In a recent article here — “Rewriting the history of religion, civilization, and the human mind” — I talked about the article/essay in the June issue of National Geographic that details the discovery of Göbekli Tepe, a temple complex in southern Turkey that promises to overturn commonly accepted notions about the role of religion and…
Author: Matt Cardin
Teeming Brain founder and editor Matt Cardin is the author of DARK AWAKENINGS, DIVINATIONS OF THE DEEP, A COURSE IN DEMONIC CREATIVITY: A WRITER'S GUIDE TO THE INNER GENIUS, and TO ROUSE LEVIATHAN. He is also the editor of BORN TO FEAR: INTERVIEWS WITH THOMAS LIGOTTI and the academic encyclopedias MUMMIES AROUND THE WORLD; GHOSTS, SPIRITS, AND PSYCHICS: THE PARANORMAL FROM ALCHEMY TO ZOMBIES; and HORROR LITERATURE THROUGH HISTORY.
The Zen of Prose Style: Writing can’t be taught (but it can be learned)
Recently, I quoted a jewel of sardonic wisdom from Joseph Epstein on what it takes to become a writer. His words were from seven years ago. In a review essay published just this month, he ups the ante for quotability: After thirty years of teaching a university course in something called advanced prose style, my…
Art and Spirit vs. Corporate Dystopia: Can the enemy’s tools be used against it?
In our present greed-fueled, corporate-consumerist global dystopia, it’s common for artists and subcultural or countercultural thinkers to reject the present order not only in principle but in practice. They (we) are so disgusted and discouraged by the socially, culturally, spiritually, and ecologically destructive nature of the all-dominating system that we’re driven to the edge of…
Rewriting the history of religion, civilization, and the human mind
As reported by National Geographic, an unearthed temple complex in southern Turkey is threatening to overturn our long-held assumptions about the relationship between religion, the human mind, and civilization. Interestingly, this shares a thematic parallel with what’s going on in today’s neuroscientific quest for the basis of the human mind.
What it really takes to become a writer
Recently, as I was doing some research for my Demon Muse blog, I came across an essay by Joseph Epstein that begins with an audacious statement of what it really takes to become a writer. Although the overall point of the essay is to criticize a book I love (Alice Flaherty’s The Midnight Disease: The…
The muse and the paranormal: Aleister Crowley, Timothy Leary, Robert Anton Wilson
[UPDATE May 2014: The article described here is no longer available online (nor is the Demon Muse blog). A slightly abridged version of it can be found in the book Daimonic Imagination: Uncanny Intelligence, edited by Angela Voss and William Rowlandson (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013). The same version can also be found in Paranthropology, Vol….
The Teeming Brain: The Resurrection
Maybe it’s because I accidentally caught a few minutes of Dan O’Bannon’s wonderful Lovecraft adaptation The Resurrected on TV a few days ago, and the title struck a chord. Maybe it’s because of the changing weather: the spring season here in Texas is rapidly transitioning to an epic summer (with our historic drought showing no…
A vow of silence, a cyber-sabbatical: My plan for 2011
A week ago I announced on Facebook that I would be abandoning social media in 2011. This drew a flood of comments and questions, both online and in person, from friends and family. So I thought I would inaugurate this year of my partial unplugging from the Matrix by explaining here, in what will be…
Cosmic Horror and Cosmic Wonder: Revisioning Our Vision of H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft, the recognized master of cosmic horror, was actually moved as much by a sense of cosmic wonder.
Dr. James Schlesinger announces “the peak oil debate is over”
This recent speech by Dr. James Schlesinger constitutes Necessary Viewing/Listening/Reading (depending on whether you prefer to read the text or watch the video). It’s also brief and easily digestible. Schlesinger, in case you’ve forgotten, was the first U.S. Secretary of Energy, from 1977-79. Before that he was Chairman of the US Atomic Energy Commission, U.S….