Showing posts with label magic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label magic. Show all posts

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

The Amulet by Ralph Waldo Emerson: Analysis and Commentary

Copyright 2020 by Gary L. Pullman

 

Your picture smiles as first it smiled,
The ring you gave is still the same,
Your letter tells, O changing child,
No tidings since it came.

Give me an amulet
That keeps intelligence with you,
Red when you love, and rosier red,
And when you love not, pale and blue.

Alas, that neither bonds nor vows
Can certify possession;
Torments me still the fear that love
Died in its last expression.

The Amulet” is a love poem of sorts, consisting of three stanzas, each of which expresses a different, but related thought on the topic of the speaker’s love for his beloved, the poem progressing from his contemplation of mementos that he has of her, to a magical amulet that he wishes he had instead of those mementos, to his realization that he is, and must remain, uncertain of the steadfastness of his beloved’s love.

 In the first stanza, the speaker speaks of the mementos of his beloved that he keeps in his possession: a picture of her, smiling; a ring she gave him; and a love letter she sent him. He finds each of these possessions to be insufficient in that they are static, while she is “changing.” As such, they do not truly represent her, for they depict her as she was in the past; today, she is different; tomorrow, she shall be still more different, for she is, as he says, a “changing child.”

In the second stanza, he voices his wish that, instead of the picture, ring, and letter, he possessed a magical charm, a talisman, or an “amulet,” that would truly represent his beloved, changing as she changes, reddening when she loves or becoming “pale and blue” when she does not love. Had he such a charm, he could tell at once whether her love for him remained in effect. She is, after all a “changing child,” and her love for him may expire.

The first to stanzas have focused on possessions: the picture, the ring, and the letter, in the first stanza, and the amulet in the second. None of these possessions allows the speaker to possess the heart of his beloved; she remains a “changing child,” who may or may not remain constant in her affections for him. It is this truth that the speaker comes to realize in having understood the limitations of the mementos of her that he possesses. The picture, the ring, and the letter are things. They are possessions but, in possessing them, he does not—and, he now realizes, he cannot—likewise possess her. She is a person, not a thing, and he is fearful that the last time that she told him of her love for him may have been the last time that she felt such love. Unable to possess her as he does his mementos of her (which are not even true representations of her any longer), he must face the fearful possibility that, sooner or later, he may lose her.

Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Learning from the Masters: Robert McCammon

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman


Robert McCammon is the author of A Boy’s Life, Stinger, Swan Song, Gone South, and several other highly readable horror novels. He has also written his share of short stories, and it is to one of these that we turn in this post, that we may learn from another master of the genre in its rather abbreviated form.

For those who have not read his short story, “The Thang,” which originally appeared in Hot Blood (1989), a volume of erotic horror, a summary is in order:

Dave Nielson has traveled 700 miles to visit a magic shop in New Orleans, where he hopes to find a solution to his problem (nature was not generous in endowing him with the essentials of masculinity). He hopes a voodoo practitioner may be able to help him. He meets one, Miss Fallon, at the shop, who offers to remedy his anatomical deficiency, asking for half her $300 fee up front and the rest after Dave has seen the results. She mixes him a drink, replying to his query as to its ingredients, “You don’t want to know.”

After he manages to drink the potion, Miss Fallon orders him to return to her after the weekend, eating nothing, meanwhile, but gumbo and oysters. Dave rents a room in a nearby motel.

He feels “different” almost immediately, and is able--or imagines himself to be able--to hear “the blood racing in his veins.” However, when he checks himself, he is distressed to see that his problem remains. He sees a gentleman’s club across the street from his motel, and he decides that, since he’s unable to sleep, he may as well enjoy the show. “Without thinking,” he orders a beer.

Aroused by a dancer, his manhood springs free, now “the size of a small artillery piece,” his testicles as large as “cannonballs.”

Horrified, Dave flees the club, its patrons terrified of him. He returns to his motel room, where, after having reached a length of 17 inches, Dave’s “thang” returns to its
former puny size. He struggles to prevent himself from having erotic thoughts, but a woman’s announcement, on the street below, that she seeks immediate intimacy with a man causes him to lose control over his libido. As the woman, Ginger, continues to voice her need, Dave struggles with his monstrous organ, causing enough noise to capture the attention of his neighbors, an elderly couple, who, having appeared in the doorway, witness “what appeared to be a naked man fighting a pale python.”

Apparently, they call the desk clerk, because he and a security guard arrive within moments. The clerk declaring, “We don’t permit. . . this kind of behavior in our establishment,” and Dave is summarily evicted. When he arrives to open the magic shop, the shop’s owner, Malcolm, takes one look at Dave, “suitcase in his hand and his shirttail out,” waiting “on deserted Bourbon Street,” and concludes, “You done screwed up, didn’t you?”

When Miss Fallon arrives at the shop, Dave confesses to having drunk a beer, learning the bad news that there is no antidote to the potion that has extended him--not, that is, unless he is willing to allow Miss Fallon and her Aunt Flavia to “experiment” on him by concocting various elixirs. In three months or so, she says, the two women might be able to produce an antidote.

