Desiremakesmeweak
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jun 7, 2012
- Posts
- 2,060
So I've been 'working' on this story I indicated I would attempt a few months ago - I started out thinking I would do an 'occult theme' thing because of a series of items that turned up on a friend's auction house manifest. (He does a few 'private' sales for confidential clients, that is Swiss accounts and some Eastern European politicians and the like).
As I researched the specific items that caught my attention, I began to learn so much more about the writer HP Lovecraft than I ever imagined was possible about him; I had preciously just thought of him as a 'pulp fiction/fantasy-horror' figure who turned up during a kind of a 'golden age' of that type of publication. In fact he was extremely learned and well-read, and the thing that I had not known (which surprised even me since I often consider myself just about as broadly knowledgeable as anyone alive!!) was that he had a genuine reputation as a solid and reliable reporter and literary researcher - so much so that the item that turned up at the auction house was a set of notes inside a personal letter that concerned his having been contracted by none other than the famous Harry Houdini, basically to say that through his research and experience in making lengthy studies of the occult, that the supernatural and everything 'unnatural' or spiritual could be rationally explained and there was really no such thing as any basis for a rational belief in the supernatural, or 'god' and so on.
Lovecraft himself was a well-known skeptic and Houdini figured he could rely on him to render an academic assertion that was iron-clad, to the effect of what Houdini wanted to find.
The fact is, he could not, even though Houdini received one essay along the lines 'mostly' of what he wanted.
Harry Houdini died within weeks of receiving indications from Lovecraft of some 'fact' or other to do with a proof of occult power or some demonstrable spiritual dimension and the basis for the indiciae is set out in the notes.
To me at least, and based on my own knowledge, it is absolutely certain that Lovecraft had access to certain European libraries and not just the Smithsonian, at which some of the Arabic documents that other students of his work assume was where he had gained his insights into the occult.
But what stumps me is how he ever got such access in the first place because one would need to know what to look for specifically, and who to ask to gain access to the texts and artifacts - some of the libraries in question have such vast collections that the key texts are regularly just plain 'lost' under the weight of what comes into vogue and is popular.
Lovecraft had claimed to Houdini and I believe to his (Lovecraft's) wife, that one could use a certain Egyptian text or talisman and PROVE that it had genuine occult power to invoke something. In his stories he regular refers to an Arabic writer as the textual source, but the matters are strictly ancient Egyptian, not Arabic.
Now what happened to me in writing my story - which has just been posted - was that I was delayed a long long time (for me, given how I write, it never takes me more than a few days to pump something out). I was delayed because I felt basically I was prevented from going into anything negative (IE 'horror'), because every time I put something down in writing, it happened for real. Basically, a series of odd things began to happen. Not just co-incidences but people began to turn up with the exact names of those I was writing about, looking the same, acting the same - the same person in real life, as it were.
All very strange. And so what I ended up having to write is the result of not wishing to provoke something I don't think I want to (or need to) disturb.
As I researched the specific items that caught my attention, I began to learn so much more about the writer HP Lovecraft than I ever imagined was possible about him; I had preciously just thought of him as a 'pulp fiction/fantasy-horror' figure who turned up during a kind of a 'golden age' of that type of publication. In fact he was extremely learned and well-read, and the thing that I had not known (which surprised even me since I often consider myself just about as broadly knowledgeable as anyone alive!!) was that he had a genuine reputation as a solid and reliable reporter and literary researcher - so much so that the item that turned up at the auction house was a set of notes inside a personal letter that concerned his having been contracted by none other than the famous Harry Houdini, basically to say that through his research and experience in making lengthy studies of the occult, that the supernatural and everything 'unnatural' or spiritual could be rationally explained and there was really no such thing as any basis for a rational belief in the supernatural, or 'god' and so on.
Lovecraft himself was a well-known skeptic and Houdini figured he could rely on him to render an academic assertion that was iron-clad, to the effect of what Houdini wanted to find.
The fact is, he could not, even though Houdini received one essay along the lines 'mostly' of what he wanted.
Harry Houdini died within weeks of receiving indications from Lovecraft of some 'fact' or other to do with a proof of occult power or some demonstrable spiritual dimension and the basis for the indiciae is set out in the notes.
To me at least, and based on my own knowledge, it is absolutely certain that Lovecraft had access to certain European libraries and not just the Smithsonian, at which some of the Arabic documents that other students of his work assume was where he had gained his insights into the occult.
But what stumps me is how he ever got such access in the first place because one would need to know what to look for specifically, and who to ask to gain access to the texts and artifacts - some of the libraries in question have such vast collections that the key texts are regularly just plain 'lost' under the weight of what comes into vogue and is popular.
Lovecraft had claimed to Houdini and I believe to his (Lovecraft's) wife, that one could use a certain Egyptian text or talisman and PROVE that it had genuine occult power to invoke something. In his stories he regular refers to an Arabic writer as the textual source, but the matters are strictly ancient Egyptian, not Arabic.
Now what happened to me in writing my story - which has just been posted - was that I was delayed a long long time (for me, given how I write, it never takes me more than a few days to pump something out). I was delayed because I felt basically I was prevented from going into anything negative (IE 'horror'), because every time I put something down in writing, it happened for real. Basically, a series of odd things began to happen. Not just co-incidences but people began to turn up with the exact names of those I was writing about, looking the same, acting the same - the same person in real life, as it were.
All very strange. And so what I ended up having to write is the result of not wishing to provoke something I don't think I want to (or need to) disturb.
