From the Dust

August Natterer aka Neter (German, 1868-1933)

My Eyes at the Time of Revelation - 1911-13

August Natterer, given the pseudonym Neter by his psychiatrist to protect him and his family from the immense social stigma associated with mental illness at the time, was born in 1868 in Schornreute near Ravensburg, Germany, the son of a clerk and the youngest of nine children. Natterer studied engineering, got married, travelled widely, and had a successful career as an electrician but was suddenly stricken with delusions and anxiety attacks. On April Fool’s Day 1907 he had a pivotal hallucination of the Last Judgment during which “10,000 images flashed by in half an hour.”

This ordeal led to a suicide attempt and committal to the first of what would be several mental asylums occupied during the remaining twenty-six years of his life. Natterer thereafter maintained that he was the illegitimate child of Emperor Napoleon I and “Redeemer of the World.” The vision had inspired an intense production of drawings, all documenting images and ideas seen in the vision.