultural/moral mediocrity; individual empowerment through a healthily strong ego; the belief that deep societal change can only come about through personal transformation and individual growth in consciousness -- all this constitutes the best and deepest of the Nietzschean insights! Yet just as, in Nietzsche's own perspectivist and relativistic notion of truth, the truth cannot be properly abstracted from the man, this refined gold does not reveal the rough and complex ore, that most impure yet influential and reverberant message that was Nietzsche.

The questions and psychic forces which tore at the soul of this mythic figure who dared to stand against the consensus of centuries, against the all-consuming power of the collective and its conventional pretensions, are burning issues for us still as we lonely individuals seek our rebirth amidst the rubble of Western civilization. Declaring the supreme value of the outstanding individual who towers above the herd courageously transvaluing all values, Nietzsche envisions his heroic 'Superman' standing at the pinnacle of history forging his destiny from the primary and godless Chaos of reality. Depth psychology, existentialism and the human potential movement: the idea and practice of the liberation of the self involving a necessary opening to the hidden Dionysiac depths; the necessary break with the collective in its conventional, conformist and often cultural/moral mediocrity; individual empowerment through a healthily strong ego; the belief that deep societal change can only come about through personal transformation and individual growth in consciousness -- all this constitutes the best and deepest of the Nietzschean insights! Yet just as, in Nietzsche's own perspectivist and relativistic notion of truth, the truth cannot be properly abstracted from the man, this refined gold does not reveal the rough and complex ore, that most impure yet influential and reverberant message that was Nietzsche.