I would invert your order, as I find Eisler's work to be far more interesting than Jones's, but it's good to see them both here. I think that arcana of the weird in any form are very appropriate to a CAS forum, myself.

As an addendum, I would recommend Ornella Volta's study of the vampire. It lists and cites a plethora of oddities. Her book is out of print, but the cheap American paperbound edition is not hard to find. This cheap edition, however, omits the superabundant illustrations of the original French-language edition published by Pauvert, which makes it a travesty, but at least the text and its innumerable footnotes (in that regard, the book is very similar to Man into Wolf) are intact.

That's interesting. Man Into Wolf, at least, has served to "save" HP Lovecraft's works in my eyes, since Eisler's clear association of the nazis with such things as beastiality, animality, and werewolves (the post-WWII nazi underground called themselves "Werewolves"; Hitler called himself "Herr Wolf", etc.) clearly serves to differentiate nazi philosophy from HPL's philosophy, at least in this respect- HPL's philosophy clearly being anti-bestial, anti-animalistic/cannibalistic/Bacchanalian, and anti-Lycanthropic in complexion. Therefore, although HPL's philosophy would seem to parallel that of the nazis in several respects, at least in this aspect HPL could be termed a conservator of civilization.

On Satanist Boyd Rice's website (a few years ago, anyway), Rice likewise included Man Into Wolf in his list of "essential reading." One can only imagine how appalled Robert Eisler himself would have been at this, given the Neo-nazi aspects of so much of Satanism; Satanists, of course, just like the nazis, regarding the "Werewolf" as a power/aspect of man to be enjoyed/emulated. (Satanist Nicholas Schreck's band, "Radio Werewolf", for example, takes its name from the "final nazi broadcast in Germany at the end of WWII", etc.) With regard to the growing forces of irrationalism in the world, Eisler's book is a pertinent as ever.

You'll like Volta's obscure book on vampires, I think. Try to get the French edition, if you read that language. It is akin to Eisler's work, in that each offers an original and unconventional approach to what would seem to be a well-worn area, and each is larded with obscure references.

My impression is that the Nazis identified the lycanthrope archetype with certain primal, pagan, irrational forces, which indeed is the opposite of Lovecraft, who, after all, dreamt of transforming himself into a sort of sentient cosmic gas! Such ethereality is very much at the antipodes of the lycanthrope archetype, I agree.

As for the Lovecraft/NS parallels, I think that, as Joshi's biography shows, HPL's sympathy was primarily with the fascists' economic program. I don't want to revive political debates, however, lol, so I'll leave the matter at that!

I would add in passing that some of CAS's weakest tales involve such "conventional" figures as the werewolf.

There are almost as many "Satanisms" as there are representations and interpretations of Satan, himself, so I'd be wary of generalizing. That said, the Church of Satan certainly draws some inspiration from the lycanthrope archetype. Anton LaVey even wrote a little ritual for turning oneself into a werewolf. His organization, however, is mere "commercial Satanism", and, as calonlan has indicated, CAS had the good sense to see through the Church of Satan's founder when the two of them met. That organization certainly needn't be taken seriously.

By the way, Schreck and Rice have both long since left Satanism proper behind, haven't they? As an aside, I once met Rice at a party. He was very pleasant, unpretentious, and an interesting conversationalist; there was nothing bloodthirsty or overtly fascistic about him in person, at any rate!

Quote:

With regard to the growing forces of irrationalism in the world, Eisler's book is a pertinent as ever.

Homo homini lupus, an idea that is almost as old as Western civilization, itself.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 16 Jun 09 | 08:54AM by Kyberean.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As for the Lovecraft/NS parallels, I think that,
> as Joshi's biography shows, HPL's sympathy was
> primarily with the fascists' economic program.

