Well, as of tonight, I've completed my reading of Thomas Ligotti's The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. It's a book I'd known about for years, even before its publishing, but I'd refrained long, mostly for fear of it. Fear of what it would say, and its terrifying potential to completely turn my contrary beliefs on their head and set them to immolation, while enlarging the most odious of suspicions and thoughts I'd considered during darker hours, setting them up to take residence in the forefront of my thought, and reduce my life to a grotesque puppet show I could scarcely bear to witness, much less live out.
Having read it, I can say with confidence that my fears were well-founded. It did dredge up the most subjectively horrible things I'd considered where life, free will, fate, and the state of the universe are concerned, and put them under a microscope. Dissected them. Forced me to see and examine all the things I acknowledged as entirely possible in passing, but was quick to push to the back of my mind; things I left in the periphery. So, in part it made me face demons that I have in common with Ligotti and his pantheon of pessimists. And aside from that, it posited more than I had even conceived of. Ideas that all but a pessimist would find absurd and abjectly detestable. This book brought out what some might call the worst of my thoughts and ideas, and made me see and understand a great many of their inner workings. I could see the gears and pistons at work, and understood better their purpose. It showed me extensions of such, taken to logical ends I hadn't even conceived of. Ends on a grand scale, in whose direction I hadn't considered looking in.
I could go into which, what, how, why, and all the minutia, but it's beside the point of this specific post. If you want to know, or want to talk about it, I could do my best to try and explain the general principles and ideas, though I'm no Ligotti.
In the end, the book has no way to prove its arguments and theorums, as is true of any philosophical or religious text. If anything of the sort was provable, we'd be living in a very different world. This book enumerates what you might think of as the worst possible framework for reality, mankind, and the universe at large, and shows you that it's just as valid a belief system as whatever you think. That's part of the horror of it all: The fact that it's entirely possible that he's correct, and there's no way you can prove he isn't. He can't prove he is, but just the idea that that sort of philosophy is equally as possible as any affirmative or optimistic thing you could think of, and not absolutely absurd, relegated to a lower echelon of plausibility, is truly terrifying on a "spiritual" level.
That and the way that much of it rings as if it may just be true. Again, no irrefutable proof is delivered, but it makes you think, and your thoughts are not nice.
In the end, you believe what you can manage to put faith in. Reading this book has shown me new vistas, none that would be considered "nice" by the majority of the world. I could go into what I think about it, and how its affected my worldview, and the stages of my beliefs in ideas and doctrines, but it's not for this post. I really just kind of wanted to say that I finally did it, and the post snowballed.
I feel the (strange? perverse?) pull to reread it. This would likely be damaging to my psyche, as it was this first time (the extent and length of its lasting, as well as long-term effects remain to be seen), but I feel there's more to be learned from it. Knowing what's inside now, will no doubt help me reap more from it the second time around (though whether this would be good or bad depends on what you value). A large part of the reason I think I feel a desire to dive back in, is that I now realize just how much of this is an analysis of what makes up truly terrifying horror stories, and honestly, I'd like to take notes on the intricacies, as catalogued by this master of the genre. He's one of my favorite authors, and while I know I remember plenty of what he said, there's as much, if not more, I'd miss, trying to recall and record it. The fact that it's also unlike any book I've ever read draws me back in the same bizarre manner that drew me to it, and other similarly terrifying things.
I likely will read it again. I think I'll leave some breathing room for the moment, and think over what I've read, read other things, and so on. But I think I'll get back to it.
It almost seems strange to say it, but thanks, Thomas Ligotti. It's been an experience unlike any other.
