Frater Tenebrous Disciple of Dagon

[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

penetrate like any other ray - and perhaps more deeply.
For a long time past, my life-work has been to ascertain
its true nature, and to trace it to its fountain-head. I am
sure that somewhere in space there is a center from which
all evil emanates.
These statements are remarkable in that they foreshadow so
precisely certain esoteric doctrines revealed by Kenneth Grant
in his Typhonian Trilogy and other books. (These include
such concepts as the Black Sun , the Kali Yuga , transplutonic
power-zones, and the influx of magickal energies from the
star Sirius.). In Cults of the Shadow (1975), Grant himself refers
to Clark Ashton Smith as one of the major visual interpreters
of the Cthulhu Mythos , and goes on to state that It is claimed
by the Lovecraftian Coven that Smith is working with Les
Ophites - a sect of the Black Snake Cult - from the other
side .
In July, 1953, Smith was asked what he considered to be his
own contribution to the Mythos. He replied:
I believe I added about as much to the Cthulhu Mythos
as I borrowed - Tsathoggua and the Book of Eibon were
my creations, and were promptly utilized by Lovecraft. 5
Clearly, an equally important resultant of Clark Ashton
Smith s additions to the Mythos can be seen as being their
substantiation, both of Lovecraft s material, and of the channels
through which it was transmitted.
In late 1954, Smith married Mrs. Carol Dorman, a divorcee
with three teenage children, in Monterey, and moved to set up
home with his new family in nearby Pacific Grove. Despite a
succession of minor strokes, he continued to earn a small
income by tending other people s gardens. Though his wife
remained vague on the subject, it appears that Smith became
deeply interested in Buddhism during his last years, if not
actually converted. He died on August 14, 1961, aged 68.
NOTES
1. Like Lovecraft, Smith was also affected during childhood
by periods of ill-health, caused by some unidentified
condition.
2. See appendix
3. F. Lee Baldwin, in a biographical sketch of H.P. Lovecraft
published in Fantasy magazine, April 1935, describes the
first appearance of his story, The Lurking Fear : Later in
1922, Home Brew published The Lurking Fear as a four-
part serial with illustrations by Clark Ashton Smith, whom
he met through amateur journalism.
4. This included Frank Belknap Long, August Derleth, Henry
Kuttner and Robert Bloch. (Of his fellow weirdists , Smith
only met Donald Wandrei and E. Hoffman Price in person.)
5. It appears that Lovecraft also worked for an unnamed client
on a story which featured Smith s toad-god Tsathoggua.
However, when the client submitted this tale to Farnsworth
Wright, then editor of Weird Tales , it was rejected, and
the manuscript has since been lost.
GLOSSARY
ABHOTH: the gulf of slimy fission which is the mother and
father of all uncleanliness , this being is the coeval of the
oldest gods.
AFORGOMON: God of the Cycles of Time.
ATLACH-NACHA: The huge spider-god. Described in The
Seven Geases as having a kind of face on a squat ebon body,
low down amid the several-jointed legs.
BOOK OF EIBON: & rare volume of occult lore, which is
said to have come down through a series of manifold
translations from a prehistoric original written in the lost
language of Hyperborea. The remote fabulous original was
supposed to have been the workof a great Hyperborean wizard,
from whom it had taken its name. It was a collection of dark
and baleful myths, of liturgies, rituals and incantations, both
evil and esoteric. ( Ubbo-Sathla )
CYKRANOSH: The name by which Saturn was called in
Mhu Thulan. Saturn is the planet from which the god
Tsathoggua came to earth in former aeons.
HZIULQUOICMNZHAH: A god of Cykranosh - related to
Tsathoggua.
TSATHOGGUA (alt. Zhothaqquah, Sodaqui): & his head
was more like that of a monstrous toad than that of a deity, and
his whole body was covered with & short fur, giving somehow
the suggestion of both the bat and the sloth.
These rumours were, that Eibon was a devotee of the long-
discredited heathen god, Zhothaqquah, whose worship was
incalculably older than man; and that Eibon s magic was drawn
from his unlawful affiliation with this dark deity, who had come
down by way of other worlds when the Earth was no more
than a steaming morass ( The Door to Saturn ).
The Hyperborean worshippers of Tsathoggua relate to the
fertility cults of Hekt in ancient Egypt (see Kenneth Grant,
Outside the Circles of Time)
UBBO-SATHLA: & for Ubbo-Sathla is the source and the
end. Before the coming of Zhothaqquah or Yok-Zothopyh or
Kthulhut from the stars, Ubbo-Sathla dwelt in the steaming
fens of the newly-made Earth; a mass without head or members,
spawning the gray, formless efts of the prime and grisly
prototypes of terrene life & And all earthly life, it is told, shall
go back at last through the great circle of time to Ubbo-Sathla.
( The Book of Eibon )
XEXANOTH: The Lurking Chaos.
Appendix
The Cthulhu Mythos Stories of Clark Ashton Smith
The Return of the Sorcerer, Strange Tales, September 1931
The Tale of Satampra Zeiros, Weird Tales, November 1931
The Door to Saturn, Strange Stories, January 1932
The Nameless Offspring, Strange Tales, June 1932
Ubbo-Sathla, Weird Tales, July 1933
The Holiness of Azederac, Weird Tales, November 1933
The Seven Geases, Weird Tales, October 1934
The Coming of the White Worm, Stirring Science Stories, April
1941
Books by Kenneth Grant
The Magical Revival, Muller, 1972
Aleister Crowley & The Hidden God, Muller, 1973
Cults of the Shadow, Muller, 1975
Images & Oracles of Austin Osman Spare, Muller, 1975
Nightside of Eden, Muller, 1977
Outside the Circles of Time, Muller, 1980 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

Podobne