Actually, Joshi’s biography says quite the opposite. Indeed, according to Joshi, HPL’s support/admiration for the nazis and Hitler not purely “economic,” but also cultural -Lovecraft arguing that:

“Hitler is right to suppress Jewish influence on German culture, since ‘no settled & homogenous nation ought a) to admit enough of a decidedly alien race-stock to bring about an actual alteration in the dominant ethnic composition, or b) tolerate the dilution of the culture-stream with emotional & intellectual elements alien to the original cultural impulse.” (Joshi, HPL: A Life, p. 589)

(One wonders what effect HPL’s irrational eugenics-policies would have had if let loose on his beloved ancient world: no mixing of Etruscan, Umbrian, Alpine, Trojan, and Latin strains to create the ancient Romans; no combination of Dorian, Ionian, Pelasgian, Minoan, and Attican strains to create the ancient Greeks; no intermixing of Sumerian, Chaldean, Elamite, and Akkadian cultures to create ancient Mesopotamia, etc., etc., etc………)

Joshi concludes his discussion by citing Harry Probst's story (quoted earlier by de Camp) of Lovecraft being “‘horrified’” at a German-émigré’s tale of the crimes being perpetrated on innocent citizens by the nazi regime -Joshi suggesting, with very little conviction, that “it is conceivable that Lovecraft” eventually realized “that he had been wrong [about Hitler]. It would be a comforting thought.” (590) Clearly, Joshi is less than certain about either the purely economic basis for, or the eventual diminution of, Lovecraft’s admiration for nazism.

Ultimately, however, whether HPL was once “a supporter of Hitler” is completely immaterial. The real question is: what does a full analysis of the polemical intent of HPL’s larger fictional and written corpus reveal? And what this analysis reveals -at least in my own reading of it- is an attitude/worldview which very nearly parallels the nazis in most respects. Anti-Semitism; militarism; eugenics; segregation; anti-“miscegenation” laws, concentration camps, lynching -Lovecraft supported all of these things, either implicitly and explicitly, in his stories, essays, and letters.

HPL’s novella “The Shadow Over Innsmouth”, for example, in which Captain Marsh forces the townspeople “to entertain guests” sexually (or, as HPL later puts it, give them “what they hankered after“) -forcing them to racially-intermix with the Deep Ones- reads like a paranoid sexual apocalypse from the imagination of a David Duke, or from the racial fulminations of the KKK. It is striking, too, that the only symbol which is capable of stopping the Deep Ones, according to HPL, is the sign of the Old Ones, which HPL, tellingly, describes as looking “like what ye call a swastika nowadays.”

The only “comforting thought” (as Joshi puts it) which I have been able to find -as I have said before- is that HPL’s attitude toward the beastial/Lycathropic was diametrically opposed to that of the nazis.

> There are almost as many "Satanisms" as there are
> representations and interpretations of Satan,
> himself, so I'd be wary of generalizing.

As Eisler’s work reveals, there are certain commonalities between the Lycanthropic myth and the nazis’ behavior/belief systems. And so it is natural that Satanism, with its similarly Lycanthropic ideals (Lavey’s interest in things like The Tierdrama, etc., in which men dress as animals and walk "on all fours", in obvious recapitulation of some ancient, cannibalistic, Bacchanalian rite), should likewise (and as Eisler would perhaps expect) adopt some aspects of nazism.

> By the way, Schreck and Rice have both long since
> left Satanism proper behind, haven't they?

Whatever their current projects or affiliations, I don’t know that either Mr. Rice or Mr. Schreck have explicitly or openly renounced their past fascist or satanic affiliations.

It does seem a bit contradictory for Kyberean to state as he does, on the one hand, that “Satanists are not all the same”, and then to dispute, on the other hand, whether Rice and Schreck are correctly termed “Satanists”, since neither are explicitly associated with the original church founded by Lavey. If Satanism is, as Kyberean states, a movement with a wide range of beliefs, then surely it is correct to refer to both Rice and Schreck as Satanists if neither have given any indications of outright disassociation from their past ideas.

> Homo homini lupus, an idea that is almost as old
> as Western civilization, itself.

