Hi all 😀
me, I'm just some little monkey...playing around with quotes i found on this very fine forum, f.ex:
That cult would never die till the stars came right again, and the secret priests would take great Cthulhu from His tomb to revive His subjects and resume His rule of earth. The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy. Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom. Meanwhile the cult, by appropriate rites, must keep alive the memory of those ancient ways and shadow forth the prophecy of their return.
OK, as we all know this could refer to any period, Roma, Greek, Sumerian or else.
But my question is - and i'm not referring to Kenneth Grant's very, ahem, special ideas - that (as many a biographer mentioned) there could be some let's say similarity with Crowley and the BOOK OF THE LAW - although I'm almost sure tjhe person Crowley didn't have a lot to do with the law 😉 as he rejected uit at that time being a (Theravada, sorry, I hat Theravada fuckaz 8) sorry, Pul, bad language won't happen again!!!!!) - well let's call it the interdimensional entity BLESSING us with the LAW, he may have been an emissary (ok, i'm treading on conspiracy territory here)...of The Nephilim or Great Old Ones.
I think there's a lot to it: revelling in joy, and of course the New England Guy Lovecraft couldn't see it all, but his prose is so close to the heart....
OK guys anyone else besides me think this is no coincidence, Lovecraft and The Great Old Ones (Nephilim) and Crowley and the New Age---also add to it Hard Rock like Deep Purple and Led Zep singing about mystical things.
Or as a chinese saying goes May you live in interesting times 😉
OK I know it sounds crazy, but bear with me....just think of...if the Great Old Ones are the GOOD GUYS???
Bringing love and rapture and passion to our planet with many,many people being in a robotic state of mind.
Think of it. Could it be true...to you? personally?
Could there have been emissaries like Lovecraft, Lennon, Cochran, Allin, and other ones, more hidden ones?
Can't you think of them?
Ok I'm just speculating. But speculating on a feeling, a feeling about the future 😉
SORRY TO DISTURB YOUR SLEEP
... if there was any with YOU enlightened folk 🙂
If we make the assumption that HPL was somehow inspired by cosmic forces/archetypes/whatever, he is still clearly describing very ancient, malevolent, dark and chthonic (notice a similarity to any god/cult names there?), deities, entities, and cults:
These are cults that were ancient at the dawn of the Aeon of Isis; these entities hide from the Sun underwater, and underground, and in hideous and god-forsaken places like Antarctica and Massachusetts. Anyone inspired by HPL to bhakti work with these squamous and tentacled entities deserves anything he/she gets, though the consequences for humanity are hideous to contemplate; see the works of Stross (Laundry Files series) for recent accounts of efforts to contain these entities, and eradicate cultists who might awaken the monstrous Old Ones.
The law of Cthulhu is
The Law of Thelema is slightly different; it is a Law of Liberty, Love, Life, and Light. Those are very Old Gods- these are New Gods.
New skin for the old ceremony, mate.
Kirby went to the other side? No way.
Well, you would say that, wouldn't you? [returning Michael's "Leonard Cohen" volley of my "Jack Kirby" service, with the "Mandy Rice-Davies"] Would you care to elucidate?
I'll continue to side with Inspector Legrasse et al. on this one. Having been an avid reader of HPL for almost as long as I have of AC (more than 40 years in each case), and having grown up and lived in the New England settings of so much of HPL's work, it has never seemed to me likely that the Elder Gods are those of Thelema, or that the "Starry Wisdom" has much in common with the "Star Sponge Vision". I've never read Grant's work; I'm also a big Sax Rohmer fan, which i understand figures in Grant's work as well; I suppose I should dive in at some point.
My favorite post-HPL take on Cthulhu et al. other than Stross is Colin Wilson's The Mind Parasites; both are well worth the time of any HPL enthusiast.
Don't forget your new coming up American blockbusters such as:
Now if we are to regard Aleph as a butterfly net, as the band Current 93 has so marvelously expressed http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-5lb1i-jls
Or in Crowley's own words:
Too much sattva makes Jack Dull boy
http://www.rt.com/news/311490-japanese-caterpillar-zombie-ants/
People like ignant and other products or tools of this 'baby boomer generation' on this board seem to be totally blind to the fact that some millenials seem to deny and even blaspheme these 'New Gods' of 'Atomic Age' and childish American cartoons & culture.
