Wittgenstein wrote the text in the summer of 1931, which represented his earliest efforts to compose what would eventually become the Philosophical Investigations (1953).
An important theme of the Remarks, and one which Wittgenstein would later explore more fully, is the conception of metaphysics as a "kind of magic".
The text was edited by Rush Rhees, who published them separately from Wittgenstein's other work, in a possible attempt to avoid alienating Wittgenstein's readership, in light of the sympathy shown to primitive thought and practices.
The remarks were later included in full in an anthology of Wittgenstein's miscellaneous work called Philosophical Occasions 1912-1951.
by Giovanni da Col and S. Palmié, with critical reflections by V. Das, W. James, H. Kwon, M. Lambek, S. Laugier, K. Myhre, R. Needham, M. Puett, C. Severi, and M. Taussig, 2020, Hau Books, open access ISBN 978-0990505068