Cultic Studies Journal, Vol. 9, No. 2, 1992, Page 40
mythos relates the efforts of an “Old Race” which had ruled the Earth and which sought to
return from the nondimensional space to which it had been banished. The “Old Race” (in part
the creation of Madame Blavatsky) can be kept at bay by spells and rituals. But malign adepts
and magicians can summon The Color from Outer Space or the Shadow out of Time. The
spells to summon these unthinkable eldritch beings are contained in the Necronomicon
(1977), compiled by the “mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred. Far from being relegated to the history
of fantasy and science fiction, H. P. Lovecraft‟s novellas and the Necronomicon are current
staples in stores catering to those with an interest in the occult.
Initially, the paperback Necronomicon may have been meant as a tongue-in-cheek
compilation, but it has been adopted by vulnerable adolescents. To a 20th-century adolescent
in a technologically sophisticated world, what can be the appeal of the obscure rituals detailed
by an author who self-consciously regarded himself as an avatar and who is an 18th-century
writer displaced into modern America?
Lovecraft believed with real conviction in the presence and importance of the occult and the
supernatural. Like the modern adolescent, Lovecraft was obsessed with the presence and
passage of time and, above all, with the sense of having been displaced from a more
congenial era. Lovecraft‟s world is one of startling discontinuities: a conventional cellar door
opens onto a staircase which descends to sites of madness and ritual sacrifice as in The Rats
in the Walls. Or, as in The Outsider, an adolescent awakens to his sense of alienation and
separation from humanity. In the Shadow out of Time, the protagonist suddenly loses
consciousness and his mind is transported back to the prehistoric world of the Old Race, a
creation illustrating his debt to the godmother of modern occultism--Madame Blavatsky.
The Great Race is a relatively benign race except for its practice of mindnapping from all place
and time for research. The Great Race is ultimately destroyed by a successor race of
nameless, violent entities, the Old Race. The Lovecraftian perspective is one of constant
renewal and destruction, of cycles in which the individual who is unarmed, that is, without
ritual and spells, cannot survive. Within the Cthulhu mythos, the powers of destruction and
renewal are condensed and concretized into entities such as Shub Niggurath (“The Goat with
a Thousand Young”), comparable to Pan and Nyarlathotep, the messenger of “crawling
chaos,” who is comparable to Hermes but, since he is the messenger of bad news, he must be
kept at bay by rituals performed at the “gates.”
This pantheon, with its concretizations of fertility and destruction, of chaos warded off by
obsessive rituals, is an assortment that is appealing to the angry adolescent whose heroes in
the here and now include such figures as Judas Priest, Motley Crue, and Ozzy Osborne. They
are particularly seductive to the adolescent from a broken home dominated by violence,
sexual abuse, and substance use. Within such an environment, the appeal of a pantheon that
provides a structural framework unattached and in opposition to adult hypocrisy is obvious.
White Magic and Wicca
Not all magick is black, nor are all writers of fantasy preoccupied with vengeance, sacrifice,
and anthropophagy. Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Darkover series presents a more positive
view of nature, and embodies within her novels a more empathic sense of the magic inherent
in the natural world. Her novels exemplify and form a gloss on neo-Paganism. Both neo-
Paganism and Wicca (the craft of the Mother Goddess) represent a protest against the
mainstream Divinity that is perceived as patriarchal. And, if the patriarchal God has given
man dominion over the Earth and its creatures, then the Goddess (named Gea) is perceived
as endorsing a more compassionate, less exploitative relationship between humanity and its
surroundings. Practitioners of the craft of Wicca distance themselves at great length from the
practitioners of the “dark arts,” as the following illustrates:
mythos relates the efforts of an “Old Race” which had ruled the Earth and which sought to
return from the nondimensional space to which it had been banished. The “Old Race” (in part
the creation of Madame Blavatsky) can be kept at bay by spells and rituals. But malign adepts
and magicians can summon The Color from Outer Space or the Shadow out of Time. The
spells to summon these unthinkable eldritch beings are contained in the Necronomicon
(1977), compiled by the “mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred. Far from being relegated to the history
of fantasy and science fiction, H. P. Lovecraft‟s novellas and the Necronomicon are current
staples in stores catering to those with an interest in the occult.
Initially, the paperback Necronomicon may have been meant as a tongue-in-cheek
compilation, but it has been adopted by vulnerable adolescents. To a 20th-century adolescent
in a technologically sophisticated world, what can be the appeal of the obscure rituals detailed
by an author who self-consciously regarded himself as an avatar and who is an 18th-century
writer displaced into modern America?
Lovecraft believed with real conviction in the presence and importance of the occult and the
supernatural. Like the modern adolescent, Lovecraft was obsessed with the presence and
passage of time and, above all, with the sense of having been displaced from a more
congenial era. Lovecraft‟s world is one of startling discontinuities: a conventional cellar door
opens onto a staircase which descends to sites of madness and ritual sacrifice as in The Rats
in the Walls. Or, as in The Outsider, an adolescent awakens to his sense of alienation and
separation from humanity. In the Shadow out of Time, the protagonist suddenly loses
consciousness and his mind is transported back to the prehistoric world of the Old Race, a
creation illustrating his debt to the godmother of modern occultism--Madame Blavatsky.
The Great Race is a relatively benign race except for its practice of mindnapping from all place
and time for research. The Great Race is ultimately destroyed by a successor race of
nameless, violent entities, the Old Race. The Lovecraftian perspective is one of constant
renewal and destruction, of cycles in which the individual who is unarmed, that is, without
ritual and spells, cannot survive. Within the Cthulhu mythos, the powers of destruction and
renewal are condensed and concretized into entities such as Shub Niggurath (“The Goat with
a Thousand Young”), comparable to Pan and Nyarlathotep, the messenger of “crawling
chaos,” who is comparable to Hermes but, since he is the messenger of bad news, he must be
kept at bay by rituals performed at the “gates.”
This pantheon, with its concretizations of fertility and destruction, of chaos warded off by
obsessive rituals, is an assortment that is appealing to the angry adolescent whose heroes in
the here and now include such figures as Judas Priest, Motley Crue, and Ozzy Osborne. They
are particularly seductive to the adolescent from a broken home dominated by violence,
sexual abuse, and substance use. Within such an environment, the appeal of a pantheon that
provides a structural framework unattached and in opposition to adult hypocrisy is obvious.
White Magic and Wicca
Not all magick is black, nor are all writers of fantasy preoccupied with vengeance, sacrifice,
and anthropophagy. Marion Zimmer Bradley in her Darkover series presents a more positive
view of nature, and embodies within her novels a more empathic sense of the magic inherent
in the natural world. Her novels exemplify and form a gloss on neo-Paganism. Both neo-
Paganism and Wicca (the craft of the Mother Goddess) represent a protest against the
mainstream Divinity that is perceived as patriarchal. And, if the patriarchal God has given
man dominion over the Earth and its creatures, then the Goddess (named Gea) is perceived
as endorsing a more compassionate, less exploitative relationship between humanity and its
surroundings. Practitioners of the craft of Wicca distance themselves at great length from the
practitioners of the “dark arts,” as the following illustrates:
