I've had "History of the Necronomicon" kicking around the house for years but I have to say I've never read it. His theories have to do with raising the dead, don't they?

and from what I understand Lovecraft didn't actually write the Cthulhu Mythos

I ran across Lovecraft about 30 years ago after my brother had left a copy of one of his novels on a coffee table. I was hooked after I'd read a few pages. Great yarns told in the voice of someone from New England in the late 19th century. He created a deliciously damp and moldy atmosphere. Thanks for the reminder - will have to raid my store of books in the basement. I know I've still got some in there somewhere. Of course, that means I have to go into the basement. Hmmm.

whataboutme:

The Necronomicon was not actually written by Lovecraft - it is a fictional book within his stories written by a character named (the Mad Arab) Abdul Alhazred. The book is written in Arabic and very few copies were translated into Latin. Supposedly, within it contains everything from raising the dead to alien beings (shoggoths, Mi-Go, etc). From what I've read, though, it doesn't touch too much on Great Old Ones or Outer Beings themselves, just on what is/has been on earth.

You're sort of right about the next point - he did, in fact, begin the Mythos by writing The Call of Cthulhu, Fungi from Yuggoth, the Shadow Over Innsmouth, etc, but he did not come up with that name and would have rather disliked it (because Cthulhu is only one Great Old One, and not even the most powerful one - there are many other gods in much higher power than he). The term was coined by August Derleth and other authors who added to the Mythos quite expansively. Originally, there were only a few authors who were very close friends of Lovecraft who borrowed Mythos elements (Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Bloch, and some others I can't recall), and this period is sometimes called the Mythos Proper. In my opinion, these are the only ones worth reading. After this stage, authors such as August Derleth took ideas and snippets from the Mythos and twisted them rather vastly so as to impose more of a good versus evil system upon the universe, as opposed to Lovecraft's original mechanical system.

In what way was his theories disproved?
I've never heard of mechanical materialism, so if you could give a brief summary of what it is?

There was one main theory that his entire universe was based upon. That theory basically stated that all of existence is based upon very rigid fixed rules that can never be deviated from. That would mean that if there was any sort of higher power (which there was, in the form of Great Old Ones) it would simply have to be a higher being that, although is more powerful than humans, still obeys the set rules of mechanicalism. This left no room for the existence of a creator god or any sort of god in our sense (humans in his universe referred to the Old Ones as "gods" because they were infinitely more powerful than them, but again, they are still just beings), which aligned with Lovecraft's atheism. This was, suprisingly, a very popular theory in the early 1900's and earlier, before Einstein came along with his physics and his relativity and whatnot that proved that the universe can and does deviate from a very loose set of existential rules.

It's funny that I just came upon this Lovecraft thread. About an hour ago I was looking at some of HR Giger's art, and he claimed that Lovecraft's mechanistic theories influenced his work. For those of you who don't know of Giger, he is a Swiss artists who did most of his profound work in the 70s and 80s, and who is most famous for designing the aesthetics for the Alien series (he also did Species). He takes bodies, mostly female bodies, and depicts them in these dark futuristic, mechanical forms, in the moment of coitus. I find it very disturbing. In fact, I borrowed this book from a friend, not knowing how much it was disturbing, and I couldn't even bring it into the house. It just sat out in my van for three weeks.

What is it that I find disturbing? I think he celebrates the transformation of humanity into a depraved state. He attempts to depict humans as ruled by strict laws (as the previous poster was mentioning). For Giger these laws lead us to the complete technological dominance of the world by alien machines of our own creation (some what of a demonic creation if you ask me). He also sees that our pyche is ruled by a Freudian sex drive, that it seems we can't control. The sublime sex drive is combined with our creative drive toward technology, which, when completed, enslaves humanity. The creepy thing about Giger is that he seems excited about this, about Humanity becoming the prey of some higher, demonic machine. The whole plot reminds me of the Matrix, but a Matrix without heroes - a type of inescapable hell.

It makes me think about things being seal up, with no hope of a new vision. It makes me think of literalism and the kinda crap that Truth/Sola Scriptura is posting in the 6 day creation thread.

Well ... yeah ... I remember Lovecraft ... He was kind of a coterie reading experience back in the 60's. (Think hippies high on books.) Really a very talented writer but some of his stuff ... The Cthulu Mythos included) were pretty repetitive and somewhat lugubrious (now there is a Lovecraft word if there ever was one) what with people stumbling around under "a fungoid moon" and slipping down into portals leading to other dimensions. Lovecraft knew that things were always more frightening if you didn't name them, thus Cthulu was also (as I recall) referred to as "He Who Shall Not Be Named" and "The Nameless One". He kept talking about his friend August Derleth who had found secrets ... Derleth was not to my knowledge a real person but a nom de plume under which Lovecraft also wrote stories. He also referred to the dark secrets he had obtained when he had obtained a rare look at the Necronomicon written by the mad Arab abdul AlHazred. I think it was his imaginary friend August Derleth who had obtained the forbidden book.

I think my favourite short story of his was "The Colour Out of Space" about a little farm in a little valley in the hills of Vermont that is struck by a streak of colour out of space and for a little while nothing happens but then ... The locale of this story also serves as the locale for other short stories as well. There is something right about his choice of Vermont as the hiding place for ancient lurking evils. it is perhaps that Vermont was one of the original 13 colonies and more than the usual amount of history or perhaps it is those claustrophobic little valleys with their weatherbeaten houses, barns and outbuildings that seem to hold secrets of their own but in any case he manages to show a place that is charming and sinister at the same time. Lovecraft's Vermont is similar to what Washington Irving accomplished with his portrait of Sleepy Hollow in upstate New York.

In fact, I would say that Tim Burton's movie "Sleepy Hollow" owes more to Lovecraft in its depiction of a creepy and threatening (and at the same time threatened) little settlement in a valley beneath a forest where the tree trunks look almost normal but when looked at a certain way seem to have an oddness to the way the trunks and branches twist etc., etc., and wherein grows a tree whose trunk and roots are a portal to hell, than it owes to Irving. If you can find some of his stories you should definitely pick them up. let me warn you however that the Cthulu Mythos makes no real sense but the stories are as atmospheric as any you will ever read.