Death, anxiety and metaphysical experience

The author focuses his attention on ancient philosophy in the sense of spiritual exercise of experience, of lived life, and introduces the theme of death, which according to Plato and other ancient philosophers represented the death of one’s individuality to gain access to true thought and connect with the universality of the cosmic whole. Approaching modern philosophical thought, through Heidegger the author introduces the theme of anxiety as the inevitable viaticum to gain access to the ‘pure being’ of the human being or Dasein (being-there). Finally, leaning on the work of Elèmire Zolla, the author attempts to identify a path that, in overcoming anxiety and ‘losing’ one’s individuality of identity, can lead to identification with ‘the being that simply is’ in the world. This last passage recognises that mental disorders may emerge in lieu of possible enlightenment, especially if left to deal with the existential phenomenological experience alone.