[FRIAM] the racist woo peddler

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On the heels of the new Lovecraft Country (https://www.hbo.com/lovecraft-country), the surge in the BLM movement (https://lithub.com/we-cant-ignore-h-p-lovecrafts-white-supremacy/), and our recent swirl around woo, "math envy" etc. I found the below letter, today [⛧].

I think I've described my own fascination with conspiracy theories and those who believe them, falsified scientific ideas (primordial carbon, evolution without selection, etc.), and the occult -- including Mormon apotheosis and the atheistic but metaphorical attachment to Gothic imagery in the Church of Satan. So this letter of an avowed materialist peddling the supernatural is interesting. It's akin to magicians skilled in magic because they don't believe in magic. (Where to put the scare quotes? Is it "magicians" skilled in "magic" but don't believe in magic? Or is it magicians skilled in magic but don't believe in "magic"?) Can we take Lovecraft at his word? Can someone so skilled in supernatural imagery seriously not believe in the supernatural? Can someone steeped so deeply in software engineering jargon really think it's all nonsense? Or is it *necessary* to be deeply entrenched in some domain in *order* to realize it's all nonsense? Are there 2 types of person: 1) she who steeps in a domain and comes out a choir member vs. 2) she who steeps in a domain and comes out a skeptic? Or are there layers and modes. E.g. when Renee' (falsely) describes me as a mathematician at a pub. If the others at the bar know what math *is*, I deny it. If the others don't know what math is, I let it slide.

A black friend of mine asked me just yesterday where I stand on the Confederate battle flag. It's still a difficult question for me. My answer can only be "Do onto others as they would have have you do onto them." So, if the damned flag is offensive to so many, it should be eliminated. But it doesn't offend *me* because I grew up with it. If such imagery is allowed to be layered and modal, don't we risk the systemic problems subtly exemplified by Lovecraft and his occult racism? Don't magicians risk their audience being too stupid to realize that magic isn't real? Don't quantum physicists risk their audience being too stupid to distinguish between woo and true? Don't machine learning experts risk crashing the discipline after the hype cycle?

[⛧] http://www.eldritchdark.com/writings/correspondence/91/from-h.-p.-lovecraft-to-clark-ashton-smith-%281925-10-09%29
> 169 Clinton St.
> Brooklyn, N. Y.
> 
> Octr. 9, 1925
> 
> Dear C A S:—
> 
> . . . . . No-I've never read any of the jargon of formal "occultism", since I have always thought that weird writing is more effective if it avoids the hackneyed superstitions & popular cult formulae. I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism—religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality. It may be, though, that I could get the germs of some good ideas from the current patter of the psychic lunatic fringe; & I have frequently thought of getting some of the junk sold at an occultists book shop in 46th St. The trouble is, that it costs too damned much for me in my present state. How much is the brochure you have just been reading? If any of these crack-brained cults have free booklets & "literature" with suggestive descriptive matter, I wouldn't mind having my name on their "sucker lists". The idea that black magic exists in secret today, or that hellish antique rites still survive in obscurity, is one that I have used & shall use again. When you see my new tale The Horror at Red Hook, you will see what use I make of the idea in connexion with the gangs of young loafers & herds of evil-looking foreigners that one sees everywhere in New York.
> 
> I have a nest of devil-worshippers & devotees of Lilith in one of the squalid Brooklyn neighbourhoods, & describe the marvels & horrors that ensued when these ignorant inheritors of hideous ceremonies found a learned & initiated man to lead them. I bedeck my tale with incantations copied from the "Magic" article in the 9th edition of the Britannica, but I'd like to draw on less obvious sources if I knew of the right reservoirs to tap. Do you know of any good works on magic & dark mysteries which might furnish fitting ideas & formulae? For example—are there any good translations of any mediaeval necromancers with directions for raising spirits, invoking Lucifer, & all that sort of thing? One hears of lots of names—Albertus Magnus, Eliphas Levi, Nicholas Flamel—&c., but most of us are appallingly ignorant of them. I know I am—but fancy you must be better informed. Don't go to any trouble, but some time I'd be infinitely grateful for a more or less brief list of magical books—ancient & mediaeval preferred—in English or English translations. Meanwhile let me urge you, as I did over a year ago, to read The Witch Cult in Western Europe, by Margaret A. Murray. It ought to be full of inspiration for you.
> 
> Most cordially & sincerely yrs,
> HPL




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