1. Kessie says:

    I always wondered why, as an atheist, Lovecraft was obsessed with gods. And never the nice ones–it was always Dagon and his ilk.

    • That’s a good point, Kessie. There’s a number of contemporary writers who are staunch atheists/agnostics who spend an inordinate amount of time exploring the spiritual themes they reject.
      And I think as a believer it is helpful in a way to understand how people view God. We honor, love, and respect Him so much, we often forget that others hate and scorn Him.

  2. notleia says:

    It’s easy to classify Lovecraftian horror under a sort of mythic naturalism. Naturalism in the literary sense is the Jack London-y atmosphere of the cruel indifference of Nature.

    Which I find kinda funny to be invoked here, since quite a few people object to putting naturalism in Christianity.

    Also, thing: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2015/09/04/left-behind-classic-fridays-no-49-explicit-content/

  3. HG Ferguson says:

    Thank you for sharing this observation and for calling attention to this master of subtle horror, my mentor in terms of suggestion and shuddery subtleness. You are absolutely correct.  Proof is found in his story The Call of Cthulhu itself, where Castro wheezes about how the time of the Old Ones’ return will be easy to determine because man will have become like the Old Ones themselves, with lawlessness, murder and riot being the order of the day.  And when the Old Ones return, they will show mankind new ways to do those things and the entire world will know ecstatic liberation!  The first part of this is straight out of Matthew 24 and II Timothy 3:1ff — Lovecraft was a student of the English Bible and escaped neither its influence on his writing nor its significance in the colonial New England culture he adored.  Any reading of The Case of Charles Dexter Ward will tell you that.  The return of the Great Old Ones indeed does most definitely echo the Day of the Lord.  But where the cultist exults Cthulhu fhtagn, we instead cry Maranatha!  

  4. I don’t think he was too far from the truth. He was writing about the gods returning — the fallen angels. I won’t say more because my next book is about this and I don’t want to give away too much of the plot.  You can check out my series on my website at LorilynRoberts

  5. This is the central concept of my Merkabah Rider series, although from a Judeocentric perspective. In Jewish mysticism it’s forbidden to study the nature of the Ein Sof, that which preceded Creation and the manifestation of God as we know Him.

    In my research for the series, a big jumping off point was this definition from Geoffrey Dennis’ Encyclopedia of Jewish Myth, Magic, and Mysticism;

    Rahav – A cosmic sea monster first mentioned in the biblical book of Isaiah….Talmud called him Prince of the Sea, echoing the Canaanite name for their sea god, “Prince River.” God slew him when he refused to help in creating the earth.

  6. Kerry Nietz says:

    Great article with interesting speculation, Nathan! Thanks for taking the time.

What do you think?