H.P. Lovecraft, the father of modern horror, crafted his tales in a manner that would cause readers to contemplate the hideous horrors that lurked within their own souls.  Even though his tales were deemed weird fiction when first published in lowly pulp magazines, Lovecraft's tales have survived the test of time and are carving their own controversial niche in the domain of classic literature.  Their success stems partly from the fact that they were not just random tales scribbled on paper to turn a quick buck but were masterfully woven stories presenting a philosophical framework of mankind's ultimate destiny.  The deep symbolism and mystical dimensions of Lovecraft's works echo his very core beliefs of the universe and the helpless plight of mankind.  Lovecraft's horrific treatises present an anti-gospel that prophecies the end of mankind and the ushering in of a new age of evil that mankind can not even fathom.  The most critically acclaimed of these stories belong to a body of thirteen works deemed the Cthulhu mythos by leading critics.  The most famous of these works is The Call of Cthulhu, a work encompassing the core dogma of Lovecraft's philosophy of mankind's dark and forboding future.  Reflecting Lovecraft's own philosophies about the universal cosmos and stemming from his bitterness towards Christianity, The Call of Cthulhu is a work that parallels the Christian mythos in its presentation of deity and symbolism but differs from Christianity in that it prophesies the destruction of mankind rather than its redemption.

In order to understand that The Call of Cthulhu is a work reflecting the actual beliefs of Lovecraft, it must first be established that his works do indeed reflect such beliefs and are not just interesting tales crafted in Lovecraft's mind that are completely separate from his own philosophies about life.  Lovecraft's letters as well as statements by leading scholars of his work testify that H.P. Lovecraft strongly felt an author's work should reflect the author's views and philosophies of life as well as the author's views of the universe as a whole.  In a letter to Zella Brown Reed dated the 22nd of September,1927, Lovecraft states, "No story can be truly potent unless it mirrors or suggests larger segments of entity than its mere characters....A story becomes arresting and significant only when its elements stand out as well-linked components or symbols of some larger cosmos, either by artistic treatment of the events or by a faithful and scientifically individualised depiction of the various characters"   (II 170).  Lovecraft felt a story could only be significant if its elements were symbols of something greater than the work itself.  To Lovecraft, the work would fall flat if it were merely a concoction of the author's imagination in an attempt to secure monetary gain.  S. T. Joshi, a leading researcher and scholar on the life and works of Lovecraft, sheds further light on Lovecraft's impetus for writing:  "Lovecraft, convinced that the production of art was a form of pure "self-expression" in which monetary considerations played no part, refused to tailor his work to the crude formulae of the pulp magazines, and was also markedly reluctant to "peddle" his work to book publishers" (xiii).  Lovecraft's refusal to conform to the conventions of the pulp magazines of his time, as it would undoubtedly force him to alter the content of his works, further reveals Lovecrafts' dogmatic assumption that a work is a reflection of the author's inner world and should not be changed to please the public at large.  The fact that Lovecraft only had one true book, The Shadow Over Innsmouth, published before his death in 1937, lends further credence to his strict adherence to the belief that the original, unaltered writings of the author should stand as a testimony to his philosophical framework (xiii).  James Turner, in his introduction to At the Mountains of Madness, a work edited by Joshi and containing a selection of Lovecraft's works, adds still more insight into Lovecraft's purpose for writing.  Weaving his own analysis into the very words of Lovecraft, Turner surmises the following:

His imaginative tales had never been an idle divertissement for Lovecraft but rather arose from an inner compulsion:  "Art is not what one resolves to say, but what insists on saying itself through one," he explained in a 1934 letter.  "The only elements concerned are the artist and the emotions working within him....Real literary composition is the only thing...I take seriously in life."  (xiii).

