Cosmicism (Art by Tohdraws)
| “ | Out of all people, it was H. P. Lovecraft who understood the meaning behind cosmicism better than anyone. Even with our resources and brilliantly intellectual minds we still would not be able to scratch the surface of what he has discovered. Well, not without going mad, at least. He understood that there are things out there that are beyond human understanding. Entities and artifacts that are so alien and so bizarre the mere sight of them would drive you beyond the edge of insanity itself. Everything you have ever known and thought you knew would be worthless. Just as it is both the responsibility and the burden for the Coalition and the Federal Bureau of Control to study and contain the paranatural...it falls to us to contain and eliminate the Eldritch. Our responsibility. Our burden. | „ |
| ~ Trevor Bruttenholm |
Cosmicism is the literary study and philosophy developed and used by H.P. Lovecraft.
Overview[]
Lovecraft's documents were shown to involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien miscegenation, and the themes of his writing over time contributed to the development of this philosophy and involved the contribution of the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defense, the Global Occult Coalition, and the Federal Bureau of Control for them to understand on how to properly combat entities of Lovecraftian nature.
The philosophy of cosmicism states "that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence." The most prominent theme is humanity's fear of their insignificance in the face of an incomprehensibly large universe: a fear of the cosmic void.
Analysis[]
According to Trevor Bruttenholm, cosmicism and humanism are incompatible. Cosmicism shares many characteristics with nihilism, though one important difference is that cosmicism tends to emphasize the insignificance of humanity and its doings, rather than summarily rejecting the possible existence of some higher purpose (or purposes); e.g., in Lovecraft's notes regarding Cthulhu, it is not the absence of meaning that causes terror for those who would dare to study the Lovecraftian, as it is their discovery that they have absolutely no power to change anything in the vast, indifferent universe that surrounds them. In Lovecraft's stories, whatever meaning or purpose may be invested in the actions of the cosmic beings is completely inaccessible.
Lovecraft's cosmicism was a result of his complete disdain for all things religious, his feeling of humanity's existential helplessness in the face of what he called the "infinite spaces" opened up by scientific thought, and his belief that humanity was fundamentally at the mercy of the vastness and emptiness of the cosmos.