Civilization, however, progresses in stages. As Eisler reveals in his book, the pagan Bacchanalian rite was basically a ceremonial recapitulation of earlier, cannibalistic rites engaged in by primitive, tribal human societies. It was Christian civilization which initially -in recapitulation of earlier Judaic prohibitions on infanticide- made the cannibal a “wolf” or “outlaw”, outside the normal bounds of society. Christianity, however, through its basic contradictions, enabled the structural perpetuation of its own criminal mindset, as revealed by its repeated bouts of hysteria involving scientists, heretics, and witches.

It was only with the rise of Capitalism -enabled, it is true, by the growth of Christianity- that a true picture of both the individual and civilization itself was finally free to develop -a civilization in which free-exchange and free-expression are essential, and in which predatory force has no place. Surely the idea that "Man is wolf to Man" can have no greater opposition, or antidote, than this. This new idea of individualism and civilization, of course, has been threatened numerous times, most notably by the various irrationalist movements of the 20th century, and by Islamo-fascism and neo-tribalism/anti-industrialism today.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jun 09 | 04:48PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Hmm, my (to me, at least) rather anodyne comments seem to have been mistaken for the dropping of a gauntlet, which is unfortunate. I'll go one more round, then, on principle.

Quote:

Actually, Joshi’s biography says quite the opposite. Indeed, according to Joshi, HPL’s support/admiration for the nazis and Hitler not purely “economic”

I did not write that Lovecraft's interest was "purely" economic. I wrote that it was primarily economic. I don't deny that Lovecraft, especially during the '20's, sympathized with Fascist racial views, but I do deny that his interest in Fascism can be reduced to the aspects of racial and cultural homogeneity.

At a minimum, Lovecraft's views are, as usual, far more nuanced and sophisticated than Gavin allows him credit, and Joshi's biography reveals that fact. Gavin seems to prefer Sprague de Camp's Lovecraft, whereas I think that Joshi gives us a far more balanced and accurate portrayal of the man. As I mentioned, however, I have no desire or intention to resurrect political discussions in this forum, so I shall leave the matter at that.

Quote:

It does seem a bit contradictory for Kyberean to state as he does, on the one hand, that “Satanists are not all the same”, and then to dispute, on the other hand, whether Rice and Schreck are correctly termed “Satanists”, since neither are explicitly associated with the original church founded by Lavey. If Satanism is, as Kyberean states, a movement with a wide range of beliefs, then surely it is correct to refer to both Rice and Schreck as Satanists if neither have given any indications of outright disassociation from their past ideas

There nothing the slightest bit contradictory about it. I do not say that these individuals are no longer Satanists simply because they have ceased to be affiliated with LaVey's little circus. I state this fact simply because neither figure Gavin mentions has, to the best of my knowledge, explicitly advocated or had anything to do with Satanism in any form for many years, now.

For instance, Boyd Rice has mentioned in interviews that he no longer has any active involvement with Satanism, and that he accepted his priesthood in LaVey's church more out of friendship with LaVey than for any other reason. When last I checked, Rice was into some sort of neo-Royalist business, exploring Merovingian dynasties, conspiracies, and the like, and his Web site had nothing to do with Satanism. His recent activities seem more along the lines of something one might find in The Da Vinci Code than in anything out of Huysmans.

Likewise, Schreck is not involved with any Satanic organization of which I am aware. His wife (Anton LaVey's daughter) has explicitly renounced her father, and the couple's last book, I believe, was about Tantric sex and magic, a subject on which they offer workshops. Unless, like most Christians, one finds anything outside of Christianity to be automatically "Satanic", it is hard to fit the activities and interests that I described under a diabolical rubric.

It is also not my duty to prove a negative. Gavin's logic is along the lines of, "X used to love to play golf. I know nothing of X's activities today, but if he used to play golf, then, unless he has explicitly renounced golf, he must still be a golfer". Not so. X may have quietly given up golf and moved on to other interests without making any great fanfare about the matter.

