H. P. Lovecraft: Master of Horror Stories, Or Conspiracy Historian?

I've wondered the same things myself. The Deep Ones do seem to parallel the modern "reptoid" theory. Their worship of Dagon and Hydra could be viewed in the modern era as a call to contact the rest of the "reptoid" race.

A bit far-fetched, but that's what Skunk Works is about, eh?

My personal favorite is actually a non-mythos tale; "The Picture in the House". It just creeps me out.

Go Here to read his works online.

[edit on 14-12-2005 by Katolu]

Lovecraft (in my opinion) created horror fiction. ANd I am an avid fan of his, my favourites being the Dunwich horror, the rats in the walls and the Call of Cthulhu. But if his Mythos was real I don't think Cthulhu could take over. There are so many other 'beings' that would stop him."That which is dead and can eternal lie.And with strange eons even death may die..."

That's true, Ferrozone, but keep in mind that Cthulhu (in Lovecraft's mythos) is the only one of the Great Old Ones currently residing on Earth... and there aren't any beings of comparable power that would really be interested in saving Humankind from destruction, anyway.

That's the really scary part of the Lovecraft mythos... humans are less than cattle, completely valueless, and utterly defenseless. We are dust in the cosmic wind generated by the slightest stirrings of the primal forces Lovecraft describes in his work.

While Lovecraft may indeed have been basing his work on dreams and fantasies, it remains hard to prove if any of his speculation could be based on fact.

While we know quite a bit more about the universe now than we did in his day, there still remains a good amount of mystery.

We are still discovering new species in our own ocean while we know more about stars light years away than we ever have.

It may indeed be impossible to find fossils or artifacts from a species that predates our earliest fossils. Perhaps they were destroyed by tectonic movement. Perhaps they never existed.

However it is intriguing that the reptilian theories shadow Lovecrafts work.

HP Lovecraft certainly was a great writer. In my own humble opinion, he was and is the greatest American horror/science fiction writer of the first half of the twentieth century. One of the stories he did that I still read and reread over and over again is called 'The Outsider.' This is one of his best pieces, and certainly my favorite, though none of his work is bad.

I believe personally that HP Lovecraft wrote of his visions, in a literal historical fashion.

Some might say that sounds crazy, but I share a similar experience so I have to say I relate.

Now, if I can just put words to paper without anyone freaking out over the fact that I also write sweet cartoons as well, everythng will be fine.

That, and overcome the dehabilitating aspects of my elements of my "mental illness" that prevent me from actually starting these projects until the planets are properly aligned and celestial providence dictates that I do so as well...

But eh, it's a long story.

Point being, I think Lovercraft was indeed a historian of sorts.

People real need not be so ignorant and superstitious.

Read a biography, read Lovecraft's own letters, its all published.

Lovecraft did not believe any of his fiction, he never had visions.

Lovecraft was a racist and a bit if a closet paranoid.

His descriptions of the deep ones are exaggerations of the Asians
in the markets where he bought his fish.

The Cthulhu cutltists of Lousianna are an exaggeration of the voodoo cults of the region.

His innsmouth, dunwich, arkham throw backs are his perceptions of the inbred ignorance and homogenous people that were all around him.

Cthulhu himself is based on deities worshipped in the pacific.

Some of the other characters are inside jokes to give his peers a good laugh.

Irem originates some 1000 to 1100 years before Lovecraft in the Tales of the Arabian Nights, or "One thousand and one nights".
You can bet your bank account Lovecraft read that material.

Lovecraft is not a prophet, he's a fiction writer.
Please train your brain to discern fact from fiction and your personal fantasies.

Originally posted by LeftBehind
could it indeed be possible that Lovecraft was indeed writing about the real world?

No, absolutely not. Lovecraft was an athiest and a skeptic. He did not believe in the supernatural, and would have scoffed at any suggestion what he was writing about was real or inspired by "history."

Originally posted by LeftBehind
His stories outline ancient families with dark ties to a race of reptilian beings who live under the sea or under the earth.

Sorry, but you're wrong about this. There were no "reptilian" families in Lovecraft stories. The stories that most prominently feature miscegenation between human and alien races are the Shadow Over Innsmouth and Arthur Jermyn. The Deep Ones of the Shadow Over Innsmouth are related to fish; Lovecraft describes them as being frog-like in appearance, not reptilian. In Arthur Jermyn, the title character's family interbred with an "ape-god" not reptiles.

