Lovecraft Excerpts.
Dec. 7th, 2004 05:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
masque12The following are excerpts from essays I'm writing on Lovecraft. Initially it was going to be one paper, but I may split it up into a series of articles, as it's turning out to be really long. This is basically just notes, but what the hell, have a look, if you want.
H.P. Lovecraft was a staunch materialist, who happened to write weird fiction that has fascinated occultists for years. While his stories leave something to be desired in terms of plot, he was a genius when it came to creating a sense of foreboding. In his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature” he talked about how the best horror stories evoked “cosmic dread”, the sense that there were things that were simply WRONG in the universe. The best of his stories evoke this very sense. It is notable that many of Lovecraft’s stories aren’t very scary when one reads them, but they can wake one up in the middle of the night when the sense of impending doom and futility creep into one’s dreams. The ideas and concepts present in his work has a way of sinking into one’s subconscious and breeding doubt about the true nature of our reality.
The Necronomicon is probably the most notorious grimoire that was never written. Invented by HP Lovecraft as a literary device in his fiction, it has captured the imagination of thousands. Numerous versions of it have been created, but none can live up to the idea of the book as described in the Lovecraftian fiction. Lovecraft himself acknowledged this; when asked by a fan if he would ever write it, he said "If anyone were to try to write the Necronomicon, it would disappoint all those who have shuddered at cryptic references to it." This is precisely the source of its power.
The Necronomicon has power because it does NOT exist, it can be thought of as a kind of Platonic ideal of the "forbidden tome." The idea that one might stumble across it in a dusty bookstore somewhere has power, and sends shivers down the spine. The little teaser excerpts that Lovecraft put into his work just add to the mystique, hinting at forbidden secrets just beyond one's grasp. Nothing in the George Hay or Simon versions of the book can compare with lines like, "The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again." Just reading that sends a tremor of greed and anticipation down one's spine.
The fact that there is no "real" Necronomicon frees one up to incorporate the idea of it into their magical work without fetters. One doesn't have to be distracted with whether one is doing it "right", as is often the case in magical circles, where people argue endlessly about the interpretations of traditional works. One can simply go through the Mythos lore and be inspired. In fact, this technique will probably yield results more effective than any of the various editions available for sale. It allows the practitioner to fully utilize the Mythos as filtered through their own subjective universe, making it more real to them. As with the fiction, the most important aspect of Lovecraftian magic is mood. Ideally one wants to evoke the atmosphere of Lovecraft’s fiction at its best, when it gives one the sense that there is something wrong in the universe, or that there are hidden truths waiting to be found just beyond the mundane geometry of our own reality. Props, costumes, and snippets from the fiction help this enormously. Make replicas of the Mythos sigils such as the Elder Sign, craft a Shining Trapezohedron. Combine elements from stories that have nothing to do with each other, such as “The Haunter of the Dark” and “Beyond the Gates of the Silver Key” if it will suit your purposes.
*********
In Lovecraft, there are two main types of people that end up confronting the dark entities of the Mythos. There are the ignorant, backwoods people, who enact dark rites out of a slavish devotion to the Great Old Ones. They tend to be mindless savages, not caring about what damage they cause to themselves and others, they are driven by the dreams sent to them by Cthulhu, and are basically part of a hive mind. They are used by the Old Ones as tools to enable the Old Ones to come back to our world, and will be discarded when this goal is achieved.
There are also those whom are of a more intellectual bent, who are seeking after knowledge and power for themselves. Joseph Curwen and Randolph Carter are prime examples of this kind of person, the true Lovecraftian hero. These people decide that they will seek their initiation, the forbidden knowledge they can gain access to through the Mythos, and are willing to deal with all of the terrors that will come forth in that pursuit. These Lovecraftian heroes can be viewed as seeking after Runa in the Lovecraftian sense. Curwen and Carter are two examples of how one can succeed or fail in one's initiation. Curwen ends up being destroyed by the denizens of the "World of Horrors", but Carter ends up following his initiation to its ultimate goal, and in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" he ends up in effect becoming one of the Great Old Ones.
*********
Lovecraftian Magic
I. Introduction - Lovecraft
A. materialist.
B. ideas from dreams.
C. ideas about good weird fiction.
"I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism – religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality." - H.P. Lovecraft
So he always said. But why then does his work have such a fascination for those who practice magic? Why do people continue to seek the "Necronomicon", when anyone knows that it is a fictional construct? Lovecraft blended dream visions, Modern notions of science and existential dread in ways that have inspired writers and occultists ever since. Lovecraft's cosmology is so appealing because it is based on the presumptions of our world, not on the antiquated medieval notions present in the "real" grimoires of the past.