Although all of Lovecraft's works were an attempt to convey his surmisings about life and the cosmos, the most complete and structured creation of Lovecraft's was that of the Cthulhu mythos.  No work captured the essence of Lovecraft's panaramic view of man's past, present, and future like his Cthulhu mythos.  S. T. Joshi exalts the Cthulhu mythos high above any of Lovecraft's works and explains its purpose in the following proclamation:

In effect, the "Cthulhu mythos" is a series of plot devices utilized by Lovecraft to convey the essentials of his cosmic philosophy.  These devices, including a wide array of extraterrestials, (deemed "gods" by their human followers); an entire library of mythical books containing the "forbidden" truths about these "gods"; and a fictionalized New England landscape...lend them a kind of thematic unity not found in other work of their kind....whereas most of the religions and mythologies in human history seek to reconcile human beings with the cosmos by depicting a close, benign relationship between man and god, Lovecraft's pseudomythology brutally shows that man is not the center of the universe, that the "gods" care nothing for him, and that the earth and all its inhabitants are but a momentary incident in the unending cyclical chaos of the universe. (xvii)

As with the Christian mythos, Lovecraft also sought to establish a core belief system of his own mythos that would give further credence to its "actual" existence.  Maurice Levy, a respected author and French professor whose published doctoral dissertation Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic,which was translated by S. T. Joshi and given his stamp of  approval, fleshes out Joshi's general summation of Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos by identifying it specifically as an attempt by Lovecraft to create a mythos that would propogate his "anti-gospel" to others.  Levy writes, "Lovecraft the agnostic felt the need to build a dogma supported, as all rational system are, by knowledge recorded in books, treatises, and reference works" (88).  Levy specifically refers to Lovecraft's need of formulating a dogma, a specific tenet or doctrine authoritatively put forth, as by a church.  It is interesting that Levy chooses the word dogma when referring to Lovecraft, for dogmas are generally associated with beliefs of a church.  It stands to reason that Lovecraft sought to establish a belief system through his works that would equal the weight and authority afforded the churches and their dogma.  Levy further articulates this belief when he states, "This esoteric literature constitutes a sort of modern "gloss" on the Old Texts, a commentary that corresponds, in the suppossed authors, to an obvious desire to catechize (90).  Again, Levy uses the word catechize, also associated with churches, to illustrate how Lovecraft wishes for his works not only to be read, but to proclaim his philosophies about the universe.  It is also interesting to note that Lovecraft himself uses the word catechism in The Call of Cthulhu when the narrrator refers to his uncle's discussion of the hidden cult of Cthulhu (158).

Lovecraft also felt a need to link his dogma with "sacred" texts to add further validity to his mythos.  Levy goes on to explain how Lovecraft referenced actual texts to add further weight to the dogma he was seeking to establish (90).  There were also fictitious texts mentioned in Lovecraft's works, including the Necromonicon, "a veritable Bible written by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred, who lived in Yemen about A. D. 700" (88-89).  However, Lovecraft was so convincing in his description of the Necromonicon that many people today  believe it is an actual document and invoke its spells as "authentic" copies of the work rest on the shelves of bookstores and occultic shops.  Levy writes of the Necromonicon, "If Lovecraft is to be believed, Alhazred had brought back...hideous secrets concerning the Great Old Ones, Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu" (89).  Here, Lovecraft specifically mentions Cthulhu as one of the "gods" mentioned in the Necromonicon, attempting to authenticate Cthulhu as an actual "god" worshipped in ancient civilization.  Lovecraft took such great pains in establishing his paganistic cult of Cthulhu to proselytyze his own beliefs that he not only established the ideologies of this cult but also linked them to "sacred" texts honoring the great gods who initiated their "religion".

August Derelith, a correspondent and close friend of Lovecraft's and one of the first to produce a mass publishing of his works, delves even deeper into Lovecraft's establishment of the Cthulhu mythos, comparing it directly to the Christian mythos.  In his work HPL:  a memoir, Derelith writes,

Lovecraft's concept of the Chtulhu mythos (which was not his name for it) is basically similar to the Christian mythos, particularly in regard to the expulsion of Satan from Eden and the power of evil.  "All my stories, unconnected as they may be, are based on the fundamental lore or legend that this world was inhabited at one time by another race, who, in practising black magic, lost their foothold and were expelled, yet live on outside ever ready to take possession of this earth again," he [Lovecraft] wrote.  (70)

