Talk:Cosmicism

i dont see how this needs a POV marker- it doesn't teach an idea, it explains one. 71.225.68.105 02:01, 28 April 2006 (UTC)

not too much to copy edit, but some sources would be nice. Corrigann 23:31, 1 May 2006 (UTC)

Egad, just cam across this article. It's fine until the ramblings about Eckhardt et. al. kick in. Vitually inconprehensible from there (Eckhardt is an ancient? Compared to whom? What is mainstream "Judeo-XPanity" and what is not? - and what has that got to do with Lovecraft's very well-known and developed atheism? Etc.), and very POV. Using mystical Christianity (poorly) to explain Lovecraft is bizzarre, the amount of very good work done by S. T. Joshi on Lovecraft's atheism should be enough to put that to rest. Plus, the grammar and syntax of the article are unacceptable. I'm teaching a class on Western religious thought in the Spring, when I get a chance I'll happily give bullet-point explanations for why I am going to gut this article, or maybe just revert it to its earlier, smaller, much more on-topic version. Until then, it will have to stand. Morgaledth 01:50, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

The use of mystical Christianity serves as a comparison for an idea or group of ideas which are found present throughout many other systems of thought, both religious and philosophical (Recommended reading - Aldous Huxley's "The Perennial Philosophy"). One could just as easily use the philsosophy of Immanuel Kant or Arthur Schopenhauer, Vedanta Hinduism, Zen Buddhism, Taoism, Gnosticism, and Alchemical Hermeticism in addition to mystical Christianity. Why, I'll even throw in William Blake. The concept of cosmicism goes beyond "theism" and "atheism" - it simply transcends such details in its recognition of Cosmic-Natural Order as transcendent and supreme. Whether Mr. Lovecraft was an official club member of the atheists, deists or polytheists is beside the point. --Unzeitgeist 08:18, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

Article Revamp

There, much better. The excised ramblings about Eckhart may have been... um, interesting (read anything actually written by Eckhart scholars and not the stuff you can buy at the New Age bookstore on the corner?), but unless one can cite how HPL drew the connections, and not how some editor draws them, it has no place in an article on Lovecraft's own philosophical/literary theories. That's pretty clear. Such "comparisons" are original research (I use the term loosely...) and cannot be sourced in HPL's work (or Joshi's, either), and the burden of proof is to show why the are relevant. That means quotes, references, works cited, that sort of thing, as per Wikipedia standards. I will limit myself to two statements: one, cosmicism does not "go beyond theism and atheism," it sits very squarely in the atheist camp, all you have to do to see this is read HPL, or Leiber's magnificent essay on HPL's cosmicism. Philosophia perennis finally went out of fashion for this very mistake: it lumps everything together so harmoniously that it completely obscures what the various thinkers actually say in its silly drive to make everyone say the same thing. It didn't respect the diversity of views, and the academy finally realized this. The internet hasn't wised up yet, but thats't the beauty of the internet, you gotta love it. And two, HPL recognized no "Cosmic-Natural-Order," his fictional works and his letters all are quite clear that it is chaos, and not order, and unnatural, not natural, powers that move the chess pieces of the cosmos. If someone can show me HPL discoursing on a Cosmic-Natural-Order that goes beyond theism and atheism, I'd be interested to read it, the paper I write overturning 60 years of HPL studies will be an instant publication! But enough about this, it's unimportant. Since this article is about HPL, I suppgest we all stick to what he says about his own thought, call me crazy. On to constructive matters, maybe the vandalism is finally over:

• I added and edited some material from the excellent Lovecraft Mythos article on cosmicism, some very good sources there on HPL's disdain of all forms of religion, mainstream or mystery.
• Added the HPL photo from the HPL article, most philosophy pages have one
• Added this to the Philosophy WikiProject for added exposure and to help get some more profesional(ish) editors looking at this article, so as to discourage personal use of the page.
• Along the same lines, reformatted the article in keeping with the style guide.

I'll do more once I've had another look at my copies of HPL's letters, he is a lot more specific about cosmicism there, though of course it's in the stories that we really see it at work. One thing someone coul do is search more more direct HPL quotes, those are probably most useful to an article like this. Morgaledth 03:54, 26 May 2006 (UTC)