Wars of today are wars of 'subconscious' and these days internet and social media plays a huge role in recruiting and controlling extreme terrorist movements such as ISIS or even Al-Qaeda. Media of your current country dictates the policy, either you accept the status quo or you are declared clinically insane by the Law for either being politically or morally incorrect in your opinions.
I'm a product of traditionalist school and Primordial Tradition myself, I'm born post 1990. I want to have nothing to do with your 'New Gods' of 'Atomic Age' or 'American Dream' and If I am declared clinically insane for my crimes of:
"So mote it be." Let the Lords of Karma decide. Either through Bhakti-Yoga or Karma-Yoga.
1. Man has the right to live by his own law—
to live in the way that he wills to do:
to work as he will:
to play as he will:
to rest as he will:
to die when and how he will.
2. Man has the right to eat what he will:
to drink what he will:
to dwell where he will:
to move as he will on the face of the earth.
3. Man has the right to think what he will:
to speak what he will:
to write what he will:
to draw, paint, carve, etch, mould, build as he will:
to dress as he will.
4. Man has the right to love as he will:—
"take your fill and will of love as ye will,
when, where, and with whom ye will." —AL. I. 51
5. Man has the right to kill those who would thwart these rights.
"the slaves shall serve." —AL. II. 58
"Love is the law, love under will." —AL. I. 57
david: Indeed he did, for four years from 1971-75:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Kirby#DC_Comics_and_the_Fourth_World_saga_.281971.E2.80.931975.29
ayino: Um, uh, why, yes; thank you for this insect-themed post. Perhaps you will enjoy this song:
We may have scared off the OP; the OT may, or may not, be in sight. Are HPL and AC talking about the same thing in some way i fail to discern?
Well ayino you have definitely not just dated yourself but perhaps shown your lack of comprehension and schooling. I am only 32 but I realise that the wars we are waging have been fought for decades and even millennia and have nothing to do with American cartoons or even with ISIS or post WW2 political scene. They are rather based on the canvas of my bank versus your bank. Which started at least in the 1800s. And even deeper, my secret deal versus your gold standard versus your fiat currency. Honestly it has nothing to do with OLD GODS vs NEW GODS whatsoever.
What you are talking about is a childish hope that some god will come down from the sky and wipe up the world. Which is no different from a millennial Christian. At least that's the way I read your post.
Furthermore, Horus and RaHoorKhuit are Atomic gods in the sense they represent the Sun. And Light. And Liberty. So if you want to identify them with bombs and stuff that's your own bag. Maybe it's right, but the point is, it's about a new Aeon of freedom and light. And have nothing to do with Lovecraftian gods which are also just archetypes. It's a very complex topic which you don't seem to comprehend, but if I am wrong I apologise you should post more.
ayino is very upset that i referred to a 1970s comic book, which means i am a "product or tool" of "baby boomers" from the old-fashioned "Atomic Age", and like "childish American cartoons & culture".
Brave ayino, on the other hand, demonstrates his millennial "denial and even blasphem[y]" against "childish American cartoons & culture" by worshiping gods from totally grown-up American pulp-magazine stories from the not-old-fashioned 1920s.
Also, he has Oz rights that I am trampling on by posting Captain Beefheart songs.
It is confusing conversing with those whose unhinged-ness has them in pre-moderation, with posts appearing after-the-fact.
There was nothing personal in my post above.
Yes I openly do worship 'Old Gods' and other Nature spirits and do so as the Vedic rites describe.
I do have that freedom to dedicate my altars to any strange God or Spirit under the Earth or Sky. This is Thelema for me personally and has been so for many years.
I wouldn't equate "Great Old Ones" with American pulp-magazines only, since I sincerely don't own a single one.
What I would equate them with are Asuras of the Hindu religion or Titans of the Greek mythology.
I don't treat these things as a separate subjects, rather as Outward expressions of the very same religious or archetypal Truths that exist through are cultural meta-programming and who anyone can access by some degree, be it by religion, reading comics or pulp-literature. In other words, they live in our 'subconscious' and they are not going anywhere.
The fact that you choose to treat them as separate subjects is your choice
I guess I am asking you who is the God of Mammon?