However, there is one not-so-small catch. Dave must agree to become Aunt Flavia’s boarder. She is an unattractive woman, a husky octoroon woman with copper eyes, her long-jawed face like a wrinkled prune,” whose feminine parts are as oversize as Dave’s masculine counterparts--so large, in fact, that Dave is horrified to see “something loose and fleshy was brushing against the front of her caftan, down between her thighs. . . Something very large.”

This story is almost entirely situational. There is little development of character. It is similar to a medieval fabliaux, in which the foolishness of a protagonist is highlighted and exemplified by his or her behavior, which is motivated by a simple desire to engage in sex. This desire is, in turn, usually frustrated or complicated by another character, often with the result that the protagonist is humbled, if no wiser. These cautionary tales sometimes end with the statement of an explicit moral, but, just as often, they conclude without making their messages clear. It is difficult to imagine how a reader could not conclude for him- or herself the moral of a story like “The Thang.”

Men are as obsessed with the size of their genitals, it seems, as women appear to be preoccupied with the dimensions of their breasts. Those of both sexes who find themselves dissatisfied with their endowments in these particulars often seek to enlarge them, whether through the use of chemicals, instruments, or surgery. For many, the results are satisfactory, but, occasionally, something goes wrong, as it certainly does in McCammon’s story. Reducing the whole of himself to a part (or parts) is dehumanizing, and, therefore, absurd. Dave is a grotesque character, because his overriding concern with the size of his manhood in particular and with sexual considerations in general reduce him to silly dimensions as a human being. He is ruled by his libido, which makes, for him, the matter of his endowment of extreme importance. He discovers, only after the trauma of getting what he has wished for, that his dream, having come true, is a nightmare. His having to live with and satisfy the fleshly appetites of a woman who is as self-absorbed with sex as he himself is--or has been--is an ironic penance. However, matters could be much worse, for Dave’s apparent promiscuity obviously makes him susceptible to risks that far outweigh even a nearly uncontrollable phallus the size of a “python.” The gargantuan member seems to symbolize Dave’s own infatuation with sex and size. As the story’s title suggests, Dave’s gargantuan member is itself a manifestation of his obsessive interest in such matters. The story shows--literally--that his obsession with sex and size is monstrous.

He seems more in need of a psychologist than of a pair of voodoo priestesses. McCammon’s bawdy story pokes fun at the proclivity of men in general to be ruled, in sexual matters, by their passions. Dave, for better or for worse, is an everyman, whose sexual obsessions amuse, annoy, mystify, and anger women who can’t understand why a man can’t simply be satisfied with what nature has given to him (even if, in their own cases, they may seek to “enhance” their breasts with surgical implants.) Perhaps McCammon will pen a sequel that focuses upon such damsels in distress.

There is, at times, a fine line between humor and horror, and, in “The Thang,” McCammon has found, if not crossed, this line.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Sexing It Up, Part II

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

With few exceptions, horror fiction has a reputation for being puerile and jejune. One might add that this reputation, hard won, is well deserved. However, the same charge may be leveled accurately at any other genre of fiction and, indeed, has been leveled at many classics in mainstream fiction as well by the critics and contemporary authors of the day in which these literary classics made their debuts. It may be interesting to some to review the plots of a few of the more brazenly irrelevant examples of what might be termed erotic films. In doing so, it should be apparent to any that the flimsiest excuse for a model or an actress to doff her clothing was regarded as reason enough for her to do so. What is good for the goose of the sexploitation movie, one may argue further, should be good for the gander of the horror story. Violence and, indeed, gore needs no more persuasive or socially redeeming reason for being than erotica disguised as--well, let’s look at the rationales, suggested or stated directly, for the sexploitation films of the past and see just what reasons they do offer for their existence.


2069: A Sex Odyssey: Venus’ females (who, as it turns out, resemble the most beautiful women that planet Earth has to offer) visit our planet to fornicate with men so as to preserve their own species. Reason for being: Species survival.


The Beautiful, The Bloody, and the Bare: Behind Closed Doors: A nude photographer--no, he’s not nude; his models are--takes fine glamour shots unless the color red appears. The color of blood drives him to lust--for blood--and, therefore, to murder. Reason for being: Art for art’s sake.


Philosophy of a Knife: A documentary (kind of) concerning the Japanese version of Nazi Germany’s Dr. Mengele. (Okay, so this one does have a little real reason for its gratuitous displays of nudity, which make such displays no longer gratuitous, just nude.) Reason for being: Documentary of human villainy.


Bikini Airways: Sexy stewardesses find a way to earn their pay after their airlines seems to be going belly up financially: they rent their aircraft as a flying forum for wild bachelor parties. Reason for being: Financial survival.


Brigitta: Swingers’ fantasies about swinging. Reason for being: Uh, Brigitta?


Curse of the Erotic Tiki: A talisman sold at a bikini shop causes whoever wears it to lose her sexual inhibitions. Reason for being: Magic and enchantment.

