Hmm, well it’s been awhile since I wrote anything publicly. I’ve been kicking something around for a while, but I don’t think I fully understand it. It’s a topic which can be interpreted in several ways. Eventually I’ll feel confident in writing on it. In the meantime, I’ve been reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. I had already read the Schrodinger’s Cat Trilogy and was laughingly confused the whole time … so I thought I’d give this one a whirl.
Illuminatus! is about conspiracy. Instead of there being one secret power in control, there are several, each driven by the other and all possessing knowledge that is part of a larger Whole. It is intentionally written in a confusing manner, with the perspective changing from first person to third back to first then on to reading some letter or article back to third person, and so on. I feel the writers are attempting to tell the story from the point of view of the story instead of one perspective. That seems the point of the book thus far.
It makes use of almost every organization, cult, secret society, ancient text and forgotten lore I’ve ever heard of, and even a few I had no clue about. The Illuminati are only one familiar name, and I can assure you they were not fictitious. Imagine my surprise when I read a small reference suggesting the Mad Arab al Hazred worshiped ancients such as Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. Al Hazred wrote the Necronomicon back in the 700s C.E. as a history of long forgotten beings who once roamed Earth. He claimed to have communed with at least one, thus gaining their practices and intentions.
It is nothing new to suggest other life forms existed on Earth before humans dominated the scene. Archeologists tell us wondrous tales of dinosaurs and crawling fishes and exotic plant life from long ago. Martian sympathizers suggest humans were somehow manipulated by alien beings early on, given knowledge and then left to our own devices. Jewish traditions claim that a number of angels longed for our women and came down to take them for wives. Their offspring were terrible monstrous deformities, awesome beasts akin to the Titans of the Greek mythos. Arabian beliefs called these beings Djinn. It was because of these creatures that YHWH decided to flood the world and cleans it. (The Christian Bible leaves that part out because it’s too Jewish, deriving from the Talmudic Book of Enoch.)
The title Necronomicon literally means “Book of Dead Names”. That al Hazred was collecting these for magical invocation seems most logical. The idea that it is somehow involved with necromancy is superstition derived in part from the root necro- in its title. Its dubious history involves numerous attempts by orthodox religion to snuff its existence. It is hard to say if anyone has access to it anymore. That which I’ve seen may have been a fake.
My interest is in the reference to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. If these were names al Hazred consorted with, it has a relevancy in recent history. They are among the Cthulhu mythos spawned by the writer H.P. Lovecraft. Many of his stories use Cthulhu creatures as a backdrop, where people in our dimension suffer the influences of beings long since transcended to the next plane of existence. Lovecraft supposedly encouraged his fellow writers to do likewise, transforming characters like Cthulhu into a mythos, a collective opinion conforming to a pre arranged set of ideas.
It is very reminiscent of Gnostic interpretations of otherwise orthodox religion. Theirs is a layered reality, where death is merely a doorway to the next level of life. Energy can not be created or destroyed, only changed and in one direction. You continue until you are reunited with God. The Old Ones located in the Necronomicon are gone, banished from our world, giving tremendous importance to possession of their lost names. These are called the Enochian Keys, another reference to the Book of Enoch of Jewish lore.
From a literary point of view, this was ingenious. The Cthulhu mythos is still alive today, lurking at the edges of current culture. Entire books are out there compiling the tradition Lovecraft started, of different viewpoints contributing to the Whole. Several authors have included references to it, including the Illuminatus! There’s even a role playing game dedicated to it. Alas, it is the literary universe these Old Ones must remain. Lovecraft was fond of the Necronomicon and included it in some of his work. It in no way means he actually acquired his characters from it. Definitely fun to research though.
Illuminatus! is about conspiracy. Instead of there being one secret power in control, there are several, each driven by the other and all possessing knowledge that is part of a larger Whole. It is intentionally written in a confusing manner, with the perspective changing from first person to third back to first then on to reading some letter or article back to third person, and so on. I feel the writers are attempting to tell the story from the point of view of the story instead of one perspective. That seems the point of the book thus far.
It makes use of almost every organization, cult, secret society, ancient text and forgotten lore I’ve ever heard of, and even a few I had no clue about. The Illuminati are only one familiar name, and I can assure you they were not fictitious. Imagine my surprise when I read a small reference suggesting the Mad Arab al Hazred worshiped ancients such as Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. Al Hazred wrote the Necronomicon back in the 700s C.E. as a history of long forgotten beings who once roamed Earth. He claimed to have communed with at least one, thus gaining their practices and intentions.
It is nothing new to suggest other life forms existed on Earth before humans dominated the scene. Archeologists tell us wondrous tales of dinosaurs and crawling fishes and exotic plant life from long ago. Martian sympathizers suggest humans were somehow manipulated by alien beings early on, given knowledge and then left to our own devices. Jewish traditions claim that a number of angels longed for our women and came down to take them for wives. Their offspring were terrible monstrous deformities, awesome beasts akin to the Titans of the Greek mythos. Arabian beliefs called these beings Djinn. It was because of these creatures that YHWH decided to flood the world and cleans it. (The Christian Bible leaves that part out because it’s too Jewish, deriving from the Talmudic Book of Enoch.)
The title Necronomicon literally means “Book of Dead Names”. That al Hazred was collecting these for magical invocation seems most logical. The idea that it is somehow involved with necromancy is superstition derived in part from the root necro- in its title. Its dubious history involves numerous attempts by orthodox religion to snuff its existence. It is hard to say if anyone has access to it anymore. That which I’ve seen may have been a fake.
My interest is in the reference to Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. If these were names al Hazred consorted with, it has a relevancy in recent history. They are among the Cthulhu mythos spawned by the writer H.P. Lovecraft. Many of his stories use Cthulhu creatures as a backdrop, where people in our dimension suffer the influences of beings long since transcended to the next plane of existence. Lovecraft supposedly encouraged his fellow writers to do likewise, transforming characters like Cthulhu into a mythos, a collective opinion conforming to a pre arranged set of ideas.
It is very reminiscent of Gnostic interpretations of otherwise orthodox religion. Theirs is a layered reality, where death is merely a doorway to the next level of life. Energy can not be created or destroyed, only changed and in one direction. You continue until you are reunited with God. The Old Ones located in the Necronomicon are gone, banished from our world, giving tremendous importance to possession of their lost names. These are called the Enochian Keys, another reference to the Book of Enoch of Jewish lore.
From a literary point of view, this was ingenious. The Cthulhu mythos is still alive today, lurking at the edges of current culture. Entire books are out there compiling the tradition Lovecraft started, of different viewpoints contributing to the Whole. Several authors have included references to it, including the Illuminatus! There’s even a role playing game dedicated to it. Alas, it is the literary universe these Old Ones must remain. Lovecraft was fond of the Necronomicon and included it in some of his work. It in no way means he actually acquired his characters from it. Definitely fun to research though.
1 comment:
Well, at least I APPEARED to know what I was talking about. In truth I simply went with a literal translation of necronomicon, and drew from the symbolism of real Books of the Dead (particularly tibetan).
Sorry gang, I bit it on this one. The Necronomicon, Cthulhu and his buddies, all literary constructs from late 1800s. No connection with any earlier manuscripts (or their meaning). It's complete farse. DR~>
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