Did H P Lovecraft receive his concept of cosmic horror via astral transmission from the late Helena Blavatsky? Were E Hoffman Price and Talbot Mundy the reincarnations of Atlantean mystics? And what has this to do with an English plumber or with Edward Douglas Fawcett, one of the founding fathers of the Devon County Chess Association?

It’s the Fawcett Saga Part Two, dear listener, with lots of H P Lovecraft, some other writers of the weird and the Book of Dzyan again. And we have a rather nice slice of fiction, courtesy of today’s guest, Bobby Derie. Theosophy is once again our cue, and, by an odd coincidence, we are reminded of a piece of local history. Did you know that the world’s first Science Fiction Convention was held in 1937, Yorkshire? In our own city of Leeds, in fact – at the Theosophical Hall (hence the passing thought). We’ll tell you more about that some other time.

Everybody loves books of forbidden knowledge and lost cities of the ancients. A week or so ago we began our latest saga, concerning the lives of two late Victorian/Edwardian brothers, Edward and Percy Fawcett. One of our many interests in the pair was Edward’s serious involvement in theosophy, which led us to the Book of Dzyan, mentioned in a couple of H P Lovecraft’s stories. We rattled on about this in Part One, so we won’t repeat ourselves ( the fawcett saga 1 ). What we didn’t provide is a definition of the linking school of beliefs, so we’ll amend that now:

“Theosophy is a collection of mystical and occultist philosophies concerning, or seeking direct knowledge of, the presumed mysteries of life and nature, particularly of the nature of divinity and the origin and purpose of the universe. Theosophy is considered part of Western esotericism, which believes that hidden knowledge or wisdom from the ancient past offers a path to enlightenment and salvation.”

Not long after writing Part One, we were talking about the whole caboodle to scholar and historian of weird literature, Bobby Derie.

The knowledgeable Mr Derie has often assisted greydogtales with quotes and curiosities related to some of those classic old-time writers – H P Lovecraft himself, Henry S Whitehead, Robert E Howard and Clark Ashton Smith, for example. Most usefully, this time he kindly supplied some quotes on HPL’s familiarity with theosophical tomes. We’ll explain…

The world of Edwardian Arcane is littered with theosophists, and there’s no doubt that their works influenced weird fiction. Strong among theosophy themes were the concepts of ancient civilisations and phases of human development which you didn’t find in the history books, and these were rich material for writers throughout the first half of the twentieth century.

We should briefly mention the largely forgotten British adventure story writer Talbot Mundy (1879-1940), a fairly prolific writer who was once quite well-regarded – and certainly sold well. He was, yes, an active theosophist, a convert from Christian Science.

He deserves a nod not only because his Tros of Samothrace (1925) is a fond memory from our teens, but also because Robert E Howard, E Hoffman Price and Fritz Leiber all acknowledged that he had an influence on their writing. Amongst his many works are a couple of books, concerning The Most Reverend Lobsang Pun, known to all as ‘Old Ugly Face,’ a mystical monk of venerable age, who lives in Tibet, a magical land of forbidden places and secret mountain fastnesses. The Thunder Dragon’s Gate and Old Ugly Face are the books in question.

One of the repeated themes in theosophical writing is that much of their knowledge was supposedly dictated over the astral plane by various Hindu and Tibetan mystics. Which reminds us of another teenage influence, the works of Tuesday Lobsang Rampa, wherein we learned of life in a Tibetan monastery and the secrets of the Third Eye. Excepting the fact that T Lobsang Rampa was actually an English plumber called Cyril Henry Hoskin. Cyril claimed that his body was inhabited by the spirit of the Tibetan lama, and that was how he received detailed information on growing up in a lamasery. Unlike Talbot Mundy, who had travelled extensively and been to the Orient, Hoskin never bothered to leave England for his own ‘Lobsang’ material.

When it comes to H P Lovecraft, whilst we doubt the direct link to any particular theosophical author, he certainly had access at various points to copies of their wilder tales. So what we will do is to give you a flavour of some of the connections, including quotes supplied by Mr Derie from relevant letters (quotes in order of date of letter). This is, of necessity, a skim over the material, our own main interest being the Edwardian Arcane side of the British connection, but it’s nice to see the inter-linkages.

One of the certainties is that HPL read William Scott-Elliot. An active theosophist, Scott-Eliot wrote two very pertinent books entitled The Story of Atlantis (1896) and The Lost Lemuria (1904), which were combined into a single volume in 1925.

