The Ultimate Phantasmal Machine

September 21, 2023 2:26 AM

The magical credo, “what we think we are”, has a positive and a negative aspect. On the positive side, it promises a world subdued to will. On the negative side, it threatens the possibility of becoming a captive to one’s own thought. If the world is to be subdued to thought, then thought must itself be subdued to will; but that is an unwinnable struggle if “you can no more keep a thought to yourself than you can hold a monopoly in the sunshine”. If your thought can penetrate and control everything, then it can also penetrate you, leaving you merely transparent, the will-less vehicle of thought, spilling in all directions, rather like radiation. from Radioactive Fictions: Marie Corelli and the Omnipotence of Thoughts
posted by chavenet (2 comments total)

It's such an easy step, if you read the quotes, to go from here to Lovecraft--this devotion to unseen limitless powers beyond comprehension, the only question being do you put it in your toothpaste and watch faces, or do you tremble in terror at it? (It makes you wonder, does every challenging scientific discovery result in some occult cultural sidestep?) Also, before reading this I don't think I'd ever made the connection between influence and influenza!
posted by mittens at 8:27 AM on September 21, 2023 [1 favorite]

This looks really interesting, thank you chavenet!
posted by jokeefe at 3:10 PM on September 22, 2023