Ἀκέφαλος in H.P. Lovecraft's "Azathoth": The Aesthetic of Ignorance

I recently read a fragment of a novel written by H.P. Lovecraft titled, "Azathoth," which was written in June of 1922.

It's a very interesting, suggestive fragment that the editor of my anthology suggests might be framed as anticipating the The Dream-Quest of the Unknown Kadath.

There's a line in this fragment that stirred some thoughts. Discussing the life and time of the protagonist, the narrator states that he lived in a time when "learning stripped earth of her mantle of beauty" (214).

I find this statement so intriguing. It makes me wonder, do scientifici theories "strip" the earth of "her mantle of beauty." Is there something about ignorance, naieve "unknowledge," that makes the world beautiful?

This is definately a question that Lovecraft's work courts and is, to an extent, an answer to.

This passage suggests a more famous passage from Lovecraft's work, the opening to call of Cthulhu: "“We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.” I won't quote the whole opening. It ends with a conjecture that, perhaps, scientific theory will reveal the truly horrific place humanity has in the universe and that we will recoil from it to the "safety" of a new dark age.

By juxtaposing this passge from "Azathoth" on the opening of "The Call of Cthulhu," we start to get a vision of a particular theme in HPL's work, namely, that learning, that theorizing, is the problem.

This pattern brings to mind an ancient greek myth/concept, the Ἀκέφαλος (Akephalos) or Headless Ones. These are humans without heads.

I like to think of Akephalos generally and allegorically, as just folks who... just. Don't. Think.

Though he doesn't say so, for Lovecraft, the Akephalos are the one's who we should envy, the ones who know nothing. Why is knowing nothing good? For Lovecraft, true knowledge is equivalent to horror; ignorance is a precondition, it seems, to the aesthetic experience of beauty.

In a strange way, there is an ethos is much of Lovecraft's work that seems to say, we should envy the headless/mindless ones.

Hmm...