I’ve also been digesting something of vast interest as background or source material—which has belatedly introduced me to a cycle of myth with which I have reason to believe you are particularly familiar—i.e., the Atlantis-Lemuria tales, as developed by modern occultists & the sophical charlatans. Really, some of these hints about the lost “City of the Golden Gates” & the shapeless monsters of archaic Lemuria are ineffably pregnant with fantastic suggestion; & I only wish I could get hold of more of the stuff. What I have read is The Story of Atlantis & the Lost Lemuria, by W. Scott-Elliot.

HPL to CAS, 17 Jun 1926

Scott-Elliot expanded on ideas from Helena Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine (1888), which, you’ll remember, was prepared for publication with the assistance of the older Fawcett brother, Henry Fawcett. Scott-Eliot drew on information which had come to a fellow-theosophist, Charles Webster Leadbeater, via astral transmission.

A Lord of Venus

Leadbeater (1854-1934) returned from India in 1889 to live in England, and eventually lived at the London headquarters, and Scott-Elliot was an active member of the London Lodge. There seems little doubt that these two and Fawcett encountered each other.

Charles Leadbeater and later adherents of Theosophy such as Alice A. Bailey believed that a Lord of Venus, Sanat Kumara, descended from the etheric plane of the planet Venus to Earth 18,500,000 years ago. To many theosophists Venus, The ‘Planet of Love’, is the most spiritually advanced planet in the solar system. The beings living on the etheric plane of Venus are said to be hundreds of millions of years ahead of us in their spiritual evolution.

(We’re not here to knock anyone’s beliefs, only to explore weird literature. You can easily read more about Sanat Kumara from the point of followers online.)

And speaking of astral transmission or clairvoyance:

It is good to know that you liked this last story. As to that problem of transmission—well, it seems to me that the author has to be omniscient or nothing: though one might get the story out of the “astral records” (preserved somewhere in the ether, and accessible to adepts) which are mentioned in the literature of esoteric Buddhism! The tradition of Hyperborea, Mu and Atlantis were supposedly preserved in these records! […] I have never seen The Riddle of the Pacific, nor the book by Scott-Elliot either, and must find out if they are locally procurable.

CAS to HPL, 16 Nov 1930

Reference to the Book of Dzyan crops up later in the correspondence:

What you say of your new tale, and of the Pushkara-Plaksha-Kusha-Shâlmali-Mt. Wern-Senzar-Dzyan-Shamballah myth-cycle which you have dug up, interests me to fever heat; and I am tempted to overwhelm you with questions as to the source, provenance, general bearings, and bibliography of all this unknown legendry. Where did you find it? How can one get hold of it? What nation or region developed it? Why isn’t it mentioned in ordinary works on comparative folklore? What—if any—special cult (like the theosophist, who have concocted a picturesque tradition of Atlanteo-Lemurian elder world stuff, well summarised in a book by W. Scott-Elliott) cherishes it?

For gawd’s sake, yes—send along those notes, and I’m sure that Klarkash-Ton, High-Priest of Tsathoggua, would (unless he knows about the cycle in question, appreciate them as keenly as I. Incidentally—Klarkash-Ton tells me that his Semitic oracle de Casseres never heard of Zemargad. Tough luck! But the hint so strongly appeals to HIgh-Priest Klarkash that he is going to use the name Zemargad—in conjunction with more synthetic nomenclature—in his new and hellish conception, The Infernal Star. Meanwhile, as I said before, I’m quite on edge about that Dzyan-Shamballah stuff. The cosmic scope of it—Lords of Venus, and all that—sounds so especially and emphatically in my line!

HPL to E. Hoffmann Price, 15 Feb 1933

Please return the epistle, since I want to save those references to the Dzyan-Shamballah myth-cycle which Price has just uncovered. As you’ll see, this stuff looks decidedly interesting!

HPL to August Derleth, 16 Feb 1933

The Book of Dzyan was supposedly the source of sections of Blavatsky’s The Secret Doctrine. We noted last time the mention of Dzyan in The Diary of Alonzo Typer, by Lovecraft and William Lumley, and here again there is a nice reference in the letters:

Lumley is naturally in touch with all sorts of freak cults from Rosicrucians to Theosophists.

HPL to REH, 8 Jun 1932

The Soup of the Ancients

The author E Hoffman Price (1898-1988) was certainly fascinated by Eastern mysticism, though he became a Buddhist rather than a theosophist.

Price has lately come upon some genuine folklore closely resembling my pre-terrestrial Yog-Sothoth stuff—he promises particulars later.

