In his arguably most important book, which is being released in a new edition here, Georges Bataille - trained by Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Hegel, always keeping Christian mystics in mind - attempts to express the inexpressible, pushing the limits of self-exposure to penetrate the inner self. In infinitely illuminating flashes of thought, fragmentary and refusing any systematization, he seeks to make a deeper understanding more accessible than any philosophy could. This unclassifiable book, straddling confession and reflection, poetry and science, is an excessive adventure. "I understand inner experience as what is commonly referred to as mystical experience: the states of ecstasy, rapture, or at least a meditative emotional movement. But I think less of the faith-based experience that one has previously relied on.".