I find the story Double Cosmos particularly interesting. It seems to some extent to refute the concept of free will, in a small way foreshadowing Ligotti's own stance upon free will (or its absence) as explored in The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. I find the assumption of the existence of free will in western society very interesting (and have found that people react highly emotionally when discussing it) and I must admit that I find stories that 'discus' free will highly thought-provoking.

I was wondering if any of the fine CAS-scholars here can give any insight into CAS' perspective on free will?

And can anybody think of any other weird or supernatural stories that also tackle this subject?

In his tales, you will often find entities that function in ways that are entirely indifferent to the plight of the humans involved - and, whatever the principal players goals may be are meaningless in the presence of cosmic forces of such a nature - nevertheless, for Clark, as you can see in the poetry, the exercise of opportunity by we puny humans, should receive our full attention - whether is be food, shelter, safety, or love, one grasps what is at hand to grasp, and the choice is there - if there is one glass of Madeira left, drink it - another will come along when it will - if there is a woman willing to be loved, one is a fool to deny her, yet, the choice is there.
Much of Clark's attitude in such matters is, in my judgment, an existential response to his penurious reality - One may freely will that a Rolls Royce be in the drive, but circumstances completely outside one's control and, in his case, utterly beyond his understanding, dictate that it will not come to pass - but - the unexpected will surely arrive - storms, death, drought, etc - and escalators, machines, incomprehesible "devices" of obviously malign intent (that is, malign from our perspective, but in fact, cosmically indifferent - barring the reality of the occasional malicious entity).

Yes, there is a noticeable fatalistic element to CAS' stories, which, I agree, echoes his cosmic perspective. I'm sure CAS's fatalism must have been influenced by his... chronic bad luck for want of a better phrase - especially after such a bright start to his writing career.

However, I think the inference of 'Double Cosmos' is slightly different... here, if only in a "what if...", he seems to be considering the possibility that our ability to choose is illusionary. I guess this is just an extension on his many stories that explore the inability of humans to really perceive the true cosmicness of the universe (or die horribly when they try to) - but I find it interesting that the doubt here is: are we what we think we are?, ie. Free-thinking beings. Or are we just blindly following predetermined impulses beyond our ken… Or maybe I’m reading too much into this? Anyway, as ever, thanks for your insights.

Add a quick reading of "Schizoid Creator" to your musings on this matter, and write back - could be fun.

This is embarrassing--for the life of me, I can't think of a single supernatural story on this topic! I know, it should be easy since there have been countless stories of "unavoidable" dooms written; but the only examples that come to my mind are science fictional in nature. I'm thinking of Beep by James Blish and Try and Change the Past by Fritz Leiber.

In Beep the characters discover that all future events are predetermined, and what's more, can be known in advance of their actually occurring. One's mental reactions, however, are not set in stone, so you are free to rationalize your decisions as being those you would likely make anyway.

My position re the question of free will is simple: if we don't have it, there's absolutely nothing we can do about the situation. Therefore, there's really no point in discussing it!

One view of "free will" is it is similar to the captain of an aircraft announcing one is free to move about the cabin. We have constraints on us from those arising from our biological nature to environmental ones, but within those constrainst, we can move about the cabin.

And Happy Solstice.

JBP

J. B. Post Wrote:
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> And Happy Solstice.
>
> JBP

I did a minor magical rite today. Holding up a chunk of bread in both hands, turned towards the low rising Sun, offering it to Pan while asking Him to accept my offer as a symbol of sincerity to have my will being led in fertile directions. I think it was a success! I've been lucky and flowing all day. Hope it will continue to lead me in exhilirating wisdom and ecstacy for the rest of the increasing-light season! :)

I wish that someone could corroborate Steve Behrends', I believe, description of CAS's ostensibly performing a late-night magical rite on his property, or other such anecdotes.

calonlan Wrote:
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> Add a quick reading of "Schizoid Creator" to your
> musings on this matter, and write back - could be
> fun.

It certainly is a fun story. I totally concur with CAS re: psychoanalysis, although I do find psychoanalysis/Freud interesting, if only to debunk. I especially like the Abraxasesque view of God/Satan in Schizoid Creator. I wonder what free will God has?

I must admit that I quite like the direction of some of CAs' latter fiction... slightly more satirical and cynical. Maybe not classic CAS, but tis a pity he effectively gave up fiction. I feel he had lots more to say...

J. B. Post Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> One view of "free will" is it is similar to the
> captain of an aircraft announcing one is free to
> move about the cabin. We have constraints on us
> from those arising from our biological nature to
> environmental ones, but within those constrainst,
> we can move about the cabin.
>
> And Happy Solstice.
>
> JBP

I think that's it: we're free to chose, but not free to chose our choices.

Actually, I have another CAS question (one that perhaps deserves it's own topic, but talking of solstice rituals...): does anybody know/wants to speculate wildly what CAS' thoughts on Alistair Crowley were? I imagine he might have found him quite fascinating, if a tad too decadent for his tastes...

Monster of the Prophecy is one of my favorites in this direction, as is his poem satirizing T.S. Eliot and moderninsts in general - one reason he loved Reid's "Chard Witlow" satire on Eliot - should be read in Mr. Eliot's nasal twang ala his wartime Sat. Eve. broadcasts -

For those who may be interested, here is a link to "Chard Whitlow", which contains a sound file of the "poem" as read by Dylan Thomas in the style of Eliot.

For contrast, here is also a link to Eliot himself reading "Burnt Norton", a "poem" that is even more awful than I remember it! "Ridiculous the waste sad time/ Stretching before and after," indeed!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 22 Dec 10 | 02:19PM by Absquatch.

I was first introduced to Reid during Thomas' up-state "red brick" college tour in the 50's - even then he was well on his way to dying from a lack of blood in his alcohol stream. - but magnificent

Re Alistair Crowley - Clark had no use for him - very similar to his response to Anton La Vey who visited him once - Clark was always polite while people were there - and his gentility seemed to suppress the occasional contrary enthusiasms of some - When I saw the photo with the aforesaid la Vey - Clark one=worded him - "phoney" -

English Assassin,

It is an interesting question - what Smith would have made of Aleister Crowley. And I'm slightly - though not terribly - surprised that "he had no use for him". I say that because one of Smith's most cherished books was a volume of Montague Summers. Now, one would expect someone like Summers to have been appalled by Crowley; but in fact it seems that he found him a fascinating conversationalist, and they talked for hours together about their shared interest in the dark, arcane, magical, etc.

Yes, Crowley was an unsavory, decadent human being, and probably just "too much" for a man like CAS. But for a three hour session of wine-bibbing and talk of "far off, unknown things" you could probably do a lot worse!

On "free will," the line is "we may choose as we please, but we may not please as we please."

JBP