Re: Lovecraftian Vocables
Posted by:
Sawfish (IP Logged)
Date: 4 February, 2021 08:31AM
Dale Nelson Wrote:
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> Sawfish wrote, "Here's a difference between HPL's
> cosmos and the cosmos of M. R. James, for example.
> There is *magic* of the traditional supernatural
> sort in James. It follows well-established rules
> of how supernatural entities behave, and they
> react, like God, to invocation. The supernatural
> entities in James occupy the same space as God,
> apparently, but the entities of HPL don't. They
> occupy the speculated cosmos of physicists."
>
> I believe that M. R. James was an orthodox
> Christian. Thus he wouldn't have said that God
> occupied the same space, or is on the same
> ontological level, as the ghosts and demons in his
> stories. God is wholly other than any created
> thing. There is God, uncreated, the "ground of
> being" if you like but not one "being" among many;
> and there are human beings (departed this life or
> not), angels, liver flukes, quasars, roses, etc.
> The ghosts and demons are created things,
> creatures, like the things we see, like things we
> don't see but can detect with instruments, and so
> on. If Cthulhu and Shub-Niggurath were what
> Lovecraft conceived them to be, they would, from
> James's point of view (and mine), have
> inexpressibly more in common with you and me than
> with God, being creatures like us. Just a point
> of clarification.
OK, fine. To me, a nominal Christian, with no Christian upbringing, the whole area looks the same and God and Satan (here we're going all Manichean and Zoroastrian) co-exist as equals and angels are the Jets, and demons are the Sharks.
Or Hatfields and McCoys, or Capulets and Montagues, or Guelphs and Ghibellines, or Bloodz 'n' Cripz...
>
> Sawfish added, "It may then follow that ingesting
> potions or drugs might amplify this activity."
>
> Aldous Huxley, call your office.
Hah! The Doors of perception are cleansed.
--Sawfish
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"The food at the new restaurant is awful, but at least the portions are large."
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