If, on the other hand, there is actual evidence that these individuals are currently practicing Satanism in any form, then let's see it. In the meantime, it is illogical to infer that, because one held a given belief or perspective five, ten, or more years ago, then one necessarily holds the same beliefs today.

It is likewise illogical to assume that, simply because the Nazis and certain--by no means all--Satanists have an interest in lycanthropy, they necessarily have any other affinities, still less that the two may be equated. It's rather like saying that all Stalinists and all Republicans both enjoy tennis, therefore, all Republicans must be Stalinists.

As for the widely differing varieties and forms that contemporary Satanism may take, Gavin simply needs to educate himself better on the subject. There is, for instance, a group of Satanists called the Satanic Reds who are explicitly anti-Nazi, and perhaps even to the Left politically of Gavin! ;-)

As for civilization, the phrase homo homini lupus, and the like: The phrase is from Asinaria ("lupus est homo homini') by Titus Maccius Plautus (c. 254–184 BCE). It predates both the era of state Christianity in Rome and modern capitalism. My point was simply that both the phrase and the concept are ancient, and that the modern world is as much an embodiment of it as the ancient world. I suspect that here, Gavin and I are merely misunderstanding one another. If Gavin is suggesting, however, that our post-Christian, capitalist society represents some profound and objective improvement over ancient times, in an abstract or quantifiable sense, then pardon my belly-laugh.

Overall, this is not an important subject, and it is off-topic for the forum, so, as I mentioned, this is the last round, for me. I won't read or reply further to this sub-topic.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 17 Jun 09 | 07:30PM by Kyberean.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is also not my duty to prove a negative.
> Gavin's logic is along the lines of, "X used to
> love to play golf. I know nothing of X's
> activities today, but if he used to play golf,
> then, unless he has explicitly renounced golf, he
> must still be a golfer". Not so. X may have
> quietly given up golf and moved on to other
> interests without making any great fanfare about
> the matter.

If after many years, Tiger Woods were to suddenly give up the game of golf, would it, or would it not, still be proper to refer to Mr. Woods as a “golfer”? “Former golfer” would hardly seem appropriate, when one thinks of his contributions to the game.

By the same token, one can hardly say I am remiss to refer to as “satanists” two men who were among the chief architects of Satanism in the 1980’s. And if Kyberean does not realize the extent of their former involvement in this movement, then it is Kyberean, and not I, who “needs to educate himself better on the subject.”

> Hmm, my (to me, at least) rather anodyne comments
> seem to have been mistaken for the dropping of a
> gauntlet, which is unfortunate.

It is Kyberean who is mistaken. I was simply responding to his comments.

> There is, for instance, a group of Satanists
> called the Satanic Reds who are explicitly
> anti-Nazi,

No doubt there are many obscure Satanic sects of which most are unaware. This does little to affect the main thrust of the Satanic movement, and its underlying texts by LaVey (which are still in print, to the tune of millions of copies.) No doubt some sects of Christianity likewise believe that Jesus was a space-alien; yet it would hardly be appropriate to assume this to be a characteristic of the Christian religion as a whole.

> then pardon my
> belly-laugh.

I wonder if Boyd Rice was able to make him laugh as easily.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 19 Jun 09 | 04:18PM by Gavin Callaghan.

Please be forewarned that the videos in the links below are disturbing, but they serve to reinforce the connections I was making between Satanism, the Werewolf, Boyd Rice, Nicholas Schreck, and nazism.

In the 1990's -after breaking with Lavey's Church of Satan- Schreck was a member of Michael Aquino's Temple of Set (http://www.xeper.org/), a more philosophically-oriented sect of Lavey's Church of Satan (Set=Satan). More recently, Schreck left the Temple of Set to found a new, but still closely-related Satanic sect (significantly, in Germany), called The Storm: Vanguard of the International Sethian Movement. Their website went down only a few years ago, in 2006 or so (perhaps because the German authorities realized the probable Neo-nazi sympathies/aims of the group.)

