From Providence to the Stars – a few notes on the 2017 NecronomiCon

Just wanted to give everyone a brief summary of the 2017 NecronomiCon from a Lovecraftian Science point of view. Thursday night we witnessed the incredibly “meta” and fantastic play “The Tattered King” translated and directed by Michael Tazzerati and produced by the Historical Society of Carcosa. Immediately after that was the Dark Adventure Radio Theater’s “The Haunter of the Dark” presented by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. Finished the evening with the Black Lodge Party at Thee Red Fez.

The Armitage Symposium was kicked off Friday morning by Niels Hobbs and Dennis P. Quinn and over lunch we participated in a live show of the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast where Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer reviewed two August Derleth tales. Later, I gave a talk as part of the Armitage Symposium – “The Lovecraftian Solar System: A Tour of Our Cosmic Neighborhood Through the Eyes of H.P. Lovecraft.” After that I was on the panel “The Fairy Folk: Faerie in the Weird Tradition” with Jeff Shanks, Gwendolyn Kiste, Faye Ringel and Paul Di Filippo. Our moderator was Rory Raven and it was a blast! That evening went to another Dark Adventure Radio Theater show presented by the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. This time it was an original tale – “The Brotherhood of the Beast.”

Saturday morning was on the panel – “The Edge of Space: Where Sci-Fi and Cosmic Horror Meet.” The Moderator was Vincent O’Neil, who has written a variety of books, including the very entertaining Interlands and Denizens. The other panelists included Nnedi Okorafor, Lois Gresh and Robert Waugh. Great conversation and got to snap a photo with Nnedi, who has written the sci-fi book Binti, which is a great book both my daughter and I have read.  Looking forward to the other two books in this trilogy!

 The panel for “The Edge of Space: Where Sci-Fi and Cosmic Horror Meet.”

Later I gave a talk as part of the Academic Talks Program, which was coordinated by Mrinalini Nikrad. My Academic My talk was on “H.P. Lovecraft’s Understanding and Misrepresentation of the Theory of Evolution in his Tales” and was followed by the entertaining presentation “Queer Geometry and Higher Dimensions: Mathematics in the Fiction of H.P. Lovecraft” by Daniel Look, Ph.D. I was then the moderator of a panel called “Miskatonic U. and the Mythos.” The panelists included Sean Branney, Will Murray, Anne Pilsworth, Robert Waugh and Douglas Wynne. I was very nervous but we had a great time thinking about what sort of classes the university would include in their curriculum. Later that night had dinner with some of the crew from the Lovecraft eZine and Patreon members.  Some great food, drink and conservation!

On Sunday morning, went to the Cthulhu Prayer Breakfast overseen by the great Reverend Cody Goodfellow.  Later, I was the session chair for the Armitage Symposium session “Emanations Abominations: Lovecraft Around the Globe.” The presenters included Lucio Reis Filho, Elena Tchougounova-Paulson and Sean Moreland. After that it was time to head home. Now getting back to working on new articles for the WordPress page, mailing out the last of the Kickstarter books and then making hard copies of the Journal of Lovecraftian Science available for direct purchase. It was great to see everyone at the NecronomiCon this year, a BIG thank you to Niels Hobbs! Already looking forward to 2019! Thank you – Fred.

                                                       The Reverend Cody Goodfellow

 

The “Nature” of Ghatanothoa and Similarities with Cthulhu

Beyond the ability to petrify people but leaving their brains alive within their paralyzed bodies (which I hypothesize is due to a biologically produced air-borne toxin) very little is known about the biology of Ghatanothoa. One of the reasons for this is the fact that getting too close to the entity results in paralysis. Whether it’s due to merely observed Ghatanothoa or a result of an air-borne toxin it generates, getting actual information on this entity is extremely difficult and hazardous. However, H.P. Lovecraft and Hazel Heald do provide some small scrapes of information on this lesser known Old One.

Ghatanothoa by Jagoba Lekuona Huegun

Specifically, the most recent description of Ghatanothoa is “…gigantic – tentacled – proboscidian – octopus-eyed – semi-amorphous – plastic – partly squamous and partly rugose – ugh!” Other descriptors include loathsome, non-human and extra-galactic. Even in von Junzt’s Black Book very little information is provided on Ghatanothoa.  We do know the Spawn of Yuggoth deposited Ghatanothoa on ancient Earth deep in the caverns of a fortress on the mountain Yaddith-Go. Here it is said that Ghatanothoa would brood eternally and wallowed, waddled and burrowed deep in the Earth.

Based on the ancient text, Ghatanothoa must have wreaked havoc on Yuggoth since the Spawn imprisoned it on Earth. While Ghatanothoa was placed on Earth, the Spawn did not intentionally want to use this entity as a means of cleansing the planet of humans. Thus, the thing was imprisoned and a select portion of humanity, who ended up being the priests of Ghatanothoa were provided with a means of keeping it imprisoned.

So what is Ghatanothoa? Based on some interpretations made Kenneth Hite, Chris Lackey and Chad Fifer on the H.P. Lovecraft Literary Podcast, “Out of the Aeons” can be thought of as a re-interpretation of “The Call of Cthulhu.”  I agree with this and I hypothesize that Ghatanothoa and Cthulhu are similar entities. While Tsathoggua and Shub-Niggurath are mentioned in “Out of Aeons” and Cthulhu is not, the description of Ghatanothoa is somewhat similar to that of Cthulhu. Compare the description of Ghatanothoa described above to those of Cthulhu such as “lumbered slobberingly,” “gelatinous green immensity,” and “eldritch contradictions of all matter, force and cosmic order.”

The morphology of both of these entities is “in-flux” in our universe. That is, they can change size and shape at will, which makes observing them very disorienting, even dangerous for your mind and body.  For example, Ghatanothoa is described as plastic, while Cthulhu is described as gelatinous. It is clear based on Lovecraft’s writings that Cthulhu, and more than likely Ghatanothoa, are not made of matter from our space-time and originate from outside of our universe. Their “matter” appears to be a combination of gaseous, solid and liquid material and in fact maybe composed of plasma.

Cthulhu by Fiend Upon My Back (www.deviantart.com)

Plasma is a state of matter where both electrons and protons are freely moving and no longer bound in the formal atomic state that we are familiar with. While extremely rare in on Earth, plasma is the most common state of matter in the universe (Kaku; Hyperspace, 1994). A sentient, ionized gas with a very fluid-like state could explain the strange inconsistency and movement of Cthulhu and Ghatanothoa. However, in our universe plasma is typically found in stars, where the temperatures are so high that electrons and protons are freely moving. Thus, if these are plasma-based entities, wouldn’t they be thousands of degrees hot and immediately burn anything near them? Does this mean Cthulhu and Ghatanothoa can only exist in our universe within a star?  Also, there is so much energy in intensely hot plasma, that the very geometry of space-time will distort and the dimensionality of space-time could actually change (Kaku, 1994). Are Cthulhu and Ghatanothoa possibly channeling their intense heat and energy into another dimension to keep their relatively plasma-like properties while existing in our space-time and without burning it up?

Ghatanothoa by Jack Rezz (www.deviantart.com)

Next time I will attempt to explain these strange properties of Cthulhu and Ghatanothoa by discussing their possible origins. Also, I just wanted to let everyone know that Steve Maschuck and I will be attending the NecronomiCon later this month in Providence Rhode Island. I will be giving a presentation on “The Lovecraftian Cosmos” and I will be on a panel about Lovecraft and Science. If you are attending, I would love to meet and chat! Also, I will try to post some material on the WordPress page during the convention. Thank you – Fred.