Konformist Book Club: Tracy Twyman

Dead But Dreaming: The Great Old Ones of Lovecraftian Legend Reinterpreted as Atlantean Kings
Tracy R. Twyman
http://quintessentialpublications.com/deadbutdreaming.html

When HP Lovecraft wrote his fictional tales of the Cthulhu Mythos, he was tapping into a deep current of antediluvian wisdom. As Tracy R. Twyman demonstrates in this exhaustive examination of Lovecraft stories, as well as derivative works (including the modern 'Necronomicon'), the Cthulhu cycle reflects an instinctual understanding of the way ancient man remembered the gods of a previous aeon. These fictional rulers of the imaginary sunken kingdom of R'lyeh echo remarkably the mythologies of real-world cultures from our past. In particular, we recognize the influence of the Annunaki gods of the ancient Sumerians, the kings of fabled Atlantis, and stories of the hollow Earth, as well as the giants of Genesis Chapter 6. Does this indicate that Lovecraft had a deep-seated genetic awareness of a real race of beings from beyond space and time who one day ruled this Earth, and who may someday awaken from their slumber to rule again? Dead But Dreaming is a must for anyone who considers themselves a serious student of Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos, the Necronomicon, and Sumerian mythology.

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The Choice Vine: Mary Magdalene, the Sacred Whore, and the Benjamite Inheritance
Tracy R. Twyman
http://quintessentialpublications.com/choicevine.html

Who was Mary Magdalene? Is it true that she was married to Jesus? If so, why did he choose her?

This groundbreaking work by Tracy R. Twyman (Dagobert's Revenge, Merovingian Mythos, etc.) explores the royal heritage of Mary Magdalene in the Tribe of Benjamin. The connections between the Benjamites, Baal-worship, sex rituals, and the Merovingian bloodline are revealed.

Is it possible that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were part of a sacred sex cult with its roots in the ancient world? Could they both have been descended from a royal race of sex gods from the heavens? Discover the clues pieced together by Tracy R. Twyman in The Choice Vine.

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Hocus Pocus: The Magical Power of St. Peter
Tracy R. Twyman
http://quintessentialpublications.com/hocuspocus.html

What was the occult power of the Holy Spirit wielded by both Jesus and John? How did they obtain that power? Was it passed on to the priests of the Catholic Church through St. Peter? Can this power be used for evil purposes, or to command demonic spirits? What was the Black Mass? Has the Church ever been infiltrated by Satanists? These topics are dealt with in Tracy R. Twyman's Hocus Pocus: The Magical Power of St. Peter.

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Mind-Controlled Sex Slaves and the CIA
Tracy R. Twyman
http://quintessentialpublications.com/mcsscia.html

According to the testimony of experts and survivors, the CIA utilized all of these elements and more for their Top Secret Project MONARCH, part of the MK-ULTRA mind control program. For Reasons of National Security, dozens if not hundreds of people, many of them children, were allegedly subjected to unimaginable rape, torture, and bloody Satanic rituals, with the aim of fracturing the human mind through trauma. This created multiple personalities that could then be programmed to perform specific tasks. Many of the purported victims say they were used to satisfy the sexual urges of the rich and powerful, even U.S. presidents. For these purposes, the CIA is said to have sought help from intergenerational Satanic cults, as well as child pornography and snuff film networks. As thousands of people were bought and sold on the underground sex slave market, our government supposedly looked the other way, seeing it not as an atrocity but an opportunity. Too horrific to be true? Buy Tracy R. Twyman's Mind-Controlled Sex Slaves and the CIA.

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Lovecraft Meets Dr. Seuss

Web Comic Book of the Week:
The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft
Adapted by ~DrFaustusAU

For beginning readers.

To see this and more great art:

http://drfaustusau.deviantart.com/gallery/

Click any to enlarge...

Poe & Lovecraft

Robert Bloch
Reprinted from Ambrosia No. 2 (Aug. 1973)
http://alangullette.com/lit/hpl/bloch.htm

Comparisons between Edgar Allan Poe and Howard Phillips Lovecraft are, I suppose, inevitable; seemingly, in recent years [writing in 1973] they are also interminable.