Okay, now that we’ve taken a squint at some of the lamer sexploitation flicks and their reasons for being, let’s look at a few horror movie plots to see whether the excuses that they offer for their existence are any less lame.


Species: An alien female mates with Earthmen to avoid her species’ extinction. Reason for being: Species survival.


The Picture of Dorian Gray: Due to his sins, Dorian’s portrait ages while he stays young. Reason for being: Art for art’s sake.


Ed Gein: A transvestite killer wants his mom back--from the grave. Reason for being: Documentary of human villainy.


Hostel: An entrepreneur’s inn of supposed pleasure turns out to be a not-so-public house of pain. Reason for being: Financial survival.


The Abominable Dr. Phibes: The doctor is a rabbi, maybe, who uses the same sort of amulet that Moses apparently used to stir up the plagues in ancient Egypt, because he’s doing the same thing now, in modern America, using a set of his own similar charms. Reason for being: Magic and enchantment.

Wow! It looks like a tie, proving that other film genres--in this case, sexploitation films--offer excuses for their existence that are just as flimsy--in fact, identical at times--as those of the weak excuses that horror films advance for their existence. In fact, at times, it’s hard to tell the two genres apart, since many horror films are made to exploit the adolescent crowd, as are sexploitation films. Sex and violence both sell, and, with the former, as with the latter, there is often the added bonus of bikini-clad girls or actual nudity. What does a little prurience matter, along with the puerility or a little jiggle along with the jejunity? It’s all harmless fun until someone gets an eye poked out.

Sunday, June 22, 2008

Explanations For Evil

copyright 2008 by Gary L. Pullman

Iniquity is a mystery.

Despite penis envy, the Oedipus complex, phallic women, and Rorschach inkblots, we really don’t know what makes people do evil.

A lot of theories have been advanced over the years: ignorance, sin, indifference, emotional instability or mental illness resulting from childhood trauma or abuse, genetic abnormalities, birth defects, and even the devil. Although these theories have shed some light on the mystery of iniquity, wickedness remains inscrutable.

Nevertheless, authors of horror stories, whether the stories appear in print or on film, must offer at least a plausible explanation for the evil that occurs in their narratives. We live in a cause-and-effect universe, after all (or so, at least, we want to believe). Therefore, there must be a cause of--an explanation for--all events, situations, and behaviors, including--and maybe especially--those that don’t make a whole lot of sense.

The explanations don’t have to hold water. Not well, anyway. They do have to fall this side of “impossible” on the plausibility continuum, though. They have to be believable if not provable, credible if not verifiable, acceptable if not certifiable. Since horror stories begin with bizarre incidents or situations that, at some point in the narrative (usually just before the turning point), must be explained in some way, the explanations are important, and audiences expect to read or hear something that doesn’t insult their intelligence.

Sure, they know that, should they examine the explanation carefully, it’s likely to explain away more than to explain, but, as long as it doesn’t sound too far-fetched at the moment it’s trotted out, they’ll be willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. It’s only when the explanation is vague and shifty and half-hearted (as in the otherwise-superb novels of Bentley Little) or inane (as in Night Shyamalan’s latest film, The Happening, that audiences will wonder why they ever plunked down their hard-earned money to read or see something so idiotic.

So the explanations may be just this side of ridiculous, as long as they’re there and don’t actually insult the audience’s intelligence, but they must also fit the bizarre situations or series of incidents that are supposedly their effects. There must be some discernable logic--or even emotional relationship--among the cause and its effects. There must be a sense, on the part of the readers or moviegoers, that the cause “fits” the effects, either logically or emotionally (or, ideally, both).

If the author can set up one explanation that seems both plausible and rationally or emotionally satisfying, only to replace it with a second, better (or, at least, not worse) explanation that accounts for everything, so mush the better. Dean Koontz does this in The Taking. The bizarre series of events that is initially suspected to result from an advance party of invading aliens’ attempts to reverse-terraform the earth so that its atmosphere and environment are friendly to the attacking species turns out to be the result of an attack upon the planet by none other than Satan and his demons--and, yes, Koontz manages to bring this rather incredible plot twist off.

The-devil-made-me-do-it is a popular explanation for the evil deeds of characters in horror stories, of course, and has been since the books of Genesis and Job. The devil stirs up trouble in William Peter Blatty’s The Exorcist, Stephen King’s Desperation and The Regulators, and such movies as The Exorcism of Emily Rose, Rosemary’s Baby, and The Omen. Aliens are other popular sources of the madness and mayhem in horror movies, as Alien and its sequels and many other horror movies, from Invaders from Mars, The Blob, and The Thing From Another World to Independence Day, and The War of the Worlds indicates. Vampires, witches, mummies, ghosts, werewolves, and zombies are other popular explanations for the occurrence of the horrific incidents and situations of horror stories.


