From David Abram's book "Spell of the Sensous":
/It is not by sending his awareness out beyond the natural world
that the shaman makes contact with the purveyors of life and health,
nor by journeying into his personal psyche; rather, it is by
propelling his awareness laterally outward into the depths of the
landscape at once both sensuous and psychological . . ./
put in context by this review:
https://www.cgjungpage.org/learn/articles/book-reviews/876-no-going-back-coming-full-circle-qthe-spell-of-the-sensuousq-by-david-abram
- Steve
BTW... Nick... are you not sure that you do not play to THIS audience
(and thereby fall prey to us)?
//
On 8/19/20 12:49 PM, [email protected] wrote:
> Can you play to an audience, without falling prey to it?
>
> That is the deep question to which offers of fame and fortune demand an
> answer.
>
> Fortunately, I have never had the question put to me.
>
> Nick
>
> Nicholas Thompson
> Emeritus Professor of Ethology and Psychology
> Clark University
> [email protected]
> https://wordpress.clarku.edu/nthompson/
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Friam <[email protected]> On Behalf Of u?l? ???
> Sent: Wednesday, August 19, 2020 12:34 PM
> To: FriAM <[email protected]>
> Subject: [FRIAM] the racist woo peddler
>
>
> On the heels of the new Lovecraft Country
> (https://www.hbo.com/lovecraft-country), the surge in the BLM movement
> (https://lithub.com/we-cant-ignore-h-p-lovecrafts-white-supremacy/), and our
> recent swirl around woo, "math envy" etc. I found the below letter, today [⛧].
>
> I think I've described my own fascination with conspiracy theories and those
> who believe them, falsified scientific ideas (primordial carbon, evolution
> without selection, etc.), and the occult -- including Mormon apotheosis and
> the atheistic but metaphorical attachment to Gothic imagery in the Church of
> Satan. So this letter of an avowed materialist peddling the supernatural is
> interesting. It's akin to magicians skilled in magic because they don't
> believe in magic. (Where to put the scare quotes? Is it "magicians" skilled
> in "magic" but don't believe in magic? Or is it magicians skilled in magic
> but don't believe in "magic"?) Can we take Lovecraft at his word? Can someone
> so skilled in supernatural imagery seriously not believe in the supernatural?
> Can someone steeped so deeply in software engineering jargon really think
> it's all nonsense? Or is it *necessary* to be deeply entrenched in some
> domain in *order* to realize it's all nonsense? Are there 2 types of person:
> 1) she who steeps in a domain and comes out a choir member vs. 2) she who
> steeps in a domain and comes out a skeptic? Or are there layers and modes.
> E.g. when Renee' (falsely) describes me as a mathematician at a pub. If the
> others at the bar know what math *is*, I deny it. If the others don't know
> what math is, I let it slide.
>
> A black friend of mine asked me just yesterday where I stand on the
> Confederate battle flag. It's still a difficult question for me. My answer
> can only be "Do onto others as they would have have you do onto them." So, if
> the damned flag is offensive to so many, it should be eliminated. But it
> doesn't offend *me* because I grew up with it. If such imagery is allowed to
> be layered and modal, don't we risk the systemic problems subtly exemplified
> by Lovecraft and his occult racism? Don't magicians risk their audience being
> too stupid to realize that magic isn't real? Don't quantum physicists risk
> their audience being too stupid to distinguish between woo and true? Don't
> machine learning experts risk crashing the discipline after the hype cycle?
>
> [⛧]
> http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/correspondence/91/from-h.-p.-lovecraft-to-clark-ashton-smith-%281925-10-09%29
>> 169 Clinton St.
>> Brooklyn, N. Y.
>>
>> Octr. 9, 1925
>>
>> Dear C A S:—
>>
>> . . . . . No-I've never read any of the jargon of formal "occultism", since
>> I have always thought that weird writing is more effective if it avoids the
>> hackneyed superstitions & popular cult formulae. I am, indeed, an absolute
>> materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in
>> any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism,
>> metempsychosis, or immortality. It may be, though, that I could get the
>> germs of some good ideas from the current patter of the psychic lunatic
>> fringe; & I have frequently thought of getting some of the junk sold at an
>> occultists book shop in 46th St. The trouble is, that it costs too damned
>> much for me in my present state. How much is the brochure you have just been
>> reading? If any of these crack-brained cults have free booklets &
>> "literature" with suggestive descriptive matter, I wouldn't mind having my
>> name on their "sucker lists". The idea that black magic exists in secret
>> today, or that hellish antique rites still survive in obscurity, is one that
>> I have used & shall use again. When you see my new tale The Horror at Red
>> Hook, you will see what use I make of the idea in connexion with the gangs
>> of young loafers & herds of evil-looking foreigners that one sees everywhere
>> in New York.
>>
>> I have a nest of devil-worshippers & devotees of Lilith in one of the
>> squalid Brooklyn neighbourhoods, & describe the marvels & horrors that
>> ensued when these ignorant inheritors of hideous ceremonies found a learned
>> & initiated man to lead them. I bedeck my tale with incantations copied from
>> the "Magic" article in the 9th edition of the Britannica, but I'd like to
>> draw on less obvious sources if I knew of the right reservoirs to tap. Do
>> you know of any good works on magic & dark mysteries which might furnish
>> fitting ideas & formulae? For example—are there any good translations of any
>> mediaeval necromancers with directions for raising spirits, invoking
>> Lucifer, & all that sort of thing? One hears of lots of names—Albertus
>> Magnus, Eliphas Levi, Nicholas Flamel—&c., but most of us are appallingly
>> ignorant of them. I know I am—but fancy you must be better informed. Don't
>> go to any trouble, but some time I'd be infinitely grateful for a more or
>> less brief list of magical books—ancient & mediaeval preferred—in English or
>> English translations. Meanwhile let me urge you, as I did over a year ago,
>> to read The Witch Cult in Western Europe, by Margaret A. Murray. It ought to
>> be full of inspiration for you.
>>
>> Most cordially & sincerely yrs,
>> HPL
>
>
>
> --
> ↙↙↙ uǝlƃ
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