Derelith's keen observation of the parallel between Lovecraft's Cthulhu mythos and Christianity, Levy's insight into Lovecraft's desire to indoctrinate people with his beliefs, and Joshi's explanation of Lovecraft's mythos as a representation of man's alienation from the gods are not unfounded, for Lovecraft did feel this alienation from deity and sought to avenge himself and his family of this alienation.  When one understands the Lovecraft's rather painful experiences with Christianity and his ultimate rejection of it, one is able to see why he felt compelled to create a mythos that echoed his belief that mankind is alienated from the "gods" and is headed for an impending extinction.  Expressing his disdain for the Christian God in one of his letters to Frank Belknap Long written in November of 1927, Lovecraft writes, "The Lovecraft line is fairly rotten with Reverands.  It trickles Theology and radiates rural rectors.  God help it.......as He didn't when poor Tom had to sell his estate and become one of the herd.  I am the family's revenge against Heaven for the nawsty slap"(II 182).  Not only did Lovecraft feel as though his family were abandoned by God, seeing God did not prevent Tom from losing his estate, but this abandonment also festered feelings of resentment towards God that caused Lovecraft to seek revenge against this God for slapping his family in the face with this abandonment.  Categorizing God's abandonment as a slap in the face shows how resentful Lovecraft was towards God as slapping someone is considered one of the most degrading acts one can commit against an individual.

Not only does Lovecraft express his resentment towards God by denouncing Him personally but he also expands this attack to include His ministers.  He speaks of his family line being rotten because of the reverands within it.  Anything rotten emits a foul stench from which most would wish to distance themselves.  This animsoity towards ministers is further expounded upon when Lovecraft admonishes Long with the following words:  "...call off your Calvinists - Pegana knows I've vicars and curates enough of my own!  They're almost as bad as Celts" (185).  Here again, Lovecraft exhibits disdain for religious authority by divulging negative feelings about the vicars and curates in his family.  This time, however, he is elevating the spiritual authority from a mere reverand to a vicar and a curate, those who hold great positions in the church and, in the past have commanded their parishioners to conform to their doctrines or else face imprisonment and death.  Lovecraft is protesting with great anger about how limited and imprisoned he feels with those who try to thrust religion down a person's throat as he instructs Long to call off his Calvinists, as if they are bloodthirsty hounds seeking to rip Lovecraft's very life away from him, that is, his freedom to live and express life the way he desires.

Not only did Lovecraft have unfortunate experiences with the Christian God and his minsters, but also felt alienated from the Christian Scriptures themselves, so much that he adopted a pagan belief system.  In a letter to Maurice W. Moe dated January 1, 1915, Lovecraft writes:

...[I] read much in the Bible from sheer interest.  The more I read the Scriptures, the more foreign they seemed to me.  I was infinitely fonder on the Graeco-Roman mythology, and when I was eight astounded the family by declaring myself a Roman pagan...I had really adopted a sort of Pantheism, with the Roman gods as personifed attributes of deity...(I 10)

...I was early placed in the Baptist sunday school.  There, however, I soon became exasperated by the literal Puritanical doctrines, and constantly shocked my preceptors by expressing scepticism of much that was taught me.  It became evident that my young mind was not of a religious cast, for the much exhorted "simple faith" in miracles and the like came not to me." (10)

Although Lovecraft scoffed at much that was taught him from the Christian Bible, he did, as will now be discussed, retain some fundamental concepts in the Christinan faith that were expressed in his monumental work, The Call of Cthulhu. There are so many striking similarites between Lovecraft's work The Call of Cthulhu and Chrisitanity that there would be a very unlikey possibility that this parallel were not intentional, giving Lovecraft's knowledge of the Scriptures, his incessant hatred for Christianity, and his desire to avenge his family of the Christian God's cruel abandonment of his family.  However, Lovecraft only uses these similarities to slap God in the face by blasphemously proposing that the purpose of deity is not to redeem mankind but to abolish it.  Levy gives credence to this assumption when he writes, "For truly there is in Lovecraft an obsession with infamy and sacrilege which rests on an inverted aesthetic, what one can almost call a systematization of transgression" (88).  According to Levy, Lovecraft's sacrilege, or profaning of that which is sacred, is an obsession with him that drives him to svoice his sacrilege in some systemized form.  Seeing as real literary composition, a very systematic process, is the only thing Lovecraft takes seriously in life, what better avenue for Lovecraft to exact his revenge on the Christian God than to create a mythos that parallels Christianity but makes evil the victor rather than the Christian God (Joshi xiii)?  Lovecraft attacks the very foundational premise of Christianity, that is, the reconciliation of mankind to Himself through salvation, by presenting a godhead that is intent on mankind's destruction and total annihilation.

