Entry #2: Poetry, Art and Music

Wilson explores the idea of the world’s great artists and how they are able to use Faculty X with more ease than the rest of the population. He focuses in on the poets of the world, dedicating a chapter called “The Poet as Occultist”. In class, listening to music while examining great works of art allowed the viewers to use their own Faculty X.

“The poet is a man in whom Faculty X is naturally more developed than in most people” (Wilson, 113). In Edgar Allen Poe’s The Haunted Palace, Poe writes “And travellers, now, within that valley,/Through the red-litten windows see/Vast forms, that move fantastically/To a discordant melody,/While, like a ghastly rapid river,/Through the pale door/A hideous throng rush out forever/And laugh —but smile no more” (Haunted, Poe). Poe is able to use his Faculty X to bring other worlds, time periods and emotions into his poetry. Here he writes about an old, haunted palace and of all the life that used to happen there. He can envision and feel the presence of the throng of people in the old hallways. He uses his Faculty X to transport himself to another place and time. Poets are able to reach down into the concealed parts of their souls to make beautiful and dynamic poems that open entire new worlds to the reader and expand their minds and force them to work in new ways.

Wilson’s The Occult can also be used to analyze visual and auditory pieces of art. The combination of the Caspar David Friedrich painting Traveler Looking Over a Sea of Fog and listening to Beethoven’s Symphony #7 in A, Op. 92 Allegretto is an amazing example of an exercise to strengthen ones’ connection to things greater than themselves. When listening to these two pieces together, the listener can use their own Faculty X to make a connection/create a story behind the painting that fits the music. In the Beethoven Allegretto, the song continuously rises and rises for the entirety of the song. This can relate to the vastness of the painting. Wilson’s concept of Faculty X links to this because the music and the visuals can tap into something deep in each viewer; it can put the viewer in the shoes of the art. They can visualize themselves making this man’s journey and climbing that mountain. They can feel the wind and see the mist by listening to Symphony #7 at the same time. This is Faculty X. This is what makes the human experience so profound.

Along with musicians and artists and poets, Wilson writes about the other creatures existing in our world, creatures of the occult. These are probably the more obvious things that come to mind when one hears the word “occult”.