You Are God, According to Edgar Allan Poe

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Edgar Allan Poe has a reputation for darkness and gloom, but that’s just because most people don’t know him well enough. He wrote some really bizarre, optimistic stories as well. Including probably the weirdest of the bunch: Mesmeric Revelation.

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[TheTaleFoundry]

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—Benji

[THFLCNx]

"loathsome mass of detestable putrescence"

Now that's a metal band name if ever I heard one!

[countessclock]

From my perspective, we are the universe's attempt at understanding itself, in the same way that we contemplate the universe and each, that we are children of that abyss, children of light, a universe that might seem lonely at first glance but that truly wants recognition of itself from another

[luizguilhermecortez]

"In order to become God, you need not ascend: you are doing just fine"
- a quote from an character in a book I might make

[mikeware]

The idea that we are all connected, empirically, is correct. We all come from space dust, we will all return to space dust. We all share one world, one sky, the same basic blueprint. The degree of this connection, how much of it we can be aware of, and whether it spans the barrier between life and death, now that is something interesting.

[tahunuva]

We're certainly "gods", from the perspective of our fictional characters. Be kind to them - everything they've got is on you.

[sirpattheperson]

You know the fun thing about writing and fiction? It allows you to send yourself into the world and let people see your wacky or serious thoughts. And creating characters is the same. Every character you create, you add a little bit of yourself without you knowing. Either it’s a secret passion or a open feature, it’s so much fun to pick up a pen/pencil, sit at a typewriter/keyboard, and write!

[anoninunen]

Hypnotist: "Keep talking."
Dead man: "Eh, alright then."
Hypnotist: "...?"

[susanpoltergeist]

It's pretty interesting the part about being small as individuals, because when you analyze the universe as only one thing, this concepts like big and small seem to fade. It's like something that Neil Degrasse Tyson said in a video in Big Think channel, you could be small but you're also big, because you are part of the universe.

[kipofthemany]

This video rebooted an old idea of mine. A while ago I thought about what the opposite of Eldritch horror entities would look like. Entities that embody the discovery of the unknown, the hopeful exploration of new places. What would the immense ocean entities look like to those who brave the sea and are rewarded for their efforts? What about space or technology? What would these concepts look like to those who choose to explore them instead of fear them? I want to turn Lovecraft's nightmares into dreams, basically. Maybe I'll try it out on this week's prompt. Scientific magic sounds just about right for this.

[Fayanora]

I have a similar sort of philosophy in my writing. I like to play with cosmic horror in a way that balances it with something good. The main ultimate villain of the series I'm working on is a being called Nightmare that lives outside of the multiverse and seeks to be invited into different universes so it can devour them. But Nightmare is balanced by another great cosmic power called The Conductor, which seeks to stop Nightmare. And ultimately all of reality is a great dream dreamed up by The Dreamer -- a sort of God figure that is neither good nor evil. Like the name implies, The Dreamer is asleep, all of reality is dreams that it's having. You cannot communicate with The Dreamer in any useful way.

I eventually want to bring it around to where The Conductor becomes a figure like an author writing a story but at the same time like someone asleep attempting to lucid dream. An entity that is part of the Dream but can tap into The Dreamer's powers in some relatively small way. The point being that authors and other creatives create real places with their creative minds, and even ordinary people create real places in their dreams. Or did the dreams themselves create the people who dreamed them?

And balancing all this cosmic philosophy stuff is a series where the characters are the main focus, and the gradually unfolding Heavy Plot Stuff (introduced about halfway through the middle of book 2) is mainly there to see what the characters do in response to it. Even the multiverse itself is a kind of cosmic horror, with -- for instance -- a character finding out that there are infinite versions of themselves in the multiverse and having a mental breakdown from the existential dread of it. And if they're strong enough, they can maybe move past that dread and find hope and wonder in these things. Maybe even figure out how to unlock the powers of Dreaming.

[floramew]

I've held for years that science fiction (and fantasy), while it can be thoughtless schlock at times, is also able to push the characters to the extremes of human experience in ways that realistic fiction cannot. And the interesting part of this is the thought experiment of _how would that feel?_ so yeah, agree with you on that point lmao

[Exile_Sky]

It kind of mirrors one of my explanation's of the nature God and why 'Evil' exists within the world back when I was having my crisis of faith when I was a kid. God is in everything and the reason God can't stop evil things from happening in the world, or people from being evil, is because those people and things are God too. God put a bit of themselves in everything and everyone, either as a martyr or like a parent gives a bit of themselves to their kids. It ended up going to the wayside with all the other explanations because it was still depending on the presupposition that God (as it was explained as a being of infinite ability and compassion) exists. Eventually kicked that whole notion to the curb... but it is a beautiful thought, I'll give it that.

[tagteam.]

Poe and Hypnotic Mesmerism have been my life's studies but I never knew of panthionism. This is going to have me researching Poe-losophy for a week!

[zkassai.audio.]

I feel this video makes a very interesting synergy with your video on Pneuma. The idea that the soul is produced in the body upon first breath, and the idea that this first breath is drawing in an infinitesimal fraction of some ineffable whole, making it discriminate, individual for a blink of time.

This also goes well with one of my favorite quotes: “we are a way for the cosmos to know itself”, said by Sagan.

What if the brief time that this all-breath spends in flesh is a way for this… essence of everything to learn and experience, to live, and then to go back to the whole with more than it had before?

I’m sure that this idea has been proposed before, perhaps even by real world religions, but I really like the angle that these two videos give to it.

[danshakulawrence]

"I gaze into the abyss... and the abyss gazes back.
You wanna know why?
Because that abyss is TERRIFIED OF ME!
IT'S A BIG GAPING NOTHING, AND I'M A STARK _SOMETHING!_
I'm EVERYTHING IT CAN NEVER HOPE TO BE!"

"I'm done asking the universe for permission to be happy. I'm never gonna get an answer, so I'm never gonna give it the question to begin with! DID YOU _REALLY_ THINK I WOULD BUCKLE UNDER THE CIRCUMSTANCES? THAT I'M A TOY TO BE MESSED AROUND WITH?
HOW! ADORABLE!"

[nonsensicalabyss]

Reminds me of a short story titled The Egg, in which we are all parts of God who one day will return to one divine egg bringing our experiences and knowledge, so one day God can be whole, and when the time comes, They will hatch from the cosmic egg, fully grown, with a full understanding of the world

[Laribhaven]

I'm ready to fight God or BECOME IT!
Jokes aside, I'm loving this video.

[royalavera]

Jesus, everything about this channel is beautiful, the content, the art, the discord community looks promising, I also got the free trial, thank you so much.

[NOOB-pskm]

Isnt this the plot of Evanghelion.

Everyone is whole but separated by something.Thus making us individual.