To begin with, there is an amazing similarity between the godheads expressed in both the Cthulhu and Christian mythos.  The Great Ones are evil gods who existed even before the dawn of man while Cthulhu is one of these Great Ones who visited man upon the earth (Cthulhu 154).  Similarly, God is the omnipotent creator of the universe who predated man and Jesus is the Son whom God sent to the earth.  Neither the Great Ones nor God have ever been seen by man but Cthulhu and Jesus were both seen by man as they were both representations of their respective godheads (154, I John 4:12).  Cthulhu came from the stars and brought his image with him, thus obtaining a shape that was visible to man as a carven idol (154).  Likewise, God's son, Jesus, was visible to man when he came down from heaven as the "image of the invisible God" (Col 1:15).    Cthulhu is referred to as the great priest and Jesus is deemed the high priest (153, Heb 4:15).  The Great Ones, by the attribution Lovecraft affords them, are the equivalent of the Christian God while Cthulhu is equivalent to Jesus Christ.  However, the purposes of these two godheads is entirely different.  Cthulhu comes to earth to wipe out wipe out mankind while Jesus comes to earth to redeem mankind (155).  Cthulhu comes to bring eternal death while Jesus comes to bring eternal life  (155).  Thus, one can see how Lovecraft establishes similarities between the two myths to add more force and impact to their differences.

Lovecraft does not stop with these foundational comparisons, however.  One can also see comparisons between the death and burial of Jesus and the burial of Cthulhu.  Jesus was crucified on a hill in Golgotha and buried in a tomb.  The cross standing on a hill is seen as a powerful symbol of the Christian faith.  Cthulhu was buried on a single mountain-top and a great monolith-crowned citadel marks the place of his burial (165).  Here, Lovecraft is not only drawing on similarites between the burials of Jesus and Cthulhu, but he is, in fact, exalting Cthulhu above Jesus Christ.  A mountain is much greater than a hill and a monolith-crowned citadel is much more majestic and stately than an old rugged, splintered cross.  It is also interesting to note that both of their tombs were sealed with a stone (166).  Here, Lovecraft is incorporating the sacrilege which Levy refers to as a driving force in his life to blaspheme the great atoning work of the Lord Jesus Christ by a very systematic form of transgression in his comparisons between his mythos and the Christian mythos.  One can see Lovecraft's attempt to avenge his family of God's nasty slap by the way he attempts to slap God in the face with his carefully structured writings.

Both Jesus and Cthulhu possess the power of resurrection (155).  Both of their resurrections occur at a specified time.  For Jesus, it is three days; for Cthulhu, it is when the earth and the stars reach a certain alignment (155).  An interesting twist Lovecraft places on the resurrection of Cthulhu, however, is that Cthulhu is resurrected after his secret priests take him from his tomb (155).  It would seem here that Lovecraft is taking a stab at the validity of the resurrection of Jesus and ascribing to the theory that the disciples of Jesus came by night and stole the body of Jesus from the tomb (Matt 28:13).  Lovecraft's choice of the word secret when referring to the priests of Cthulhu seems to parallel directly with this theory of the disciples secretly securing the body of Jesus to propogate their "resurrection hoax".  Again, Lovecraft appears to be taking a jab at "truth" of the Christian scriptures.