II. Story techniques of Lovecraft
A. mixing fact and fiction.
B. sharing with fellow writers.
C. never giving details.
III. Necronomicon as hoax.
A. People write to Lovecraft wanting a copy.
B. Hoax ads.
C. Written hoaxes.
D. Usefulness of Necronomicon as idea.
IV. Occult Lovecraft
A. Occult fascination with Lovecraft.
B. Satanic/Setian uses and associations.
C. Mythos worldview.
V. Magical applications.
A. Techniques to use.
B. Crafting props.
C. Atmosphere in chamber.
D. Dreaming.
E. Barbarous words.
VI. Mythos and Aeonic Words
A. "Hidden" truths in Mythos - Runa.
B. Objective/Subjective - Remanifestation.
C. Initiation - TtGotSK - Xeper.
*********
Lovecraft quotes:
Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species -- if separate species we be -- for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family"
There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we learn and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Celephaïs"
I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness...
H.P. Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.
H.P. Lovecraft "Herbert West -- Re-Animator"
... for doubt and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Ex Oblivione"
Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but we recognized it as the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred...
H.P. Lovecraft, The first mention of the Necronomicon, in "The Hound"
From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"
We were not, as I have said, in any sense childishly superstitious, but scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy. In this case an overwhelming preponderance of evidence from numerous authentic sources pointed to the tenacious existence of certain forces of great power and, so far as the human point of view is concerned, exceptional malignancy.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"
The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model"
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. ("In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.")
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
Gross stupidity, falsehood, and muddled thinking are not dream; and form no escape from life to a mind trained above their own level.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Silver Key"
I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you.
H.P. Lovecraft, A letter from Simon Orne, in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
Memory sometimes makes merciful deletions.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They had trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraver, but who bath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.
H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror"
But he was still content, for at one mighty venture he was to learn all. Damnation, he reflected, is but a word bandied about by those whose blindness leads them to condemn all who can see, even with a single eye.
H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
He wondered at the vast conceit of those who had babbled of the malignant Ancient Ones, as if They could pause from their everlasting dreams to wreak a wrath on mankind. As well, he thought, might a mammoth pause to visit frantic vengeance on an angleworm.
H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
The Man of Truth has learned that Illusion is the One Reality, and that Substance is the Great Imposter.
H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present, and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain -- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The one test of the really weird is simply this -- whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would set aside all the intellectual progress of years, and plunge us back into the darkness of mediaeval disbelief.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to the Providence Evening News, September 5 1914
As I have always said, missionaries are infernal nuisances who ought to be kept at home -- dull, solemn asses without scientific acumen or historical perspective ...
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Mrs F.C. Clark, September 12-13 1925
When my stuff is done it always disappoints me -- never quite presenting the fulness of the picture I have in mind -- but since a crude fixation of the image is better than nothing, I plug along & do the feeble best I can.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith, September 20 1925
As to what is meant by "weird" -- and of course weirdness is by no means confined to horror -- I should say that the real criterion is a strong impression of the suspension of natural laws or the presence of unseen worlds or forces close at hand.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Wilfred Blanch Talman, August 24 1926
Everything in the world outside primitive needs is the chance result of inessential causes and random associations, and there's no real or solid criterion by which one can condemn any particular manifestation of human restlessness.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to James F. Morton, November 17 1926
Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Fransworth Wright, July 5 1927
I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Mr. Harris, February 25 to March 1 1929
One thing I'll say for labour; & that is, that it isn't as offensive as the corresponding mutatory force which now threatens culture in America. I refer to the force of business as a dominating motive in life, & a persistent absorber of the strongest creative energies of the American people.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Elizabeth Toldridge, June 10 1929
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Robert E. Howard, October 4 1930
The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination...
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Frank Belknap Long, February 27 1931
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Maurice W. Moe, August 3 1931
To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.
H.P. Lovecraft
At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.
H.P. Lovecraft
The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.
H.P. Lovecraft
H.P. Lovecraft was a staunch materialist, who happened to write weird fiction that has fascinated occultists for years. While his stories leave something to be desired in terms of plot, he was a genius when it came to creating a sense of foreboding. In his essay “Supernatural Horror in Literature” he talked about how the best horror stories evoked “cosmic dread”, the sense that there were things that were simply WRONG in the universe. The best of his stories evoke this very sense. It is notable that many of Lovecraft’s stories aren’t very scary when one reads them, but they can wake one up in the middle of the night when the sense of impending doom and futility creep into one’s dreams. The ideas and concepts present in his work has a way of sinking into one’s subconscious and breeding doubt about the true nature of our reality.