Or as U.G Krishnamurti put it:
Do not be not shy about making money.
Money is the one and the only thing that helps in creating better futures for you.
Nothing is free in this world, not even love.
One who worships the money god will be amply rewarded. One who worships the other god will be stripped naked, and left in the streets.
Make money by hook or by crook.
Make money by any means.
Money talks, wealth whispers.
Miss not a chance to make money.
Quench not the thirst for money.
Money is the only thing that works.
These are very real gods to me and you and Mammon is very alive and well even today.
Mammon from Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal
Apparently if you post here with a proxy server it puts your replies in the wrong threads sometimes.
I wasn't referring to you, christibrany, but to ayino and david, both AFAIK currently subject to pre-moderation, whose posts to this thread appeared long after the time stamps suggest, because of delay caused by Paul finding time to vet their posts i suspect.
Due to this out-of-time (how appropriate to an HPL thread) posting, I now realize I was actually trampling on ayino's "Oz rights" by posting Jack Kirby art and/or making fun of those drawn to worship squamous and tentacled beings, not by posting "Ant Man Bee". It's like an old-time transatlantic phone-call, with long delays rendering conversation difficult.
It is interesting to speculate why ayino imagines "Oz rights" apply to youngsters from Finland who are would-be servants of Cthulhu, but not to middle-aged men from the US of A who ridicule claims to "Primordial Tradition" drawn from Weird Tales of the 1920-30s.
Cannot say that I understand what everyone is getting worked up about here.
But as for the Great Old Ones; well, I like 'em.
I must have misunderstood
I do have that freedom to dedicate my altars to any strange God or Spirit under the Earth or Sky. This is Thelema for me personally and has been so for many years.
OK, DWTW, however silly it may seem to others. Also, "for many years"?- you said above you were born "post-1990". You haven't been doing anything "for many years" yet, son.
What I would equate them with are Asuras of the Hindu religion or Titans of the Greek mythology.
I don't treat these things as a separate subjects, rather as Outward expressions of the very same religious or archetypal Truths that exist through are cultural meta-programming and who anyone can access by some degree, be it by religion, reading comics or pulp-literature. In other words, they live in our 'subconscious' and they are not going anywhere.
Very few of us do own original copies of Weird Tales. My point was that the "Cthulhu Mythos", "Great Old Ones", and "Elder Gods" are wholly derived from a series of stories HPL published in pulp-magazines in the '20s and '30s that mostly involve stories of men driven insane by contact with malevolent pre-human entities. Feel free to draw your archetypical images from wherever you want, and expect to be ridiculed by those who think worshiping evil dark forces rather, well, childish.
I personally think we as the human race as whole are technologically on the very verge of genetic engineering, space-exploring and even stimulating our own computer-created universes.
Those who employ theosophist terminology on this board would say that the Fifth Root Race is taking it's 6th step in it's evolution. I think this is the very zeitgeist of our current time.
Some of us would go to argue that the universe itself we are living in is some sort of sublime computer stimulation of more advanced civilizations than our own. Some sort of cosmic parody or a joke where humans itself are mere tools or insects of more sublime cosmic forces.
These new possibilities offer certain dangers to our free will, as people like U.G Krishnamurti have observed about genetic engineering:
Even some of us born before the 60s, could say that something funny or shady happened with the whole (God Damn!) Hippie generation.
Oh and then there was that whole Moth Man vs Grinning Man deal in the 60s. Too much LSD or mescaline-induced hallucinations, I don't know, it's all speculation. But don't forget the fact that aleph is a butterfly net as earlier observed by insect-themed posts in this thread and little moths like to fly towards The Sun or Electrical Lights 🙂
http://cryptidz.wikia.com/wiki/Indrid_Cold (The Grinning Green Man)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mothman
It's all about cosmonauts vs astronauts all over again and again.
When are the games gonna stop, eh?
