this blog is the continuation of a genuine mystical tradition, unless you get in daily contemplative time and abstain to a significant degree from "entertainment" then you are just wasting your time and mine !
I always arrogantly and ignorantly thought Lovecraft was for "plebeians" and so somehow below me. But I am now starting to appreciate what the fuss is all about: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." - What is your assessment of Lovecraft? Reading the Call of Cthulhu now.
an interesting quote from 'the nameless city' by h.p lovecraft
"that is not dead which can eternal lie
and with strange aeons even death may die"
that actually is the fundamental mystical truth, lovecraft was certainly in touch with something, but his books are straight and somewhat perverse fantasy, he himself never regarded them as being anything but stories and regarded himself as an atheist !
Yes, precisely. I think there's more to it than it appears at first: his horror is not horror about monsters in the normal sense. It's horror of infinity itself - the fact that he gives it a face: a giant dragon octopus, is not without irony and humor. Because it makes no sense: these beings are described simultaneously as "inter-dimensional", quantum entities that exists in the gap of our reality --- AND as a brute image of an octopus leaving under the sea. - This inconsistency, I think, points to the impossibility of giving an image to that "horror of infinity" - that is now being slowly uncovered by scientists - as the human mind will always give pathetic, familiar images: so what he does is instead of fighting this tendency (which is ingrained and impossible to be overcome) he goes with it and assumes it, OK, it's a giant octopus dragon! And yet it's not that. It lies, it even lies about itself, eternally.
He was in contact with something and that he decided to describe it in obviously ridiculous terms like sacrificing children to Shub-Niggurath was to connect a certain madness that exists in human beings with this coming cold, indifferent infinity being uncovered by science. Since our normal modes of thinking are all too familiar to portray the truly Other - he sought an approximation of it in psychotic images of madness.
The gods here are not good or evil or any familiar category, the highest God is described as the "Blind Idiot God" - it's uncanny, especially considering that these things exist in higher dimensions so in all times and all spaces yet "blind idiot" - like for them, intelligence is not something as valuable as it is for us, it's like one of its(?) tentacles.
I don't think I conveyed what I wanted the way I intended it, but perhaps it wasn't totally useless; expressing myself in English is not easy. Anyway, I'm glad you too think he was in contact with something - that's what my impression was...
I think he could do better though... he had a good intuition, he's kind of an Edgar Allan Poe meets sci-fi meets Kafka. Still, Kafka is the greater genius as he also put that uncanny intuition of infinity but he didn't use horror instead the endless bureaucratic "postponement" of authority.
I read The Secret Garden alongside Inga Moore's illustrations recently, and it was amazing. I am going to read Wind in the Willows with her illustrations next.
There are arguments Zarathustra wasn't real either -- that he was a composite of various characters.
ReplyDeleteMazdak the Younger is more interesting anyways. You should check him out too. His fate was similar to Mani...
http://bit.ly/2mLrKwE
DeleteI always arrogantly and ignorantly thought Lovecraft was for "plebeians" and so somehow below me. But I am now starting to appreciate what the fuss is all about: "The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age." - What is your assessment of Lovecraft? Reading the Call of Cthulhu now.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=63-TfQqztQQ
Deletewrong road !
an interesting quote from 'the nameless city' by h.p lovecraft
Delete"that is not dead which can eternal lie
and with strange aeons even death may die"
that actually is the fundamental mystical truth, lovecraft was certainly in touch with something, but his books are straight and somewhat perverse fantasy, he himself never regarded them as being anything but stories and regarded himself as an atheist !
DeleteYes, precisely. I think there's more to it than it appears at first: his horror is not horror about monsters in the normal sense. It's horror of infinity itself - the fact that he gives it a face: a giant dragon octopus, is not without irony and humor. Because it makes no sense: these beings are described simultaneously as "inter-dimensional", quantum entities that exists in the gap of our reality --- AND as a brute image of an octopus leaving under the sea. - This inconsistency, I think, points to the impossibility of giving an image to that "horror of infinity" - that is now being slowly uncovered by scientists - as the human mind will always give pathetic, familiar images: so what he does is instead of fighting this tendency (which is ingrained and impossible to be overcome) he goes with it and assumes it, OK, it's a giant octopus dragon! And yet it's not that. It lies, it even lies about itself, eternally.
He was in contact with something and that he decided to describe it in obviously ridiculous terms like sacrificing children to Shub-Niggurath was to connect a certain madness that exists in human beings with this coming cold, indifferent infinity being uncovered by science. Since our normal modes of thinking are all too familiar to portray the truly Other - he sought an approximation of it in psychotic images of madness.
The gods here are not good or evil or any familiar category, the highest God is described as the "Blind Idiot God" - it's uncanny, especially considering that these things exist in higher dimensions so in all times and all spaces yet "blind idiot" - like for them, intelligence is not something as valuable as it is for us, it's like one of its(?) tentacles.
I don't think I conveyed what I wanted the way I intended it, but perhaps it wasn't totally useless; expressing myself in English is not easy. Anyway, I'm glad you too think he was in contact with something - that's what my impression was...
I think he could do better though... he had a good intuition, he's kind of an Edgar Allan Poe meets sci-fi meets Kafka. Still, Kafka is the greater genius as he also put that uncanny intuition of infinity but he didn't use horror instead the endless bureaucratic "postponement" of authority.
good post !
DeleteThis is one of my favorite weird fiction short stories:
Deletehttp://www.nightmare-magazine.com/fiction/shiva-open-your-eye/
I read The Secret Garden alongside Inga Moore's illustrations recently, and it was amazing. I am going to read Wind in the Willows with her illustrations next.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0cBa4xXXvE
ReplyDeleteThe clouds here are just crazy, Andrew.
(Was a little bit drunk when I posted that.)
Delete(Sorry.)
Delete"We're only honest with ourselves when we're completely alone, which is why I feel sorry for those who are married."
ReplyDeleteYes marriage has to be built on a fundamental lie.
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtBQH9SQLUc&feature=youtu.be
Delete