Happy birthday Cthulhu

It is Cthulhu's birthday. Or at least, the anniversary of his first public appearance.

Cthulhu de Willendorf (MDE 2016)

While H. P. Lovecraft wrote The Call of Cthulhu in the summer of 1926, it wasn't until February 1st, 1928 that Weird Tales published the story.

Weird Tales--February 1928

Due to this little fact, some esoteric astrologers working with the mythos use this date as Cthulhu birthday when calculating certain figures.

[Shameless plug: You can buy a print of my Cthulhu de Willendorf on DeviantArt.]

Target worships Khnum (31 Days of Halloween Kitties Day 29 Year 3)

Kitty makes a cute Khnum.

If you have been on Facebook lately, you have probably seen this picture. Target is using it in one of their sponsored posts (aka an ad) about the holiday costume contest that they are running this year--"Dress up you pet and embarrass them on the internet." I really love this picture--kitty is dressed up as Khnum. I have to love that--my wife is a potter (her pottery store is represented in the sidebar gadget to the right of this post).

Send me a muse (HP-31 Day 27)

[Inspired by classical mythology]

Mighty Apollo, shining one
Send me your muses to inspire and enlighten me
To quicken my thoughts and guide my hand
As I pick up pen and paper, and keyboard too
To write and entertain, to convince and inform.

Calliope, bearer of the wax tablet
Guide my hand and steady my mind
When I bend my attention
To the writing of epics
And the woobly bits of science.

Euterpe, bearer of the double flute
Guide my hand and attune my ear
When I form lyric poetry
Forming the medicine of the mind
And distilling the magic of the soul.

Erato, bearer of the small lyre
Guide my hand and enflame my heart
When I inscribe erotic enchantments
Of flaming desires and heaving bosoms
Of love overcoming all obstacles.

Melpomene, wearer of the frowning mask
Guide my hand and humble my soul
When I record tragedies great and small
Birth, death, and the life between
All is sorrow, all is waste.

Thalia, wearer of the laughing mask
Guide my hand and quicken my tongue
When I become the jester among the grim
Precious stones, metals rare, exotic life
None are as valuable as a smile.

Polyhymnia, veiled thinker
Guide my hand and correct my soul
When I expound upon sublime mysteries
Heaven, hell, purgatory, all the manifold worlds
Reflect the truths of the human spirit.

Teripsichore, bearer of the large lyre
Guide my hand and expand my breath
When I write of songs and dancing
Gravity and motion, cause and effect
All things spring from the first point.

Clio, bearer of the ancient scroll
Guide my hand and sharpen my reason
When I trend upon the march of history
Of great men and the myth of progress
Coincidence and flawed minds drive us all.

Urania, bearer of the celestial globe
Guide my hand and extend my imagination
When I create stellar empires and alien civilizations
And myths of star ships crossing the abyss
The stars incline, they do not compel.

Oh mighty Apollo, shining one
Oh great muses, daughters of lightning
I call upon you to inspire and enlighten
For I am a writer, an artist, a creator
A child of the imagination with ink-stained hands.

Cthulhu oh gee (31-HP Day 21)

I am Cthulhu
Oh gee, I am
Large and green
Crushing buildings
Sinking boats
Stomping humans
Long before
That other guy

Oh gee, I am
Sleeping beneath
The wide Pacific.
Radioactive breath
I need not.
Broadcast madness
Fill the asylums
In my sleep

Throw planes at me
I eat them
Tanks make nice shoes
Atomic weapons
Make me laugh
I am an Elder God
An Old One
Not some young upstart

Cthulhu I am
The original bad
You are insignificant
For I am
Cthulhu oh gee
The original Godzilla
Accept no substitutes
Not even in Japan

Shocking truth of the Shroud of Frater RC

[Thanks to Ananael for calling my attention to the latest research on the Shroud of Turin; you can go to his blog Augoeides to read his reaction to the research.]



Full length negatives of the Shroud of Turin.

The latest research on the subject of the Shroud of Turin reveals that the image could have been made by a flash of ultraviolet light. Of course, this leaves two problems for those who believe that the Shroud of Turin is the shroud that Jesus Christ was buried in: One, where did Jesus find a ultraviolent laser in his time period; and two, why does the carbon dating of the shroud place the Shroud's origin between 1260 and 1390?