I shall not, therefore, repeat the usual recital of similarities to be found within their work -- there will be no mention of black cats, revenants, or Antarctic settings per se.

But at the same time I have no intention of making a calculated bid for attention by deliberately asserting, as some have also declared, that no real resemblance exists aside from superficial employment of stock characters and themes common to virtually all stories in the genre.

To me, this is an untenable statement: Lovecraft, like every writer of fantasy and horror fiction subsequent to Poe, was necessarily influenced by the work of his predecessor -- and to certain extent his work needs must be derivative in some slight sense. Actually, Lovecraft's homage to Poe in his essay Supernatural Horror In Literature, indicates a degree of appreciation and admiration which leaves no doubt as to the profound impression made upon him by the earlier master.

But to me the most fruitful area of comparison lies within an examination of the backgrounds and personalities of the writers themselves.

Consider the facts. Both Poe and Lovecraft were New England born. Both were, to all intents and purposes, fatherless at an early age. Both developed a lifelong affinity for poetry and the elements of a classical education Both utilized archaisms in their writing styles and affected personal eccentricities which in time became consciously cultivated.

Although Poe spent a part of his youth in England and travelled along the Atlantic seaboard in later life -- and while Lovecraft ventured up into Canada and down into Florida on vacations a few years prior to his death -- neither man ever ventured west of the Alleghenies. Lovecraft, on one occasion, did skirt them to visit E. Hoffman Price briefly in his New Orleans home, but essentially he and Poe were Easterners. Their outlook was, to a marked degree, provincial; even parochial.

Both men distrusted "foreigners" in the mass: both retained a profound admiration for the English. These attitudes are plainly evident in their work, which is many particulars removed and remote form the main current of American life.

A reader attempting to capture some glimpse of the United States in the 1830-1850 period would gain small enlightenment from the poetry and fiction of Poe. At a time when the entire nation was engaged in a westward thrust, beginning with the peregrinations of the mountain men and ending with the Gold Rush in the year of Poe's death, one searches in vain for a wet which does not seemingly even exist in his literary compass.

Byronic heroes sequestered in British and continental locales scarcely reflect the American attitudes or aptitudes in the era of Old Hickory, Davy Crockett, the fall of the Alamo, the Mexican War and the growing turmoil over slavery.

Nor would a reader find more typically American protagonists amongst the pendants, professors and regionally-oriented recluses of Lovecraft's tales, in which there's scarcely a hint of the manners and mores of the Roaring Twenties or the Great Depression which followed in the ensuing decade. Aside from a few remarks regarding the influx of immigrants and concomitant destruction of old folkways and landmarks, plus brief mentions of the (intellectually) "wild" college set, Lovecraft ignores the post WW1 Jazz Age in its entirety: Coolidge, Hoover, FDR, Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, Al Capone, Valentino, Mencken and the prototypes of Babbit have no existence in HPL's realm. It is difficult to believe that Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a literary contemporary of Ernest Hemingway.

And yet a further comparison between Lovecraft and Poe remains; one of profound importance in any consideration of their work, because it softens any charge that two writers were totally unaware of the actual world and unrealistic in their treatment of their times.

I refer, of course, to their mutual interest in science. Both Poe and Lovecraft were acute observers of the scientific and pseudo-scientific developments of their respective days, and both men utilized thee latest theories and discoveries in their writing. It is only necessary to cite Poe's use of mesmerism, his employment of the balloon hoax, his detailing of data in the Arthur Gordon Pym novella, to prove the point.

Lovecraft, for his part, relies on scientific background material in his Pym-like At the Mountains of Madness, "The Shadow Out of Time" and other efforts; notable is his immediate adoption of the newly discovered "ninth planet" in "The Whisperer in Darkness."

Lovecraft's interest in astronomy undoubtedly led to his increasing interest in other fields of scientific endeavor, just as Poe's early experiences at West Point must have fostered his preoccupation with codes an ciphers. And both men, as professional writers, were well and widely-read in the contemporary work of their day: Poe as a working critic, demonstrates his knowledge in his nonfictional efforts and Lovecraft, in his correspondence, proves himself no stranger to Proust, Joyce, Spengler and Freud.

