Works

[degringolade]

 

And that’s how insanity always begins: you find reality unbearable and start manufacturing a fantasy alternative.
Joe Malik

“What the world calls sanity has led us to the present planetary crises,” Simon had said, “and insanity is the only viable alternative.”
Simon Moon

"You behold in me a horrible example of creeping mysticism"
Joe Malik
 

. 

Just finished reading the last of JMG's fun stuff.  Look, he isn't ever going to be put up for a Mann-Booker, but they were fun, fun reads.  

“The more frequently one uses the word ‘coincidence’ to explain bizarre happenings, the more obvious it becomes that one is not seeking, but evading, the real explanation” Or, shorter: “The belief in coincidence is the prevalent superstition of the Age of Science”

anthropologist J. N. Marsh, of Miskatonic University,

Then the other day he wrote a quick article praising/discussing the "Illuminatus" trilogy.  This was strange, because I was about two-thirds of the way through the "Eye in the Pyramid" when he wrote the piece.  Of course being a fanboy and all, I dashed off a "me too!" response congratulating myself on some damn thing or another.  But the whole thing got me thinking.  

But since I can't talk politics to anyone anymore because they will lose their shit, I got to thinking about  "Illuminatus" and the "Haliverse".  Now, if I was a true and real critic, Like Epicine Wildblood, I would write some withering blast, and make my coins being snarky and superior.  But as these my two favorite works in the "weirdo" genre, I couldn't do any such thing.

So, since I am kinda staying home because of such inconveniences as a renegade cold retrovirus and the occasional (read here: nightly) riots downtown (All Hail Portlandia), I thought that I would spend some time just thinking about these two.  So, maybe this will turn into an academic style essay that I wouldn't be ashamed to turn into Miriam Ackley.   But maybe I will just let 'er rip and write a stream of consciousness kind of deal in honor of the two Roberts. 

There is no ‘supernatural’; there are just more dimensions than you are accustomed to, that’s all.

Simon Moon

 

Both of these works deal extensively with the Occult.  Now, I do have to give credit to the Roberts for providing a greater sense of the deep currents of the occult in the dark and underexplored eddies of what we call "American Culture".  Now John has made a valiant effort to bring some of this to light over at "Ecosophia" but since that is outside of the realm of this piece, he only gets partial credit.   

One of the things that both do is point out that the supposedly "Christian" culture that the  vast majority of the United States citizenry espouses is a hodgepodge of St. Paul, Leviticus, Ayn Rand, and the spirit that moved the FDA to suppress Wilhelm Reich.  They worship a jealous God and will do anything to rack up points to smite unbelievers.  Both of these works are a way to point out that there are different ways to do things, but that those ways are suppressed here in the land of the free. 

“The America you know is like a blanket stretched out over the top of another country. Most people don’t know the other country is there, but there are holes in the blanket. If you get to one of the holes, you can drop right through it into the other country.”
Owen Merrill

 

But I find it interesting how the two portrayed the opposing side.  In "Illuminatus", the opposition is spread out all over the place and is both powerful and as hard to grasp as smoke.   Most of the book is spent telling you that what you just thought is wrong.  Of course, Illuminati was written at the same time as the Firesign Theatre so "Everything you know is wrong" could have been source material.  This probably makes it a little less accessible to this relatively unsophisticated age, but it kind of shows the complexity of the time and how everything was in play.

JMG on the other hand, kind of reduced the bad guys to a single entity "the Radiance".   Now, this makes for an easier read, which I appreciate to no end.  One of the reasons that I enjoyed the Haliverse as much as I did is that it told simple stories that were fun to read about characters that I ended up liking quite a bit.  "Illuminatus" really didn't provide anything like that.  By emphasizing the chaotic nature of the world, It made it hard to actually start liking any of the characters.  

“I am an artist,” Lovecraft said, “a mediocre artist, I fear—and don’t contradict me. I value honesty above all the other virtues. I would like to believe in the supernatural, in a world of social justice and in my own possession of genius. But reason commands that I accept the facts: the world is made of blind matter, the wicked and brutal always have and always will trample on the weak and innocent, and I have a very microscopic capacity to create a small range of esthetic effects, all macabre and limited in their appeal to a very special audience.
Fictional HP Lovecraft in "Illuminatus" in a discussion with Robert Putney Drake

 

 

Now, obviously with JMG taking the more human approach in essentially doing a "anthropomorphize spell" on the Old Ones and changing the "immanentized the Eschaton" to waking up Chtulhu and making it a good thing (replete with a drum circle). While the Robert's make it an end of the world scenario that must be avoided at all costs.  I think that this little trompe dloeil was made possible by his sticking rigorously to the classic Chtulhu canon and not dragging in every possible piece of occult thought.  

Well, that's all for today.  Gonna go finish chores and creep up on some mysticism