Being the mad occultist I am, I think I have a solution; but the Christians are not going to like it. I don't think that the Shroud of Turin is actually the burial cloth of Jesus Christ. Instead, I propose it is the burial cloth of the founder of the Rosicrucian movement, the burial cloth of Frater RC himself.

My theory has the benefit of bringing the Shroud into a myth that uses temporal dates much closer to the carbon dating results. Plus my theory has the additional benefit of explaining how the lasering of the cloth occurred---quite simply, when Frater RC died and assumed his rightful place in the Rosicrucian hierarchy as a solar being, his corpse emitted a flash of ultraviolet light which imprinted his image onto the burial cloth.

Therefore, the Italian scientific community has proved evidence that not only was Frater RC a real person, they have also provided proof that ascension into the solar body is possible. Sounds like a win-win to me...unless you are a Christian that believes the myth that Jesus was buried in the Shroud of Turin.

Shroud of Turin before its 2002 restoration.

Homeric Hymn to Hephaistos

Sing, O clear-voiced Muse, of Hephaistos renowned for skill,
who along with the gray-eyed Athena taught fine crafts
to men of this earth; indeed before that time
they used to live in mountain caves like wild beasts.

Thanks to Hephaistos, the famous craftmen,
they learned crafts and easily for the full year
they lead a carefree existence in their own homes.

Have mercy on me, Hephaistos; grant me virtue and happiness.

---translated by Apostolos N. Athanassakis

[Haphaistos---Greco-Roman; Hephaestus---Roman; Vulcanus/Vulcan---Roman: god of blacksmiths and metal-working.]

Spirits Have Full Names

There are times when I read something that I have to say "So?!" or "This is news, how?!" The latest was when I was reading David Griffin's book review of Grand Key of Solomon the King the other day. I was sipping a coca-cola at the time (*wink*).

And Griffin wrote:

One thing that amazed me was that even though we are familiar with demons like Amaymon (in Arabic Maymon) and Paimon, according to this Key of Solomon these are actually surnames. This indicates that for a long time evocations performed by European occultists summoned these beings using only their last names, while Arab magicians called them by their full names. Just wow!

Wow?! Huh?! This is a surprise, how?!

Maybe it is just me, but this is old news, right?

I doubt that anyone who is familiar with Norse mythology, Greek mythology, or Egyptian mythology is surprised that spirits have first names. (I am not sure about other mythologies, but a passing study of any one of these three should provide the student the hint that spirits have whole names, and not just last names.)

No one who have worked with any of the angels who have numerous functions should be surprised. You have to use something more than just a single name if (for instance) you are interested in a specific function of (let's say) the angel Micheal.

And no one who is experienced in working with evocation should be surprised either. After all, the first thing you ask a spirit is for its name. A single experience of a spirit giving you a full name should be enourgh to wake you up to the fact that Western grimoires are incomplete.

The fact that Arabic grimoires are more complete should not be a surprise either. The Western world tried to wipe out its mystery traditions for centuries. There are still people today that think we should all be burned at the stake. Recording a first name for a spirit sounds like a sure way to get burned to me.

There is also the Western tradition that the specific ritual modifications that a spirit tells you are "For Your Eyes Only" and are not to be shared (aka written down). This includes differences between the name as they give it to you and the name that you used for initial contact.

Now, I will admit that I must say Wow! to the fact that we now have access to a grimoire that lists this information. I am just not sure if it will justify buying the book; I find that I am not nearly as impressed by the same things as the HOGD/A&O crowd is, so there is always doubt that the book is worth it based on a HOGD/A&O book review.

(In all fairness, I must admit that the HOGD/A&O members loathe my book reviews for the very fact that I find different things useful than their chosen set.)

Now, I am quite sure that Griffin will say that I misunderstood him. It will be interesting to compare the pdf of the original book review to whatever version he creates to prove that I completely misunderstood him, and knew all the stuff that I have already mentioned.

(By the way [bonus for my readers who are also bloggers], if you are interested in getting the most pageviews, you never revise a blog post, you always follow up with a new blog post instead. Remember search engines love blogs that regularly updated; a revision does not show up as an update. It also helps keep you out of the fraud and fakers category---the very appearance of revising your posts is enourgh to get one labeled a fraud when one writes about the occult.)