So far as concerns Crowley and the Greaat Old Ones, there's no indication I've come acsoss that Crowley had heard of Lovecraft, let alone read any of his work. Grant never advocated worship of the Lovecraft pantheon. The essence of the matter remains the table of analogies between aspects of the work of both men, the table which occurs in a chapter in The Magical Revival. I think, though, that the following passage from Outer Gateways cuts to the chase rather well:
... Like other accounts of unclassifiable phases of earth’s history, the Cthulhu Cult epitomises the subconsciousness and the forces outside terrestrial awareness. It may be said in passing that true creativity can occur only when these forces are invoked to flood with their light the magical network of the mind. For purposes of explanation the mind may be envisaged as divided into three rooms, the edifice which contains them being the only real or permanent principle. These rooms are:
1) Subconsciousness, the dream state;
2) Mundane consciousness, the waking state;
3) Transcendantal consciousness, veiled in the non-initiate by the state of sleep.
The compartments are further conceived as being connected with the house that contains them, by a series of conduits or tunnels. The house represents trans-terrestrial consciousness. The invoked forces — Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, etc — are then understood, not as malignant or destructive entities but as the dynamic energies of consciousness, the functions of which are to blast away the delusion of separate existence (the rooms in our illustration).
I'm travelling in Poland at present, and will happily continue this discussion when returning to the UK late next week.
MS.
Or as U.G Krishnamurti put it:
Do not be not shy about making money.
Money is the one and the only thing that helps in creating better futures for you.
Nothing is free in this world, not even love.
One who worships the money god will be amply rewarded. One who worships the other god will be stripped naked, and left in the streets.
Make money by hook or by crook.
Make money by any means.
Money talks, wealth whispers.
Miss not a chance to make money.
Quench not the thirst for money.
Money is the only thing that works.
These are very real gods to me and you and Mammon is very alive and well even today.
I’m not sure Mammon qualifies as one of the “Great Old Ones” in terms of the Cthulhu mythos, but it’s certainly an old enough god-form I suppose.
I thought UG had made some viable points here and there, but this is nonsense. As I have mentioned elsewhere, money is in many ways the bane of the Aeon, and is not actually based on anything more than fiduciary – or “blind faith” (an official banking term, relating to the work of Quantitative Easing, or printing banknotes out of thin air) - that it will work.
When 1% owns 99% of the wealth – as will happen fairly shortly at the present rate - then there will be some fireworks at the “tipping point”. I trust everybody will be suitably prepared for this eventuality? ;D
“Sacrifice cattle little and big: after a child” (Liber AL III:12)
... Like other accounts of unclassifiable phases of earth’s history, the Cthulhu Cult epitomises the subconsciousness and the forces outside terrestrial awareness. It may be said in passing that true creativity can occur only when these forces are invoked to flood with their light the magical network of the mind. [...]
I for one do not agree that “true creativity can only occur” under these conditions, when extra-terrestrial forces [which are, specifically what?] “are invoked”. Whether said "in passing" or not!
... The invoked forces — Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, etc — are then understood, not as malignant or destructive entities but as the dynamic energies of consciousness, the functions of which are to blast away the delusion of separate existence (the rooms in our illustration).
The impression given is that all these “dyamic energies” or "forces" a-blasting away would be a bit like T.N.T. in effect on the framework of the old house there - i.e., the mind under consideration. Or dynamite? (in other words, not exactly what one would call a subtle metamorphosis!)
Timber-r!
Norma N Joy Conquest
See also 
(interesting little sheet)
Some Chaos Magicians seem to have rituals for invocation of Great Old Ones, or so I've heard.
Yes, I have come across “set” rituals designed to invoke Azathoth, amongst others in the mythos possibly. And the best of luck to them!? ???
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are probably a similar set of rituals dreamed up to invoke Voldemort and the Death Eaters (in lieu of the Great Old Ones ?!) and currently under construction there, too ;D
There's nothing like using time productively is there,
N Joy
Yes, I have come across “set” rituals designed to invoke Azathoth, amongst others in the mythos possibly. And the best of luck to them!? ???
I wouldn’t be surprised if there are probably a similar set of rituals dreamed up to invoke Voldemort and the Death Eaters (in lieu of the Great Old Ones ?!) and currently under construction there, too ;D
There's nothing like using time productively is there,
N Joy
Of course the forebears of all such rituals are the "Ceremony of the Nine Angles" (invoking Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Nylarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath) and "The Call To Cthulhu", in Anton LaVey's The Satanic Rituals (Avon, 1972), pp. 173-201.
I believe Michael Aquino invented the language, based on Lovecraft's minimal suggestions. I'll have to dig up the reference, if anyone doubts it.
