The Fredösphere

Maybe it's the theme: people wouldn't know a miracle if it bit them on the behind. So what good are miracles? Did they save guys from getting "'dobe walled by Pancho Villa?" And what is a "miracle" in a skeptical yet superstitious world? Did miracles save the ancient gods and monsters from extinction? Who is Dr. Lao? Curator, pulp fiction "Chinaman," or the last of the gods? The relentlessly laconic author doesn't seem to care about these questions one way or another, beyond framing them....

Even the clumsiness of the novel is endearing. The entire final section (a virgin sacrifice to a defunct god), for example, is written in an overwrought pulp style that might be parody, and might be heartfelt. Who knows?

At this point in the article, I'm deeply disoriented and I'm seeing the computer screen through contra-zoom.  Could this possibly be the Charles G. Finney...but no, no, good heavens, of course not, Charles G. Finney -- the preacher and key actor in the Second Great Awakening -- died in 1875.  His writings were more along this line:

There was no fire, and no light, in the room; nevertheless it appeared to me as if it were perfectly light. As I went in and shut the door after me, it seemed as if I met the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. It did not occur to me then, nor did it for some time afterward, that it was a wholly mental state. On the contrary it seemed to me that I saw him as I would see any other man. He said nothing, but looked at me in such a manner as to break me right down at his feet. I have always since regarded this as a most remarkable state of mind; for it seemed to me a reality, that he stood before me, and I fell down at his feet and poured out my soul to him. I wept aloud like a child, and made such confessions as I could with my choked utterance. It seemed to me that I bathed his feet with my tears; and yet I had no distinct impression that I touched him, that I recollect.

 

I must have continued in this state for a good while; but my mind was too absorbed with the interview to recollect anything that I said. But I know, as soon as my mind became calm enough to break off from the interview, I returned to the front office, and found that the fire that I had made of large wood was nearly burned out. But as I turned and was about to take a seat by the fire, I received a mighty baptism of the Holy Ghost. Without any expectation of it, without ever having the thought in my mind that there was any such thing for me, without any recollection that I had ever heard the thing mentioned by any person in the world, the Holy Spirit descended upon me in a manner that seemed to go through me, body and soul. I could feel the impression, like a wave of electricity, going through and through me. Indeed it seemed to have come in waves and waves of liquid love; for I could not express it in any other way. It seemed like the very breath of God. I can recollect distinctly that it seemed to fan me, like immense wings.

O people, the waves of liquid love -- The waves of liquid love.