By Silvia Moreno-Garcia
The Old Ones as a religious movement? A recent article by Dennis P. Quinn discusses how Lovecraft, an atheist, has become a source for religious inspiration. Quinn goes on to talk about the “enigmatic Chaos Magician Frater Tenebrous, active since the late ’80s, wrote Cults of Cthulhu, which is a manual of magick that invokes Lovecraftian deities to do the magician’s bidding,” and explains why Lovecraft’s stories may be a deep well of inspiration for the religiously inclined.
Talking about Lovecraft serving as inspiration of unexpected stuff, The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon: A Workbook of Magic by Donald Tyson was released this July. Tyson, who has written several books of Lovecraftiana (The Dream World of H. P. Lovecraft: His Life, His Demons, His Universe is set to be released at the end of the year) has created an “authentic sourcebook for magicians” which uses Lovecraftian elements (characters, aliens, gods) for use in “esoteric practices such as dream scrying, astral projection, magical rites, and invocations.”
Tyson’s next book discusses Lovecraft’s dreamlands, a subject that has also been tackled by Cécile Cristofari in an article for Strange Horizons. The article talks about shamanism and vision quests, and how Lovecraft’s stories relate to these myths. And if you’ve ever wanted to know about the The Intersection of Fantasy and Native America: From H.P. Lovecraft to Leslie Marmon Silko, there’s a book about that too.