At the woolies of madness
A few days ago, or perhaps it was 25 years thence, I realized that there's something about a story that has it's own life..it's own spirit. And that, if you believe in one story...you really have no choice but believe all them...kind of. As my post the other day posited, "there are many people who believe whole-heartedly in the existence of angels but would scoff at the reality of goblins."
There are hedges...(I believe is the correct term)...the idea that one story may deny the reality of another story, or contradict/subvert the ideas therein contained. Then there are people like me. Personally, I believe in almost all stories but normally I rate those stories on a reality spectrum. 1-10 or 1-100 respectively. Also, keeping in mind that no story I have ever read gets a 100% on that scale and the truths contained in any story are metaphors for a spiritual reality. Now that's a lot to understand but I'll give an example.
In my last post I gave a rating scale of "fairy to dragon." This is not because I believe that fairies are less real than dragons, but because, for me...fairies carry almost zero spiritual truth/existence. Why do I believe this? Because of the history of the fey in Europe. Once they were as interesting and 'venerated'? as yokai are in Japan, but the church came in and made them small and meaningless...nonetheless, people who actually believe in fairies today, believe the church's/Disney's narrative of these tiny humans with wings who's purpose seems to be within the confines of "luck."
Dragons on the other hand (within story narratives) have retained (literal and metaphorical) size, strength and overall divinely-destructive power. In China, for example (mostly in the south) there are still Dragon temples that you can go to and make offerings to them. THAT is quite a story! Because the life of the story, the spirit...retains it's existence even in the face of Wahl-mart and cell phones.
Now...why do I bring all this up? Because today I'm going to talk about one of my favorite authors creations...the Lovecraft Mythos. Why is it relevant? Well 1stly, the stories themselves are about some truly universal sized badasses. 2ndly, while the beings in the stories have no cult or temples to speak of...I feel the spiritual truth...the otherworldly reality of them carries weight.
I can hear you saying.."wait...dude...are you saying you worship the great old ones?"
Obviously not. Like, I'm a huge fan but that's kinda where it stops. As above, I don't believe in dragons but I understand that what they represent is important in understanding both a physical and a spiritual truth. (The physical truth being that storms exist...and have a life of their own. They can be terribly destructive and can't be reasoned with, controlled or bought-out. The spiritual truth is quite the same...so, you want to call the spirit of a storm Hurricane Harold and watch it on satellite radar or call it Lung Wang and go to the temple to burn incense and ask it not to destroy your house....great...that works too!)
For the purposes of today's entry, I'm going to give a rating 1-10. Anything with a RATING of 5 or above I believe, has a life of it's own, is spiritually true and has some realistic equivalent.
We'll with some of the smaller creatures in the mythos. Anywhere from rat creatures to the Moon beasts. We'll give these entities a RATING of 2-3. The original author and other contributors to the mythos really needed to fill in some gaps in their stories
(yes...that's a rat person, in their boxer shorts...see what I did there??)
Next Ghouls, Gasts and Gugs. The line here is kind of blurry. After all, a Ghul, or Ghula is straight from Middle Eastern folklore, they have their own stories and are part of that culture. Lovecraft, unfortunately, was a screaming racist and viewed these monsters through that lens. In the mythos, the 3 G's are underground dwellers that feed on the dead and on each other. I love a good "underground creature" story but I'm reluctant to give them too high a rating because of the storyteller they're coming from.
(A lovecraftian ghoul in loincloth)
I give the 3G's a 4.5-5. They're pretty nasty.
Ok...moving forward towards the ultimate darkness...the flying and swimming creatures. We've got Byahkee, Nightgaunt, Deep Ones, and Shantak
( Deep One in a well appointed loincloth...lovely)
These guys are the bread and butter of basically any folklore or mythology. They're magical, supernatural and don't necessarily conform to a defined role or form. These are the yokai, the Djinn, the Igigi or even THE HOOORDE! They are a solid 7 on the scale. They never go away, they're part of essentially every culture whether you want to call them goblins or Kappa. They have individuality. They are "the people" of the supernatural world.
YAY! These guys!
UP the scale we go with creatures like Hastur, Dagon and Cthulhu!
These are kinda like the 2nd to last level bosses on whichever game you choose to play.
They are serious trouble! But here's the catch...in these stories, they're not against humans. They're not even evil (in the traditional sense) They move, they interact, they fulfill their purposes. To them, humans are like insects. Best just to stay out of their way! (As a physical or spiritual reality, they can be likened to volcanos, black holes,or meteors) I give these guys a hard 8!
(yes...that is Cthulhu in white briefs...because I said so...)
Last and anything but least...the big guns, the top cheeses, the horrific monstrosities that lurk outside our dimension in utter darkness and threaten to devour the entire universe. We're talking about Azathoth, Shub-niggurath, Yog-sothoth and other universal entities.
Again, these things aren't evil. They aren't even prone to ruminations on human ethical concerns. Physical/spiritual reality compares the the death of suns, galaxies colliding into one another or the heat death of the universe.
These guys are 8.5-9 without a doubt.
(That is Yog-sothoth in a pair of Yogger briefs...Yog-sothoth knows the briefs...yog-sothoth is the briefs...yog-sothoth is the key and the keeper of the briefs)
Talk about the mythos making you crazy...lol.
And, as a special bonus, I'm gonna post a free copy of The Call Of Cthulhu!
Enjoy!
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