But the point is that Poe and Lovecraft deliberately chose to turn their backs on contemporary styles and subject-matter and created their own individual worlds of fantasy. In this above all else they were similar.

And in this, above all else, we readers of Poe and Lovecraft are fortunate indeed. We shall never know, and never care, what Edgar Allan Poe though of Andy Jackson's "kitchen cabinet" or how H. P. Lovecraft regarded the Teapot Dome scandal. Small loss, when both have given us glimpses of worlds peculiarly and provocatively their very own.

For the final similarity is this -- Poe and Lovecraft are our two American geniuses of fantasy, comparable each to the other, but incomparably superior to all the rest who follow in their wake.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright Notice. This article was first published in Ambrosia #2 (August, 1973), © 1973 Alan Gullette and Robert Bloch. It was subsequently revised slightly by the author and reprinted in H.P. Lovecraft: Four Decades of Criticism, ed. S. T. Joshi (Athens, OH: Ohio University Press, 1980), pp. 158-160, © 1980 Ohio University Press. The present text is the original.

About the author

Robert Bloch (1917-1994) was a horror, suspense, and science fiction writer and screenwriter, best known for the novel Psycho (1959, adapted to film by Hitchcock in 1960). A member of the "Lovecraft Circle," his correspondence with Lovecraft (edited by S. T. Joshi and David E. Schultz, with introduction by Bloch) was published by Necronomicon Press (1993). Following his first publication in Weird Tales for May 1935, his work would appear in such classic pulps as Amazing Stories, Famous Fantastic Mysteries, Strange Stories, and Unusual Stories.

Altogether, Bloch wrote over 220 stories collected in over 2 dozen collections, 2 dozen novels, screenplays for a dozen movies and three Star Trek episodes, a volume of essays, and the award-winning Once Around The Bloch: An Unauthorized Autobiography (1993).

His many awards included one Nebula Award, two Hugos, three World Fantasy Awards (including Lifetime Achievement), and five Bram Stoker Awards. He also the received a special award at the first NecronomiCon in 1993; after his death it was renamed in his honor. He died on September 23, 1994 in Los Angeles after a long battle with cancer.

Pan's Labyrinth Meets HP Lovecraft

Will this movie ever get made? Let's hope so! From Salon.com:

The New Yorker's news desk ran a melancholy addendum to its Feb. 7 feature about director Guillermo del Toro and his attempts to make a $150 million live-action film of H.P. Lovecraft's "At the Mountains of Madness." Apparently Universal refused to greenlight the project due to del Toro's insistence that it be released with an "R" rating rather than a "PG-13."

Del Toro's e-mail to New Yorker writer Daniel Zalewski was two sentences long: "'Madness' has gone dark. The ‘R’ did us in."

The "Pan's Labyrinth" director has spent the last few years on big budget dream projects: "The Hobbit," "Frankenstein" and "At the Mountains of Madness." He left "The Hobbit" in May 2010 (or was fired, depending on who tells the story), following a series of start-date delays, and Peter Jackson, writer-director-producer of the original "The Lord of the Rings" movie trilogy, stepped in. "Frankenstein" never had a firm start date and remains in limbo. For a while, "At the Mountains of Madness" -- the story of an Antarctic expedition uncovering the ruins of an ancient city and the remains of mythical creatures -- seemed as though it might be the first of the three projects to end up on-screen. This was a startling prospect considering Lovecraft's tale had long been considered unfilmable.

Del Toro's adaptation had Tom Cruise attached to star and James Cameron ("Avatar") involved as an executive producer and 3-D consultant, and Universal had already given the director pre-production money for creature designs. Del Toro told the New Yorker he wanted "Madness" to have "the polished aspects of a studio film" like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds," but retain the grungy vibe of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and the original "Saw" while capturing the sense of psychic disturbance and primordial terror that was Lovecraft's stock-in-trade...

The amazing del Toro movie that just got spiked
Matt Zoller Seitz
Tuesday, Mar 8, 2011
http://www.salon.com/entertainment/movies/film_salon/2011/03/08/mountains_of_madness_derailed/index.html

RIP: Kenneth Grant

"The influential occultist and author Kenneth Grant died on 15 January 2011. Grant was the last living link to both Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare, and played a central role in developing the lore surrounding both men.
Deeply influenced by weird fiction authors including Sax Rohmer and HP Lovecraft, Grant had an uncanny knack for generating mystery, which he made good use of in his ‘non-fiction’ occult works, but was perhaps better suited to the eldritch tales that so inspired him.

