ON CTHULHUTHIAN ESCHATOLOGY

Generations of readers have been enthralled by the eldrich phantasmagoria of Howard Phillips Lovecraft's "Cthulhu Mythos" and its attendant supernatural pantheism. To date, in spite of the reams of Lovecraftian criticism, produced during and after this writer's distinguished career, there has never been any public attempt to reconcile the Elder Gods in the light of the ubiquitous Judao-Christian tradition.

For instance, Lovecraft dates his Elder Gods and Ancient Ones as having been "transported through the illimitable gulfs of Time and Space" to establish themselves on Earth millions of aeons ago. He presupposes there was an Earth; that is, a planetary, a non-luminous body, part of a solar system, being the third in line from its sun in this particular system. Now, the New Standard Collegiate Dictionary gives the following definitions for "eon":

But we find that the word "era", in geology, means "a division of geological history of highest rank"; yet an era like the Paleozoic may consist of six rock period-time systems, of varying length in millions of years each, so that there is no way of establishing a definite or uniform number of years to the word "era" and, therefore, no way of so determining the relative length of an eon. Therefore, if the scientific means available to the geologists permit them to nearly approximate the age of the planet Earth at somewhere in the neighborhood of 3.5 billion years (though this is by no means a conclusive figure) then Lovecraft's claim that the ancient extraterrestrial elementals deposited themselves here "millions of eons ago" must be considered to be a statement open to the widest of interpretation.

If we proceed to define "eon" by the first dictionary definition, that is, "an incalculable period of time", then of course Lovecraft has left himself an out, and we may assume, for the sake of his continuity, that this is what he did mean. But if we try to interpret "eon" according to the geological time scale, then unfortunately HPL places them on Earth quite a disproportionately longer time ago than Earth had ever existed... unless, of course, (and to the hardened Lovecraftian this is the most acceptable interpretation) Lovecraft knew something that we don't know.

In the opinion of the distinugished Lovecraftian scholar, Lin Carter, nearly the same kind of distortion which the post-Leninist interpreters have effected with Marx's dialectical materialism has been achieved with the literature of H. P. Lovecraft by what is called "The Lovecraftian Cult". Mr. Carter insists that Lovecraft himself, time and again, would declare that he created the famous Cthulhu and Kadath mythae purely for fun; that he himself didn't take any of this delicious nonsense seriously, and that he intended it for the sake of entertainment and enjoyment, and not to lay down a course in comparative cultural anthropology.

This is all very well, and most probably an accurate reflection of Lovecraft's attitude towards his own work, though his attitude toward the broader question of the supernatural tends to invite observations of slightly different character. Try a little experiment: try telling a hard-core, dyed-in-the-wool Lovecraftian, for instance, that the Necronomicon of Abdul Alhazred doesn't exist; I mean the sort of Lovecraftian who has already read Lin Carter's chapter in THE SHUTTERED ROOM about which of the esoteric books mentioned in the Cthulhu and Kadath stories exist, or do not exist. A current opinion popular among many of today's hrror/fantasy fans is that there are two kinds of Lovecraftians: those who are publicly ashamed to admit that they believe in the Necronomicon... One answer reportedly given in N.Y. recently when this suggestion was made was, "What did H. P.L. know that we don't?" Some fans are privately quite grateful that this very distortion, this magnification of Lovecraftian literature, has been made, because it indicates a definite reaction to Lovecraft's work; in this case, a positive one. The negative criticisms of Lovecraft's writing by one of New York's Arch-Lovecraftians, Mr. Haywood P. Norton, do not so much detract from the intrinsic value of the work, as they register as well, a distinct reaction to it. It is when the public, or the critics are neutral, when they more or less ignore an author's work, that it is more possible to assume that its value may be lacking, in whatever respect.

What Lin Carter's point was, was simply that one can't "nit-pick" at Lovecraftian literature; one can't quite hope to criticize it with the same means which are employed in the criticism of "heavy" science fiction, because it isn't "heavy" science fiction, but horror/fantasy, and the same kind of critical criteria do not quite apply in this case. In fact, it may be ridiculous for one who purports to be a Lovecraftian scholar to look for loopholes like the geological definition of "eon", because the popular critical assumption regarding Lovecraft's use of the word was, indeed, "a period of time of indeterminate length", which gets him off the hook quite neatly. Yet, is not this very assumption merely one interpretation based on the operation of mere logical analysis? Lovecraft's writings defy logical analysis, except from the point of view of literary technique; the supernatural phenomena cited in his work are unquestionably derived from what he claimed were other than those criteria based on the physical laws of the known universe. Even if his use of the word "aeon" implies indeterminate intervals, the intervals had to start at one point and end at another; they are, regardless of the difficulty in measuring them, nevertheless finite. They are "immeasureable" only because Lovecraft did not take the trouble to measure them, since he was unquestionably setting a mood of eldrich, cosmic horror, and not writing the type of techno-sociological type of "heavy" science fiction which, for the most part, kept itself out of the beloved WEIRD TALES he was so comfortable with.