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Mysterious reptilians, seemingly sadistic aliens, rich bloodlines attempting world domination.

There were "reptilians" in one Lovecraft story, but nothing like the reptilians of conspiracy and UFO lore. In the Nameless City, the reptile-beings that built the city are described as a cross between a crocodile and a seal, moving about on all fours, a far cry from "reptilians." And while these beings still exist in a state between life and death beneath the Nameless City, they do not interact with humans, and certainly do not interbreed with them. Nor are they shapeshifters as "reptilians" supposedly are. As a side note, unlike what another poster suggested, the reptile-beings of the Nameless City did not build Irem, rather Lovecraft placed their city near Irem, which was well-known in folklore of the time.

Lovecraft did allude to a race of serpent people in other tales, but this was borrowed from his friend Robert E. Howard (who would create Conan the Barbarian); Lin Carter and Clark Ashton Smith would adopt the serpent people for their own uses as well. However, a current thread among each writer was that the serpent people were degenerate. Once they had ruled the Earth, but the aeons were not kind to them. They have devolved (perhaps due to offending their patron-god), becoming stunted and barbaric, no longer possessing even rudimentary elements of culture or civilization.

Originally posted by LeftBehind
The theories about a planet X fit in nicely with Lovecrafts planet that holds the ancient race that once ruled the earth.

Lovecraft was an avid amateur astronomer; his life-dream was to go to Brown University to study astronomy. Given his love of the field, and his known skepticism and athiesm, I doubt he would have entertained notions of a Planet X (at least as it stands in conspiracy lore).

That is, unless you are tying his Yuggoth to Planet X. A close reading of the Whisperer in the Darkness shows Lovecraft's narrator believing Yuggoth to be Pluto.

Originally posted by LeftBehind
Could Lovecraft have been writing about the Illuminati bloodlines in stories of families with terrible occult powers and dealings with the reptilians?

Again, this is not what Lovecraft was writing about. Go back and read Lovecraft's stories, particularly the ones involving miscegenation. In every single case, these families with "alien" blood were not prominent, they were not in power. They were degenerate, and isolated from the rest of civilization. Even those that were of "pure" blood, and just worshipped powers such as Cthulhu were in the same lot. Cthulhu worshippers were not part of mainstream society, but lived in far-flung places, consisting of Pacific Islanders, Eskimos, voodoo-practicing hispanics and Cajuns, and what we would now call rednecks or hicks, all uncivilized and possibly inbred.

Lovecraft was not disguising "secret-history" or "the truth about reptilian aliens" in his stories. Rather, he used his fiction to describe what he believed to be an assault on civilization. Lovecraft, being an Anglo-phile and self-styled aristocrat, believed this assault was from lower races -- anyone not Anglo-Saxon. The Deep Ones are not disguised aliens, but disguised Spainards, Portugese, Africans, Italians, and others. In such stories as the Horror at Red Hook and the Street, this feelings are not projected on alien-races, but are very open.

I would not go so far as to call Lovecraft as racist. There are definitely ethnocentric attitudes in his writings, but these are a reflection of the times he lived in. Though I would not call him a liberal either, he was an avowed supporter of both socialism and FDR (The Shadow Out of Time describes what to him would be the perfect socialist society). Based on this, I have no doubt if he were to have lived into the later half of the 20th century, he would have disavowed bigotry, and would be seen as a very progressive thinker. And regardless of any bigotry or ethnocentrism hidden in his writing, if you take them for what is on the surface, Lovecraft's tales are still enjoyable, and every bit as powerful today as they were 70 years ago.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft
The copy of the necronomicon published in the early 80's as a paperback went on at great lengths in the preface to show the links between Lovecraft's "Ctulhu mythos" and the Cosmology of ancient Sumer.

And it couldn't have been further off. There are no parallels between the Cthulhu Mythos (as Lovecraft wrote it) and Sumerian mythology. The idea of the Cthulhu Mythos being a struggle between good and evil, as suggested by Simon, is an invention of August Dereleth. Since the 1990s, this has been notion has been more or less disavowed by modern Cthulhu Mythos writers and fans.

Originally posted by dr_strangecraft
More than one of his stories hinted about atomic weapons.

What stories would those be? I have doubts that Lovecraft's stories hinted at nuclear weapons. While scientists were divising ways to create atomic-based weapons as early as the 1930s, this wasn't knowledge to the public-at-large. Lovecraft died in 1937, well before the idea of atomic weapons entered the popular conscious.

Now, Lovecraft did refer to Azathoth as "the nuclear chaos." However, this is not a reference to nuclear energy, but rather refers to Azathoth's location at the center of the universe.

When I saw that this thread had been resurrected from long dead, red flags started popping up.
I'm sure many on this site are aware of all the buzz surrounding the movie Cloverfield, due to release in a mere 2 days. Alot of the buzz surrounds the "monster" itself, theorized to be none other than the awakened Old One itself: Cthulu!
Surely nobody on this site would attempt to profane the work of HPL by stirring up the pot amongst the loyal fan base he obviously has here on this thread?
Don't worry, I'm going to pay my $20 or whatever it costs to get into a theater these days and see the flick, but please leave HPL alone!
By the way: The story "The Unnameable" scared the crap out of me. I saw a movie years ago based on that story and I thought it was well done.

Originally posted by cbianchi513
Alot of the buzz surrounds the "monster" itself, theorized to be none other than the awakened Old One itself: Cthulu!

Don't worry, I'm going to pay my $20 or whatever it costs to get into a theater these days and see the flick, but please leave HPL alone!

I've heard the same theory, but I doubt the monster will be Cthulhu. The movie is set in New York, while Cthulhu is dead and dreaming in the Pacific. Plus, JJ Abrams said he wanted a "new American monster," which further dispells the idea it will be Cthulhu.

That isn't to say though that the monster wouldn't be "Lovecraftian" or Cthulhu-inspired.

Ahh- but there's the hook! This "monster" originates or is awakened by a Japanese company doing something on the sea floor. Maybe the monster wants to hit the new Babylon first, and goes for a long swim to figure out how to cause the most damage? I'll find out on the 18th, like the rest of the world.
I do think that there is a Lovecraft tie-in for sure though. I saw some of the supposed monster sketches, and this thing looks like something I would imagine Cthulu looking like.

Originally posted by cbianchi513
Ahh- but there's the hook! This "monster" originates or is awakened by a Japanese company doing something on the sea floor.

From a viral-video found on YouTube and Ebaumsworld, it appears that the monster begins it's journey to NYC in the Atlantic Ocean.

I'm sure whatever it the monster is, it will be called "Lovecraftian", as anything with tentacles is considered Lovecraftian these days.


[edit on 16-1-2008 by SaviorComplex]

Originally posted by SaviorComplex
Plus, JJ Abrams said he wanted a "new American monster," which further dispells the idea it will be Cthulhu.

Technically Cthulhu is a "new American monster".
He's never had his own film, at least not a major motion picture and he is an invention of an American author.
Frankenstein was "new" to movie goers, but he was ancient in terms of literature.

Originally posted by cbianchi513
By the way: The story "The Unnameable" scared the crap out of me. I saw a movie years ago based on that story and I thought it was well done.

Haha scared you? Funny my daughter is named after the wood spirit in the movie, because she was conceived while watching that flick, for like the hundredth time.

Scary movies turn chicks on!

Originally posted by Legalizer

Scary movies turn chicks on!

The thought of all kinds of extradimensional nasties "swimming" through the air all around us almost "scared my pants off" too!
It's been so long and I forget most of the movie bits... what was the name of that device that made the creatures materialize? Now that was a cool contraption.

Oh you aren't thinking of "The Unnamable" you are thinking of "From Beyond", great film.
The device is called the Pretorious Resonator.

I'm such a Lovecraft Nerd.

Any Lovecraft fans in need of otherworldly chuckles, read:
Unspeakable Vault of Doom

There was another online comic where Cthulhu was a little stuffed toy and Nyarlothotep was a little black kitten, it was a riot and very dark.
Don't know what abyss it vanished into.



[edit on 17-1-2008 by Legalizer]

Originally posted by Legalizer
Technically Cthulhu is a "new American monster".

He's never had his own film, at least not a major motion picture and he is an invention of an American author.

Frankenstein was "new" to movie goers, but he was ancient in terms of literature.

I'm not quite sure JJ Abrams was engaging in the same mental gymnastics.

And Cthulhu has had his own film! A wonderful modern-day silent film based on the Call of Cthulhu was released three years ago! The same people are doing an adaptation of the Whisperer in the Darkness.

[edit on 17-1-2008 by SaviorComplex]