From Nowhere: Artists, Writers, and the Precognitive Imagination

by Eric Wargo

Creativity Is Time Travel. Literally.
Artists and writers very often predict future events in their work. Skeptics dismiss these anomalies, but what if they hold the key to the creative imagination? In this mind-bending book, the 40,000-year history of art is reconsidered as a literally prophetic enterprise. From Ice Age cave paintings to the novels of Virginia Woolf and Philip K. Dick, the films of Werner Herzog and David Lynch, and even the songs of The Beatles, Wargo makes a case for the inherently time-defying nature of inspiration. Creators often channel their own futures—and the future of their culture—in their art. It is an entirely new way of thinking about one of humanity’s oldest Where do new ideas come from?

“There are books, and then there are books. The latter change one’s life, change how one thinks of pretty much everything. From Nowhere is such a book ... that turns one around to think anew, to be inspired from the future as well as by the past. I have been turned around, temporally and existentially, by Eric Wargo.” —Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of How to Think Impossibly

“Eric Wargo’s work is not only on the cultural cutting edge, his pen is the knife that is cutting the edge. From Nowhere is impossible to put down. ... After speaking with and interviewing many creative scientists and artists, I believe that Wargo’s explanation is not only accurate, but game changing. He’s right. If this framework was taught in schools of art (and science!), the consequences would be transformative.” —D. W. Pasulka, author of Encounters

Genres: Art, Nonfiction

408 pages, Paperback

Published May 22, 2024

Reviews

[Harry Allard · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wasn't entirely convinced by some of Wargo's arguments, and still find the Jungian idealism that he admits leaves him cold to be a more satisfying framework for the kinds of weirdness being described. An affinity with Diana Pasulka's writing also gets my alarm bells ringing nowadays. However, I thought this was really well-written, engaging, and totally what I want to read in a bit of paranormal literature: unbridled speculation in a new and exciting direction. Wargo's philosophy is strange and beautiful, and while I don't think I see things in quite the same way, I really admired his vision. Even when I thought it was flagging towards the end, his Afterword brought my own experience of that "alienated majesty" as Wargo puts it, reading his thoughts on the current Gaza genocide. All in all, this was a page-turner, a lot of fun, and surely destined to become a classic in weird nonfiction (or the "superhumanities").

[Katja Vartiainen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I cannot put categories of science fiction nor science for this book, since there is a scientific premise that makes sense, but no research to back it up. The book is interesting, it is well written the anecdotes fascinating, some of them a bit far fetched, but the idea of time loops as THE source of inspiration for all culture ever existed, is depressing. It makes humans beings into recording devices of our future selves. Great, we have unclear glimpses from our personal future that are the basis for our need to create and tribute to the existence. It is too simplified, too mechanistic. Art definitely has that unknown element in it, which at times is precognitive, but the art work is a synthesis of our current feelings, experiences, thoughts, and that unknown element. The writer does beautiful plea for ethical behavior in the end, but how it actually relates to time loops I did not get.