Blood Meridian and the Metaphysics of Mystery
In this second installment of Nether Strands, I return to Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian—a book you don’t so much read as survive—and examine it through the strange, luminous lens of philosopher Lucian Blaga.
This video unpacks four of Blaga’s central ideas and explores how they illuminate the figure of Judge Holden, one of the most unsettling presences in American literature:
The Great Anonymous – the hidden source of all being, sustaining the world while remaining unknowable.
Divine Censorship – the “cosmic firewall” that veils ultimate truth, preserving mystery so we may live without collapsing under its weight.
Paradisiacal vs. Luciferian Knowledge – the tension between knowledge that harmonizes with mystery (paradisiacal) and knowledge that seeks to pierce and dominate it (luciferian).
Metaphor – the creative bridge between the visible and the hidden, the highest form of expression when truth itself is beyond reach.
Judge Holden is often cast as violence incarnate, a demiurgic presence roaming the desert wastes of the 19th‑century borderlands. But viewed through Blaga’s metaphysics of mystery, another pattern emerges. Holden’s war on mystery, his obsessive cataloging of the world, his sermons on war and dominion—all begin to look like a dark parody of Blaga’s vision of humanity.
If you’ve ever felt haunted by Blood Meridian, or wondered why Judge Holden refuses to leave the imagination once he enters it, this strand is for you.
Further Reading
My friend Thaddeus Thomas has written a sharp, unsettling pardner to this discussion—arguing that Judge Holden is, in fact, a moral creature. Not moral in the sense of being good, but in the sense of living by an absolute, reasoned standard that justifies every act, no matter how monstrous. His essay reframes the Judge’s violence not as whimsy or pure chaos, but as the grim fulfillment of his own code. You can read it here. Also, you should check out his other McCarthy articles here. They inspired this whole nether strand.
