Magick! Ask John L. Steadman

[Gene Steinberg]

After last week's foray into the world of psychic healing — more or less — we present another subject we haven't explored with John L. Steadman, author of "H.P. Lovecraft & the Black Magical Tradition," which explores "the real black magickal organizations that use Lovecraft's fictional constructs as a basis for their magickal workings; I argue that such constructs can be used in this manner and that the Lovecraftian entities are just as ontologically 'real' as traditional gods, goddesses and demons.

John L. Steadman is a scholar of H. P. Lovecraft and western occultism and has been a magickal practitioner for more than thirty years. He is currently a college English professor at Olivet College in Michigan.

This is not something that John has likely considered, but the late Richard S. Shaver, who brought us the Shaver Mystery stories of underearth creatures, claimed that Lovecraft's novels about underground civilizations were based on the same factual source.

In any case, this episode will be recorded Thursday March 25 from 2:00 PM until 4:00 PM.

 

[marduk]

I would be curious if Mr Steadman has read any of the thousands of letters Lovecraft wrote to other authors as they intentionally co-created the mythos.

As fiction. You can actually chart the progression of the Necronomicon as a mcguffin for example. Where they actually discuss and joke about people believing in their fiction.

In this way, how is it any different than those that have signed up with 'Jedi' as their religion?

 

[marduk]

Oh - another thought.

If the Philip experiment is replicable and demonstrated the creation of a paranormal creature, perhaps this is a way of creating a real life manefestation of the dreaded Cthulhu?

I'm a giant Lovecraft fan, and as cool as that sounds, I think that would be a bad idea.

 

[Red]

I'll be sure to listen in as I'm a Lovecraft fan.
I do have a few questions:
1. Dan Harms argues that the Simon Necronomicon contains magickal booby traps, that might not trip up an experienced magician, but could trip up newbies. In fact, there used to be an online support group of people who claimed to be victims of this version of the Necronomicon. Would Mr. Steadman be willing to spend a few moments discussing his thoughts and views on this?

2. It's pretty well documented that Lovecraft cribbed quite a bit from the Encyclopaedia Britannica. He reached out to one of his pen pals who had an occult library and asked to borrow some of his titles after Lovecraft wrote the disastrous "Horror at Red Hook," from which all of the occult references had been taken from the aforementioned encyclopedia.
As a good chunk of his Mythos was established before that, how do you feel Lovecraft managed to tap into the beginnings of a workable system with practically no real functional knowledge of the occult?

3. Have you or anyone you know worked with this particular system? Considering that most of Lovecraft's fiction dealt with the encroachment of vast unknowable horrors into the reality inhabited by mankind, is there any other functional purpose for working with such a system?