H.P. Lovecraft Birthday

“The world is indeed comic, but the joke is on mankind.” ― H. P. Lovecraft

Note: Lovecraft’s racism is well known. Although his views moderated later in life, he maintained both until death. 

I must emphasize that I find Lovecraft’s racism disgusting and vulgar. This post is not supportive of his views, but it is a brief exploration of the long-lasting influence of his work on various occult practices and philosophies.    

H.P. Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890, in Providence, Rhode Island, to an affluent family. Howard was a sickly child, physically and emotionally, and regularly missed school. In 1893, his father was institutionalized due to syphilis and died in 1898. After his grandfather’s death, the family’s wealth dissipated. His mother was later institutionalized in 1919. 

Lovecraft’s literary career began in 1913 when he wrote essays for the United Amateur Press Association. From then on, he wrote speculative fiction and was published in several pulp magazines. While living in New York City in 1924, he married Sonia Greene. Greene and the literary circle of friends introduced Lovecraft to Weird Tales, which became his primary publisher. 

In 1926, he returned to Providence and wrote some of his most famous stories. His works during this time included The Call of Cthulhu, At the Mountains of Madness, The Shadow over Innsmouth, and The Shadow Out of Time. 

H.P. Lovecraft died on March 15, 1937, at age 46 from intestinal cancer.

While Lovecraft’s impact on American horror is well known, little is discussed about his influence on contemporary occultism and philosophy. 

In 1972, Michael Aquino, PhD.D., developed the Ceremony of the Nine Angles. Initially published in The Satanic Rituals, The ritual incorporates Lovecraft’s entities, such as Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth. When Aquino left the Church of Satan and formed the Temple of Set, he incorporated the Ceremony into the rituals of his new organization. To learn more about the Ceremony of the Nine Angles, I highly recommend Toby Chappell’s excellent book Infernal Geometry and the Left-Hand Path.

While most think of the Cthulhu Mythos when they think of Lovecraft, he also developed a philosophy known as Cosmicism. Wikipedia provides an excellent definition of Cosmicism: “The literary philosophy developed by the American writer H P Lovecraft, stating that there is no recognizable divine presence, such as God, in the universe, and that humans are particularly insignificant in the larger scheme of intergalactic existence.”

In many ways, Cosmicism anticipated the work of Sartre and Camus. Neither Sartre nor Camus would develop their philosophies of Existentialism and Absurdism until well after Lovecraft developed Cosmicism. The similarities of the three philosophies speak highly to the influence of the zeitgeists of the times we live in.