The Necronomicon is probably the most notorious grimoire that was never written. Invented by HP Lovecraft as a literary device in his fiction, it has captured the imagination of thousands. Numerous versions of it have been created, but none can live up to the idea of the book as described in the Lovecraftian fiction. Lovecraft himself acknowledged this; when asked by a fan if he would ever write it, he said "If anyone were to try to write the Necronomicon, it would disappoint all those who have shuddered at cryptic references to it." This is precisely the source of its power.
The Necronomicon has power because it does NOT exist, it can be thought of as a kind of Platonic ideal of the "forbidden tome." The idea that one might stumble across it in a dusty bookstore somewhere has power, and sends shivers down the spine. The little teaser excerpts that Lovecraft put into his work just add to the mystique, hinting at forbidden secrets just beyond one's grasp. Nothing in the George Hay or Simon versions of the book can compare with lines like, "The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again." Just reading that sends a tremor of greed and anticipation down one's spine.
The fact that there is no "real" Necronomicon frees one up to incorporate the idea of it into their magical work without fetters. One doesn't have to be distracted with whether one is doing it "right", as is often the case in magical circles, where people argue endlessly about the interpretations of traditional works. One can simply go through the Mythos lore and be inspired. In fact, this technique will probably yield results more effective than any of the various editions available for sale. It allows the practitioner to fully utilize the Mythos as filtered through their own subjective universe, making it more real to them. As with the fiction, the most important aspect of Lovecraftian magic is mood. Ideally one wants to evoke the atmosphere of Lovecraft’s fiction at its best, when it gives one the sense that there is something wrong in the universe, or that there are hidden truths waiting to be found just beyond the mundane geometry of our own reality. Props, costumes, and snippets from the fiction help this enormously. Make replicas of the Mythos sigils such as the Elder Sign, craft a Shining Trapezohedron. Combine elements from stories that have nothing to do with each other, such as “The Haunter of the Dark” and “Beyond the Gates of the Silver Key” if it will suit your purposes.
*********
In Lovecraft, there are two main types of people that end up confronting the dark entities of the Mythos. There are the ignorant, backwoods people, who enact dark rites out of a slavish devotion to the Great Old Ones. They tend to be mindless savages, not caring about what damage they cause to themselves and others, they are driven by the dreams sent to them by Cthulhu, and are basically part of a hive mind. They are used by the Old Ones as tools to enable the Old Ones to come back to our world, and will be discarded when this goal is achieved.
There are also those whom are of a more intellectual bent, who are seeking after knowledge and power for themselves. Joseph Curwen and Randolph Carter are prime examples of this kind of person, the true Lovecraftian hero. These people decide that they will seek their initiation, the forbidden knowledge they can gain access to through the Mythos, and are willing to deal with all of the terrors that will come forth in that pursuit. These Lovecraftian heroes can be viewed as seeking after Runa in the Lovecraftian sense. Curwen and Carter are two examples of how one can succeed or fail in one's initiation. Curwen ends up being destroyed by the denizens of the "World of Horrors", but Carter ends up following his initiation to its ultimate goal, and in "Through the Gates of the Silver Key" he ends up in effect becoming one of the Great Old Ones.
*********
Lovecraftian Magic
I. Introduction - Lovecraft
A. materialist.
B. ideas from dreams.
C. ideas about good weird fiction.
"I am, indeed, an absolute materialist so far as actual belief goes; with not a shred of credence in any form of supernaturalism – religion, spiritualism, transcendentalism, metempsychosis, or immortality." - H.P. Lovecraft
So he always said. But why then does his work have such a fascination for those who practice magic? Why do people continue to seek the "Necronomicon", when anyone knows that it is a fictional construct? Lovecraft blended dream visions, Modern notions of science and existential dread in ways that have inspired writers and occultists ever since. Lovecraft's cosmology is so appealing because it is based on the presumptions of our world, not on the antiquated medieval notions present in the "real" grimoires of the past.
