Cosmicism is American author H. P. Lovecraft's name for the literary philosophy he developed and used for his fiction.[1][2] Lovecraft was a writer of horror stories that involve occult phenomena like astral possession and alien miscegenation, and the themes of his fiction over time contributed to the development of this philosophy.[3]
The philosophy of cosmicism is explained as the idea that "there is no recognizable divine presence, such as a god, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence."[4] The most prominent theme is humanity's fear of their insignificance in an incomprehensibly large universe:[5][6][7] a fear of the cosmic void.[8]
Lovecraft dubbed his view of the world 'cosmicism', in which all the achievements and inherently noble qualities of humans and humanism pale in comparison to the vast indifference of the rest of the universe.
Lovecraft's fiction established the Cosmicism literary philosophical movement, of which cosmic horror is one example.
Cosmicism [is] [t]he literary philosophy…stating that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as God, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence.
This [Lovecraftian] paralysis is caused by the realization that the underlying problem…[is] that incalculably large void which envelopes us all.
'Cosmicism' [is such that] [t]he universe transcends human imagination and is unimaginably huge. When human beings…face this near-infinite macro…[they] will feel extreme fear, and they are on the verge of madness because of their smallness and absolute powerlessness. The fear of the 'wake' people facing the great existence constitutes the core idea of Lovecraft's horror literature.
The defining feature of Cosmicism is…the utter insignificance of [hu]man[kind].
Julia Kristeva defines the void as 'the unthinkable of metaphysics'…[T]he void…is that which lies beyond comprehension…[an inability] to correlate what we see with [what we] previously understood…This is the horror of the void: humans coming face to face with displacement, alienation, and the meaninglessness of life in the universe