CANDLELIT CHRONICLES: HISTORIC HAUNTS

Ignorance Is Bliss? Lovecraft Thinks Yes

Nearly every "hero" protagonist in the work of H. P. Lovecraft should have tattooed on their foreheads (so they can see it in their mirrors) "Ignorance Is Bliss. Knowledge Is Madness." Take the Professors in "Shadow Out of Time," "At the Mountains of Madness," "The Thing On the Doorstep," or the Police Inspector in "The Call of Cthulhu." Take the poor misguided and terrified narrator in "The Picture In the House," or the accomplished, gifted, and cursed artist Richard Upton Pickman in "Pickman's Model." Everybody wants to gain knowledge, a passion to which I wholly adhere. Like Eve in the Garden of Eden, we thirst after Knowledge, Cosmic especially. "Inquiring minds want to know." However, in the Lovecraft Mythos, Knowledge is often accompanied by Death and whether or not Death, almost always by Madness. Mankind is simply not qualified nor equipped to discover Truth.





Along come poets and scientists, intellects all, to decide Knowledge is All.





William Blake, 18th century poet:


"If the Doors of Perception are cleansed,


All the world will be seen as it is-Infinite."


(Truly Lovecraftian, even though a century plus early-1790-1793.)





Aldous Huxley, brilliant 20th century intellect and philosopher, the man who gave us BRAVE NEW WORLD, among other classics. Huxley (member of an equally brilliant family) apparently took Blake at his word, and in May 1953 experimented diligently with mescaline, recording his results and publishing the account in 1954 under the enterprising title THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION.





Dr. Timothy Leary, Harvard clinical psychologist and professor. Experiments with lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) 1960-1962. Goal: Mind Expansion.





Dr. John Mack: noted Harvard professor. UFO believer. Psychiatrist. Died a victim of an intoxicated driver, in London. The John E. Mack Institute, dedicated to him, has as its Mission statement a purely Lovecraftian approach.


http://johnemackinstitute.org





Knowledge Is All. Ignorance Is Not Bliss. Or is it?





Inspired by Question of The Day November 14 2018