תורת סוד חדשה : רוחניות, יצירה ולאומיות ב"חוג פראג"

A New Secret Theory examines what leads a group of young Jews from assimilated homes in Prague, a group that later left its mark on the thinking and creativity of the period, to rebel against the bourgeois culture of their parents and engage in mysticism? How is this engagement connected to the national conflict raging in Prague between Germans and Czechs and the group's interest in Zionism? How does this affect their artistic, philosophical, and scientific work? A New Secret Theory - Spirituality, Creativity, and Nationalism in the "Prague Circle" deals with a group of Jews from Prague who each became key figures in their field: the great writer Franz Kafka; his friend, the writer and thinker Max Brod; Samuel Hugo Bergman, a philosopher and one of the designers of the Israeli Academy; and Hans Kuhn, one of the greatest researchers of nationalism. The book shows how the combination of the dramatic events to which the members of the Prague Circle were exposed – such as World War I and the collapse of the Habsburg Empire, the anti-rational cultural atmosphere and the creative forces that prevailed in those days – led to unique thinking and creation. The book reveals the original preoccupation of the members of the circle with questions such as religion in a secular world, the limitations of reason, the meaning of art and the attitude towards violence. The writings of these individuals revealed in the book, some of which have never been published, unfold a new secret doctrine and a Zionist approach based on alternative spiritual and political paths to the paths along which Zionism had walked.