Such ambiguity is what makes Grant’s writings such effective magickal texts; like fellow slipstream author John Keel working in more fortean realms, it’s often difficult to discern where reality ends and the imaginal begins. The usual checkpoints have been overrun by slithering, crawling, pullulating things… As others have noted, Grant was a powerful surrealist who used the medium of pulp literature to work his magic. Whatever one may feel about his writing, there can be no denying that Grant was a pivotal figure in late 20th century occultism, and his legacy is unlikely to diminish in his afterlife."

RIP Kenneth Grant
February 2, 2011
http://strangeattractor.co.uk/further/rip-kenneth-grant

Ladies Howling Mad With Cthulhu Cologne

http://www.dangerousminds.net/index.php/site/comments/drive_the_ladies_howling_mad_with_cthulhu_cologne/

Drive the Ladies Howling Mad With Cthulhu Cologne
09.18.2009
Richard Metzger

A creeping, wet, slithering scent, dripping with seaweed, oceanic plants and dark, unfathomable waters.

Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft, available at Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs.

Necronomicon

http://quintessentialpublications.com/store/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=21

Necronomicon: A New Translation for a New Millennium
$39.95
Edited by Joshua Free
With Foreword By Tracy R. Twyman
Copyright 2009
Hardcover

SHIPPING AVAILABLE TO USA ONLY

Ever since the visions of H.P. Lovecraft began to haunt the world, people from all walks of life have celebrated various interpretations of these musings.

We are shown a world shroud in darkness that has been materialized by primordial malignant gods who fought one another for control of the Universe and for the worship of the humans who brought to them sacrifices and abominable litanies.

But as many have already assumed, this Necronomicon tradition was indeed the product of Lovecraft's imagination, and it only much later became known as the Cthulhu Mythos, a haven for horror-fantasy genre authors.

For nearly a century thereafer, the Necronomicon remained a fictional product of dark fantasy until the famous "Simon" folio was presented to the world in 1977.

While many readers superimposed the Lovecraftian lore into their interpretation verbatim, this new document did not present rituals by which the malignant Ancient Ones would be unleashed into this world - in fact, it suggested the exact opposite: beneath the foundation of the esoteric mysteries exists a secret and sacred tradition to fight against this very act!

As an unfortunate move by its contemporary readership, the "Simonomicon" came under attack as being no more authentic than Lovecraft's own stories. More serious practitioners came to a more educated conclusion: the magickal notebook (or grimoire) was incomplete at best, alluding not to the Enlilite traditions common to the "Sumerians", but rather to a Mardukite tradition that was raised by the "Babylonians" in honor of Marduk, firstborn son of Enki.

Then, after the completion of the ARCANUM anthology in 2008, Joshua Free took on the role of "Nabu Maerdechai" and organized a occult research team in dedication to these mysteries called the Mardukite Chamberlains, which set out to uncover the truth behind the veils of centuries of misinformation about the backwaters of human consciousness including very specifically the role of the Anunaki or Sky Gods who appear at the heart of every ancient pantheon.

The range of the Mardukite work included lengthy discourses with other related published researchers, unceasing hours in abandoned corners of old libraries and museums, participation in sessions with other practicing occults and even a visit to the "tablet collections" at the University of Pennsylvania. The culminating results were nothing like anyone would have expected: an authentic and verifiable version of the Necronomicon salvaged from the shifting desert sands of time in the Middle East and Egypt, unparalleled by anything already available to True Seekers.

It appeared to be the most complete collection of ancient writings on the planet that formed the very foundation of all the human traditions and beliefs that would emerge thereafter.

Given this, we concluded that being the ancient source of our modern traditions that have had the meaning washed out of them, this path was the most perfect, complete and logical example we currently have to pursue on this planet!

