Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="ColonelHardisson" data-source="post: 314599" data-attributes="member: 363">As far as rationalizing sanity loss due to tomes...look at it like this. I believe that in Judeo-Christian beliefs that God has a single-word name that, if uttered, would destroy the world. Can you imagine that? A single word, universal destruction.Lovecraft loved to use odd or impossible imagery - take the Color Out of Space, for example. It's a color never before seen by the human eye. Can you imagine that? The point of my two examples is this: these are things that are so awful that we can't possibly imagine them, let alone actually experience them, without being or going insane. You may not understand how knowledge can drive one insane, but if you were a Lovecraftian character, you'd soon find out - when words that seem normal in and of themselves suddenly seem to open up a vista of knowledge never imagined before. In a way, it's like contemplating a Zen koan. The closer one gets to understanding a koan, the greater one's understanding of universal truth becomes. Lovecraftian tomes are like evil koans, and they erode one's ability to grasp what we know of as reality, giving a glimpse into a far greater, infinitely more sinister reality.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="ColonelHardisson, post: 314599, member: 363"] As far as rationalizing sanity loss due to tomes...look at it like this. I believe that in Judeo-Christian beliefs that God has a single-word name that, if uttered, would destroy the world. Can you imagine that? A single word, universal destruction. Lovecraft loved to use odd or impossible imagery - take the Color Out of Space, for example. It's a color never before seen by the human eye. Can you imagine that? The point of my two examples is this: these are things that are so awful that we can't possibly imagine them, let alone actually experience them, without being or going insane. You may not understand how knowledge can drive one insane, but if you were a Lovecraftian character, you'd soon find out - when words that seem normal in and of themselves suddenly seem to open up a vista of knowledge never imagined before. In a way, it's like contemplating a Zen koan. The closer one gets to understanding a koan, the greater one's understanding of universal truth becomes. Lovecraftian tomes are like evil koans, and they erode one's ability to grasp what we know of as reality, giving a glimpse into a far greater, infinitely more sinister reality. [/QUOTE]

Verification