My impression is that practitioners treat these "scary" looking "Old Ones" much like Tibetan Buddhists treat the "Wrathful Buddhas": they look frightening from the outside, but only because they herald the destruction of the ego, which is (obviously) perceived as frightening by the ego.
Underneath these outwardly "scary" shapes lies, supposedly, enlightenment.
The essence of the idea is summed up in Liber Tzaddi:
15. I have hidden myself beneath a mask: I am a black and terrible God.
16. With courage conquering fear shall ye approach me: ye shall lay down your heads upon mine altar, expecting the sweep of the sword.
17. But the first kiss of love shall be radiant on your lips; and all my darkness and terror shall turn to light and joy.
Of course, it's one thing to claim that invoking Cthulhu destroys the ego, and it's another thing entirely for invoking Cthulhu to actually destroy the ego.
One doesn't "destroy" anything, least of all the ego, by playing imagination games like pretending to summon creatures from the Monstrous Manual Lovecraft Compendium.
The table in Thoth's Little Monkey's second citation is interesting- is it the "table of analogies between aspects of the work of" AC and HPL that Michael mentions?
Without wishing to be rude, it appears to be the product of a very superficial acquaintance with the work of either- a few problems i notice without even digging in:
- there are no Lovecraftian equivalents offered for the most important Thelemic entities (Nuit, Hadit, Ra-Hoor Khuit), for the obvious reason that nothing whatever in HPL's work would "work";
- the offered analogy of Azathoth (the "blind idiot god") and Aiwass certainly deserves the "?"!;
- "Dunwich" is misspelled;
- one problem with the offered correspondence between Pan and Shub-Niggurath is that the latter is a female "Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young";
- everything in the "Sumer" column appears to have been made up from the whole cloth; nothing in this column bears the least resemblance to the names of any Sumerian deities, or mythological entities.
What do you yourself believe in? Can it be made fun of, too?
I find these words quite poetic:
“I am the way. I am the darkness. I am the hidden God. Primordial forces once enjoyed the gilded pleasures which are dangled in front of us day in and day out. Eventually our demon fathers were expelled from this dimension by the lesser gods of the earth. Many cultures have a name for this ‘creator’ who is really nothing more than the architect of our prison.
This religion is based on a teaching that has no need for opposites. Dualistic concepts such as right and wrong, good and evil, black and white are too primitive. If understanding is infinite, then man may approach knowledge in an infinite number of ways. Rather than providing a teaching which is separate from all others, the Cult of Cthulhu brings the entire world’s knowledge together, consciously distilling that which is fruitful for the betterment of mankind. Obviously, we have our own bias … we worship monstrous alien beings.
Yes, there are important truths hidden away in Christianity, Satanism, Buddhism… all faiths, philosophies, and paths. H.P. Lovecraft’s Mythos may seem artificial, arbitrary, or even ridiculous to some; however, those who have ushered this teaching into existence have found Lovecraftian themes reaching into the heart of our mission. We piece together disassociated fragments of truth in order to comprehend something ineffable. Unlike most theologies, the Mythos is ever changing. It is pure chaos, a sentient void.”
(from: https://encyclopediasatanica.wordpress.com/category/satanism-witchcraft-and-the-occult/page/4/)
What do you yourself believe in?
What do I myself believe in? Is that really so useful or important, to then be able to be applied by anyone else without my particular history and make-up etc? Also, what I believe in one day may not necessarily follow on in quite the same way for the next, and there are sometimes days when I may be so tempted to be filled within existential doubt at the sheer meaninglessness of everything that I don’t feel like believing in anything at all. I’ve been doing a bit of that questioning lately, but if you want something to hang on a hook, I could say that last week it was elephants and tortoises “all the way down”, whilst today I believe in the adelicnander force theory and the chrono-synclastic infundibulum.
Everything can be made fun of, if you have a mind to do so – some things more than others. There is no restriction, and the sky is not the limit. As the late Daevid Allen sagely & succinctly put it in his “♪ A Pot-Head Pixie’s Advice ♫”:
In case you don’t remember, this is what you do:
Get up out of bed now… if there’s nothing left to find the answer to,
Here is… Question number 1:
“If you’re a believer, what do you believe – and why do you believe it?”
