Lovecraft vs. Machen; Cosmic horror and sacred terror

[shivering]

Thought these articles might be of interest.

CT Mobile

Cosmic Horror, Sacred Terror, and the Nightside Transformation of Consciousness The Teeming Brain


Guess I am a bit uninformed; never heard the term "sacred terror"
until now.

What does everyone around here think?



ps - Happy Halloween all.

[tonalized]

Just wanted to say thanks. Through this article I found links to lots of great stuff. Particularly the article comparing Ligotti and Lovecraft's works, styles, and visions, as they are probably my 2 favorite authors. CHG

[RaleC]

"Some people talk as if meeting the gaze of absolute goodness would be fun. They need to think again."

"Goodness" in this instance means motivating forces that operate irrespective to individual well-being and goals in order to actualize long-term group goals - akin to realpolitik.

Just watched Naomi Klein's "Shock Doctrine" and my response to your post is colored by the emotional response I just had to this documentary. It outlines the authoring of a blanket fear fantasy to back an economic model - "Homeland security is now a bigger business then the movie and music industry combined." - and is a particularly malign, yet profitable, social-fiction to buy into. It seems a fitting parallel.

On that note, it's no surprise Lovecraft has become a kind of gnostic prince of this nightmare terrain. And your utilizing the same tactics as those you claim to be above to diminish the opposing reality construct of Christianity, is kind of telling of something in both Lovecraft's and Ligotti's work that's capable of as much harm as any religion. If you're so convinced Christianity is make-believe then what difference does their delusion make? At their worst they're just as rage filled and obnoxious as the worst examples of fundamentalist Atheism, or A/N, Nihilism &c. and at their best, like the best believers in anything, they'll offer charity, understanding, humility and brotherhood.

Aiming vitriol at a whole group based on the animal darkness of a few, may be the easiest way to dehumanize an enemy and defer guilt in order to do what's necessary to eradicate them and win the argument. But this is the abyss that Nietzsche warned against staring into. And it is exactly the subjective "Goodness" that Lewis is talking about in the quote above.

Be kinder to your fellow travelers on this road of tears - we were all children once, and no one alive ever set out to be terrified and irate as their goal in life; it's a byproduct of taking a dead end on the way and being to damned proud to go back and choose a different path.

All belief systems can be used for ugliness or goodness - but hubris can blur the line between the two. It's your choice what software you run - but the machines are all the same.

[Sand]

Thanks for this interesting link. I'd say Ryan's article over-simplifies Machen's beliefs, in three ways. Firstly, it was only when he was older that he was a practising Anglican. As a young man - when he wrote most of his best-known horror work - he does not seem to have been a churchgoer, and was evidently exploring different forms of spirituality, including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn and A E Waite's successor orders. Secondly, Machen's view of "holy terror" is not conventionally Anglican: it is influenced by his deep study of Neoplatonism, Gnosticism, the hermeticists etc. It isn't the C S Lewis-like force of goodness that he posits, it is something much vaster and more inhuman, more like Lovecraft's older gods. Thirdly, even when he was, as an older man, a churchgoer, he was still unconventional: he thought, for example, that there was an older, Celtic, form of the Mass, which perhaps the Grail legends suggested. And he was ever a bohemian, an opponent of puritanism, and uninterested in people's personal vices. Any attempt to claim Machen for a conventional faith is pretty ill-founded.

[RaleC]

Quote Originally Posted by Mr. Cheev

But keep this in mind, atheists and agnostics do not go around threatening people with eternal hellfire for imaginary crimes.

Online Etymology Dictionary

I'd be more afraid of being condemned to New Jersey to be honest. To /know/ we're in Hell would be to know what hope felt like - because if we knew we were in Hell then the possibility, however slight to be redeemed from it would exist. A hell would imply a heaven, via negativa and all that; that's the attraction of horror right there isn't it? If the supernatural can exist, then anything is possible. Even the hope that we're part of some greater mechanism than mere meat begetting meat in an indifferent engine of random chance.

All I was saying - in my typical prolixy way - was that none of us are without our misdeeds and pettiness-es, and anyone passing judgement of people and using Christianity as a vessel for their intolerance is merely a jerk. And jerks can and will use any belief system to spit hate at people.

Most recently I was called an idiot, apropos of no invitation for interaction, by a dude wearing a Dawkins Red-Letter A-cifix. My sin? I was reading The Ascent Of Mount Carmel (The Dark Night Of The Soul) in a food-court. Silently. To myself. While I ate my lunch. Vegan.

My version of Christ is a swell guy. If he ever "returns" it'll be because we're all being so damned swell to each other, and someone will find him an apt metaphor for all that swellness.

