Dear Brethren,
Be aware that someone from Auburn (my brother has written to find out who if possible) is selling "the Star-Treader" with un-cut
pages on ebay; Also The double Shadow, and a holograph of a poem -
not identified. "Genius Loci" appears twice on the page as well.
This is quite unusual, and the prices (as yet) do not reflect the
value - might be a chance to grab a good deal? I would be interested to know who this is. Also how it came to be that a copy of
Star Treader survived totally un-read. The Double Shadow claims
to be signed by clark to a Harry Rosenberry "in token of our many
years of friendship." while it is not necessarily unusual, it is
odd that this is a name I do not know - perhaps Scott or ron may
have some knowledge of this chap.
dr.f

At a price of $114 + as I write, and with the reserve not yet met, I doubt seriously that this edition of The Star-Treader is going to turn out to be a bargain. A good copy of the Selected Poems, however, has a current price of around $41. There are two days left on this latter auction, though, and I suspect that it will be hard to beat the scum-of-the-earth resellers (my opinion) who are almost certainly bidding on this title in order to offer it again for $150 or more. For future admirers of his work (especially of his verse), it was a sad day when CAS became involved with Arkham House.

calonlan Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Dear Brethren,
> Be aware that someone from Auburn (my brother has
> written to find out who if possible) is selling
> "the Star-Treader" with un-cut
> pages on ebay; Also The double Shadow, and a
> holograph of a poem -
> not identified. "Genius Loci" appears twice on the
> page as well.
> This is quite unusual, and the prices (as yet) do
> not reflect the
> value - might be a chance to grab a good deal? I
> would be interested to know who this is. Also
> how it came to be that a copy of
> Star Treader survived totally un-read. The Double
> Shadow claims
> to be signed by clark to a Harry Rosenberry "in
> token of our many
> years of friendship." while it is not necessarily
> unusual, it is
> odd that this is a name I do not know - perhaps
> Scott or ron may
> have some knowledge of this chap.
> dr.f

I never heard of Rosenberry before, although from what I can discover he died in Sacramento in 1996. I intend to check with some of Clark's other surviving friends to see if they know this gentleman.
One friend of CAS' who I would like to learn more about is a Rocklin miner named Franz Sturmfeder, for whom Clark did some dynamiting back in the 1940s. Well, we always knew that Clark would make a big bang, but that's not how I expected it!
Best,
Scott

Scott - now you have piqued my interest indeed - I knew about the blasting, but not for whom it had been done --- but what a name!
Storm-feather! Or Storm-pen (ie, quill) - Sounds like a pen name
(alas!).
drf

Sturmfeder is an actual surname. It appears, though, that he may have had no issue, since I've not come across any records for Stateside Sturmfeders in some basic information searches I just did.

me

Scott - re Sturmfeder - possibility occurs that it could also have once been "Sturmfelder" or "Sturmfeld" - ancestral names falling into the hands of county clerks often suffered - One of my ancestors was named "Peoples" and a school-marm spelled it "Peebles" and the family adopted that spelling since folks who know how to read and right ought to know better than they did.
Ignorance is bliss?
yours,
dr.f

Friends of CAS

Here is the reply to my inquiry regarding the source of the CAS pieces on ebay

Hi,

Thanks for the email.
Sorry for the delay in responding, I was out yesterday.
I have lived in the Auburn area since moving there as a teen in the late 70's.
I am listing these items for my Father In Law, Bill Blotti who aquired them from the estate of Maurine Dobbas.
Please feel free to to email if you have any other questions.