At any rate, for Kyberean to characterize Schreck's more recent work on "Tantric sex and magic" as anything other than Satanic (i.e., as anything other than a direct outgrowth and continuation of his lifelong work with the Satanic, the lycanthropic, and Lavey) is disingenuous in the extreme, and demonstrates quite clearly Kyberean's failure to recognize the intrinsic connections between Lavey's Satanism, and what Robert Eisler characterized as the sexual/algolagnic aspects of the lycanthropic Bacchanalia.

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

[www.youtube.com]

"Our aim is to awaken the WOLF in man..." -Nicholas Schreck



Edited 4 time(s). Last edit at 20 Jun 09 | 08:03PM by Gavin Callaghan.

I said I was going to leave this part of the thread alone--and I will, after this--but I can't resist asking the following question:

Considering that he represents himself as one who loves humanity, and who despises others whom he perceives as taking a violent approach to human relations, why does Gavin promptly go into "rabid attack dog mode" at the slightest and mildest signs of disagreement? All I did was ask whether Schreck and Rice are still considered representatives of Satanism, and look at the response that resulted!

Here are a couple of other questions that are worth asking, while I am at it:

--Does Gavin have any interest whatsoever in the work of Clark Ashton Smith, the subject of this Web site and this forum? If so, then does he ever intend to demonstrate that interest by posting about Ashton Smith?

--Does Gavin's (unhealthy, in my view) obsession with Lovecraft extend to an appreciation of his actual writings? In other words, does he actually like Lovecraft's work on some level as fiction? Or is Lovecraft some sort of authority-figure or father-figure (since Gavin recently expressed an admiration for Freudian psychology, the frame of reference seems to fit) whom he feels compelled in an Oedipal fit to overthrow? Or, worse still, is Lovecraft's work simply grist for Gavin's particular ambitions as a literary critic?

I am now officially done with this part of the thread. I'd be highly surprised if anyone else here were paying attention to it, and I really hate to give it a bump, but, as I mentioned, the above questions are worth asking.

Kyberean Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Considering that he represents himself as one who
> loves humanity, and who despises others whom he
> perceives as taking a violent approach to human
> relations,

Is Kyberean using the following equation:
dislike for nazism=love for all humanity? If so, I don't accept his arithmetic, any more than I accept the "off topic" criticism. It's natural for conversations to diverge and develop along various unexpected lines and tangents. And its not as if I were offering rogaine supplements or viagra pills for sale.

> All I did was ask whether
> Schreck and Rice are still considered
> representatives of Satanism, and look at the
> response that resulted!

The issue was not merely that, but also a larger question, regarding the overall complexion of the modern-day Satanic movement itself.

> --Does Gavin have any interest whatsoever in the
> work of Clark Ashton Smith, the subject of this
> Web site and this forum?

In my opinion, CAS is a far greater writer than HPL, in terms of pure literature. It makes me cringe when I read Lovecraftian scholarship, and see people write of HPL's supposed use of themes by Hawthorne or Melville- when in truth HPL's closest literary influences are from the Munsey pulps he idolized in the early 1900's, and writers like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charles B. Stilson, Garrett P. Serviss, George Allan England, and J. U. Giesy.

At the same time, I think that HPL is far better at atmospheric effects than CAS; its debatable to what degree these atmospheric effects are enjoyable apart from HPL's underlying aristocratic/White-supremacist ideology. As for whether CAS has any sort of subtext, aside from his pro-pagan/Rabelaisian enjoyment of life, women, wine, and song, I don't know. Perhaps I'll turn my "eye of Sauron" there next.

We were having some talk about book covers. Artwork aside, I think the Penguin Classics are very nice paperbacks. They have a quality of paper and lettering that makes for pleasant reading, and the these books easily fold open without breaking of spine or reading creases appearing. Handy.