There is an additional aspect of the "Cthulhu Mythos" which seems to have evaded critical attention in recent years. It is variously spoken of as "R'lyehthianism" or "Chtulhuthianism" and must not be confused with "Lovecraftianism", sometimes called the "Lovecraft Cult", which refers to that small body of readers and devotees of Lovecraft's writings. For example, that quite mad woman mentioned early in 1966 by the distinguished medievalist and Dunsanian scholar, Mr. Franklin V. Spellman, "...living in Hawaii, who wrote in claiming that she owned a copy of one of the German translations of the Necronomicon..." may be considered a "Cthulhuthian", unless, as is more likely, she was indulging in a bit of pseudobibliographical literary hi-jinks. Science-Fiction and Fantasy fans are not so terribly rational and skeptical, especially fanatical Lovecraftian-types, that they would be above carrying on a little actual clandestine worship of a god, or gods which sprang out of the philo-stygian mind of a writer of horror fiction! This writer has upon occasion seriously rebuked one and another of his associates upon their deriding the Dark Old Ones, with the veiled warning, "The Elder Gods are not mocked," or, "Upon his head be it, O Great Ones, not mine, who, in my humble way, serve Thee against the day appointed..." etc., etc. I don't believe in this delightful fairy tale any more than I believe in fairies (although I have met some pretty strange people in my time... but who can deny that it is fun, and a very in-thing, pretending?

I am not here to make a case for a particular pantheism based on Lovecraft's Ancient Ones, nor do I wish to castigate such if, indeed, one exists. The possibility of there being a world-wide cult of super-voodooites, worshippers of Dagon (one of the "Deep Ones" who "serve Cthulhu"), or "Tcho-Tcho People" from the "Plateau of Leng" who pray to one of Lovecraft's elementals, is highly unlikely, even if we suppose that this planet has not been as thoroughly explored as we have been given to understand by the annals of modern geography and science. It has occurred to me, however, that if the Devil-worshippers had succeeded in seizing the instruments of power and perpetuating the incorporation of this worship as a state religion in Europe, we might today be referring to Christians and Jews as "members of the Jesus sect" or "Jehovah sect", it being fairly s.o.p. for an ascendant religion to refer in this way to worshippers of one which has been superseded or driven underground.

Where does this leave us in relation to "Cthulhuthianism"? In the first place, to be successful, a religion must offer specific social incentives in this world, and transcendental spiritual incentives in the next. To a reading public acculturated to the morality of the Judao-Christian tradition with its civilized, sophisticated demeanor, leaping about a roaring fire in pointed buskins is, on the one hand, seemingly unattractive by our standards, and on the other, an infraction of Federal law, even if it were to be accompanied by a well-rationalized concatenation of comprehensive, systematized ritual. This latter "imperative" is conspicuously absent from what may be suggested constitutes "Cthulhuthianism". If generations of horror fantasy fans seize upon Lovecraft's mythos and devote themselves to it as assiduously as the Baker St. Irregulars or the Burroughs Bibliophiles, even this can hardly represent that which may successfully measure up to the classical definition of "religion". Oh, poo!... and I thought for a minute that we had something going here!

The Funk and Wagnall Standard Collegiate Dictionary gives the following definition for "religion":

Several difficulties arise immediately from any attempt to apply the first of these definitions to "Cthulhuthianism". While it may be safe, speaking in religious terms, to assert that there can be no institutions which are brought into being and which can exist and function independently without a corresponding belief, or a faith in the validity of the principles underlying them, the converse may not necessarily apply; that is, there may exist an unorganized belief in a principle or system of principles without there having been developed an overt institutional superstructure in which to formalize and perpetuate them. Although it is true that "Cthulhuthianism" enjoys brief descriptions in the "Cthulhu Mythos", it has never quite been crystallized into what may be properly regarded as a "belief" independent of fiction. Therefore, since there is no hard-and-fast "belief", Cthulhuthian institutionalization has never taken place -- there has been no need for it. Now and then one may receive a Christmas card with a picture of a church upon which has been sketched the "descending node of the dragon's tail" and the legend, "First Church of Abaoth the Unclean", but here is where the line is drawn. The Church has never taken cognizance of "Cthulhuthianism" as a force with which it needed to contend on ideological grounds simply because "Cthulhuthianism" has never developed into anything past the dimensions of mere fiction -- verisimilitude or no verisimilitude! But I think it might pay them to keep an eye on it, just the same...

