Megapolisomancy
Encyclopedia
Our Lady of Darkness by Fritz Leiber
is a book containing a description of "Megapolisomancy", a fictional occult science. It was written in the United States
and is a work of fantasy and science fiction
.
According to De Castries, excessively large cities pose a clear danger to the people living in and near them by allowing mass quantities of certain substances (city-stuff) to accumulate, which in turn draw the attention of paramental forces. Through the manipulation of the paramental forces, a megapolisomancer could predict and alter the future.
"The electro-mephitic city-stuff whereof I speak has potencies for achieving vast effects at distant times and localities, even in the far future and on other orbs, but of the manipulations required for the production and control of such I do not intend to discourse in these pages." - De Castries
While large cities have always been present, he argued that the future would become vastly more dangerous as the number of megapolitan areas skyrocketed.
"At any particular time of history there have always been one or two cities of the monstrous sort -- viz., Babel or Babylon, Ur-Lhassa, Nineve, Syracuse, Rome, Samarkand, Tenochtitlan, Peking -- but we live in the Megapolitan (or Necropolitan) Age, when such disastrous blights are manifold and threaten to conjoin and enshroud the world with funebral yet multipotent city-stuff. We need a Black Pythagoras to spy out the evil lay of our monstrous cities and their foul shrieking songs, even as the White Pythagoras spied out the lay of the heavenly spheres and their crystalline symphonies, two and a half millennia ago." - De Castries
De Castries even goes so far as to hint that practitioners could extend their own lives by predicting and manipulating the paramental forces present in cities, but only at a significant cost: "Since we modern city-men already dwell in tombs, inured after a fashion to mortality, the possibility arises of the indefinite prolongation of this life-in-death. Yet, although quite practicable, it would be a most morbid and dejected existence, without vitality or even thought, but only paramentation, our chief companions paramental entities of azoic origin more vicious than spiders or weasels."
Little is known about the actual mathematics involved in megapolisomancy. It is known that part of the science involved calculating the placement of large buildings as weights which could then be used, in combination with placing certain sigils
at other locations, as levers to move a fulcrum with which to focus paramental attention.
It may be significant that the number of sigils in the Grand Cipher equals the number of faces of all of the five Pythagorean or Platonic solids, but no direct link is explained. Given his call for a "Black Pythagoras," however, a connection seems likely.
Paramental entities are quite hostile to those unlucky enough to draw their attention, "about midway in nature between the atomic bomb and the archetypes of the collective unconscious."
However, these defenses appear to be only marginally effective.
Leiber provides little background about Thibaut De Castries. When De Castries arrived in San Francisco in 1900, he had already written Megapolisomancy. The most commonly accepted rumor about his life prior to 1900 was that he had escaped from the Franco-Prussian War
as a teenager, fleeing Paris in a balloon with his dying father, his father's mistress (who allegedly later became his own), and a black panther that his father had tamed. A competing rumor was that his father was a member of the Carbonari
and De Castries himself was a boy aide-de-camp to Giuseppe Garibaldi
.
While living in San Francisco at 607 Rhodes, he became an associate of authors Jack London
, Ambrose Bierce
, and later Clark Ashton Smith
, as well as poet George Sterling
. For a while he amassed a minor cult following among the bohemians of the city, including London and Bierce, but his practices apparently were too esoteric to maintain interest for long, and his occult society, the Hermetic Order of the Onyx Dusk, collapsed. From the similarity between the names, it is obvious that Lieber had learned about the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
and modelled De Castries' society as a darker version of that occult order.
De Castries was often believed to have a mistress, rumored to be the same woman that fled with him from Paris. However, this woman was only observed from a distance, and may in fact have been a paramental companion, as De Castries often described her as his spy on cities.
As De Castries aged, he became increasingly paranoid, and according to Smith's diary, claimed to have used megapolisomancy to destroy his former acolytes. He also sought out as many copies as possible of Megapolisomancy and destroyed them. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes buried on Corona Heights in San Francisco.
Although some believed Thibault De Castries to be H. P. Lovecraft
's associate Adolphe De Castro
, De Castries died well before De Castro, and there is no evidence other than a nominal similarity in name to connect the two.
praised Our Lady of Darkness as "one of the scariest, most original, and most damnably convincing fantasy notions I've ever come across."
Fritz Leiber
Fritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
is a book containing a description of "Megapolisomancy", a fictional occult science. It was written in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and is a work of fantasy and science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
.
The Occult Science
As featured in Leiber's novella, megapolisomancy is the art of predicting and manipulating the future through the existence of large cities. The primary practitioner of the pseudoscience of megapolisomancy is fictional occultist Thibaut de Castries, whose seminal work, Megapolisomancy: A New Science of Cities, concerns the physical, psychological and paramental (spiritual) effects of certain substances, including steel, electricity, paper, and so forth as they accumulate in cities. This book was primarily a book of occult theory; De Castries preserved all of his actual methods for practicing megapolisomancy in a second book, which he referred to as his Grand Cipher or Fifty-Book. The latter book contained a series of 50 astrological and astronomical signs and other cryptic sigils.According to De Castries, excessively large cities pose a clear danger to the people living in and near them by allowing mass quantities of certain substances (city-stuff) to accumulate, which in turn draw the attention of paramental forces. Through the manipulation of the paramental forces, a megapolisomancer could predict and alter the future.
"The electro-mephitic city-stuff whereof I speak has potencies for achieving vast effects at distant times and localities, even in the far future and on other orbs, but of the manipulations required for the production and control of such I do not intend to discourse in these pages." - De Castries
While large cities have always been present, he argued that the future would become vastly more dangerous as the number of megapolitan areas skyrocketed.
"At any particular time of history there have always been one or two cities of the monstrous sort -- viz., Babel or Babylon, Ur-Lhassa, Nineve, Syracuse, Rome, Samarkand, Tenochtitlan, Peking -- but we live in the Megapolitan (or Necropolitan) Age, when such disastrous blights are manifold and threaten to conjoin and enshroud the world with funebral yet multipotent city-stuff. We need a Black Pythagoras to spy out the evil lay of our monstrous cities and their foul shrieking songs, even as the White Pythagoras spied out the lay of the heavenly spheres and their crystalline symphonies, two and a half millennia ago." - De Castries
De Castries even goes so far as to hint that practitioners could extend their own lives by predicting and manipulating the paramental forces present in cities, but only at a significant cost: "Since we modern city-men already dwell in tombs, inured after a fashion to mortality, the possibility arises of the indefinite prolongation of this life-in-death. Yet, although quite practicable, it would be a most morbid and dejected existence, without vitality or even thought, but only paramentation, our chief companions paramental entities of azoic origin more vicious than spiders or weasels."
Neo-Pythagorean Metageometry
The key to Megapolisomancy apparently lies in the construction of the city itself, dependent upon such things as diagonal streets, fulcrums based on the placement of extremely tall buildings, and other geographical calculations, referred to by De Castries as Neo-Pythagorean metageometry, most of which De Castries did not include in Megapolisomancy, but rather in his mysterious Grand Cipher.Little is known about the actual mathematics involved in megapolisomancy. It is known that part of the science involved calculating the placement of large buildings as weights which could then be used, in combination with placing certain sigils
Sigil (magic)
A sigil is a symbol created for a specific magical purpose. A sigil is usually made up of a complex combination of several specific symbols or geometric figures, each with a specific meaning or intent.- Name and origin :...
at other locations, as levers to move a fulcrum with which to focus paramental attention.
It may be significant that the number of sigils in the Grand Cipher equals the number of faces of all of the five Pythagorean or Platonic solids, but no direct link is explained. Given his call for a "Black Pythagoras," however, a connection seems likely.
Paramentals
Paramentals are the elemental spirits of inanimate forces. It is unclear whether they are drawn to cities because of the large quantities of "city-stuff" or created by them. When manifesting, they draw their physical substance from the materials nearby. The one example featured in the novel was a brown humanoid, with an eyeless triangular face and long chin that tapered to a snout.Paramental entities are quite hostile to those unlucky enough to draw their attention, "about midway in nature between the atomic bomb and the archetypes of the collective unconscious."
Protections Against Paramentals
According to Leiber, only three defenses exist versus paramentals:- silver
- abstract designs, and
- stars, specifically pentagrams.
However, these defenses appear to be only marginally effective.
Fictional History of Thibaut De Castries
"The ancient Egyptians only buried people in their pyramids. We are living in ours." - De CastriesLeiber provides little background about Thibaut De Castries. When De Castries arrived in San Francisco in 1900, he had already written Megapolisomancy. The most commonly accepted rumor about his life prior to 1900 was that he had escaped from the Franco-Prussian War
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the 1870 War was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia. Prussia was aided by the North German Confederation, of which it was a member, and the South German states of Baden, Württemberg and...
as a teenager, fleeing Paris in a balloon with his dying father, his father's mistress (who allegedly later became his own), and a black panther that his father had tamed. A competing rumor was that his father was a member of the Carbonari
Carbonari
The Carbonari were groups of secret revolutionary societies founded in early 19th-century Italy. The Italian Carbonari may have further influenced other revolutionary groups in Spain, France, Portugal and possibly Russia. Although their goals often had a patriotic and liberal focus, they lacked a...
and De Castries himself was a boy aide-de-camp to Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was an Italian military and political figure. In his twenties, he joined the Carbonari Italian patriot revolutionaries, and fled Italy after a failed insurrection. Garibaldi took part in the War of the Farrapos and the Uruguayan Civil War leading the Italian Legion, and...
.
While living in San Francisco at 607 Rhodes, he became an associate of authors Jack London
Jack London
John Griffith "Jack" London was an American author, journalist, and social activist. He was a pioneer in the then-burgeoning world of commercial magazine fiction and was one of the first fiction writers to obtain worldwide celebrity and a large fortune from his fiction alone...
, Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Bierce
Ambrose Gwinnett Bierce was an American editorialist, journalist, short story writer, fabulist and satirist...
, and later Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith
Clark Ashton Smith was a self-educated American poet, sculptor, painter and author of fantasy, horror and science fiction short stories. He achieved early local recognition, largely through the enthusiasm of George Sterling, for traditional verse in the vein of Swinburne...
, as well as poet George Sterling
George Sterling
George Sterling was an American poet based in California who, during his time, was celebrated in Northern California as one of the greatest American poets, although he never gained much fame in the rest of the United States.-Biography:Sterling was born in Sag Harbor, Long Island, New York, the...
. For a while he amassed a minor cult following among the bohemians of the city, including London and Bierce, but his practices apparently were too esoteric to maintain interest for long, and his occult society, the Hermetic Order of the Onyx Dusk, collapsed. From the similarity between the names, it is obvious that Lieber had learned about the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn
The Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn was a magical order active in Great Britain during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which practiced theurgy and spiritual development...
and modelled De Castries' society as a darker version of that occult order.
De Castries was often believed to have a mistress, rumored to be the same woman that fled with him from Paris. However, this woman was only observed from a distance, and may in fact have been a paramental companion, as De Castries often described her as his spy on cities.
As De Castries aged, he became increasingly paranoid, and according to Smith's diary, claimed to have used megapolisomancy to destroy his former acolytes. He also sought out as many copies as possible of Megapolisomancy and destroyed them. After his death, he was cremated and his ashes buried on Corona Heights in San Francisco.
Although some believed Thibault De Castries to be H. P. Lovecraft
H. P. Lovecraft
Howard Phillips Lovecraft --often credited as H.P. Lovecraft — was an American author of horror, fantasy and science fiction, especially the subgenre known as weird fiction....
's associate Adolphe De Castro
Adolphe Danziger De Castro
Adolphe Danziger De Castro, also known as Gustav Adolf Danziger, Adolph Danziger, Adolphe Danziger and Adolphe De Castro, was a Jewish scholar, journalist, lawyer and author of poems, novels and short stories.-Life:Adolphe Danziger De Castro was born Abram Dancygier, the son of Symcha Jakub...
, De Castries died well before De Castro, and there is no evidence other than a nominal similarity in name to connect the two.
Setting in San Francisco
The book is set in San Francisco, California, and the city and some of its buildings are integral to the story-line. In particular, Corona Heights, the Sutro Tower, the Hobart Building, the Trans-America Pyramid and 811 Geary are critical story-elements. Though the book was published in 1978, many of these elements remain.Reception
Richard A. LupoffRichard A. Lupoff
Richard Allen Lupoff is an American science fiction and mystery author, who has also written humor, satire, non-fiction and reviews. In addition to his two dozen novels and more than 40 short stories, he has also edited science-fantasy anthologies. He is an expert on the writing of Edgar Rice...
praised Our Lady of Darkness as "one of the scariest, most original, and most damnably convincing fantasy notions I've ever come across."
See also
- False documentFalse documentA false document is a literary technique employed to create verisimilitude in a work of fiction. By inventing and inserting documents that appear to be factual, an author tries to create a sense of authenticity beyond the normal and expected suspension of disbelief for a work of art...
- Fritz LeiberFritz LeiberFritz Reuter Leiber, Jr. was an American writer of fantasy, horror and science fiction. He was also a poet, actor in theatre and films, playwright, expert chess player and a champion fencer. Possibly his greatest chess accomplishment was winning clear first in the 1958 Santa Monica Open.. With...
- KultKultKult is a contemporary fantasy horror role-playing game originally designed by Gunilla Jonsson and Michael Petersén, first published in Sweden by Target Games in 1991. The first English edition was published in 1993 by Metropolis Ltd., a now defunct American publisher...
, a role playing game similar in the idea of the quirks of big cities - GeomancyGeomancyGeomancy is a method of divination that interprets markings on the ground or the patterns formed by tossed handfuls of soil, rocks, or sand...