Submitted by Paranorman on
HP Lovecraft and the mythos he developed - from the insanity-inducing elder ones, Cthulhu and his legion of great deep ones poised to erase humanity when the stars are right, to the most horrid volume imaginable, the dread Necronomicon - have emerged from pulp obscurity and dismissal to become pillars of pop-culture, literature, music and beyond. His works are known for brooding antiquarian interest, architectural and ancestral decay, profound, indeed deeply racist fear of the Other, beings whose cosmic-scale indifference threatens sanity and civilization, and occult knowledge that threatens to unlock the vault of eldritch nightmares from the gulfs beyond the stars. While Lovecraft and his often contradictory mythos have been explored at length, this episode explores just what occult influences operated and inspired Lovecraft. Was his mythos consciously or even unconsciously infused with ancient, occult lore? What exactly were the esoteric literary resources Lovecraft relied upon to build out his mythos? To what degree does authentic, historical occult knowledge actually make its way into his tales? Just what are the occult origins of Chtulhu, the Necromonicon, Yog Sothoth, the Pnakoptic Fragments and Nyarlathotep?