Anatomy of the Deep State (absolutely required reading): “There is another government concealed behind the one that is visible at either end of Pennsylvania Avenue, a hybrid entity of public and private institutions ruling the country according to consistent patterns in season and out, connected to, but only intermittently controlled by, the visible state whose leaders we choose.”
Maybe interiority dies or become obsolete when all the world’s an app: “Starting some 500 years ago, the self was understood as an enclosure. It was something that required silence to access and space to experience. I think that used to be true. It probably still is. But it might not be for very much longer.”
Looks like I got out just in time: A Eulogy for Twitter: The beloved social publishing platform enters its twilight
Why I Teach Plato to Plumbers: Liberal arts and the humanities aren’t just for the elite (shades of Earl Shorris and the Clemente Course in the Humanities)
How to study the numinous: “If our understanding of the mystical is impoverished today, perhaps it’s because we’ve put too much faith in brain scans, and allowed other forms of knowledge and investigation to ebb. Perhaps what we need is a revival of philosophically-informed psychology and anthropology, rather than a more ambitious spiritual phrenology. Perhaps, instead of a better fMRI machine, we’re waiting for a new (and doubtless very different) William James or James Frazer or Carl Jung.”
The human heart of sacred art: “The humanist impulse not only liberated the sense of transcendence from the shackles of the sacred, it also transformed the idea of transcendence itself. The transcendent was no longer linked to the divine; nor did humans fulfil themselves solely through union with God. Rather humans came to be acknowledged as conscious agents who realized themselves only through self-created projects to transform themselves and the world they inhabit.”
Ghosts of the tsunami (on a Japanese priest’s attempt to deal with the plague of ghosts in the aftermath of the country epochal disaster): “When people die violently or prematurely, in anger or anguish, they are at risk of becoming gaki, ‘hungry ghosts’, who wander between worlds, propagating curses and mischief. There are rituals for placating unhappy spirits, but in the aftermath of the disaster few families were in a position to perform them. . . . Thousands of spirits had passed from life to death; countless others were cut loose from their moorings in the afterlife. How could they all be cared for? Who was to honour the compact between the living and the dead? In such circumstances, how could there fail to be a swarm of ghosts?”
Terror Incognita: The Paradoxical History of Cosmic Horror, from Lovecraft to Ligotti: Los Angeles Review of Books looks at Lovecraft, Chambers, Ligotti, and weird fiction. Worth reading even though it winds up to a somewhat disappointing (because somewhat hackneyed and by now cliched) conclusion about the genre’s appeal (“The imagination, weaned on a materialistic civilization and thoroughly disillusioned with it, yearns for that sublime unknown”) that was articulated at length by Peter Penzoldt 60 years ago in The Supernatural in Fiction, and that has been restated many times since by the likes of Joshi and others, and that has always left a number of significant alternative possibilities unexamined. But that said, hey, how cool is it to see Ligotti being talked about in the likes of LARB?
I’d like advice on studying the idea of hyperborea . My professor has recommended me Mallet’s Northern Antiquities, Ennemoser’s History Of Magic, A Voyage To Arcturus by David Lyndsay and its sequel The Flight To Lucifer by Harold Bloom . I’ve already read and adore James De Mille’s A Strange Manuscript Found In A Copper Cylinder which is about hyperborea directly. I’m interested basically in the relationship between the dead, daemonic-dread and shudder from the coldness, to night-time , sleep paralysis, and cold climate . Norwegian black metal music is a great example of this .
oh I meant to quote that article called Ghosts Of The Tsunami, totally fascinating,
“Even before the tsunami struck its coast, nowhere in Japan was closer to the world of the dead than Tohoku, the northern part of the island of Honshu. In ancient times, it was a notorious frontier realm of barbarians, goblins and bitter cold. For modern Japanese, it remains a remote, marginal, faintly melancholy place, of thick dialects and quaint conservatism, the symbol of a rural tradition that, for city dwellers, is no more than a folk memory. Tohoku has bullet trains and smartphones and all the other 21st-century conveniences, but it also has secret Buddhist cults, a lively literature of supernatural tales and a sisterhood of blind shamanesses who gather once a year at a volcano called Osore-san, or ‘Mt Fear’, the traditional entrance to the underworld.”
“Hijikata revived a literary form which had flourished in the feudal era: the kaidan, or ‘weird tale’. Kaidankai, or ‘weird tale parties’, had been a popular summer pastime, when the delicious chill imparted by ghost stories served as a form of pre-industrial air conditioning. Hijikata’s kaidankai were held in modern community centres and public halls. They would begin with a reading by one of his authors. Then members of the audience would share experiences of their own: students, housewives, working people, retirees. He organised kaidan-writing competitions, and published the best of them in an anthology. Among the winners was Ayane Suto, whom I met one afternoon at Hijikata’s office.”
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In Korean shamanism they have this idea to which is very strong , I recommend reading Chongho Kim’s Korean Shamanism: The Cultural Paradox , he examines these connections. They connect lament, and the shudder from the ghost, to coldness .
in A Game Of Thrones, the white walkers beyond the wall, has this idea very prominently
I’m interested in any authors that have made connection between weather and daemonic-dread
One great example I can think of is Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Old Nurse’s Story .
but I was curious more about philosophy and anthropology
The article about the ghosts of the tsunami is evocative and, no pun intended, haunting. Thanks you for the link, Matt.
Yes, the tsunami ghosts article is very affecting. For some reason it reminded me of Lefcadio Hearn’s writings on Japan, all the echoes of a magnificence of spirit that hides behind a mask of duty and rigor but cannot be undone even by the worse tragedy.
The article about the value of teaching philosophy to plumbers, nurses etc. however had me in stitches. Philosophy is a poisoned offering at best and introducing existentialism to good plumbers should be a crime.