HPL to Donald Wandrei, 17 Feb 1933

In the context of our trail, note that these latter quotes are from 1933, which is nearly seven years after H P Lovecraft wrote Call of Cthulhu, and five years after The Dunwich Horror. Lovecraft was already well along the road of his Yog-Sothery.  It appears that HPL’s ideas fermented as part of a soup made from many different sources. We can see no direct ‘steal’ from theosophy, despite superficial connections. Theosophy has so many mystic strands that it would be hard not to bump against them at some point.

Price has dug up another cycle of actual folklore involving an allegedly primordial thing called The Book of Dzyan, which is supposed to contain all sorts of secrets of the Elder World before the sinking of Kusha (Atlantis) and Shâlmali (Lemuria). It is kept at the Holy City of Shamballah, and is regarded as the oldest book in the world—its language being Senzar (ancestor of Sanscrit), which was brought to earth 18,000,000 years ago by the Lords of Venus. I don’t know where E. Hoffmann got hold of this stuff, but it sounds damn good…

HPL to CAS, 18 Feb 1933

By the way—it turns out that Price’s mystical legendry was, after all, only the stuff promulgated by the theosophists—Besant, Leadbeater, &c. I thought it sounded like that. Do you know anything of the origin of that stuff? It pretends to be real folklore—at least in part (of India, I suppose)—but I have a certain sneaking suspicion that the theosophists themselves have interpolated a lot of dope. There are things which suggest a knowledge of certain 19th century conceptions.

HPL to August Derleth, c. 27 Feb 1933

A few days after, Clark Ashton Smith wrote to express his interest:

The Book of Dzyan is new to me—I haven’t read any great amount of theosophical literature. I’d be vastly interested in any dope you or Price can pass on to me. Theosophy, as far as I can gather, is a version of esoteric Yoga prepared for western consumption, so I dare say its legendry must have some sort of basis in ancient Oriental records. One can disregard the theosophy, and make good use of the stuff about elder continents, etc. I got my own ideas about Hyperborea, Poseidonis, etc., from such sources, and then turned my imagination loose.

CAS to HPL, 1 Mar 1933

That Besant, Leadbeater stuff originates undoubtedly from Indian folklore, though as you suspect, the English have unquestionably interpolated much material.

HPL to August Derleth, 6 Mar 1933

Leadbeater you know. Annie Besant (1847-1933) took over the Theosophical Society after Blavatsky’s death in 1891.

And here are the same theosophical folk again:

Another cycle of impressive-sounding folklore or pseudo-folklore is that sponsored by the modern theosophists. Some of this is undoubtedly genuine Hindoo myth, but I suspect that the cult of theosophists has mixed with it a great deal of synthetic fakery of 19th century origin. The best books of this sort of thing to read are the following:

• Besant, Annie—The Pedigree of Man
• Blavatsky, Helena—The Secret Doctrine
• Leadbeater—The Inner Life
• Scott-Elliot, W.—Atlantis & the Lost Lemuria
• Sinnett, A. P.—Esoteric Buddhism

More of this stuff can be found in the catalogues of the Occult Society, 604 Locust St., Philadelphia, Pa. Those theosophical mystifications involved vast gulfs of time & cycles of change—pre-human aeons & life coming from other planets—not found in other folklore.

HPL to Natalie H. Wooley, 18 Jul 1933

There’s more of interest, but we’re out of space. We’ll end this part with a note which shows Lovecraft had not actually read The Secret Doctrine as late as 1936. He may never in fact have finished reading it.

Thanks, by the way, for the loan of the Blavatsky opus—which I shall read with the most intense interest. I’ve never read any of the classics of theosophy, though I’ve always been meaning to. I wonder if anybody has ever tried to isolate the real Oriental folklore in them from the 19th century fakery & interpolations? I may have fumbled the allusion to the Book of Dzyan, since all I know about it is something in a letter of Price’s which spoke of the early parts as having been brought from an older solar system than ours. Of course the text ridiculed in the Necronomicon is the merest imitation!

HPL to Henry Kuttner, 30 Nov 1936

Less than two months later, Arthur C Clarke and others gathered formally at the Theosophical Hall in Leeds for the first Science Fiction convention. Three and half months later, H P Lovecraft was dead.

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We’ll return to the Fawcetts and many other tangled threads in Part Three of the Fawcett Saga, but to close we go to Bobby Derie. You may know him as the author of a rather fascinating book, Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos, which we mentioned a while ago ( cthulhu may not live here any more  ), or as a regular commentator on Lovecraft, Robert E Howard and the others.

