I’ve often thought that the psychedelic orator Terence McKenna (1946-2000) was influenced by Lovecraft and, now we have his new biography from his brother The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss
“We knew we were on a quest; we knew we were seeking something unknown, transcendent, and possibly quite terrifying. So, we were setting out to explore the Screaming Abyss, and we became, humorously, the Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss. I think the genesis of it came from H.P. Lovecraft, the early 20th century horror writer that Terence & I both read extensively as teenagers.”
My impromptu jotting of a few similarities:
* Cosmicism: McKenna presented a positive human-centred version of cosmicism (mp3 link) and transcosmicism, in which enlightened humans are the pinnacle and whole point of the cosmos’s “conservation of novelty”. This bit of his thought certainly makes for an interesting answer to Lovecraft. Although this point could be reconciled with Lovecraft, by stating that: although the human brain appears to be the pinnacle of the universe’s ever-ramifying complexity, that doesn’t therefore mean the cosmos cares about us.
* Dimensions just out of reach: McKenna perhaps channels Machen here, a little more than Lovecraft. What Terence called “self-transforming machine elves” are deemed to be beside us, in hidden dimensions only visible on drugs… “Right here and now, one quanta away, there is raging a universe of active intelligence that is transhuman, hyperdimensional, and extremely alien.” (McKenna). Compare with the Necronomicon‘s “Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold.”; the dimensional intersections of “Dreams in the Witch House”; and “From Beyond” etc.
* Cthulhu calls his cultists: McKenna conceived of time as a wave rather than a linearity. With a being-like “dwell-point” or “hyperdimensional object” ahead of us in this “manifold” of time, a point that is attracting the enlightened portion of humanity toward a singularity-like transformed state — beyond which all will be unspeakable and unknowable. Only sensitive dreamers and artists get the psychic call about this coming apocalypse of ultimate-complexity, especially if they use visionary psychedelics.
To this he added a here-and-now kicker that recalls the Cthulhu cult: before the end-of-time arrives, psychedelically-enlightened humans can best survive the stressful “dominator culture” end-times by retreating into an “Archaic Revival” that involves orgiastic sex, psychedelic drugs, electronic music, and shamanic ritual, indulged in in natural settings — all with the aim of dissolving ego-boundaries and so preparing for the coming end-of-time. Nice work, if you can get it.
If you haven’t heard him compellingly explaining all this, it all sounds very whacky. It is, although he was also scientifically trained so it’s usually unpinned with levels of rationality and interesting ideas about an evolutionary symbiosis of ethno-botany and language/culture. It’s best to think of Terence rather as Lovecraft probably thought of the Theosophists. As a set of extremely well-presented and rather fun tripped-out beliefs to mine for use in weird fiction.
A pleasure to read this essay about the influence of HPL on TM. TM was widely read and, like many skilled orators, had a keen ear for literary styles – plus verbal talent for drawing upon them as inputs to his written composition, and oratory improvisations.
(Beside HPL, Proust is another such example. Here’s a poetic passage from REMEMBRANCE OF THINGS PAST, transl: “When from a long-distant past nothing subsists … after the things are broken and scattered … amid the ruins of all the rest…” Compare with this, from FOOD OF THE GODS: “And when, after long centuries of slow forgetting, migration, and climatic change … the broken pot shards of history, warfare …”)
I’ve long noted, in TM’s wordings, echoes and evocations of HPL – as a fellow HPL admirer, aware of TM and the McKennasphere in general (subculture, scene). For example, here – TM sounds a distinctive “thing on the doorstep” note:
“… around friends and fringies here, it doesn’t trouble me to confess. My book FOOD OF THE GODS – I really conceived as an intellectual Trojan horse, written as if it were a scientific study. Footnotes, bibliography citations to impossible-to-obtain books … simply to assuage academic anthropologists. The idea is to leave THIS THING ON THEIR DOORSTEP rather like an abandoned baby or Trojan horse …” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuhrhT8Z5QA)
Beyond literary rhythm and cadences – I also find a clear HPL connection to TM’s overall line or ‘message.’ This connection is based in historic fallout of the scientific revolution: an uncozy, uncomfy, “cosmic chill” in its ramifications – a sort of metaphysical tsunami.
Apparently, humanity was in a kind of mythic infancy – until Galileo. We were coddled by a false sense of security that our planet – and us along with it – was center of everything; the physical universe – and theological – apple of a divinity’s eye. That mythic applecart was abruptly upset, when telescopes scanned the heavens, and found – no pearly gates, no angels with wings. Only stars twinkling in a cold near vacuum of space, unimaginable distances ruled by implacable silence. Nothing for humanity to snuggle up to.
Best single sources I know on this ‘metaphysical tsunami’ and its deeper impact and ripples is PASSION OF THE WESTERN MIND by Tarnas.
HPL realized, for the worse – that science had dispelled our ability to shudder at ghoulies and ghosties etc. And in a stroke of brilliance, for the better – he also realized that this historically emergent ‘cosmic chill’ from science’s remorseless discoveries presented outre possibilities for a new kind of horror story – ‘cosmic horror.’
