The Earthquake that Uplifted R'lyeh

Exhibit RLY002 - The Charlevoix-Kamouraska earthquake

February 28, 1925 saw one of the strongest earthquakes in Canadian history. Dubbed the Charlevoix-Kamouraska earthquake (nice overview from Natural Resources Canada, source of the Le Soleil image above), it was centered in the St. Lawrence River Valley.

Wikicommons

Damage was not severe, but was nonetheless notable, and the event caused considerable unease in a region not accustomed to earthquakes. Images and description of some of the damage.

Wikicommons

It caused minimal damage in Providence, less so in New York where Lovecraft was living at the time. This event was the inspiration for the South Pacific earthquake of the same date in "The Call of Cthulhu," which pushes the peaks of R'lyeh above the waters of the Pacific, allowing Cthulhu's dreams to menace sensitive human minds across the globe. Aftershocks of the Canadian quake in fact continued frequently throughout this period, largely ceasing on the day the crew of the Emma do battle with the cultists of the Alert, and one day before they land upon R'lyeh itself, and in turn the continent sinks back under the waves.

We can imagine Lovecraft, the amateur astronomer, reading about the quake later that year in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. Now, this doesn't add up to having any effect on the other side of the planet, but it is the thought that counts.

Dunwich Mystery Monolith

Exhibit DUN001 - Stone monolith from Athol, Massachusetts

The Athol Historical Society of Athol, Massachusetts is asking the town's permission to remove and excavate under a ten-foot tall monolith in Hapgood Street Cemetery. They're not entirely certain what is under it, though a number of historical documents (including burial records for the cemetery) are known to have been buried under it.

Athol is one of the main ingredients that inspired H. P. Lovecraft to create Dunwich. He visited in 1928. In particular, according to Donald Burleson, the name of Sentinel Hill (with its stone monoliths) is taken from a hill near Athol, and the names of Professors Rice and Morgan are drawn from two prominent names in Athol history. Bloopwatch has some photos from a "Dunwich" visit to the town.

Genealogy, mysterious monoliths, cemeteries, historical societies, Lovecraft country. I guess some things don't change.

The Case of Claire Nolan

Exhibit WIT001 - Portrait of Dame Alice Kyteler (images at links below)

Author has "uncanny" resemblance to unrelated hypothetical portrait of the subject of her relatively obscure book. This wouldn't be terribly interesting, except that the subject, Dame Alice Kyteler, was accused of witchcraft, including the poisoning of three husbands.

Someone please direct Ms. Nolan to "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward," ASAP.

The BIOSOPE Marine Survey and the Barren Zone

Exhibit RLY001 - The BIOSOPE Marine Survey.

A four-month biological survey of the south Pacific identified and mapped in 2007 the most lifeless waters on Earth (though the area is rich in dissolved carbon, near Rapanui. The map above is a rough approximation of the area, more detailed maps can be found in media reports (here and here) and on the project website which features much more data on the anomaly.

As the map above depicts, this is a part of the Pacific with other suggestive hints, ranging from the monoliths and undeciphered records of Rapanui to the Bloop (more on that in the future) and the 1925 records of an element of R'lyeh, that perhaps there is more to this oceanic area hostile to earthly life.

John Dee's Aztec Scrying Mirror

Exhibit NEC001: John Dee's Speculum. (on loan from the British Museum).

The parent institution for the item, the British Museum, has images for perusal.

Dr. John Dee was many things, including court astrologer for Elizabeth I, scholar, bibliophile, possible intelligence agent, and most importantly for our purposes, translator of the Necronomicon, the "book of dead names" or the "book of the dead." Amongst the various items he used to aid his magical research was an obsidian mirror. Brought over from Mexico not long after the initial Spanish Conquest, Dee used the mirror to communicate with spirits.

Maybe.

All of this information comes from Sir Horace Walpole, 4th Early of Orford and credited as a major originator of the horror tale and the Gothic tradition. Walpole obtained the mirror in 1771, over 160 years after Dee had died.

