Rebellion Against the Conspiracy Against the Human Race - Limited Hardcover

dr. locrian

dr. locrian

Town Manager
Staff member
ratcathr-1-e1781036146576.png


Publication Date: October 6, 2026
Published by: Grimscribe Press
300 pp.

​
Limited Hardcover $50 USD (Pre-Order)
(Shipping and handling included worldwide, regardless of destination)

Pre-Order Here


Synopsis​

The pentagram, once a symbol of protection, became corrupted into a mark of darkness. Rebellion Against the Conspiracy Against the Human Race mirrors that transformation, protecting readers through the corruption it reveals. Five points form this pentagram: “Notes on a Horror” defines the enemy. “Trauma Narration” offers a weapon. “Pensées Noires” contemplates the struggle. “Listening to Monsters” applies Sun Tzu’s first principle—know your enemy. “The World As Will And Desolation” applies his second—know yourself. Built from personal trauma and forged through clinical practice, this work uses Thomas Ligotti’s philosophical framework from The Conspiracy Against the Human Race as its foundation. It provides tools for survival and rebellion, demonstrating that healing emerges not from denying the darkness of human existence, but from acknowledging and confronting it.

​

About the Author​

Dr. Raymond Thoss is a clinical psychologist who works primarily with trauma patients, with a specific focus on victims of child abuse and neglect. The kindest thing he can say about his childhood is that he survived it. As a despairing teenager who had lost all will to live, he read Ligotti’s omnibus, THE NIGHTMARE FACTORY, straight through in two days while recovering from a vicious beating. Thomas Ligotti saved his life.

As an adult, Dr. Thoss worked in national disaster zones, mental health clinics, academic hospitals, and juvenile detention centers, and has been a faculty member at multiple institutions. His life’s mission: to help the traumatized, the abandoned, and the lost.
 
Here's a bit from the first section, Notes on a Horror:
When I encountered Ligotti at age 17, I was deeply suicidal, directly related to twelve years of ongoing child abuse and other traumas (such as the death of people I loved). Thomas Ligotti gave the most beautiful eloquence to things I saw but no one would ever affirm. It resonated with my reality and the reality of those who were like me. To encapsulate what Thomas Ligotti did for me in a single sentence: He literally saved my life. When everyone else, therapists included, told me I was “depressed” or “mentally ill,” he told me, “No. You are not. You are awake.” As I went through the work I needed to do before becoming a doctor to these children, I read everything published by Ligotti. And I saw deep connections between the world of child abuse (my world and my patients’ world) and the world Thomas Ligotti described. It is this worldview that he calls The Conspiracy Against the Human Race. I had coined it “Ontological Gaslighting;” existence itself is insane, and when people witness this insanity, as my clients who have been abused, as the protagonist in “In the Shadow of Another World” and other Ligottian protagonists, as I, myself, witnessed; you, yourself, feel an insanity due to no one believing you are surrounded by insanity. Should you try to convince them the world is insane, their response is simple: You are insane. They do not believe that THEY are surrounded by insanity. Maybe they cannot believe this. According to The Conspiracy Against the Human Race and Peter Wessel Zapffe, there is a hardwired evolutionary and metaphysical inclination NOT to believe this.
Click to expand...
 
There were some PayPal issues earlier which are now resolved. Sorry about that.

Now, many of you have questions about who the author of this book is and a few related matters. I contacted the good doctor, and I'll let him answer. Feel free to ask follow up questions, and I'll gladly relay them and ask him to let me transcribe his answer here.

For those inquiring into the identity of Dr. Raymond Thoss

Hello. I’ve been asked by the inestimable Jon Padgett to comment upon my identity. I apologize in advance as I did not believe there would be any interest in me personally so I failed to comment in any way upon this. To answer the direct question; yes, I am a real clinical psychologist actively working with patients in the community (it is 3pmEST as I write this and my next patient is in one hour) in the United States. This is not my only role. I teach, train therapists and conduct research on the topic of trauma. I have been faculty at multiple universities in the United States, including an Ivy League medical school. As Jon has stated, my primary work is in the field of trauma with a strong focus on child abuse and neglect, although I have worked in settings as diverse as the Veteran’s Administration and with the World Health Organization in Southern Africa.

