Table Of Contents
Myth: Lovecraft was a reclusive stay-at-home who never left New England
Myth: Lovecraft was a homosexual
Myth: August Derleth's "Posthumous collaborations"
Myth: "Hastur the Unspeakable" was an invention of Lovecraft's
Myth: Lovecraft's Black Magic Quote
Myth: The Necronomicon is real
Myth: Lovecraft's father was a Freemason
Myth: Lovecraft's inspiration for his creations came from the mythology of ancient Sumer
Myth: Lovecraft (or his wife, Sonia) was associated with Aleister Crowley
As a matter of fact - although of course I always knew that pederasty was a disgusting custom of many ancient nations - I never heard of homosexuality as an actual instinct till I was over thirty . . . which beats your record! It is possible, I think that this perversion occurs more frequently in some periods than in others - owing to obscure biological & psychological causes. Decadent ages - when psychology is unsettled - seem to favor it. Of course - in ancient times the extent of the practice of pederasty (as a custom which most simply accepted blindly, without any special inclination) cannot be taken as any measure of the extent of actual psychological perversion.
"I found myself faced by names and terms that I had heard elsewhere in the most hideous of connexions - Yuggoth, Great Cthulhu, Tsathoggua, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Azathoth, Hastur, Yian, Leng, the Lake of Hali, Bethmoora, the Yellow Sign, L'mur-Kathulos, Bran, and the Magnum Innominandum - and was drawn back through nameless aeons and inconceivable dimensions to worlds of elder, outer entity at which the crazed author of the Necronomicon had only guessed in the vaguest way."
"The pattern of the Mythos is a pattern that is basic in the history of mankind, representing as it does the primal struggle between good and evil; in this, it is essentially similar to the Christian Mythos, especially relating to the expulsion of Satan from Eden and Satan's lasting power of evil. `All my stories, unconnected as they may be,' wrote Lovecraft, `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 outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again.'"
"Upon congratulating HPL upon his work, he answered: `You will, of course, realize that all my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on one fundamental lore or legend: that this world was inhabited at one time by another race, who in practicing black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside, ever ready to take possession of this earth again.'"
At no point in Lovecraft's tales does he give a physical description of the Elder Sign. He mentions it a scant four times, and these seem to imply that it is a hand gesture. In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith dated November 7, 1930, Lovecraft ends with the following comment:
"Again thanking you in Tsathoggua's name for the recent shipment, & hoping to see more items from your pen ere long, I append the Elder Sign & the Seal of N'gah, given in the Dark Cycle of Y'hu."
Following
this Lovecraft signed his name ("Ec'h-Pi-El") and drew two peculiar figures.
The latter, the Seal of N'gah, looks something like a stag beetle, having six
legs and three horns. The former, the Elder Sign, looks something like the
branch of a pine or fir tree, and is shown to the right. The misconception
that the Elder Sign is a pentagram with a flaming eye in the center is
probably due to August Derleth's description of it in his The Lurker at the
Threshold.
Dr. Stanislaus Hinterstoisser...wrote to me, via Carl [Tausk], telling me that he could not go into details about the source of his knowledge about Lovecraft's father, but that he could state categorically not only that Winfield Lovecraft was an Egyptian Freemason, but that he possessed at least two magical works, the famous Picatrix of Maslama ibn Ahma al-Magritit, also known as pseudo-Magriti, and Godziher's Book of the Essence of the Soul.
Lovecraft | Sumer |
---|---|
Cthulhu | Ctha-lu, Kutulu |
Azathoth | Azag-thoth |
Shub-Niggurath | Shub Ishniggarab |
That a reclusive author of short stories who lived in a quiet neighborhood in New England and the manic, infamous Master Magician who called the world his home, should have somehow met in the sandy wastes of some forgotten civilization seems incredible. That they should both have become Prophets and Forerunners of a New Aeon of Man's history is equally, if not more, unbelievable. Yet, with H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley, the unbelievable was a commonplace of life. These two men, both acclaimed as geniuses by their followers and admirers, and who never actually met, stretched their legs across the world, and in the Seven League Boots of the mind they did meet, and on common soil . . . . Sumeria.
In 1918 Crowley was in New York. As always, he was trying to establish his literary reputation, and was contributing to The International and Vanity Fair. Sonia Greene was an energetic and ambitious Jewish émigré with literary ambitions, and she had joined a dinner and lecture club called "Walker's Sunrise Club" (?!); it was there that she first encountered Crowley, who had been invited to give a talk on modern poetry.... Crowley did not waste time as far as women were concerned; they met on an irregular basis for some months.