CALL OF CTHULHU’s opening famously conveys the notion of a threat that humanity might retreat into a new dark age to flee science’s deadly light, or be driven mad by its intimations of human insignificance. Its almost like a manifesto of the Cthulhu Mythos, per the thoroughly modern shudder it rests on.
Everyone knows of the ‘panic’ sparked by Galileo for religious tradition, the ideological right – ongoing to this day (‘science vs religion’). But apparently, not as widely known – an equal and opposite ‘panic’ surfaced among educated intellects of certain sensitivity, a cultural-social-historic factor – placing science in the middle as it were, between traditional (conservative) and progressive, yet strangely similarly troubled sensibilities. One major manifestation was the Romantic Counter-Enlightenment.
Historically, the first source reflecting this ‘intellectual left’ panic reaction, was Blaise Pascal. Just a few decades after Galileo, he wrote (Pensees, transl) – in a passage that seems to eerily foreshadow CALL OF CTHULHU’s opening:
“When I consider the brief span of my life, absorbed into the eternity which precedes and will follow it … swallowed up in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I know nothing and which know nothing of me, I am filled with fear.”
The Lovecraftian echo I find there – of vast cycles of cosmic time, fear of outre spaces etc – led me to assume HPL must have been directly inspired by Pascal. But from corresponding about this with some noted HPL specialists (JT Joshi, and Graham Harman) – I’ve been able to confirm no Pascal citation in any of HPL’s letters.
Is it possible HPL realized the ‘cosmic chill’ as Pascal and other intellectual ‘sensitives’ did – independently, without anyone directing his attention to it? Inconclusive. But if so, it underscores (I find) Tarnas, in PASSION OF…
In short I great enjoyed and applaud this essay. I heartily concur with the thesis of an HPL input to TM’s word flair – and appreciate your delineation of it. I’d also suggest a further HPL influence, intellectually, in TM’s general message, steeped in the science-queasy ‘romantic’ ambivalence, on which HPL drew as a source of ‘cosmic horor.’
Indeed the only caveat I might pose for this essay, polite protest on objection, is an endnote – that TM “was also a scientist.” True, that’s one of many laurels commonly bestowed upon him (genius, researcher, philosopher, ethnobotanist). Alas, it seems strictly a matter of neo-tradition among TM celebrants – who, as I find, can be adamant about myriad honors and titles he is accorded – spuriously, turns out (TM had no scientific publications, conducted no research, nor had any qualifications to do so).
As his ‘thing on doorstep’ quote above reflects (beyond the HPL ‘resonance’): TM did impersonate, or put on airs of a scientist, for his readers/listeners. Never before a scientific audience, where – his dramatization as such wouldn’t pass. Prof Irwin Corey also imitated ‘deep intellectual’ erudite-sounding talk – as a source of laughs. Built his act on it. But as the above vid reflects, TM’s sciencey talk was more ‘covert strategic,’ his motives personal and ideological, ploys of culture war. Better comparison might be “Scientific” Creationism. Especially since both use ‘evolutionary pseudoscience’ crafted to their particular ‘driven’ causes. (Disclosure: my admiration of HPL doesn’t extend to ‘science impostors’ of any ‘inspirational’ origin or crusade, whether biblical or psychedelic – no offense I hope).
Fine essay and an intriguing subject, seldom explored.
Thanks for this Brian. On your “scientist” point… it’s my understanding that he had a B.Sc degree in Ecology and Conservation (apparently with optional modules in “resource recovery and shamanism”) from University of California, Berkeley, and can pretty much be said to have pursued original ethnobotany fieldwork to quite some depth 🙂 But yes, your point about what might be termed his ‘sciencey talk’, and lack of formal publications, is well-taken.
Not to have put too fine a point on that Dave, thanks. I should clarify myself. As you note, TM did have an undergrad degree – although, from the Tussman Experimental College. From what I read, it seems a sort of ‘experiment’ in higher education, courtesy of a UC Berkeley philosophy professor, J. Tussman. It was open from 1965-1969.
Apparently, TM was one of Tussman’s 300 students (total); picked by GPA and application interview. Curriculum was pretty ‘1960’s W. Coast open’ – not a lot of program structure or oversight. Seems it set students of select reading and writing aptitude more or less free to follow their bliss, write a lot their own ticket. As TM did.
True too as you reflect, it seems TM did use words Shamanism and Ecology in his title for his self-designed individual program. But it apparently invites misimpression, as if some biology or anthropology course work (I’ve never seen TM’s transcript – would give a penny). As you know I’m sure, both words, shamanism and ecology, have romanticized meanings in popular reference. And that’s the context of TM’s use.
(Anthropologists can really go off on how ‘shaman’ is thrown around, even in academic much less certain poplar circles; much as ecology, a subfield of biology, is popularly confused or equated with the environmental movement.)
He did have his jungle adventures of course, with the tripping and the books and psychedelic circuit lecture tour – etc. Not to put too fine a point on, again, but for what can be said about any research to his pursuits, or even qualifications (like that Tussman B.Sc.) – I’d have to find ‘not so much’ – vs ‘pretty much.’ Just a matter, routine in our day and age – of the fine but critical line between bona fide science, and various types of pseudoscience. They indeed blur the distinction if they can, especially when ideologically-driven.
Not to detract from your excellent essay neither !