Tom Spesick
awesome1 on eBay
awesome-1@comcast.net

----- Original Message -----
From: farmer_noel@hotmail.com
To: awesome-1@comcast.net
Sent: Saturday, June 26, 2004 10:07 AM
Subject: Question from eBay Member: Clark Ashton Smith Original Poem Signed Handwritten


Question from eBay Member: Clark Ashton Smith Original Poem Signed Handwritten (Item # 6908900165)

Sehr geehrter Herrn Doktor:
I'd like to hear more details about Clark with dynamite. Sounds like an interesting combination!
Also, in regards to another thread, did you and Clark ever discuss either C. G. Jung or Joseph Campbell? I would think that he would have found them more congenial than that old fraud Freud.
Scott

Did not discuss Jung, however, very near the end, we both looked at Victor Frankl, who developed "logotherapy" - and Clark's cursory remark was "at last,
a Yahoo who makes sense." (recall the "yahoo" from Swift in this case). Joe
Campbell was not on the scene at that time in a way that we encountered -
Robert Graves (The White Goddess, King Jesus, etc) were making waves at that
time - and, perhaps because I had a master seminar with him, for me Graves'
scholarship puts Campbell in the shade. Old Joe has lots to say, but hadn't
read as extensively as Graves, and indeed, leans heavily on him as a scholarly
tree of which he is a small outgrowth. But, yes, CAS would have appreciated
Campbell - recall, however, that Clark's life, with the introduction of a
permanently resident, volatile female, had taken an existential twist which
alters one's merely mental experiences.
ahem, ahem!

I like to think that CAS would have disdained Jung as much as he did Freud. Freud may have been a "Fraud", but Jung was "Junk". Why so many seem to think Jung--a mere Freudian heretic--is so superior to his erstwhile master is beyond me. Each in his own way is reductionist and anti-individualist to the core. it seems to me that this last aspect would particularly have chafed CAS. For instance, could there be a more herd-like notion than that of the "collective unconscious"?

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I like to think that CAS would have disdained Jung
> as much as he did Freud. Freud may have been a
> "Fraud", but Jung was "Junk". Why so many seem to
> think Jung--a mere Freudian heretic--is so
> superior to his erstwhile master is beyond me.
> Each in his own way is reductionist and
> anti-individualist to the core. it seems to me
> that this last aspect would particularly have
> chafed CAS. For instance, could there be a more
> herd-like notion than that of the "collective
> unconscious"?

The chief difference between Freud and Jung was that Freud thought he was a scientist. Jung may have presented himself as a scientist, which was indeed fraudulent on his part, but what he was, waS a shaman and a poet, the founder of a new religion. I wouldn't describe him as "anti-individualist," since his theories were after all devoted to the process of becoming an individual; if attempting to describe the anatomy of the psyche and showing what features are common to all folk is reductionist, then the term loses a lot of its sting since I do not consider such activity as being prima facie objectionable. Don't forget that "racial memory," which CAS used in "Ubbo-Sathla" (and REH used in several stories) is closely related to the notion of "collective unconscious," which is in turn modified by the personal unconscious. To say that to describe common features of the human thought process is reductionist is like saying that because behavior can be adjusted pharmaceutically we are just a series of chemical reactions, without any real differentiation or individualization. Well, as one who pushes psychotropic substances for a living ("Ativan is Our Friend!"), I can tell you it ain't necessarily so. Getting back to the Aryan Christ, as one of Jung's biographers described him, I think that CAS would have found him less objectionable than Freud, and may have thought some of his notions worth exploring. Ultimately, though, CAS would have rejected him just as he rejected any systematic system of thought or philosophy as "too limiting." This doesn't mean, of course, that he couldn't pick and choose ideas, buffet-style, as witness his use of the term archetypes in "The Seven Geases."
Another question for Herr Doktor: do you know what works by Freud Clark may have read, or was his knowledge strictly second-hand, either from magazine articles or from friends like Loveman? I would be curious if he ever read "The Uncanny," since in some regards "The Dweller in the Gulf" reads like a parody of Freud's views in that essay.
Best,
Scott

Hej!

I've studied Jung to some degree, and looked a Freud a bit more.

Of the two, Freud is the more reductionist -- he essentially takes one way that an individual becomes a mature human, and promoted it to a universality that is, simply, spurious. He also indulged in psychoanalysis of absent figures, something he actually said should not be done (see his Monograph on the statue of Moses, drawing a very erroneous conclusion from an obvious mistranslation of the Bible, btw). At least he had the sense to argue that psychoses aren't curable by psychoanalysis, which his followers have studiously and disatrously ignored.

