Helen Reyes Wrote:Is Mind Parasites the alternate title for Space Vampires? I read the latter but it didn't strike me as deeply Lovecraftian in any way, although I know Colin Wilson even authored his own version of the Necronomicon so he is presumably a fan of some sort. His Occult was very good imho, much better than his science fiction vampire story, but I could never finish his Philosopher's Stone.

On nephilim and angels, it's interesting to note the appearance of giants in Britain in the time set before the arrival of the Trojans in I think it was Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniæ, the Cyclops in Homer and Tartarus, "an abyss under Hades where the Titans were imprisoned, Latin, from Greek Tartaros, of obscure origin," which is probably cognate, imho, with the Tartaro giant cycle in Basque legend, see http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/basque/bl/index.htm ... There is a regal connexion, just as there is an aristocratic connexion in Peter Levenda's version of Andrija Puharich's The Nine.

I think Springmeier talks about this sort of unholy alliance between people and demonic forces in Bloodlines, doesn't he? Something about demonic alien vibrations becoming encoded in the genetics of certain families...

On the return to barbarity, I'm not sure Lovecraft saw it that way, he was probably more interested in the idea of escaping the confines of time. He managed to escape the real barbarity in any case, because he died in 1937, before we learned what modern people are fully capable of doing to one another. Or maybe I didn't understand David's point precisely.

Quote:Lovecraft also gives a brief description of the world after its
re-inheritance by the Great Old Ones:

“The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would
have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild 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.”2

Quote:Perhaps Lovecraft himself has left us with a rather
unsatisfactory explanation of the true provenance of the
Cthulhu Mythos. Certainly, it appears to hold a great value for
those individuals currently practising ‘the Black Arts’. In the
words of Kenneth Grant, the present Outer Head of the O.T.O.,
“Lovecraft’s great contribution to the occult lay in his
demonstration — indirect as it may have been — of the
power so to control the dreaming mind that it is capable of
projection into other dimensions, and of discovering that
there are doors through which flow — in the form of
inspiration, intuition and vision —the genuine current of
creative magical consciousness.”11
Lovecraft’s occult experiences, disguised as fiction, reveal
the intrusion of forces in complete sympathy with those
archetypes and symbols brought through by Blavatsky and
Crowley, whilst in contact with astral entities ‘from beyond’.
He had become the receiver and transmitter of hidden
knowledge, though in Lovecraft’s case, the process was
intuitive rather than conscious. The internal self-division thus
engendered may have been the root cause of Lovecraft’s mental
and physical peculiarities; or it may have been that these very
traits, which set him apart from the rest of society, made him
the ideal focus for the channelling of these ultra-mundane
forces.

David Guyatt Wrote:

Helen Reyes Wrote:...Or maybe I didn't understand David's point precisely.

(my bolding)

Helen, I know too little about Lovecraft to make real judgements about him, but there are others of the ilk of Crowley etc., who seem to positively wish to turn the clock back and recapture the "Old Ones". A serious Qabalist would eventually, and when sufficiently developed, have to tread through the paths of the Tree of Death, but it would be mighty dangerous work, for therein lies the path of despair and utter insanity. No one in their right mind would wish to meddle with the Collective Shadow, to bring Jungian terminology into this matter. But there are many out there who do believe they can harness these forces and, indeed, unleash them into our world. In this they have a will to power. In other words a very dangerous psychological disposition.

Quote:Escaping the confines of time can be advantageous but where you "visit" in that other place, that other timelessness, is also not without considerable danger - even while it can produce many lasting and very positive experiences. From what little I have read of Lovecraft, his ability to enter those other realms was said to be instinctive and intuitive. BUt I'm not convinced about that. The fact that he was drawn to the most negative and foul parts of it indicates something altogether different. And I have to wonder if the raging insanity that inflicted Lovecraft's father might have been passed along to his son?

Quote:There is also that hint given in one of the two .pdf's you kindly posted that someone (unidentified) was passing Lovecraft extremely rare and exotic occult literature that focused his interest and abilities in distinctly negative directions.

