Saucers of the Illuminati

[David Guyatt]

There is also that hint given in one of the two .pdf's you kindly posted that someone (unidentified) was passing Lovecraft extremely rare and exotic occult literature that focused his interest and abilities in distinctly negative directions.

Helen said:

Lovecraft received some correspondence regarding his publications in Weird Tales by one person who said he was ignorantly serving real forces in his stories.

I just checked the foregoing semi-citation I made and it refers to comments made in Parker Ryan's essay on the Necronomicon in which he suggests that Lovecraft must've had access to a very rare Arabic text connected to the Necronomicon - apparently derived from Muqarribun magical practises - which he says were not available during Lovecraft's time (page 5).

And then on page 7 Parker Ryan states:

Let's closely examine the material on Arab magick. I believe it leads to one conclusion.
Lovecraft had access to rare material on Arab magick and myths. Ignoring the possible
coincidental equivalence of Kutulu and Khadhulu there is still overwhelming evidence
supporting this proposal. Lovecraft used Irem in a manner that Parallels the Muqarribun
use before this information was generally available. The Rub al Khali (Roba el Khaliye)
is in truth important to the Muqarribun. The Jinn are exact counter parts of the "Old
Ones." Lovecraft's description of Alhazred is VERY consistent with the Arabic Meaning
of the "Mad Poet" even though this also was generally unknown in the 1930's. The Al
Azif (the howling of the Jinn) is obviously related to Alazred's title: "The One Who is
Possessed by Jinn and Whose Writings Are Inspired by Jinn." Al Azif being a book of
poetry is consistent with the fact that almost all mystical or prophetic writings in Arabic
are poems. Khadhulu's association with the sleeping Dragon of the Abyss is VERY close
to Lovecraft's Cthulhu who lays Dreaming in the Abyss (ocean). To my knowledge there
was nothing available (in print) about Khdhulu in English in the 1930's. All this seems to
indicate that Lovecraft had a source of information of Arabic magick and myths not
commonly accessible. It appears HPL expanded on some of the material, in this source,
in his fiction. Please note that this in no way detracts from his considerable creastivity.
HPL's stories are great not because of few isolated elements but rather because of the way
Lovecraft could blend the individual pieces into a whole.

I accept in advance that I may be adding two and two and coming up with five. However, largely due to the apparent obscurity of the Arabic magical traditions he appears to have had access to, my sense is that Lovecraft may actually have amounted to more than is publicly apparent.

It was one of Jung's analytical techniques to assess the state of an individuals active psychology by the fiction they write (amongst other applications). And the concern is that Lovecraft may have been promulgating, via his fiction, various aspects of Arabic left-hand magic with the purpose of stimulating in the Collective Unconscious of his readers the hidden dark regions in order to create a new pulse of life - a sort of proselytizing at arms length if you will. Can this happen unconsciously? Yes. But it seems more likely in view of the foregoing that Lovecraft probably knew what he was doing.

This certainly seems to be the undertone or thinking of Kenneth Grant and others who are, or have been, deeply involved in such practices themselves (which is why I think they are inclined to "adhere" to Lovecraft) - a coming together of like minds perhaps - and one reason I should think why certain Lovecraft's stories seem to be required reading by the Brotherhood of the Left Hand path (to lift the occult terminology used by Parker Ryan), whereas Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, for example, is not on their curriculum (I checked a Satanic online book list).

For what it's worth, this is the main concern I have with Lovecraft.