The Monarch Notes College Level Anthropology gives the following definition for "culture":

According to this definition, then, it seems relatively profitless to speak of "Cthulhuthian Culture" or to examine the Cthulhu Mythos of H. P. Lovecraft from a socio-cultural point of view. The author has not left us, as has J. R. R. Tolkien, with a definite society of particular dimensions and characteristics and an accompanying chronological history which might bear a more localized microscopic scrutiny. What we can state about the (fictional) "Cthulhu Cult" is that it is composed of humans -- women are not explicitly mentioned, although we may infer that at least some women were Cthulhu Cultists, in order to rationalize the historical and prehistorical existence of the Cult itself -- and that the nature of the totem, or object of worship is so intangible, if not to say "vacuous" as to negate any attempts at meaningful analysis. These humans "served Chtulhu" -- in what capacity Lovecraft wisely omits to describe -- against the day that he and the rest of the Elder Gods would come forth to rule the world as they did in Olden Time.

The reason I make an issue of this here is because of Lovecraft's literary technique of working in an occasional scientific explanation for some of what by today's standards must be regarded as preternatural phenomena if they were really to exist. Admittedly he would have killed the Mythos if he had explained any more than he did about Cthulhu or the Elder Gods; but his lack of detail about these -- entities -- still incites certain curiosity, even only insofar as he did ascribe human servants to them. What was Cthulhu like? Did he -- (if it was a "he"; it may just as well have been a "she" or "it") -- ratiocinate to any degree at all, or was he, in Heinlein's words, merely a "fortuitous circumstance of entropy"? Could he reproduce in kind? If so, in what manner did he reproduce? What kind of physiological system did Cthulhu have? An oxygen exonomy, perhaps, or one of xenon? Did he carry on life functions? Which ones? What were his physical dimensions and color? Lovecraft would suggest that his Elder Gods partook of extra-dimensional characteristics and colors not visible on the ordinary spectrum. If we presume that certain biological conditions must be present for life as we know it to exist at all in our dimension, may we not suggest that comparable conditions be obliged to exist in other dimensions in order that "life" originate there? Or did Lovecraft employ poetic license? If this is the case, then it might be inferred here that his scientific explanations were an attempt, in stories that are often equally regarded as horror-fiction as well as science-fiction, to "render unto Caesar..." Unless, of course, the die-hard Lovecraftian fans are willing to let him have it both ways.

According to Lovecraft, and according to the eminent Howard scholar, R. E. Schwartz, "the Ancient Gods were mortal, but not in the same way we are." If restraints could be imposed upon them by more powerful beings, then they certainly answer the description of mortal; it would be too easy here to become bogged down in a rational evaluation of human infallibility and theological debate. By a step removed, which critics of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley have suggested was "tampering with the techniques of Creation for its own sake," the Elder Gods may be said to have used "artifacts", since creatures which have not evolved naturally but who had been, in fact, created by the Elder Gods, were discovered by the Pabodie-Lake-Douglas Antartic Expedition sponsored by Miskatonic University (At The Mountains Of Madness). These creatures, since they were "used" by their "creators", established the existence of what are actually azoic artifacts. Next, as to rituals, the human worshippers of the Great Old Ones, including members of the "Cthulhu Cult" constantly attempted to break the Great Seals set upon the Old Ones by the Elder Gods. For this purpose, they are said to have engaged in, among other rites, that of human sacrifice. This would clearly indicate the mechanics of a pre-Christian pantheism, which enjoys more detailed descriptions not only in Lovecraft's treatment of the Mythos, but in versions by Robert Bloch, Henry Kuttner, Clark Ashton Smith, August Derleth, et al. As to a more comprehensive psycho-sociological analysis of "Cthulhuthian Culture", this is not only a very tough nut to crack (entailing, as it is, a mountain of work before a clear picture would begin to emerge) but perhaps also unnecessary, since it would probably shed little additional light in a critical vein upon Lovecraft's writing. I am uncertain, at this point, whether anything of the sort has ever been tried before in American Literarture, or indeed in literature at large. Is there such a thing; could there ever be such a thing as an anthropological analysis of a fictional culture? It is an exceedingly tempting proposition, but I am as yet scholastically unfitted to cope with it. It would require that I take vigorous and sustained schooling in cultural, physical, and social anthropology; in psychology, mythology, and ethnology; and I would have to slowly plow through everything Lovecraft ever wrote, making reams of notes all along the way. I wonder... Shall I do it? It sounds utterly fascinating. That erudite s. o. b., HPL, has got me turned on in that direction, and it is much too late to stop now.

[pp. 36 - 49, NO-EYED MONSTER #14, Summer 1968]

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