The Metaphysics of Horror

I've just read a very interesting article:



The Metaphysics of Horror



The article says:

What would your feelings be,” asks Ambrose in Arthur Machen’s novel The House of Souls,

“… if your cat or your dog began to talk to you, and to dispute with you in human accents?” He goes on:

You would be overwhelmed with horror. I am sure of it. And if the roses in your garden sang a weird song, you would go mad. And suppose the stones in the road began to swell and grow before your eyes, and if the pebble that you noticed at night had shot out stony blossoms in the morning?"

Machen’s examples are disturbing, but it’s not immediately obvious why. It’s not that they’re frightening, at least not in the ordinary sense of the word. Normally, we’re scared of things because we think they pose a physical danger to us, but singing roses don’t pose any such hazard, so why is the thought of them so nightmarish?

This is interesting. A singing rose would indeed fill us with horror. Scientists and others might likewise be horrified by the paranormal for similar reasons. Certain bizarre phenomena might discombobulate us, confuse us, shock us. We need to feel that we can grasp the world, at least to a certain degree. But something super-strange happening upsets everything we thought we ever understood. It fosters the feeling that anything might happen. We feel a loss of control over reality.