Jung – Phil Slattery, Writer, Publisher

The Dark Language

Working on a play in Hasting's Hardback Café, late evening, October 16, 2015. — Working on a play in Hasting’s Hardback Café, late evening, October 16, 2015.

As I was preparing to go to the local theatre this evening, I was thinking about how I can improve my writing and what distinguishes the great writers of horror. Of course, the first two that came into my mind as being easily discernible from all others were Poe and Lovecraft. Obviously, what distinguishes them is their use of language. Both use very intense, muscular language with a distinctly archaic tone. Not knowing if there a precise term already exists for this style, I decided to call it “the dark language”, because of its tight connection with the horror genre and with the horrifying in general. For me, there seems to be something archetypal about this, arising out of the Jungian collective unconscious. Perhaps it is just that Poe bound the Dark Language so intimately with scenes of horror, terror, and suspense, which is also bound with genres such as the Gothic novel, that the sound of it automatically brings forth societal memories of dread.

I need to finish dressing if I am to dine at my favorite local sushi restaurant before heading to the play. Somehow, I just have the taste for something raw tonight.

Thoughts? Comments?

Jorge Oscar Rossi’s “Archetypal Horror: H.P. Lovecraft and Carl Gustav Jung”

I ran across an interesting article today at http://www.quintadimension.com/article66.html, entitled “Archetypal Horror: H.P. Lovecraft and Carl Gustav Jung”. It was written by Jorge Oscar Rossi, an Argentinian writer of science fiction (and fantastic literature in general), and published on December, 8, 2000. Please note that the article and his autobiography are in Spanish.

I am no master of Spanish, having had only two years in college and some practical, albeit frequent, experience in Texas and Mexico over the last twenty years. However, Señor Rossi’s article is well-written and relatively easy reading, so that I feel I caught the gist of it, if not all the nuances.

His main point (and anyone with a better knowledge of Spanish than I, including Señor Rossi, may correct me if I am wrong) is that Lovecraft’s ancient gods of the Cthulhu mythos represent archetypal forms of horror in the Jungian sense of “archetype”.

If you have a basic comprehension of Spanish, the article is quite intriguing and worth taking a shot at reading.

If nothing esle, the article will help you view the poster above from another perspective: what is the meaning of the poster if the creature above symbolizes archetypal fears shared by everyone?

Thoughts? Comments?

Carl Jung and the Creative Subconscious

Carl Gustav Jung, 1912

Someone told me recently that the pyschologist Carl Jung believed the work reveals something about the author. We discussed this idea for a few minutes before it hit home in a very scary fashion, because we were discussing my works of horror. I realized that at least sometimes my own subconscious fears may influence, if not determine, the course of my stories. Storylines reflecting the subconscious fears of the author makes a lot of sense, because, to my mind at least, dreams and nightmares also originate in and reflect the undercurrents of the subconscious.

So, what do you think? Is the subconscious wellspring responsible for the creation of dreams the same one responsible for creative works? What does this say about authors like Yann Martel who wrote “Life of Pi”? What does it say about authors like Clive Barker and H.P. Lovecraft and even myself?

While we are at it, here are three quotes from Jung to provide additional food for thought. What do they say about writers of horror? I found them at The Painter’s Keys: Art Quotes from Carl Gustav Jung.

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.”

“The secret of artistic creation and the effectiveness of art is to be found in a return to the state of ‘participation mystique’ – to that level of experience at which it is man who lives, and not the individual…”

“The creation of something new is not accomplished by the intellect but by the play instinct acting from inner necessity. The creative mind plays with the objects it loves.”