Even geographical considerations figure into Lovecraft's comparison between the two myths by the way he ascribes a "sacred" city to Cthulhu.   Jerusalem, the capital of the world, is the city where Jesus was buried, and is the city in which Jesus will make his return (Zec 14:4).  Every year, multitudes make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, revering it as a holy sight.  R'lyeh is the supreme city of Cthulhu, the place where he is buried, and the place from which he shall make his return (165).  Also, it is to this city of R'lyeh that the faithful of Cthulhu "come on a pilgrimage of liberation and restoration (165).  Just as the faithful Jews and Christians make pilgrimages to Jerusalem, the faithful few of the Cthulhu cult make their journey to R'lyeh.  Lovecraft uses the word pilgrimage to give the cult a type of  religious hue so as to give it a sense of authenticity, implying that there are followers just as devout over Cthulhu as they are over Jesus Christ.  However, even though there are similarities between the two cities, there are still the extreme differences Lovecraft incorporates to keep the two myths on opposite ends of the spectrum.  Jerusalem, ironically, is known as the city of peace and life, while R'lyeh "the tangible substance of earth' supreme terror - the nightmare corpse-city" (165).  Terror is a polar opposite of peace and death, as implied by the word corpse, is a polar opposite of life.  Here again, Lovecraft is using similarity to emphasize that which is different.

Lovecraft even goes as far as to incorporate prophecies of Cthulhu's return in his myth that correspond with Christian prophecies of the second coming of Jesus Christ.  One of the signs of the second coming of Jesus is earthquakes in diverse places (Matt 24:7).  An earthquake is also a sign of the return of Cthulhu for the myth states, "...another earthquake shall heave their monstrous stone city again to the sun and the air (164).  When this city emerges, it brings about the return of Cthulhu (167).  When Jesus returns to establish his kingdom on the earth, He will raise His saints from the dead and they shall be like Him (I John 3:2).  Similarly, when Cthulhu returns, mankind will become like the Great Ones and Cthulhu will "revive his subjects and resume His rule of earth" (155).  (Notice also how Lovecraft capitalizes the pronoun his in reference to Cthulhu in the same respect that one capitalizes the pronouns he and his when referring to the Christian godhead.  Even in something as trivial as grammar, Lovecraft is taking great pains to flesh out amazing similarities between the two myths.)  However, Jesus will return and write His laws upon the hearts of his followers, granting them eternal life (Jer 31:33).  Cthulhu, however, will throw laws and morals aside and instruct his followers to kill, bringing about the ultimate destruction of mankind and eternal death (155).

Lovecraft parallels all of the fundamental tenets of the Christian mythos in his Cthulhu mythos.  The Christian godhead, the holy city of Jerusalem, and the death, burial, resurrection, and second coming of Jesus Christ are all tenets of the Christian faith Lovecraft chose to exploit in his Cthulhu mythos to present a devastating future for mankind that ran concurrent with his philosophy of life and the end of all things.  Perhaps there can be no better summation of Lovecraft's belief system that runs through the fabric of his mythos than a statement written in a letter to Mrs. Anne Tillery Renshaw dated June 1, 1921, that reads:

...I may say that the obsoleteness of religion and idealism as systems of enlightened thought is impressed upon me with redoubled force.  If any thing is true, it is that these beliefs are soon to be finally extinct until some cataclysm shall wipe out civilisation and inaugurate a new Dark Age of myth and ignorance. (I 135)

Derelith, August.  HPL:  A Memoir.  New York:  Ben Abramson, Publisher, 1945.

Derelith, August, and Wandrei, Donald, eds.  H.P. Lovecraft: Selected Letters I.  Sauk City, Wisconsin:  Arkham House, 1965.

Derelith, August, and Wandrei, Donald, eds.  H.P. Lovecraft: Selected Letters II.  Sauk City, Wisconsin:  Arkham House, 1968.

Joshi, S. T., ed.  At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels.  Sauk City, Wisconsin:  Arkham House, 1964.

Joshi, S. T., ed.  The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories.  New York:  Penguin Books, 1999.

Levy, Maurice.  Lovecraft:  A Study in the Fantastic.  Detroit:  Wayne State University, 1988.
 

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