Aztecs Worshiped Cosmic Horror (Make HP Lovecraft Look Like Dr. Suess)

Today on Based Camp, we dip our toes into the Aztec civilization through a review of Inga Clendinnen’s Aztecs: An Interpretation by John Psmith of Mr. and Mrs. Psmith’s Bookshelf, exploring how their religion, cosmology, and social structures centered on ritual human sacrifice at an industrial scale. The review examines their gods, warrior culture, child-rearing practices, and the inversion of pleasure-seeking societies into ones obsessed with pain and cosmic dread.

We quickly came to understand why this society felt like Lovecraftian horror made real, how ideas and religion shaped every aspect of life, and why neig...