Jung is less so. His model of personalities uses a quaternary structure as it basis, yet this produces not four basic elements, but 16 (the four personality types, secondary personality types, and introversion/extraversion). His system is also less dogmatic, less concerned with the concept of denial and repression, and more involved with the process of reconciling one's positive and negative asects, and becoming integrated, at the same time as developing a repertoire of processes to help aid this.

In doing so, he recognises the individual path to becoming an individual, and that it is not reducable to a system, a set of limited dogmas, unlike the essence of Freudian psychoanalysis.

Scott Connors Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, as one who pushes psychotropic substances for a
> living ("Ativan is Our Friend!"), I can tell you
> it ain't necessarily so.

Since I rely on psychotropic substances for my sanity ("Solian is my friend!"), I can afgree with Scott here -- I am far more, as my malady is far more, than just an imbalance of dopamine.

Phillip

Scott:

Well, Jung most definitely did present himself as a scientist. His work would be less objectionable on the grounds of fraud if he did not.

Quote:

I wouldn't describe him as "anti-individualist," since his theories were after all devoted to the process of becoming an individual; if attempting to describe the anatomy of the psyche and showing what features are common to all folk is reductionist, then the term loses a lot of its sting since I do not consider such activity as being prima facie objectionable.

I most certainly find it objectionable. I see no evidence whatsoever that such a thing as "the human mind" (my emphasis) exists. The human brain is a common anatomical feature, but that fact does not mean that there exists a common "human mind" or "psyche". Further, how much of a genuine individual can one become if one is constrained by a "collective unconscious", by the influence of "archetypes", and the like? Jung is less a reductionist than Freud, to be sure, but, in the end, the effect is largely the same, to me.

Quote:

To say that to describe common features of the human thought process is reductionist is like saying that because behavior can be adjusted pharmaceutically we are just a series of chemical reactions, without any real differentiation or individualization.

I'm afraid that I do not follow this analogy at all. Given our wildly divergent premises--I reject the very idea of such a totalizing statement as "the human thought process"--I doubt that further dialogue between us on this subject will be fruitful. All I can say is that I am as opposed to physical reductionism as I am to psychological reductionism.

Quote:

Don't forget that "racial memory," which CAS used in "Ubbo-Sathla" (and REH used in several stories) is closely related to the notion of "collective unconscious," which is in turn modified by the personal unconscious.

I wouldn't deny that CAs could have found themes that might have interested or even inspired him in Jung's work (although they might just as easily have inspired a "Schizoid Creator"-type jeu d'esprit), but one cannot assume from that possibility that CAS would have given any more credence to Jung's theories than he did to, say, notions of time travel. Here, I think we agree.

Phillip:

I'm afraid that we'll have to agree to disagree regarding Jung's dogmatizing, methods, and aims, although I agree that he at least had the virtue not being a scientific materialist, as Freud was. I freely confess that all psychologizing is reductionist, to me, and thus I have no patience with any of it. That isn't to deny the value of psychology as a tool (just as I would not deny the value of medicine as a tool), but I cannot accept the notion that psychology, be it Freudian, Jungian, or whomever-ian, ultimately explains anything.

Mate!

I agree with you about ultimately explaining anything -- if we consider it as approaching a science, then it becomes, at best a model for understanding that is essentially proximate in nature. That is, it represents the best model to explain what we know of the psyche at a given time, until a better model occurs.

Of course, one such model may occur that essentially comes close to theultimate explanation, say 99.999%, but there will always be exceptions(sort of the way my Latin tutor explained once that all linguistic rules have exceptions).

Phillip

Phillip:

Agreed, aside from the notion of the psyche, and with the caveat that even the near-complete model you mention would be so only from a particular perspective. The same strictures would apply to "best" and the like, as they are value judgments, all.