South American Meditations on Hell and Heaven in the Soul of Man.

New York and London: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1932. First edition in English. Octavo. [iv], 420, [1, ad for another Keyserling publication, [1] pp. Publisher's black cloth with gilt spine and cover lettering, original yellow dust jacket printed in black and with a woodcut of Keyserling. Very mild edge wear to jacket but an excellent copy overall, spotlessly clean.Keyserling was born to a wealthy aristocratic family in the Könno Manor, Kreis Pernau in Governorate of Livonia, Russian Empire, now in Estonia. The Russian Revolution deprived him of his estate in Livonia, and with the remains of his fortune he founded the Gesellschaft für Freie Philosophie (now called "The School of Wisom)=) at Darmstadt. The mission of this school was to bring about the intellectual reorientation of Germany. He was the first to use the term Führerprinzip. One of Keyserling's central claims was that certain "gifted individuals" were "born to rule" on the basis of Social Darwinism. In 1918 his luck changed when he married Otto Bismark’s granddaughter, Countess Maria Goedela Bismarck. Soon after, in 1920, Hermann and Maria moved to Darmstadt, Germany, to start the School of Wisdom. Darmstadt was then attempting to become a small town haven for artists and intellectuals. Hermann invited many of his friends to participate in this new venture, including psychologist, Dr. Carl Jung; sinologist and translator of the I Ching, Richard Wilhelm; theologian, Paul Tillich; German novelist and Noble prize winner, Hermann Hesse; and, Noble prize winning Indian poet, Rabindranath Tagore. These were very well known personages at the time and some still are. Hermann and his school were shut down by the Nazis but it was re-opened by his son and continues to this day (albeit somewhat erratically(."Count Keyserling was one of the first Western philosophers to conceive and promote a universal planetary culture, beyond nationalism, but preserving cultural diversity. He promoted a new world order based on recognition of the equal value of non-western cultures and philosophies. Unlike other spiritual leaders of the day, Keyserling did not set himself up as a guru, or establish any kind of personality cult. Instead, he encouraged the equal participation of many others in the School of Wisdom and the polyphony of multicultural beliefs. It was a kind of spiritual democracy where the unifying force was the inner force cultivated by a variety of practices including prayer, meditation and psychological analysis" (School of Wisdom website).