II. Story techniques of Lovecraft
A. mixing fact and fiction.
B. sharing with fellow writers.
C. never giving details.
III. Necronomicon as hoax.
A. People write to Lovecraft wanting a copy.
B. Hoax ads.
C. Written hoaxes.
D. Usefulness of Necronomicon as idea.
IV. Occult Lovecraft
A. Occult fascination with Lovecraft.
B. Satanic/Setian uses and associations.
C. Mythos worldview.
V. Magical applications.
A. Techniques to use.
B. Crafting props.
C. Atmosphere in chamber.
D. Dreaming.
E. Barbarous words.
VI. Mythos and Aeonic Words
A. "Hidden" truths in Mythos - Runa.
B. Objective/Subjective - Remanifestation.
C. Initiation - TtGotSK - Xeper.
*********
Lovecraft quotes:
Life is a hideous thing, and from the background behind what we know of it peer daemoniacal hints of truth which make it sometimes a thousandfold more hideous. Science, already oppressive with its shocking revelations, will perhaps be the ultimate exterminator of our human species -- if separate species we be -- for its reserve of unguessed horrors could never be borne by mortal brains if loosed upon the world.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Facts Concerning the Late Arthur Jermyn and His Family"
There are not many persons who know what wonders are opened to them in the stories and visions of their youth; for when as children we learn and dream, we think but half-formed thoughts, and when as men we try to remember, we are dulled and prosaic with the poison of life.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Celephaïs"
I have harnessed the shadows that stride from world to world to sow death and madness...
H.P. Lovecraft, "From Beyond"
Memories and possibilities are ever more hideous than realities.
H.P. Lovecraft "Herbert West -- Re-Animator"
... for doubt and secrecy are the lure of lures, and no new horror can be more terrible than the daily torture of the commonplace.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Ex Oblivione"
Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but we recognized it as the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred...
H.P. Lovecraft, The first mention of the Necronomicon, in "The Hound"
From even the greatest of horrors irony is seldom absent.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"
We were not, as I have said, in any sense childishly superstitious, but scientific study and reflection had taught us that the known universe of three dimensions embraces the merest fraction of the whole cosmos of substance and energy. In this case an overwhelming preponderance of evidence from numerous authentic sources pointed to the tenacious existence of certain forces of great power and, so far as the human point of view is concerned, exceptional malignancy.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Shunned House"
The only saving grace of the present is that it's too damned stupid to question the past very closely.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Pickman's Model"
The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far. H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
The sciences, each straining in its own direction, have hitherto harmed us little; but some day the piecing together of dissociated knowledge will open up such terrifying vistas of reality, and of our frightful position therein, that we shall either go mad from the revelation or flee from the deadly light into the peace and safety of a new dark age.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. ("In his house at R'lyeh dead Cthulhu waits dreaming.")
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Call of Cthulhu"
Gross stupidity, falsehood, and muddled thinking are not dream; and form no escape from life to a mind trained above their own level.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Silver Key"
I say to you againe, doe not call up Any that you can not put downe; by the Which I meane, Any that can in Turne call up somewhat against you, whereby your Powerfullest Devices may not be of use. Ask of the Lesser, lest the Greater shall not wish to Answer, and shall commande more than you.
H.P. Lovecraft, A letter from Simon Orne, in "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
Memory sometimes makes merciful deletions.
H.P. Lovecraft, "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward"
Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth's masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, they walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen. Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again. He knows where They had trod earth's fields, and where They still tread them, and why no one can behold Them as They tread. By Their smell can men sometimes know Them near, but of Their semblance can no man know, saving only in the features of those They have begotten on mankind; and of those are there many sorts, differing in likeness from man's truest eidolon to that shape without sight or substance which is Them. They walk unseen and foul in lonely places where the Words have been spoken and the Rites howled through at their Seasons. The wind gibbers with Their voices, and the earth mutters with Their consciousness. They bend the forest and crush the city, yet may not forest or city behold the hand that smites. Kadath in the cold waste hath known Them, and what man knows Kadath? The ice desert of the South and the sunken isles of Ocean hold stones whereon Their seal is engraver, but who bath seen the deep frozen city or the sealed tower long garlanded with seaweed and barnacles? Great Cthulhu is Their cousin, yet can he spy Them only dimly. Iä! Shub-Niggurath! As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They reign again.
H. P. Lovecraft, "The Dunwich Horror"
But he was still content, for at one mighty venture he was to learn all. Damnation, he reflected, is but a word bandied about by those whose blindness leads them to condemn all who can see, even with a single eye.
H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
He wondered at the vast conceit of those who had babbled of the malignant Ancient Ones, as if They could pause from their everlasting dreams to wreak a wrath on mankind. As well, he thought, might a mammoth pause to visit frantic vengeance on an angleworm.