Howard's poetry collection Night Images from Morning Star Press. Now THAT'S an incredible printing!! Heavy boards for covers with thick silver relief inlay, and rich selected paper inside. (The much lauded Night Shade Books volumes of Hodgson look like pulp by comparison.) The folks at Morning Star Press clearly had a genuine love affair with book binding, commercial interests being a side issue.

What are good or passable editions of The House On the Borderland and The Ghost Pirates (aside from the Night Shade collections)? I received a hard cover copy from Wildside Press, but the lettering is quite large, as if for people with poor eyesight; I can't decide if I like it or not, whether it leads me into the book even better, or if it's a distraction. I suppose it takes some getting used to. What do you think of large lettering?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 4 Jul 09 | 04:28AM by Knygatin.

I am sending back the large print book. :/

I can't reconcile with it.

I said before that I would make my own books for the above two Hodgson titles, but the online texts require editing from start to finish, so I don't find it worthwhile.

In going over the previous post, I was rather struck by the following:

Gavin Callaghan Wrote:

> It makes me cringe when I read Lovecraftian scholarship, and
> see people write of HPL's supposed use of themes
> by Hawthorne or Melville- when in truth HPL's
> closest literary influences are from the Munsey
> pulps he idolized in the early 1900's, and writers
> like Edgar Rice Burroughs, Charles B. Stilson,
> Garrett P. Serviss, George Allan England, and J.
> U. Giesy.

I have to ask why this reaction? Certainly, I don't think anyone either can or should deny the influence of the Munsey magazines -- or even the pulps -- on Lovecraft and his work, and this is a very good field for investigation for Lovecraftian scholars. At the same time, surely the connection to Hawthorne, Melville, and the like is no less deserving of consideration, as it is evident that Lovecraft did read these and other "classic" American writers, and often drew inspiration from passages in their work. I'm afraid I can't at all agree that the popular writers were "closer" literary influences -- I think that is taking things much too far, and in fact flies in the face of the evidence in many cases -- but that they were indeed important influences is completely correct.

The problem with citing the various popular writers (and magazines) mentioned may simply be the enormous plethora of such, combined with the difficulty of access for many -- especially the amateur scholars; whereas the canonical writers are much more accessible to both such scholars and their potential readers. This is, again, not to say the other branch is unworthy, or would prove unfruitful, of investigation -- quite the contrary. (As a personal example, I recently got my hands on a copy of Victor Rousseau's The Sea Demons and read it. I was aware of the influence cited by de Camp and others on the creation of the inhabitants of Innsmouth, but what struck me most was the passage involving the sea-creatures' idol, which I would say has much to do with the similar discovery of the monolith in "Dagon", written approximately a year later -- so much so that I find it much more impressive than the former instance.) But if it is a problem of having access to the materials, that rather puts things on a different footing, doesn't it? And, in the meantime, why not explore the cases of influence from these other writers, as well....?

Quote:

I think that is taking things much too far [...]

Welcome to the core of Gavin's critico-analytical method! :-P

As you've discerned, the method consists primarily of over-simplification, of extreme, sweeping judgments based upon subjective interpretations, of black-and-white moralizing, and of citing/asserting basically anything that will denigrate Lovecraft....

Note to Gavin: If you find actually anybody to publish this stuff of yours, then don't forget to sign your article "Oedipus".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 28 Jul 09 | 09:13PM by Kyberean.

jdworth Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> In going over the previous post, I was rather
> struck by the following:
>
> Gavin Callaghan Wrote:
>
> > It makes me cringe when I read Lovecraftian
> scholarship, and
> > see people write of HPL's supposed use of
> themes
> > by Hawthorne or Melville-
>
> I have to ask why this reaction?

JDWorth is right, the statement is meant to be shocking. But remember, this is no different from HPL's own assessment of his own work, which he repeately lamented as being too-heavily influenced by things like the pulps. I do think HPL was wrong to lament this: the pulps, the comics (which HPL also disliked), and film can be, and are, great art. But I also think HPL's fictional influences & methods should not be misrepresented.