Lovecraft & the Occult - Historical & Literary Influences on the Cthulhu Mythos & Necronomicon

HP Lovecraft and the mythos he developed - from the insanity-inducing elder ones, Cthulhu and his legion of great deep ones poised to erase humanity when the stars are right, to the most horrid volume imaginable, the dread Necronomicon - have emerged from pulp obscurity and dismissal to become pillars of pop-culture, literature, music and beyond. His works are known for brooding antiquarian interest, architectural and ancestral decay, profound, indeed deeply racist fear of the Other, beings whose cosmic-scale indifference threatens sanity and civilization, and occult knowledge that threatens to unlock the vault of eldritch nightmares from the gulfs beyond the stars. While Lovecraft and his often contradictory mythos have been explored at length, this episode explores just what occult influences operated and inspired Lovecraft. Was his mythos consciously or even unconsciously infused with ancient, occult lore? What exactly were the esoteric literary resources Lovecraft relied upon to build out his mythos? To what degree does authentic, historical occult knowledge actually make its way into his tales? Just what are the occult origins of Chtulhu, the Necromonicon, Yog Sothoth, the Pnakoptic Fragments and Nyarlathotep?

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#lovecraft #cthulhu #necronomicon

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[TheEsotericaChannel]

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[Duchess_Van_Hoof]

I find it amusing that Lovecraft was a strict materialist writing supernatural horror, and Doyle was a spiritualist writing strictly materialist detective stories.

[gustavquicksand]

I think what I like about Lovecraft and cosmic horror in general, that I find missing in most other sci fi, is a sense of transcendence. Obviously in cosmic horror, its usually a sort of negative transcendence, but the protagonist still has an encounter with something truly beyond them. When we encounter highly advanced beings in star trek and similar series, they're treated as little more than humans with a few extra toys. That's always made their worlds feel so much smaller and less exciting to me.

[willmistretta]

I always had the impression that Lovecraft wasn't well acquainted with real grimoires and the like except by reputation and secondhand references in other fiction...and this was a good thing. The few excerpts he gives us from his imagined tomes don't read like anything else I've come across and his wild interpretation of the subject is undoubtedly more memorable for it. An actual practicing esotericist might have reigned it in a little.

[spiritualanarchist]

I think the new discoveries in cosmology and physics at the time contributed to Lovecraft unique horror . He created these gigantic ancient gods 'floating' 'trough the universe . Witches hidden in mathematical dimensions ....mixing the gothic with new mysteries of science .

[jeffreygleaves]

I was a big fan of Robert E. Howard growing up and knew of Lovecraft but never read him. I knew Howard and Lovecraft were pen pals, both writing for weird tales, and eventually this connection brought me to giving Lovecraft a try. The style surprised me. I thought, "Wow, this has Robert E. Howard' written all over it!" After a while I realized, no, Robert E. Howard has H.P. Lovecraft written all over his work. Howard took Lovecraft's macabre stylings and threw a hero into the stew. Conan the Barbarian, fearing no man, was terrified by the supernatural.
Anyway, it was a thrilling epiphany for me with my pulp fiction fixation. Two old friends I've never met...lol

[AB-cmec]

One of the possible influences for that spooky, occult flavor Lovecraft had was through the very non-materialist Nicholas Roerich, a friend of Lovecraft who hosted Lovecraft at his home more than once, displaying and explaining paintings for him and his writings on travels in the Himalayas. This shows up in a few of Lovecraft's letters in the most casual way, referring to Roerich as "old Nick".

[rickjohnson]

I found it interesting that back in the 70’s, when I was introduced to Lovecraft, I read that an antique book dealer in New York City offered $10, 000 for a copy of the Latin version of the Necronomicon. Lovecraft developed such a detailed bibliography for the book that even some professionals actually bought into the reality of it. I am new to your channel and am enjoying it immensely! Thanks for your hard work and quality presentations.

[NullStaticVoid]

In high School my friend Robert bought a copy of the (fictional obviously) Necronomicon at some gothy book store.
It completely freaked all of us little Catholic kids out. The embossed black cover with it's silver ink.
The sigils and pentagrams diagrammed inside.
Growing up with Catholic fear and the adjacent voodoo in the deep south, made such a book seem like an actual piece of Satans boudoir.
Decades later I bought one at a comic book store in Berkeley to make my cubicle at work a little more edgy.
It completely freaked out one of my very Christian coworkers.

[markw.loughton]

He was way ahead of the curve for essentially creating the ancient astronaut theory. Also I love the fact the so called "Supernatural" elements in his tales are actually more Extra terrestrial influenced than magic.

[TheModernHermeticist]

Note to self: do a thing on the history of why Latin itself is "occult/esoteric"

[enochlamont]

Subscribed. I'm the Keeper of Lore for my Call of Cthulhu group and have been enjoying throwing in a lot of these real-world references to anchor the fantastic and eldritch for my players. I feel your channel is going to be an amazing source of reference.

[anon]

The only video on lovecraft I've ever seen that didn't jump straight to his cat. He is by far my favorite author, thank you for keeping that to a minimum.

[matthuck]

I'm a big fan of the Cthulhu Mythos (moreso of authors other than HPL these days, but still) and one of my absolute favorite things about it is how so many people think the Necronomicon is a real book/ancient occult tome.

[MrTeapots]

Lovecraft scared the living *** out of me as a youth. I thought you were about to diminish him for his lack of scholarship but you took the wiser path and praised him for his gifts as a writer. He wasn't writing scholarly treatises he was trying to scare the **** out of you lol.

[chriswardwell]

Edgar Allen Poe was my literally introduction to artistic exploration of the human propensity for darkness and I still love his work

[stephenbastasch]

Thank you for this wonderful presentation of HPL's occult literary consultations and their use in his fiction. Outstanding!

[magpieMOB]

Thanks for making this diversion from your usual content - I really enjoyed learning more about the literary backstory to so much of modern "pop esotericism", not to pour scorn on it (I think you were remarkably gentle and charitable with the subject of Lovecraft himself), but merely to shed more light. Thanks for sharing your light with the rest of us 😊

[yadidlechem]

I’ve said it before and I’m saying it again, this channel is by far the most educational and the quality is outstanding.

[robertbright]

My mom gave me a copy of Edgar Allan Poe stories when I was 8 — it was the sixties and everything Poe was in vogue — my 3rd Grade teacher Mrs. McBratny took it from me and threw it in the trash (where I later retrieved it). By the early ‘70s I had read several novels and short story compilations of HP Lovecraft. Curiously, the story of being lowered by rope into a pyramid only to encounter the living Egyptian gods left a lingering mark on me. Later I read the Illuminatus Trilogy when it came out in 1976 — there I learned of Aleister Crowley (Egyptian themes prominent) and Kabbalah — I was ruined from then on…. 😂