The underworld was never the “final” frontier, just the next. Humanity didn’t reach the end, it turned the corner. Granted it was a tight corner and some of us fell off the cliff in the process. A few climbed back up the cliff, the rest drowned in collective thoughts. Like the Black Plague, the aftermath created a series of upheavals, panics, paranoid attacks on hypnotists, those who created and administered vaccinations, employees of utility & water companies, and DJs. There was a profound impact on art and literature, what would have before been considered Surrealism or Outsider art became closer to Narrative and Realist. The horrifying and obscene was common experience, it probably was always common experience, but now it was impossible to deny or ignore. The strange was now instructive and often times all survivors had to work with.
