Stapelia Mixta

A compilation of 16 rigorous, eccentric essays commissioned by the German founder of psychophysics

The original 1824 German publication of Stapelia Mixta united a bevy of eccentric proposals, meditations and displays of consciously excessive learning that strove for an unusual clarity of absurdity, which was the hallmark of the pseudonymous author Dr. Mises. Aiming for a broader reading audience, it was titled after a flower, but one of such a stench as to guarantee originality. And such was the originality of these semiserious flights of excess that came under the cover of Dr. Mises, who wrote on everything from landscaping to the spiritual lives of plants and heavenly bodies while also conducting pioneering research in optics and experimental psychology. The 16 essays of this collection include discussions of dancing, drugs, immortality, perception and psychology. These increasingly inventive essays start with a relatively digestible "Encomium of the Belly" before developing into a complicated, prepataphysical exploration of Spatial Symbolism. Dr. Mises was the pen name of the founder of psychophysics, Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801-87), an alter ego he adopted for his more speculative and satirical writing. Erik Butler is a researcher at the David Geffen School of Drama at Yale University.