Quote:But I may, of course, be quite wrong about this. It's just that for me personally, I find it almost impossible to understand why anyone would voluntarily delve into these areas. If one had to use words to describe it, it would be "positive evil". Take, for example, Lovecraft's statement (which I extracted from the Cults of Cthulhu page 10:

Quote:Lovecraft also gives a brief description of the world after its
re-inheritance by the Great Old Ones:

“The time would be easy to know, for then mankind would
have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild 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.”2

Quote:And then we have Kenneth Grant's observation (on pages 23-4)

Quote:Perhaps Lovecraft himself has left us with a rather
unsatisfactory explanation of the true provenance of the
Cthulhu Mythos. Certainly, it appears to hold a great value for
those individuals currently practising ‘the Black Arts’. In the
words of Kenneth Grant, the present Outer Head of the O.T.O.,
“Lovecraft’s great contribution to the occult lay in his
demonstration — indirect as it may have been — of the
power so to control the dreaming mind that it is capable of
projection into other dimensions, and of discovering that
there are doors through which flow — in the form of
inspiration, intuition and vision —the genuine current of
creative magical consciousness.”11
Lovecraft’s occult experiences, disguised as fiction, reveal
the intrusion of forces in complete sympathy with those
archetypes and symbols brought through by Blavatsky and
Crowley, whilst in contact with astral entities ‘from beyond’.
He had become the receiver and transmitter of hidden
knowledge, though in Lovecraft’s case, the process was
intuitive rather than conscious. The internal self-division thus
engendered may have been the root cause of Lovecraft’s mental
and physical peculiarities; or it may have been that these very
traits, which set him apart from the rest of society, made him
the ideal focus for the channelling of these ultra-mundane
forces.

Were I to guess I would suggest that Lovecraft were deeply involved with someone or some others who had distinctly developed occult abilities and who focused his attention into certain obscure directions.

Quote:Changing the subject, I note what you say about the arrival of the rump of the Trojans in Britain - this being, I presume, after their defeat at the hands of the Achaeans and the subsequent sack of Troy. Although I appreciate that this derives from Greek mythology, I know that there is an occult tradition that this actually happened. However, Geoffrey of Monmouth's account is not believed by many scholars because it is argued that the idea of the Trojans coming to these isles was simply a means of elevating the royal bloodlines of those times. Are you aware o any other accounts besides Monmouth's? I have read it elsewhere where it has been stated as undeniable fact - but with no corroborating evidence given. I suspect that it is a Freemasonic continuation - and while many of these guys are often very good scholars, even so I would like to read other sources if they are available?

Charles Drago Wrote:Helen,

Barnes and Angell Streets are separate and distinct.

Lovecraft tours continue to be offered. He is to Providence what Poe is to Baltimore -- and of course Poe also prowled the same neighborhood in which Lovecraft lived and worked.

Something in the water, perhaps.

Quote:There is also that hint given in one of the two .pdf's you kindly posted that someone (unidentified) was passing Lovecraft extremely rare and exotic occult literature that focused his interest and abilities in distinctly negative directions.

Quote:Lovecraft received some correspondence regarding his publications in Weird Tales by one person who said he was ignorantly serving real forces in his stories.

Quote:Let's closely examine the material on Arab magick. I believe it leads to one conclusion.
Lovecraft had access to rare material on Arab magick and myths. Ignoring the possible
coincidental equivalence of Kutulu and Khadhulu there is still overwhelming evidence
supporting this proposal. Lovecraft used Irem in a manner that Parallels the Muqarribun
use before this information was generally available. The Rub al Khali (Roba el Khaliye)
is in truth important to the Muqarribun. The Jinn are exact counter parts of the "Old
Ones." Lovecraft's description of Alhazred is VERY consistent with the Arabic Meaning
of the "Mad Poet" even though this also was generally unknown in the 1930's. The Al
Azif (the howling of the Jinn) is obviously related to Alazred's title: "The One Who is
Possessed by Jinn and Whose Writings Are Inspired by Jinn." Al Azif being a book of
poetry is consistent with the fact that almost all mystical or prophetic writings in Arabic
are poems. Khadhulu's association with the sleeping Dragon of the Abyss is VERY close
to Lovecraft's Cthulhu who lays Dreaming in the Abyss (ocean). To my knowledge there
was nothing available (in print) about Khdhulu in English in the 1930's. All this seems to
indicate that Lovecraft had a source of information of Arabic magick and myths not
commonly accessible. It appears HPL expanded on some of the material, in this source,
in his fiction. Please note that this in no way detracts from his considerable creastivity.
HPL's stories are great not because of few isolated elements but rather because of the way
Lovecraft could blend the individual pieces into a whole.

David Guyatt Wrote:I just checked the foregoing semi-citation I made and it refers to comments made in Parker Ryan's essay on the Necronomicon in which he suggests that Lovecraft must've had access to a very rare Arabic text connected to the Necronomicon - apparently derived from Muqarribun magical practises - which he says were not available during Lovecraft's time (page 5).

...