Horror maestro Stephen King

One way to consider a lot of the explanations horror fiction has put forth for the evils that this genre of fiction depicts (and sometimes celebrates) is to consider some of the major novels of Stephen King (stories with identical causes are excluded, as are those for which no more than a mere mention is given on King’s website:


What makes one explanation for the bizarre incidents and situations in a horror story acceptable to an audience while another explanation for such happenings is not? Here are a few possibilities:

  • Magical Thinking. No, we don’t live in a pre-scientific age during which magical thinking is part and parcel of one’s worldview, but, were we to be honest, we’d have to admit that, even in the twenty-first century, after having put a man on the moon, we still believe in magic, at least on a gut level. How else do we explain such notions as penis envy, the Oedipus complex, phallic women, and Rorschach inkblots? How else do we understand the way television signal transmissions and receptions operate or gravity or thermodynamics? The scientists among us may be able to answer some of the questions we have concerning the universe and our place in it, but they also admit that many of their statements are analogical or metaphorical, rather than literal, meaning that, beyond a certain level, they have no idea what they’re talking about. As Sir William Frazier points out in The Golden Bough, there are basically two types of magic: sympathetic, or imitative, magic and the magic of correspondence. Both rely upon magical thinking--the belief that non-scientific relationships among phenomena can be of such a nature that one somehow (mysteriously) affects or controls another. Sympathetic magic rests upon the premise that one can obtain the results that he or she imitates. Want to cause someone to suffer a heart attack? Stick a pin into voodoo doll’s chest. Correspondence rests upon the premise that one can influence what occurs to one person, place, or thing by manipulating another person, place, or thing to which the former is somehow related. Astrology (“as above, so below”) is a perfect example: the positions of heavenly bodies affect and determine one’s fate. According to The Skeptic’s Dictionary, sympathetic magic is probably behind such beliefs as those pertaining to “most forms of divination. . . voodoo. . . psychometry. . . psychic detectives. . . graphologists. . . karma. . . synchronicity. . . homeopathy” and, of course, magic itself. This list indicates that, pre-scientific age or not, ours is still one in which there are a great many believers in magic and the thinking that underlies it.
  • Recognition. Emotion, rather than logic, can be sufficient grounds for many of us to accept an explanation as appropriate and satisfying. To be emotionally acceptable to us, the explanation for the horror story’s uncanny events must suggest that the truth that the main character learns about him- or herself and/or the world, including others, is a natural, even inevitable, consequence of his or her experience. In other words, given what has happened to him or her, the protagonist has no other alternative but to draw the conclusions that he or she draws concerning the cause of these events--and the cause will have to do with his or her own behavior. Carrie’s explanation for the bizarre incidents that take place in the novel (and the movie based upon the novel) is acceptable to its readers (and viewers) because Stephen King ties the incidents to the existential and psychological states of the protagonist whose telekinesis, in service to her damaged emotions, self-image, and thinking, causes the murder and mayhem that she unleashes upon her tormentors, almost as an afterthought, once she realizes that, despite appearances to the contrary, nothing has changed, and she is still the target of other people’s prejudices and hatred.
  • Tradition, or Familiarity. Once a type of monster gains acceptance from the general public, usually as a result of its traditional use, its reference as the cause of the story’s eerie events is accepted for the sake of the narrative, even if (as is likely) it is rejected on the rational level. In other words, readers and viewers are willing to suspend their disbelief. This tendency on the part of readers and moviegoers to accept traditional monsters as the causes of bizarre incidents is the basis for the use of demons, ghosts, mummies, vampires, werewolves, and the like as causal agents in horror stories. Familiarity may breed contempt, but it can also generate a grudging acceptance of causality which, otherwise, would be summarily dismissed. “Oh, it’s a werewolf. Okay, then.”
  • Analogy. To be persuasive as a cause of the horror story’s horrific events, an explanation must be detailed. There must be a series of correspondences between the alleged cause and the alleged effects. In other words, one must be able to infer, on the basis of the similarities between two things that these same two things are alike in yet other ways (“A” is like “B.” “B” has property “C.” Therefore, “A” has property “C.”) Analogies are notoriously unreliable and often fallacious, but that doesn’t stop them from being persuasive to many, and, in fiction, what counts is their persuasiveness as causes. Writers of fiction are not especially concerned at all points (or maybe at any point) as to whether statements are true; they’re concerned with entertaining their audience, and, to this end, with whether their audience will “buy” a particular explanation of their action’s incidents and situations, bizarre and uncanny or otherwise.
  • Integrality. The explanation, whatever it is, must not be haphazard. It must not be tacked on, seemingly at the last minute, simply to explain (or to explain away) the story’s eerie occurrences. Instead, the explanation must be essential. Without the explanation, the series of odd incidents and situations would make no sense (not that they need to make a whole lot of sense, necessarily, even with the explanation in place). For the explanation to be acceptable or plausible, the writer must give hints early and often as to the nature of the cause behind the effects. In The Taking, Dean Koontz, early on, plants the idea that the bizarre actions in his novel may be the effect of Satan’s return to earth, and this possibility is repeated in the thoughts of the protagonist concerning her sorrow for past moral offenses she’s committed and her hope for forgiveness and reconciliation and by the narrative’s end, in which she becomes a new Eve, carrying within her womb the first of humanity’s new humanity. At the same time, however, the possibility that the novel’s bizarre events are the effects of reverse-terraforming by an advance party of invading aliens purposely detracts from this, the actual, cause. By contrast, in The Resort, Bentley Little merely mentions an older resort near the one in which his story’s action take place and implies, without ever saying exactly how, that the former resort is somehow associated with the contemporary one. There are no specific correspondences, no detailed links, between the two (the older one of which, in fact, has burned down). There is only the suggestion, without a supporting context supplied by a pertinent back story or other means of exposition. The result is the deux ex machina that Aristotle so much abhorred and rejects in his Poetics as emotionally and dramatically unconvincing.