H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
The Man of Truth has learned that Illusion is the One Reality, and that Substance is the Great Imposter.
H.P. Lovecraft and E. Hoffman Price, "Through the Gates of the Silver Key"
The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The appeal of the spectrally macabre is generally narrow because it demands from the reader a certain degree of imagination and a capacity for detachment from every-day life.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Children will always be afraid of the dark, and men with minds sensitive to hereditary impulse will always tremble at the thought of the hidden and fathomless worlds of strange life which may pulsate in the gulfs beyond the stars, or press hideously upon our own globe in unholy dimensions which only the dead and the moonstruck can glimpse.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
Creative minds are uneven, and the best of fabrics have their dull spots.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The true weird tale has something more than secret murder, bloody bones, or a sheeted form clanking chains according to rule. A certain atmosphere of breathless and unexplainable dread of outer, unknown forces must be present, and there must be a hint, expressed with a seriousness and portentousness becoming its subject, of that most terrible conception of the human brain -- a malign and particular suspension or defeat of those fixed laws of Nature which are our only safeguard against the assaults of chaos and the daemons of unplumbed space.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
The one test of the really weird is simply this -- whether or not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim.
H.P. Lovecraft, "Supernatural Horror in Literature"
It is an unfortunate fact that every man who seeks to disseminate knowledge must contend not only against ignorance itself, but against false instruction as well. No sooner do we deem ourselves free from a particularly gross superstition, than we are confronted by some enemy to learning who would set aside all the intellectual progress of years, and plunge us back into the darkness of mediaeval disbelief.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to the Providence Evening News, September 5 1914
As I have always said, missionaries are infernal nuisances who ought to be kept at home -- dull, solemn asses without scientific acumen or historical perspective ...
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Mrs F.C. Clark, September 12-13 1925
When my stuff is done it always disappoints me -- never quite presenting the fulness of the picture I have in mind -- but since a crude fixation of the image is better than nothing, I plug along & do the feeble best I can.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith, September 20 1925
As to what is meant by "weird" -- and of course weirdness is by no means confined to horror -- I should say that the real criterion is a strong impression of the suspension of natural laws or the presence of unseen worlds or forces close at hand.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Wilfred Blanch Talman, August 24 1926
Everything in the world outside primitive needs is the chance result of inessential causes and random associations, and there's no real or solid criterion by which one can condemn any particular manifestation of human restlessness.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to James F. Morton, November 17 1926
Now all my tales are based on the fundamental premise that common human laws and interests and emotions have no validity or significance in the vast cosmos-at-large.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Fransworth Wright, July 5 1927
I am disillusioned enough to know that no man's opinion on any subject is worth a damn unless backed up with enough genuine information to make him really know what he's talking about.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Mr. Harris, February 25 to March 1 1929
One thing I'll say for labour; & that is, that it isn't as offensive as the corresponding mutatory force which now threatens culture in America. I refer to the force of business as a dominating motive in life, & a persistent absorber of the strongest creative energies of the American people.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Elizabeth Toldridge, June 10 1929
Bunch together a group of people deliberately chosen for strong religious feelings, and you have a practical guarantee of dark morbidities expressed in crime, perversion, and insanity.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Robert E. Howard, October 4 1930
The process of delving into the black abyss is to me the keenest form of fascination...
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Frank Belknap Long, February 27 1931
If religion were true, its followers would not try to bludgeon their young into an artificial conformity; but would merely insist on their unbending quest for truth, irrespective of artificial backgrounds or practical consequences. With such an honest and inflexible openness to evidence, they could not fail to receive any real truth which might be manifesting itself around them. The fact that religionists do not follow this honourable course, but cheat at their game by invoking juvenile quasi-hypnosis, is enough to destroy their pretensions in my eyes even if their absurdity were not manifest in every other direction.
H.P. Lovecraft, In a letter to Maurice W. Moe, August 3 1931
To the scientist there is the joy in pursuing truth which nearly counteracts the depressing revelations of truth.
H.P. Lovecraft
At night, when the objective world has slunk back into its cavern and left dreamers to their own, there come inspirations and capabilities impossible at any less magical and quiet hour. No one knows whether or not he is a writer unless he has tried writing at night.
H.P. Lovecraft
The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.
H.P. Lovecraft
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Date: 2004-12-07 12:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-12-07 01:40 pm (UTC)Keep me in the loop! I'd love to read the progress on this work/workings.
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Date: 2004-12-11 07:47 am (UTC)