To answer the question of a) why a pseudonym and b) why this pseudonym, my reply is as follows. The surface level (but not false) reason is that I do not believe that the majority of my colleagues would be sympathetic to my views (although a minority would be) and as I publish and work under my birth name, which is connected very directly to other professionals, I do not wish to detract or distort their work as I believe in the work they do. The surface level (but not false) reason for why this pseudonym is that I am legitimately a professor, and my students (a la The Last Feast of the Harlequin) have communicated, on more than one occasion, that my supervision and teaching have changed the trajectories of their careers. This Thossian sobriquet, therefore, seemed apropos.

The deeper reason is that I believe my message (articulated in the least impoverished manner I am capable of in Rebellion Against the Conspiracy Against the Human Race) is far more important than my identity. In the book, I touch upon my view that I, myself, often feel that my identity is protean (a significant portion of my pain results from this) so, ironically, Dr. Thoss may be the most concrete manifestation of me and my “real” identity the pseudonymic entity. Again, the message is paramount, not me. Lastly, why this moniker. Thomas Ligotti saved my life. I feel the least, weakest, honor I can reciprocate towards him is to bring into this world of sorrow and woe a teacher of sorts that desires, at his core, to shatter the pleasant lies and illusions The Conspiracy Against the Human Race shoves down our throats. It is a minimal rebellion, a quiet overture to the symphony, but it is as fair a place to start as any.
Click to expand...
 
dr. locrian said:
There were some PayPal issues earlier which are now resolved. Sorry about that.

Now, many of you have questions about who the author of this book is and a few related matters. I contacted the good doctor, and I'll let him answer. Feel free to ask follow up questions, and I'll gladly relay them and ask him to let me transcribe his answer here.
Click to expand...
Same boat, Dr. Thoss. Ligotti saved my life twice. Once I came out of a coma of 19 days, and the first thing I could think of is I'll be able to read Conspiracy, which hadn't been published yet. I had no other reason to wake up. And the other time, I recounted elsewhere on TLO. I missed the HC unfortunately.
 
Well, I received the first Vastarien issues as a Christmas present (according to my request, obviously. Nobody in my family knows what a "Vastarien" or who this "Ligotti" character is nor do they care to inquire).

So I open the first issue at a random page, and there it is: "Notes on a Horror". I read the first two sentences. I look at my family. I read the next few sentences. Again, I look at my family. And I am so deeply happy. Not because of my family, of course. But these sentences that I am reading, they work like magic. They make this excruciating shitshow of a Christmas Eve bearable. I read about a Ligottian Psychotherapist, Childhood Trauma galore, and that, apparently, the application of the Ligottian Perspective™ on my own Childhood Trauma instantly makes everything better.

I mean, holy shit, it's there, it's written. In letters and words, right before me. It's not my "depressive, dysfunctional thinking". It's not "narcissism" or some such thing that some therapists tried to apply onto me when they weren't happy with that I wasn't happy with... anything. Anything at all. Least with their attempt at "therapy". That everything I experience has this slight aftertaste of shit.

No, I am reading that this might happen when a profoundly traumatised child gets old enough to become an adult.

So I'm sitting there, under the Christmas Tree, grinning and deeply at peace. I look at my family... and these letters and words I'm reading cause me to Just. Not. Care.

So, thank you so much, Dr. Thoss. After all these years (decades), I now know that Christmas indeed can be a truly happy time for me. It's just that... it is not my (or my brain's) fault that it hasn't been before.

(Naturally I would like to read the rest of this book at the earliest possible convenience... like yesterday. Or right now. It's gonna be a looong wait until October.)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top