Dean Koontz and Trixie

A horror story stands or falls, to a large extent, by its explanation for the evil, bizarre events and situations that occur during much of the story. The explanation may not pass scientific muster, but it must at least pass the emotional and dramatic smell tests of the audience if it is to be satisfying and, therefore, successful. In the final analysis, the inexplicable must be explained, if only in theory.

Monday, May 5, 2008

Guest Speaker: H. P. Lovecraft: Supernatural Horror In Literature, Part II

II. The Dawn Of The Horror Tale

As may naturally be expected of a form so closely connected with primal emotion, the horror-tale is as old as human thought and speech themselves.

Cosmic terror appears as an ingredient of the earliest folklore of all races, and is crystallised in the most archaic ballads, chronicles, and sacred writings. It was, indeed, a prominent feature of the elaborate ceremonial magic, with its rituals for the evocation of dæmons and spectres, which flourished from prehistoric times, and which reached its highest development in Egypt and the Semitic nations. Fragments like the Book of Enoch and the Claviculae of Solomon well illustrate the power of the weird over the ancient Eastern mind, and upon such things were based enduring systems and traditions whose echoes extend obscurely even to the present time.

Touches of this transcendental fear are seen in classic literature, and there is evidence of its still greater emphasis in a ballad literature which paralleled the classic stream but vanished for lack of a written medium. The Middle Ages, steeped in fanciful darkness, gave it an enormous impulse toward expression; and East and West alike were busy preserving and amplifying the dark heritage, both of random folklore and of academically formulated magic and cabalism, which had descended to them. Witch, werewolf, vampire, and ghoul brooded ominously on the lips of bard and grandam, and needed but little encouragement to take the final step across the boundary that divides the chanted tale or song from the formal literary composition. In the Orient, the weird tale tended to assume a gorgeous colouring and sprightliness which almost transmuted it into sheer phantasy. In the West, where the mystical Teuton had come down from his black boreal forests and the Celt remembered strange sacrifices in Druidic groves, it assumed a terrible intensity and convincing seriousness of atmosphere which doubled the force of its half-told, half-hinted horrors.

Much of the power of Western horror-lore was undoubtedly due to the hidden but often suspected presence of a hideous cult of nocturnal worshippers whose strange customs--descended from pre-Aryan and pre-agricultural times when a squat race of Mongoloids roved over Europe with their flocks and herds--were rooted in the most revolting fertility-rites of immemorial antiquity. Ibis secret religion, stealthily handed down amongst peasants for thousands of years despite the outward reign of the Druidic, Graeco-Roman, and Christian faiths in the regions involved, was marked by wild "Witches' Sabbaths" in lonely woods and atop distant hills on Walpurgis-Night and Hallowe'en, the traditional breeding-seasons of the goats and sheep and cattle; and became the source of vast riches of sorcery-legend, besides provoking extensive witchcraft--prosecutions of which the Salem affair forms the chief American example. Akin to it in essence, and perhaps connected with it in fact, was the frightful secret system of inverted theology or Satan-worship which produced such horrors as the famous "Black Mass"; whilst operating toward the same end we may note the activities of those whose aims were somewhat more scientific or philosophical--the astrologers, cabalists, and alchemists of the Albertus Magnus or Ramond Lully type, with whom such rude ages invariably abound. The prevalence and depth of the mediæval horror-spirit in Europe, intensified by the dark despair which waves of pestilence brought, may be fairly gauged by the grotesque carvings slyly introduced into much of the finest later Gothic ecclesiastical work of the time; the dæmoniac gargoyles of Notre Dame and Mont St. Michel being among the most famous specimens. And throughout the period, it must be remembered, there existed amongst educated and uneducated alike a most unquestioning faith in every form of the supernatural; from the gentlest doctrines of Christianity to the most monstrous morbidities of witchcraft and black magic. It was from no empty background that the Renaissance magicians and alchemists--Nostradamus, Trithemius, Dr. John Dee, Robert Fludd, and the like--were born.

In this fertile soil were nourished types and characters of sombre myth and legend which persist in weird literature to this day, more or less disguised or altered by modern technique. Many of them were taken from the earliest oral sources, and form part of mankind's permanent heritage. The shade which appears and demands the burial of its bones, the dæmon lover who comes to bear away his still living bride, the death-fiend or psychopomp riding the night-wind, the man-wolf, the sealed chamber, the deathless sorcerer--all these may be found in that curious body of mediæval lore which the late Mr. Baring-Gould so effectively assembled in book form. Wherever the mystic Northern blood was strongest, the atmosphere of the popular tales became most intense; for in the Latin races there is a touch of basic rationality which denies to even their strangest superstitions many of the overtones of glamour so characteristic of our own forest-born and ice-fostered whisperings.