“Don’tcha ever wonder if it’s really true - do you?” = Question number 2
(Really, that’s the mystery…)
This sounds like good advertiser’s copywrite, some universal balm albeit one which is completely unconnected and at cross-purposes with HPL’s conception of the denizens of the Mythos as having something more unpleasant and counterproductive in mind.
How nice! This could well be construed as a rather transient adolescent phase, could it not? (No less than the “Git Well ‘Ard” School of Magic, in fact!)
Then the phenomenon is all things to all people and can be explained away in almost any terms. Very convenient, if meaningless the closer it is looked into: rather like a quantum examination trying to focus in on an electron’s exact position in space-time.
N Joy
Spank you Sir. Spank you so much!
Nothing dark in there -it's all prejudice.
Nothing evil in there except you are projeting it and so helping it into being.
Nothing bad only old cobwebs and dust of rituals long long facing extermination....old dead stuff better finished.
I really don't get your meaning Sir? Maybe explain a little more to your poor pidging yahoo, I mean, chela.
Thank you so much and G-someone bless ya 😉
Nothing dark in there -it's all prejudice.
Nothing evil in there except you are projeting it and so helping it into being.
Nothing bad only old cobwebs and dust of rituals long long facing extermination....old dead stuff better finished.
I really don't get your meaning Sir? Maybe explain a little more to your poor pidging yahoo, I mean, chela.
Thank you so much and G-someone bless ya 😉
Quite aside from your recent post that
“I am the way. I am the darkness. I am the hidden God. Primordial forces once enjoyed the gilded pleasures which are dangled in front of us day in and day out. Eventually our demon fathers were expelled from this dimension by the lesser gods of the earth. Many cultures have a name for this ‘creator’ who is really nothing more than the architect of our prison.
(from: https://encyclopediasatanica.wordpress.com/category/satanism-witchcraft-and-the-occult/page/4/)
are you asserting that Cthulhu, Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, etc. are not depicted by HPL as "dark" and "evil"?
When you mentioned how " the Cult of Cthulhu brings the entire world’s knowledge together, consciously distilling that which is fruitful for the betterment of mankind", I couldn't help thinking "He left off 'as food' from the end of that sentence!", and being reminded of the classic Twilight Zone episode with a book called To Serve Man (which turns out to be a cookbook).
How can there be "old cobwebs and dust of rituals long long facing extermination" derived from something less than a hundred years old?
Anyway, I am still waiting for an explanation of what HPL's work has to do with Thelema or AC.
YOU DON'T SEE
Darkness is knowledge.
You imagine a 'cult' where there are just thought forms. In the end nothing exists.
All you are creating is made from YOUR own cloth. Breathe in. Breathe out. Leave but don't leave me. Look around and choose your own ground.
And so one. Forever more.
Christ. Buddha. The Great Old Ones. TIAMAT. All one and the same.
In the end there is just one thing:
ATU XXI or Krishna, or, maybe, Ayin Soph ;-))
PS just dropping a last a hint 😉
There is no dark side OF the MOON, really. No dark side of life AT ALL.
There is just: Fun. Imagination. WILL. JOY. SPLENDOUR:
The only thing that makes it look light is the sun. (quote: Punk floyd)
We are talking about the same "Cult of Cthulhu", aren't we?
The one invented in a series of short fiction published in Weird Tales in the 1930s by American author Howard Philips Lovecraft, describing fictional ancient, malevolent unspeakably evil entities? The short stories that are the sole possible source of information about the fictional "Great Old Ones", since HPL made them up in the course of writing these stories?
I don't "imagine" anything at all about this imaginary cult, but am pretty familiar with those stories; you seem to be describing something else by the same name. This thread has had one good result anyway- it has reminded me i haven't read the complete works of HPL in a year or so, and that i ought to soon.
In any case, you don't seem very interested in discussing anything, TLM, more in posting hippy-dippy pseudo-profound platitudes.
If anyone has anything to post about any claimed connection between HPL and AC/Thelema, which i thought was the topic here, I'd be interested to read it.
Also, are there other occult/religious groups based on fictional religions? The only other example i can think of is the neo-pagan Church of All Worlds, inspired by Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land.
