Interest in, support for or antagonism against the works of Max Stirner are found where they are found, not always where one might expect to find them.  Here we see a critical mention of Der Einzige und sein Eigentum in an occult journal whose title translates as “The Truth Seeker.” This letter to the editor from Max Seiling is in response to an article by J. Peve., and appeared in Volume 1 Number 8 (February 1897) of Wahrheit-Sucher.

An original translation from the Union of Egoists…

Since it is absolutely impossible for a person to act against his or her well-being and interest, since all human actions arise from selfishness, I can have a “selflessness” in which one harms the other without the slightest advantage of it being introduced. Because, assuming that it really did happen (there are certainly no “countless amount” of such cases) if someone would willingly and happily sacrifice his or her life or belongings in order to harm another person, he would just be able to do so by his devilish character, his or her enjoyment of malicious joy being higher than life and good; at least he would have achieved an advantage, albeit a few that could be understood. How Mr. Peve, after only wanting to accept this case as actual “selflessness”, can finally say: “I am beyond all selflessness and domination,” is unclear to me. The final remark that “selfishness alone corresponds to reason” is reminiscent of the teachings of the now so-called Nietzsche and his predecessor Stirner, who with his book “the only one and his property” exalting the glorification of selfishness. Instead of going into this in more detail immediately, I would like to briefly present my own point of view on the extremely important question of the ethical value of human actions. It then emerges automatically what value the so-called selfish actions.