Just as all fiction first found extensive embodiment in poetry, so is it in poetry that we first encounter the permanent entry of the weird into standard literature. Most of the ancient instances, curiously enough, are in prose; as the werewolf incident in Petronius, the gruesome passages in Apuleius, the brief but celebrated letter of Pliny the Younger to Sura, and the odd compilation On Wonderful Events by the Emperor Hadrian's Greek freedman, Phlegon. It is in Phlegon that we first find that hideous tale of the corpse-bride, Philinnion and Machates, later related by Proclus and in modem times forming the inspiration of Goethe's Bride of Corinth and Washington Irving's German Student. But by the time the old Northern myths take literary form, and in that later time when the weird appears as a steady element in the literature of the day, we find it mostly in metrical dress; as indeed we find the greater part of the strictly imaginative writing of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The Scandinavian Eddas and Sagas thunder with cosmic horror, and shake with the stark fear of Ymir and his shapeless spawn; whilst our own Anglo-Saxon Beowulf and the later Continental Nibelung tales are full of eldritch weirdness. Dante is a pioneer in the classic capture of macabre atmosphere, and in Spenser's stately stanzas will be seen more than a few touches of fantastic terror in landscape, incident, and character. Prose literature gives us Malory's Morte d'Arthur, in which are presented many ghastly situations taken from early ballad sources--the theft of the sword and silk from the corpse in Chapel Perilous by Sir Galahad--whilst other and cruder specimens were doubtless set forth in the cheap and sensational "chapbooks" vulgarly hawked about and devoured by the ignorant. In Elizabethan drama, with its Dr. Faustus, the witches in Macbeth, the ghost in Hamlet, and the horrible gruesomeness of Webster we may easily discern the strong hold of the dæmoniac on the public mind; a hold intensified by the very real fear of living witchcraft, whose terrors, wildest at first on the Continent, begin to echo loudly in English ears as the witch-hunting crusades of James the First gain headway. To the lurking mystical prose of the ages is added a long line of treatises on witchcraft and dæmonology which aid in exciting the imagination of the reading world.

Through the seventeenth and into the eighteenth century we behold a growing mass of fugitive legendry and balladry of darksome cast; still, however, held down beneath the surface of polite and accepted literature. Chapbooks of horror and weirdness multiplied, and we glimpse the eager interest of the people through fragments like Defoe's “Apparition of Mrs. Veal,” a homely tale of a dead woman's spectral visit to a distant friend, written to advertise covertly a badly selling theological disquisition on death. The upper orders of society were now losing faith in the supernatural, and indulging in a period of classic rationalism. Then, beginning with the translations of Eastern tales in Queen Anne's reign and taking definite form toward the middle of the century, comes the revival of romantic feeling--the era of new joy in nature, and in the radiance of past times, strange scenes, bold deeds, and incredible marvels. We feel it first in the poets, whose utterances take on new qualities of wonder, strangeness, and shuddering. And finally, after the timid appearance of a few weird scenes in the novels of the day--such as Smollett's Adventures of Ferdinand, Count Fathom--the release instinct precipitates itself in the birth of a new school of writing; the "Gothic" school of horrible and fantastic prose fiction, long and short, whose literary posterity is destined to become so numerous, and in many cases so resplendent in artistic merit. It is, when one reflects upon it, genuinely remarkable that weird narration as a fixed and academically recognized literary form should have been so late of final birth. The impulse and atmosphere are as old as man, but the typical weird tale of standard literature is a child of the eighteenth century.

Paranormal vs. Supernatural: What’s the Diff?

Copyright 2009 by Gary L. Pullman

Sometimes, in demonstrating how to brainstorm about an essay topic, selecting horror movies, I ask students to name the titles of as many such movies as spring to mind (seldom a difficult feat for them, as the genre remains quite popular among young adults). Then, I ask them to identify the monster, or threat--the antagonist, to use the proper terminology--that appears in each of the films they have named. Again, this is usually a quick and easy task. Finally, I ask them to group the films’ adversaries into one of three possible categories: natural, paranormal, or supernatural. This is where the fun begins.

It’s a simple enough matter, usually, to identify the threats which fall under the “natural” label, especially after I supply my students with the scientific definition of “nature”: everything that exists as either matter or energy (which are, of course, the same thing, in different forms--in other words, the universe itself. The supernatural is anything which falls outside, or is beyond, the universe: God, angels, demons, and the like, if they exist. Mad scientists, mutant cannibals (and just plain cannibals), serial killers, and such are examples of natural threats. So far, so simple.

What about borderline creatures, though? Are vampires, werewolves, and zombies, for example, natural or supernatural? And what about Freddy Krueger? In fact, what does the word “paranormal” mean, anyway? If the universe is nature and anything outside or beyond the universe is supernatural, where does the paranormal fit into the scheme of things?