What you may not know is that he also writes rather neat short fiction, which he mostly keeps to himself. In the process of going theosophical, we came across a recent piece of his fiction which we thought deserved a more public airing. And here it is:

Babelech

by Bobby Derie

There had not always been a babelech, though none now lived that remembered the nights before it. It was the local bogey, complete with its own cave where the children were admonished never to play, though a few every generation dared each other on as the days started to shorten, and of winter nights mothers would threaten their kinder that they would be left out in the cold, where the babelech would come on its long thin legs and gobble them up.

Every child knew the babelech, and told the stories over and over, just as on dark Christmases by the fire the old men would smile and tell of “The Feast of the Babelech” – the great blizzard when the legend had full reign through the streets of the town, scratching at windows and doors, frightening cattle and horses, and parents would awaken at night to find only broken windows and empty, frost-coated cribs with a few gnawed bones, or stiff little fingers still clutching a rattle… a story told with much relish and in such gorey detail, in infinite variations as each teller tried to top the previous one, while the fire burned on into the night and the wind howled and shook the trees.

Children grow. Lovers unite; spouses are unfaithful; children are born in joy and sorrow, and taken by illness or accident or murder, leaving only the bereft and bloody-handed behind. The factory closes; the bills go unpaid; houses are reclaimed, lie vacant, their lots unkempt, windows boarded up, roofs sagging, rusting monsters on the lawn, some slowly being reclaimed by thorny vines and weeds. Feral things roam the night, root through trash, disappear down storm drains and into shadows. Hunger and want begin to creep in; illness and injury and arrest more common, the very punctuation of life. The very features of the people become marked by thinness, scars, unhealthy colors made all the more stark by poor decisions, garish attempts at escape, to reclaim some of the vital energy and joy of life once again.

Yet there was always the babelech – and there were stories that they did not tell the children.

Dierk’s boots crunched through the snow toward the babelech’s cave. It was, really, simply a kind of hollow created by glacial remnants – massive stones left behind by the retreating ice, so that one like a great shelf rested on top of two rounded, lichen-covered boulders; the whole thing half-buried in the hill, to form a kind of hollow. He rested as it came into sight, a darker shadow against the night. Pain lanced up from his midsection; it had been hurting all day – for days – and the junk had run out a long time ago.

Using the trees for support, he made his way up the steep path to the gap between the boulders – a path beaten hard by the feet of many adventurous little climbers, like Dierk himself, years ago. He paused at that entrance, breathing harder than he should have, sweating a little despite the chill, which set him chattering. Beyond the entrance, he knew, the floor dropped down a few feet. There was nothing in the hollow itself but earth and stone – no creature ever made its burrow there, as far as Dierk knew.

When they were kids, they had talked about how it would be full of bones…or maybe the scratchings of cave people, explorers, something. He remembered how he’d wanderd around almost blindly in the dark, a space not ten feet from one side to the other, and never saw so much as a candy wrapper or used condom, no names or declarations of love scratched or sprayed on the walls. A quite, unsullied place.

Dierk felt bad for a moment – not panic, exactly, but regret for…littering. He imagined the next child coming this way in the summer, finding the nasty clothes on the floor, and knowing someone had been there. He shook his head, then easing himself away from the entrance, he made his way to a broken stump, a natural witch’s cauldron, and began to disrobe. Frost bit into the pale flesh, the veins running through it like cheese, bringing up fancies of hidden colonies of blue fungus eating away at him from the inside, dissolving him with acid. With numb hands he covered the clothing with snow, then looked up at the clear sky. They would find them come March, probably, but not in the cave.

He lowered himself down into the hollow carefully. It was almost pleasant, out of the wind, though the cold earth seemed to suck the heat from his bones. Dierk’s hands and feet were already numb, though he didn’t think the frostbite had set in properly yet. It had been too long since he had been out in the snow…too long in hospitals with their wan artificial suns and cheerless antiseptic smiles; in alleys where dead-eyed drop-outs set the price on his “medicine”; in the empty house with its blaring television muted to a low roar…

In the cave, Dierk waited for the babelech to gobble him up.

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There had not always been a babelech, though everyone in town knew it was there. Waiting for them. It was always hungry, the mothers whispered as they drew the covers tight, but it was patient. It waited for them, for all of them, and it would get them someday. That was the end of every story, of course. No one escaped the babelech.

You can obtain a copy of Sex and the Cthulhu Mythos by Bobby Derie below. Despite the ‘adventurous cover’, it’s a nicely researched book and a great reference volume for H P Lovecraft enthusiasts.

sex and the cthulhu mythos, amazon

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Next time on greydogtales – nothing about theosophy whatsoever. We promise. Maybe a nice picture of a doggie instead…