To quote the venerable sage Homer J. Simpson, "No offense...but when they were handing out religions, you must've been out taking a whiz."
No, "we" are just pontificating, pretending to teach us mortals, pulling our legs and other appendages, and generally running amuk. Alert! There's another one loose amongst us ... probably an older, better known one, reincarnated (again) in the same old ape's name.
Thoth’s Little Helper, I am not quite sure if you are being serious with us & not simply pulling our legs, or else are maybe just simply a bit nuts (no offence ;D)?
And “… don’t be afraid to care”: Would you say that, as portrayed anywhere by H.P. Lovecraft (or even if as not portrayed by HPL - if you disagree, please comment) the denizens of the Cthulhu mythos can be said to care, i.e. feel any compassion, for and towards humanity?
(“… & balanced on the biggest wave, we race towards an early grave”)
- Surfadelically yours
N Joy
Today is the 125th anniversary of the birth of Howard Phillips Lovecraft of Providence, Rhode Island.
Happy HPL-day to all lashtal-ians, and a hearty "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn" to all the tentacle-cultists.
To mark HPL's birthday, I thought to list a few of my favourite quotes of his. One of them is extracted from the beginning of Beyond the Wall of Sleep, and I have always found the opening of the story stirs the imagination:
… From my experience, I cannot doubt but that man, when lost to terrestrial consciousness, is indeed sojurning in another and uncorporeal life of far different nature from the life we know, and of which only the slightest and most indistinct memories exist after waking… We may guess that in dreams life, matter, and vitality, as the earth knows such things, are not necessarily constant; and that time and space do not exist as our waking selves comprehend them. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on this terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.
A sense of intrusion via the matrix of creative imagination was expressed by Lovecraft in a letter to Clark Ashton Smith of October 17th, 1930, and again it's worth quoting on this occasion:
…The true function of phantasy is to give the imagination a ground for limitless expansion, & to satisfy aesthetically the sincere & burning curiosity and sense of awe which a sensitive minority of mankind feel towards the alluring & provocative abysses of unplumbed space and unguessed entity which press in upon the known world from unknown infinities & in unknown relationships of time, space, matter,force, dimensionality, & consciousness.
Somewhere in his five-volume Selected Letters - I regret not being able at present to cite the source - Lovectaft had this to say about his stories:
All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time by another race who, in practising black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on the outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again.
Elsewhere in his letters )25 March 1933) Lovecraft remarked on myth-cycles which had an affinity to his own:
Only the other day my New Orleans friend E. Hoffman Price discovered an intensely picturesque myth-cycle dealing with the earth’s early aeons, the lost continents of Kusha (Atlantis) and Shalmali (Lemuria) and the peopling of the earth from elder planets. There is talk of a secret book in some Eastern shrine, parts of which are older than the earth… Price assures me it is actual folklore and promises to send further particulars.
There's a great deal that's interesting in Lovecraft's work.
I heartily agree with you , Michael.
The famous "black magic" quote is apocryphal, and most likely gained currency from August Derleth's introduction to The Dunwich Horror and Other Stories; that's where i first read it:
It's also interesting that Lovecraft was a staunch atheist and materialist.
For a guy with a first name of "Howard," he really managed to make his name sound so dark and mysterious: "HP Lovecraft" sounds somewhere in the vicinity of a thousand times cooler than "Howie Lovecraft."
It's also interesting that Lovecraft was a staunch atheist and materialist.
For a guy with a first name of "Howard," he really managed to make his name sound so dark and mysterious: "HP Lovecraft" sounds somewhere in the vicinity of a thousand times cooler than "Howie Lovecraft."
I doubt that Lovecraft was concerned with "being cool".
Having read the five volumes of Selected Letters, it's not exactly a surprise to me that Lovecraft was an atheist and a materialist. I don't see what's "interesting" about it, but then you and I have very different ideas of what's "interesting" and what isn't.
In terms of the usual tennis, can this be “Advantage Staley”?? Los, your serve I believe...?
Me, I’m still waiting for a resolution or at least clarification of Replies #18 with the latter half of #19.
N Joy
Jamie, this isn't a tennis match. Los made a remark, and I responded to it; that's all.
Never mind; the US Open will be along soon to slake your thirst.
Agreed with Toths little Monkey