Tag: Catabasis

HP Lovecraft's โ€œThe Pickman's Modelโ€: dissection by a nightmarish artist

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, folklore, Italian Literature, Characters, Guests Book

An analysis of the symbolic substrate - from the catabasis in a truly existing underground Boston to the pre-Islamic folklore of the Ghouls - of the famous story by Howard Phillips Lovecraft Pickman's model (1926), recently adapted into one of the episodes of the TV series Guillermo del Toro's Cabinet of Curiosities (2022), directed by director Keith Thomas.

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Science and fantasy: โ€œEtidorhpaโ€, John Uri Lloyd's Hollow Earth

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Italian Literature, Characters, Psychedelia, Guests Book, Science

In John Uri Lloyd's "Etidorhpa" the passage from the materialistic nineteenth century to the quantum twentieth century is condensed, ambiguous and relativistic, under the banner of Heisenberg's uncertainty principle: a century in which the fantastic resurrects in the heart of that same science that had naively believed to exorcise him.

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Apollo the Destroyer: "coincidentia oppositorum" in hyperborean mysticism and eschatology

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Esotericism, Mito, Shamanism, History of Religions

Although mostly considered in his "luminous" and "uranic" meaning, in the archaic tradition Apollo combines the most extreme dichotomies in his mystical and eschatology: the bow and the lyre, wisdom and "mania", depth and elevation, the catabasis and the journey in spirit to the White Island, the "Fall" of Being and the return of the Golden Age. Starting from ancient sources, we can find similar concepts not only to those of North Asian shamanism and Celtic spirituality, but even to the sacred vision of some modern poets โ€” like Blake, Shelley and Yeats - whose Apollonian chrism will appear clearer to us if we analyze their โ€œWeltanschauungโ€ in the light of the Platonic and Heraclitean doctrines.

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A Red Death in gray Venice

Published on: Last updated on: Written by: Categorized into: Cinema and TV, Characters, Psychology

A year ago we published this article to honor the memory of Nicolas Roeg, who has just passed away. Today, on the anniversary of his death, and following the recent news events concerning the lagoon city, rereading these notes on the archetypal dimension of "Don't Look Now" can help us also reflect on human frailty in a world where desacralization and the constant threat of loss of meaning reign: a world that seems ever more dangerously, day after day, on the verge of sinking.

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