This present edition of the Necronomicon, edited by Joshua Free, is not Lovecraftian or Simonian (while it could serve to offer validity to materials from both sources for those who seek it. Neither is it "dangerous" or a "hoax" (though those who fear the revelation of these truths for the world will think it the former and label it the later). This edition of the Necronomicon is the single most ancient and pure unaltered lore concerning the hottest topics of our time and all times, including divinity, creation, human origins, aliens, religion, pantheistic magickal traditions, alternate dimensions, portals and the afterlife. In this new millennium of uncertainties, it is most likely that the uncovering of the past will reveal our future.

Five things that Dungeons & Dragons begat

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7280969.stm

Five things that Dungeons & Dragons begat

One of the creators of the role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygax, has died. While the game's heyday has passed, its cultural influence bestrides gaming and how the media views young people.

ONLINE ROLE-PLAY GAMING

Without Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) it is hard to imagine the massively successful World of Warcraft. Both games immerse the user in a fantasy realm which appears on the surface to owe more than a little to Lord of the Rings.

Both are based on systems where characters can improve their attributes by gaining credit for game actions. Gains come from experience or honour points in World of Warcraft, following on from the experience points scheme in D&D. Both games have also converted early cult appeal into global phenomenon status.

D&D completed its journey into the cultural mainstream, when it featured in a scene near the beginning of Steven Spielberg's ET, without the need for any explanation. Younger members of the audience might very well have played it or known people who had. Older members of the audience probably knew about it through the media.

THE GEEK RAMPANT

Geek was, and remains to many, an offensive term. It has been a stick with which to beat anybody who does not enjoy all of the cultural and social values of the majority. Anybody who had an interest in computers, science fiction, fantasy literature or collecting comics could be easily dismissed as a geek once upon a time.

And the key thing with the classic "geek" pastimes was that they were - except for the occasional convention - typically fairly solitary pursuits.

Dungeons & Dragons had a number of effects. It brought so-called geeks together in a social setting as a matter of course, it quickly spread out into the mainstream, and it signalled that money could be made out of catering for previously niche audiences.

The game has also left a legacy of subcultures like live action role-play and online gaming, where there is a pronounced social element. The world we live in now, where "gaining friends" on social networking sites is regarded as a totally reasonable pastime, is a very different world to that in which Dungeons & Dragons made its debut in 1974.

REVIVING FANTASY MANIA

Fantasy can be regarded as perhaps the oldest genre in storytelling, but its popularity in the modern era has ebbed and flowed.

Despite the protestations of creators and fans that D&D was not a slavish aping of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, it seems fair to suggest that it provided another source of enthusiasm for Tolkien's classics as well as boosting interest in a host of successors like David Eddings and Terry Pratchett. Games inspired by D&D such as Call of Cthulhu created new fans for authors like HP Lovecraft.

D&D's success in the late 1970s and 1980s represents a high watermark in the popularity and ubiquity of the fantasy genre along with the original publication in 1954/5 of the Lord of the Rings and the recent film adaptations.

TEENAGE GAMING MORAL PANICS

Moral panics about young people have been about since the dawn of the mass media, but Dungeons & Dragons cemented a link in the mind of worried parents between gaming and fears of effects on teenager's behaviour.

Today the focus is much more likely to be on violent video games like Manhunt, but in the 1980s there were people worrying about games like D&D. It was linked by campaigners to a number of suicides, the suggestion being that teenagers had become so immersed in the game that they had struggled to separate fantasy and reality.

Now paranoid parents would be more likely to suffer misty-eyed nostalgia over the era when gaming involved constant and varied use of the young mind's imagination, as opposed to today's games which typically offer the user images where once there was only the mind's eye.

Online gaming like World of Warcraft is suffering its fair share of concerns, particularly in the Far East, where there are fears of widespread addiction and detrimental effects on intensive users' health.

The message in circulation has remained constant since the rise of D&D - immersive game-playing by young people should be a cause of concern for adults.

MANY-SIDED DICE

Before Dungeons & Dragons, anyone wielding a dodecahedral or icosahedral die in the playground would have been regarded with wide-eyed bemusement.

During the game's popularity and in the wake of the slew of imitators it inspired, they became a common sight for some years.

Even with the rise of the video game, Dungeons and Dragons' influence rolls on.