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Underground > Temple >

Meddling with Powers Beyond Mortal Ken! (insert spooky music)

19:29 / 27.08.03

Wow. Haven't posted here in a while. I need some advice from the smartest group of degenerates on the net (yes I'm talking about Barbelith).

I am involved in a stage adaptation of 3 H.P. Lovecraft stories. Much of the text is lifted directly for his stories and including several of the incantations. From what I've heard, Lovecraft claimed it was all fiction, but he still took much of the magickal language from Crowley, and we all know about him, don't we. The weird part is Lovecraft removed all the vowels, much like the Qabbalists, which suggests to me that he placed at least some belief in it, otherwise why go to the trouble of neutralizing the incantations? Also an added complication is that the theatre where we are performing is known to have some spooks running around, one of whom spoke directly to me via an EVP recording session last year. Also, for what it's worth, we are performing on Halloween. Now, I don't expect to accidentally call up Yog-Sothoth and bring about the end of the world or anything, but as someone who was stabbed in the stomach with a broadsword the night my director said "Macbeth" I have a fair amount of respect for theatre superstitions. Any suggestions? Am I being paranoid?

20:15 / 27.08.03

Hell if it was me 1) id change the story as i find Lovecraft dull and insepid 2) Well as its you and going ahead with it , have Genish , Buddha and San Goku (or hanuman) waiting in the wings as the ultimate back up should any spooks , psychodramas or fiction-suits get out of control !

20:33 / 27.08.03

but he still took much of the magickal language from Crowley

... have you got a reference for that? I'm not so sure Lovecraft really took anything directly from western trad magic for his stories. I may very well be mistaken, but I've never come across this anywhere else.

To a degree your probably being paranoid, but then again, if you go about calling down multi-dimensional horrors from the unknown in a haunted building on the most amped-up night of the year, you can't rightly complain when the bad crazyness kicks in can you.

20:41 / 27.08.03

but he still took much of the magickal language from Crowley

... have you got a reference for that? I'm not so sure Lovecraft really took anything directly from western trad magic for his stories. I may very well be mistaken, but I've never come across this anywhere else.

I don't. I was just taking the director at his word.

trouser the trouserian

07:12 / 28.08.03

The "was Lovecraft an occultist" has been an ongoing debate amongst his legions of commentators, biographers, etc. The consensus, as far as I can recall is that Lovecraft (a) never met Crowley, (b) had no time for the occult and (c) borrowed some 'occult' material from his mate Clark Ashton Smith (who did have some knowledge of occult history).
Oh yeah, and the Necronomicon's not a 'real' book, either.

17:23 / 28.08.03

I'd take precautions even if there's no direct occult connections in Lovecraft's work. The theatre is it's own kind of magic, and can make it easier to accidentally summon something you don't want there.

19:21 / 28.08.03

I'd take precautions even if there's no direct occult connections in Lovecraft's work.

Yeah. Although there isn't any real evidence that Lovecraft intended his mythos to be anything other than fiction - it does work quite effectively as a magical system in its own right. Plenty of magicians have worked with the Lovecraft mythos over the last twenty years for it to almost be considered a 'branch' of chaos magic. When you call on the Great Old Ones, something does respond. Although what that something is is anyones guess. There's a lot of power there, although in my experience it can be difficult to harness to any degree. So I'd take some precautions, although quite exactly what I couldn't tell you...

00:51 / 29.08.03

This may sound stupid but... summon Shakespeare. Take something from one of the better-known plays about "protection" or "fortification" and incorporate it into a banishing to be performed before the show (before rehearsals too, if you feel the need). The words are older, and just as powerful. Plus, the space you're working in will probably recognize it, and be more likely to accept the working.

18:11 / 10.09.03

Boo! No topic abstract!

As Shakespeare would say... "I shake my spear at you!"

or as Lovecraft would say "That dark, shapeless thing..The topic abstract was slowly forming inside those cyclopean tombs of the eldritch city of Boston."

Thus I, the moderator, will provide you with a topic abstract free of charge!

Just sign here.

07:52 / 11.09.03

just gather the cast and crew around and get them to do a quick banishing beore you popen the doors. reckon that'd probably cool everyone off enough. for yourself, you could call up pathos and bathos, they're kind of the theatre's patrons aren't they?

Grand Panjandrum of the Pointless

12:11 / 11.09.03

I know nothing about the practical aspects of this, in re banishings et.c, but I do know that HP Lovecraft absolutely did not believe in the mythos he created. His personal beliefs were atheist, materialist, and positivist. More detail can be found in ST Joshi's bio of Lovecraft

12:41 / 11.09.03

I recomend smoking a great deal of cigarettes.
Put sage in them. It makes them taste like unwashed ass, but sage really is your friend in this sort of worry.

Or you could just burn the sage without slightly killing yourself by degree... but that's just so...

ug.

blugdugugly.

Sage in your cigarettes. Then you'll not be bothered. You won't have to think about it.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

14:53 / 11.09.03

At the risk of sounding like a fuddy-duddy - again - why would you want to do this? The main distinguishing feature of Lovecraft's Mythos is that anyone who messes around with the occult gets eaten by ghouls, driven insane by Cthulhu or turned into a fishman by Dagon. What possible positive outcome is there of success? Why would you even want to do this? It's the magickal equivalent of spending half a day in a room with open test-tubes full of filovirus.

I just don't understand this weird compulsion people have to work in the Lovecraft Mythos - of course, since none of them ever go insane or get turned into a fish that I know of, either the rituals don't work or they play to something rather more benign than the world described in Lovecraft's work - a universe for one, where the magickian is also the hero of his own little neo-Mythos parable, and nothing bad can happen.

But honestly, what's the point? Ask Dagon to help you catch more eels? Invoke the Mi Go to treat ringworm? The only thing I can think of for which Lovecraft's world would be appropriate is some kind of eschatological nightmare.

The whole point of Lovecraft's writing is that knowing some things can actually destroy you - and that his version of the occult is the doorway to those things. Any Mythos ritual not predicated on that basis looks a bit suspect to me - and any ritual which is looks frankly lunatic.