According to the Online Etymology Dictionary, the word “paranormal,” formed of the prefix “para,” meaning alongside, and “normal,” meaning “conforming to common standards, usual,” was coined in 1920. The American Heritage Dictionary defines “paranormal” to mean “beyond the range of normal experience or scientific explanation.” In other words, the paranormal is not supernatural--it is not outside or beyond the universe; it is natural, but, at the present, at least, inexplicable, which is to say that science cannot yet explain its nature. The same dictionary offers, as examples of paranormal phenomena, telepathy and “a medium’s paranormal powers.”

Wikipedia offers a few other examples of such phenomena or of paranormal sciences, including the percentages of the American population which, according to a Gallup poll, believes in each phenomenon, shown here in parentheses: psychic or spiritual healing (54), extrasensory perception (ESP) (50), ghosts (42), demons (41), extraterrestrials (33), clairvoyance and prophecy (32), communication with the dead (28), astrology (28), witchcraft (26), reincarnation (25), and channeling (15); 36 percent believe in telepathy.

As can be seen from this list, which includes demons, ghosts, and witches along with psychics and extraterrestrials, there is a confusion as to which phenomena and which individuals belong to the paranormal and which belong to the supernatural categories. This confusion, I believe, results from the scientism of our age, which makes it fashionable for people who fancy themselves intelligent and educated to dismiss whatever cannot be explained scientifically or, if such phenomena cannot be entirely rejected, to classify them as as-yet inexplicable natural phenomena. That way, the existence of a supernatural realm need not be admitted or even entertained. Scientists tend to be materialists, believing that the real consists only of the twofold unity of matter and energy, not dualists who believe that there is both the material (matter and energy) and the spiritual, or supernatural. If so, everything that was once regarded as having been supernatural will be regarded (if it cannot be dismissed) as paranormal and, maybe, if and when it is explained by science, as natural. Indeed, Sigmund Freud sought to explain even God as but a natural--and in Freud’s opinion, an obsolete--phenomenon.

Meanwhile, among skeptics, there is an ongoing campaign to eliminate the paranormal by explaining them as products of ignorance, misunderstanding, or deceit. Ridicule is also a tactic that skeptics sometimes employ in this campaign. For example, The Skeptics’ Dictionary contends that the perception of some “events” as being of a paranormal nature may be attributed to “ignorance or magical thinking.” The dictionary is equally suspicious of each individual phenomenon or “paranormal science” as well. Concerning psychics’ alleged ability to discern future events, for example, The Skeptic’s Dictionary quotes Jay Leno (“How come you never see a headline like 'Psychic Wins Lottery'?”), following with a number of similar observations:

Psychics don't rely on psychics to warn them of impending disasters. Psychics don't predict their own deaths or diseases. They go to the dentist like the rest of us. They're as surprised and disturbed as the rest of us when they have to call a plumber or an electrician to fix some defect at home. Their planes are delayed without their being able to anticipate the delays. If they want to know something about Abraham Lincoln, they go to the library; they don't try to talk to Abe's spirit. In short, psychics live by the known laws of nature except when they are playing the psychic game with people.
In An Encyclopedia of Claims, Frauds, and Hoaxes of the Occult and Supernatural, James Randi, a magician who exercises a skeptical attitude toward all things alleged to be paranormal or supernatural, takes issue with the notion of such phenomena as well, often employing the same arguments and rhetorical strategies as The Skeptic’s Dictionary.

In short, the difference between the paranormal and the supernatural lies in whether one is a materialist, believing in only the existence of matter and energy, or a dualist, believing in the existence of both matter and energy and spirit. If one maintains a belief in the reality of the spiritual, he or she will classify such entities as angels, demons, ghosts, gods, vampires, and other threats of a spiritual nature as supernatural, rather than paranormal, phenomena. He or she may also include witches (because, although they are human, they are empowered by the devil, who is himself a supernatural entity) and other natural threats that are energized, so to speak, by a power that transcends nature and is, as such, outside or beyond the universe. Otherwise, one is likely to reject the supernatural as a category altogether, identifying every inexplicable phenomenon as paranormal, whether it is dark matter or a teenage werewolf. Indeed, some scientists dedicate at least part of their time to debunking allegedly paranormal phenomena, explaining what natural conditions or processes may explain them, as the author of The Serpent and the Rainbow explains the creation of zombies by voodoo priests.

Based upon my recent reading of Tzvetan Todorov's The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to the Fantastic, I add the following addendum to this essay.

According to Todorov:

The fantastic. . . lasts only as long as a certain hesitation [in deciding] whether or not what they [the reader and the protagonist] perceive derives from "reality" as it exists in the common opinion. . . . If he [the reader] decides that the laws of reality remain intact and permit an explanation of the phenomena described, we can say that the work belongs to the another genre [than the fantastic]: the uncanny. If, on the contrary, he decides that new laws of nature must be entertained to account for the phenomena, we enter the genre of the marvelous (The Fantastic: A Structural Approach to a Literary Genre, 41).
Todorov further differentiates these two categories by characterizing the uncanny as “the supernatural explained” and the marvelous as “the supernatural accepted” (41-42).