On topic. I liked the article, and it's rebuttal. Thanks, Shivering - and thanks, Sand. Machen's stuff has always come closest to a kind of verisimilitude for me. Having hiked around the welsh countryside - it's not a far stretch of the imagination to see an occult strangeness at work.

Thanks for reading.

[Malone]

Great comments, RaleC. Although myself a non-believer, I, too, have an Atheist abuse story of my own.

I once took part in a debate on Atheist Ireland's website where I expressed the opinion that all of the people there weren't really exploring the true meaning of Atheism, which to me is a Negative revolution, the revelation that we are 'mere meat in an indifferent engine of random chance' as you nicely put it.

I suggested that serious Atheists should realise the gravity and moral consequences of their position, and advocated compassion based on a sense of tragedy. At the same time, a friend of mine (also an unbeliever) went on the same site, posing as an ardent Christian, urging those present to repent and seek Jesus. Anyway, the Atheists thought he was real and I was a fake. The teenage Atheists thought there was no way an atheist could be anything other than a happy, self-satisfied Dawkins worshipping drone, delighted to have rebelled against their parents. When I assured them I was for real and urged them to think more deeply, they became abusive and banned me from the site!

Narrow-minded bigotry is democratic: people of all faiths or none can participate if they choose.

[RaleC]

Quote Originally Posted by Malone

Negative revolution

Cool term.

When people stop believing in God they don't 'believe in nothing', they believe in anything. - Chesterton

I've seem some pretty far out reactions to the incredible glut of information the internet offers lately. Its like humankind is waking up the morning after a terrifying one-night-stand and discovering only themselves in the bed - and quickly cobbling together an alibi from the greasy wreckage.

Folks might have killed God, so to speak. But religion is booming. The last couple of parties I've attended I saw a bunch of Crowley shirts, and eye's of the great architect shirts on the boutique-riche crowd - queried as to the significance - "Oh, it just looked cool." Red letter-A branding all over the place like medical ID bracelets warning of an allergy to divinity, but obviously not religion. I saw a fist fight erupt over the relative merits of Suicide over Silver Apples. They're holding black masses as part of the whole "witch house" scene - because apparently Catholicism wasn't dark enough for 'em I guess. I saw cheap fashion imitations of Orthodox Prayer beads and Catholic rosaries on the necks of mall mannikins today. Truly odd times.

But like Harry Crews said to me shortly before he died "People can only take so much truth".

I'm for a renaissance of the imagination, an exploration of the weird connective tissue of the Jungian collective unconscious and our internal landscapes, and a ceasefire between science and spirituality - but if we don't start recognizing worship as worship, I think calling what happens next "a new dark age" is an incredibly optimistic prognosis.

<< This sounds more sanctimonious and high-falutin' than I meant it. Limited edition "an incredibly optimistic prognosis" tees, however, are available by request. ;) >>

[Malone]

It seems if Humanity won't worship God, it'll worship itself.

Although a non-believer, worshipping God makes far more sense to me. Humanity's track record doesn't inspire any awe in me, bar awe at the carnage and waste. At least someone worshipping quietly in a church isn't annoying anyone else, unlike just about every other activity on Earth.

[RaleC]

Quote Originally Posted by Malone

At least someone worshipping quietly in a church isn't annoying anyone else, unlike just about every other activity on Earth.

“Men to whom God is dead worship each other.” - Harry Crews.

Sounds great - it's even encouraged in the text and lead to the hesychasts (Matt. 6:6) People don't often do it unfortunately - and if they do, by it's very nature, it goes unnoticed as a model of behavior.

This conversation has reminded me of something. When I was last in New York state I came across a couple of paintings in an antique store near Albany. One was of a Victorian era women in mourning clothes slumped over a card table cluttered with Opium gear - a personification of death casting a shadow over her, and the other was a portrait of "Regan" from the Exorcist - shackled and covered in puke. The owner told me that they'd both belonged to a "little old lady from Manhattan, who would look at them before she went to bed each night and sleep like a baby." This blew my mind - I'd never considered people could, or would, buy into that stuff. I kind of filed it away as a story germ - but whenever I think about it Brian Yuzna's society comes to mind. I dunno, it's possible he was having me on - but he seemed pretty genuine.

All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible. - T.E.Lawrence

[Malone]

The picture story reminds me of something in Cioran:

...Pope Innocent IX who ordered the picture of himself painted on his death-bed. He would cast a glance at his picture every time he had to reach an important decision.

Poor Lawrence, a man who made the fatal mistake of living out his dreams and ending in horrible disillusionment.

Matthew 6:6: But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you

Pascal: All of a man's troubles come from his being unable to sit quietly in his room.

The Internet has helped remedy this problem greatly.