Quote:Let's closely examine the material on Arab magick. I believe it leads to one conclusion. Lovecraft had access to rare material on Arab magick and myths. Ignoring the possible coincidental equivalence of Kutulu and Khadhulu there is still overwhelming evidence supporting this proposal. Lovecraft used Irem in a manner that Parallels the Muqarribun use before this information was generally available. The Rub al Khali (Roba el Khaliye) is in truth important to the Muqarribun. The Jinn are exact counter parts of the "Old Ones." Lovecraft's description of Alhazred is VERY consistent with the Arabic Meaning of the "Mad Poet" even though this also was generally unknown in the 1930's. The Al Azif (the howling of the Jinn) is obviously related to Alazred's title: "The One Who is Possessed by Jinn and Whose Writings Are Inspired by Jinn." Al Azif being a book of poetry is consistent with the fact that almost all mystical or prophetic writings in Arabic are poems. Khadhulu's association with the sleeping Dragon of the Abyss is VERY close to Lovecraft's Cthulhu who lays Dreaming in the Abyss (ocean). To my knowledge there was nothing available (in print) about Khdhulu in English in the 1930's. All this seems to indicate that Lovecraft had a source of information of Arabic magick and myths not commonly accessible. It appears HPL expanded on some of the material, in this source, in his fiction. Please note that this in no way detracts from his considerable creastivity. HPL's stories are great not because of few isolated elements but rather because of the way Lovecraft could blend the individual pieces into a whole.

I accept in advance that I may be adding two and two and coming up with five. However, largely due to the apparent obscurity of the Arabic magical traditions he appears to have had access to, my sense is that Lovecraft may actually have amounted to more than is publicly apparent.

Quote:It was one of Jung's analytical techniques to assess the state of an individuals active psychology by the fiction they write (amongst other applications). And the concern is that Lovecraft may have been promulgating, via his fiction, various aspects of Arabic left-hand magic with the purpose of stimulating in the Collective Unconscious of his readers the hidden dark regions in order to create a new pulse of life - a sort of proselytizing at arms length if you will. Can this happen unconsciously? Yes. But it seems more likely in view of the foregoing that Lovecraft probably knew what he was doing.

Quote:This certainly seems to be the undertone or thinking of Kenneth Grant and others who are, or have been, deeply involved in such practices themselves (which is why I think they are inclined to "adhere" to Lovecraft) - a coming together of like minds perhaps - and one reason I should think why certain Lovecraft's stories seem to be required reading by the Brotherhood of the Left Hand path (to lift the occult terminology used by Parker Ryan), whereas Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, for example, is not on their curriculum (I checked a Satanic online book list).

Quote:For what it's worth, this is the main concern I have with Lovecraft.

Quote:The Call of Cthulhu

Of such great powers or beings there may be conceivably a survival... a survival of a hugely remote period when...consciousness was manifest, perhaps, in shapes and forms long since withdrawn before the tide of advancing humanity... forms of which poetry and legend alone have caught a flying memory and called them gods, monsters, mythical beings of all sorts and kinds...
- ALGERNON BLACKWOOD


I. THE HORROR IN CLAY

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. 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. 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.

Quote:I've been researching Arab magick (and it connection to Lovecraft) for nearly 10 years so I won't be able to list every source I've used. However I should be able to give resource in which people interested can verify ALL the claims I make.

David Guyatt Wrote:I do have some insights and practical experience when it comes to dreams and speaking personally, I sincerely doubt this was the major source of his knowledge. Rather I have the impression that this was a useful device to cloak other developed abilities. Which is why it seems far more likely to me that he was able to access those timeless places in an ultra deep state of meditation, where his consciousness remained acute - his body virtually dormant - and with well practiced memory skills, he could have later written concise diary notes of his experiences and sensations - a so called "magical diary" (not something that would ever be made publicly available).

Quote:Meanwhile, this is what Parker Ryan states about his research efforts (page 10):

Quote:I've been researching Arab magick (and it connection to Lovecraft) for nearly 10 years so I won't be able to list every source I've used. However I should be able to give resource in which people interested can verify ALL the claims I make.

Which is the principal reason I was impressed with his conclusion that Lovecraft had access to a very rare treatise on Arab magical traditions - and if this was so, then probably he also had direct access to a teacher or lodge. It would be typical for an occult lodge to have its own library, some of which may have been very rare tombs indeed.

Quote:One such group who had great insights into Arabic magical techniques were, as you know, the Knights Templar - who went underground just over 700 years ago and arose again just prior to when the current Pope took office and forgave them declaring they were innocent of the charges brought against them (they had earlier issued a threat due to be enacted on their 700th anniversary if this absolution didn't take place - although no one knows outside of themselves and the Vatican what this threat represented).

Quote:And so I suspect we must probably agree to disagree on how Lovecraft may have come about his apparent knowledge. I doubt either of us will ever know one way or the other for certain.