Interestingly, the prejudice against even the possibility of the supernatural’s existence which is implicit in the designation of natural versus paranormal phenomena, which excludes any consideration of the supernatural, suggests that there are no marvelous phenomena; instead, there can be only the uncanny. Consequently, for those who subscribe to this view, the fantastic itself no longer exists in this scheme, for the fantastic depends, as Todorov points out, upon the tension of indecision concerning to which category an incident belongs, the natural or the supernatural. The paranormal is understood, by those who posit it, in lieu of the supernatural, as the natural as yet unexplained.

And now, back to a fate worse than death: grading students’ papers.

My Cup of Blood

Anyone who becomes an aficionado of anything tends, eventually, to develop criteria for elements or features of the person, place, or thing of whom or which he or she has become enamored. Horror fiction--admittedly not everyone’s cuppa blood--is no different (okay, maybe it’s a little different): it, too, appeals to different fans, each for reasons of his or her own. Of course, in general, book reviews, the flyleaves of novels, and movie trailers suggest what many, maybe even most, readers of a particular type of fiction enjoy, but, right here, right now, I’m talking more specifically--one might say, even more eccentrically. In other words, I’m talking what I happen to like, without assuming (assuming makes an “ass” of “u” and “me”) that you also like the same. It’s entirely possible that you will; on the other hand, it’s entirely likely that you won’t.

Anyway, this is what I happen to like in horror fiction:

Small-town settings in which I get to know the townspeople, both the good, the bad, and the ugly. For this reason alone, I’m a sucker for most of Stephen King’s novels. Most of them, from 'Salem's Lot to Under the Dome, are set in small towns that are peopled by the good, the bad, and the ugly. Part of the appeal here, granted, is the sense of community that such settings entail.

Isolated settings, such as caves, desert wastelands, islands, mountaintops, space, swamps, where characters are cut off from civilization and culture and must survive and thrive or die on their own, without assistance, by their wits and other personal resources. Many are the examples of such novels and screenplays, but Alien, The Shining, The Descent, Desperation, and The Island of Dr. Moreau, are some of the ones that come readily to mind.

Total institutions as settings. Camps, hospitals, military installations, nursing homes, prisons, resorts, spaceships, and other worlds unto themselves are examples of such settings, and Sleepaway Camp, Coma, The Green Mile, and Aliens are some of the novels or films that take place in such settings.

Anecdotal scenes--in other words, short scenes that showcase a character--usually, an unusual, even eccentric, character. Both Dean Koontz and the dynamic duo, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, excel at this, so I keep reading their series (although Koontz’s canine companions frequently--indeed, almost always--annoy, as does his relentless optimism).

Atmosphere, mood, and tone. Here, King is king, but so is Bentley Little. In the use of description to terrorize and horrify, both are masters of the craft.

A bit of erotica (okay, okay, sex--are you satisfied?), often of the unusual variety. Sex sells, and, yes, sex whets my reader’s appetite. Bentley Little is the go-to guy for this spicy ingredient, although Koontz has done a bit of seasoning with this spice, too, in such novels as Lightning and Demon Seed (and, some say, Hung).

Believable characters. Stephen King, Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, and Dan Simmons are great at creating characters that stick to readers’ ribs.

Innovation. Bram Stoker demonstrates it, especially in his short story “Dracula’s Guest,” as does H. P. Lovecraft, Edgar Allan Poe, Shirley Jackson, and a host of other, mostly classical, horror novelists and short story writers. For an example, check out my post on Stoker’s story, which is a real stoker, to be sure. Stephen King shows innovation, too, in ‘Salem’s Lot, The Shining, It, and other novels. One might even argue that Dean Koontz’s something-for-everyone, cross-genre writing is innovative; he seems to have been one of the first, if not the first, to pen such tales.

Technique. Check out Frank Peretti’s use of maps and his allusions to the senses in Monster; my post on this very topic is worth a look, if I do say so myself, which, of course, I do. Opening chapters that accomplish a multitude of narrative purposes (not usually all at once, but successively) are attractive, too, and Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child are as good as anyone, and better than many, at this art.

A connective universe--a mythos, if you will, such as both H. P. Lovecraft and Stephen King, and, to a lesser extent, Dean Koontz, Bentley Little, and even Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have created through the use of recurring settings, characters, themes, and other elements of fiction.

A lack of pretentiousness. Dean Koontz has it, as do Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child, Bentley Little, and (to some extent, although he has become condescending and self-indulgent of late, Stephen King); unfortunately, both Dan Simmons and Robert McCammon have become too self-important in their later works, Simmons almost to the point of becoming unreadable. Come on, people, you’re writing about monsters--you should be humble.

Longevity. Writers who have been around for a while usually get better, Stephen King, Dan Simmons, and Robert McCammon excepted.

Pacing. Neither too fast nor too slow. Dean Koontz is good, maybe the best, here, of contemporary horror writers.


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