If it was Dee's, the idea of using it for magic is not that far-fetched. Not only does the mirror have sorcerous associations in Europe, it was tied to supernaturals in Mesoamerica (the supposed source of the obsidian and the mirror). Most commonly associated with the dark Aztec sorcerer Tezcatlipoca, the mirror has deeper time depth than the Aztecs. The Classic Maya analog for Tezcatlipoca, K'awil, regularly has it associated with images of him, to the point that one way to write his name is mostly a hieroglyph of a mirror. Older mirrors are found in association with Olmec ritual deposits.

Dee's possible Aztec mirror was not the only prized item to come across the Atlantic in the sixteenth century. Aztec featherwork best survives from royal gifts that ended up in the curiosity cabinets and musems of Europe, and Cortes sent back a ballgame team to entertain the Spanish royal court. However, the infamous crystal skulls were likely 19th century hoaxes, and not examples of early transatlantic cultural transfer. We do not know how Dee would have acquired a prized magic mirror from a Spanish colony, so one might as well throw in suggestions of pirates and privateers like Sir Francis Drake. Why not?

The Taos Hum and "The Transition of Juan Romero"

Exhibit AUD001: Recording about the Taos Hum

It is generally agreed that discussion and naming of the "Taos Hum," a low-frequency sound many have claimed to hear in and around Taos, New Mexico, dates to the 1980s. Since popularization of the Taos Hum, other hums have been suggested around the globe. The Taos Hum has been blamed on any number of culprits, though a persistent one ties it to Dulce and the legends of a secret military and/or extraterrestrial underground base.

But while the story of the Taos Hum may not be that old, it bears a striking resemblance to the central feature of one of H. P. Lovecraft's earliest stories, "The Transition of Juan Romero," written in 1919 though not published until the 1940s.

Specifically in the story, the secret of a mysterious lineage comes to a head after the dynamiting of a mine in the Southwestern United States, probably Arizona, in 1894. Soon afterwards, a low rumbling sound emerges from the abysses opened by the explosion. Lovecraft writes

"It was Romero’s voice, coming from the bunk above, that awakened me, a voice excited and tense with some vague expectation I could not understand:

"Madre de Dios! - el sonido - ese sonido - oiga Vd! - lo oye Vd? - señor, THAT SOUND!"

I listened, wondering what sound he meant. The coyote, the dog, the storm, all were audible; the last named now gaining ascendancy as the wind shrieked more and more frantically. Flashes of lightning were visible through the bunk-house window. I questioned the nervous Mexican, repeating the sounds I had heard:

"El coyote - el perro - el viento?"

But Romero did not reply. Then he commenced whispering as in awe:

"El ritmo, señor - el ritmo de la tierra - THAT THROB DOWN IN THE GROUND!"

And now I also heard; heard and shivered and without knowing why. Deep, deep, below me was a sound - a rhythm, just as the peon had said - which, though exceedingly faint, yet dominated even the dog, the coyote, and the increasing tempest. To seek to describe it was useless - for it was such that no description is possible. Perhaps it was like the pulsing of the engines far down in a great liner, as sensed from the deck, yet it was not so mechanical; not so devoid of the element of the life and consciousness. Of all its qualities, remoteness in the earth most impressed me."

Things only get worse from there.

A mechanical sound, emanating from deep underground, in the American Southwest, and as noted in the story, tied into occult traditions?

That's the Taos Hum.

Preternatual Sea Monsters in Genesis: The van Wolde Bible

Exhibit ABR001 - The van Wolde Bible

Professor Ellen Van Wolde of Radboud University has created a bit of a firestorm with her new analysis of Genesis, and the press hype it has gotten. An article in the Telegraph has caused all the fuss. In essence, Professor van Wolde is arguing that the Hebrew verb bara is better interpreted not as "to create" but in this context "to separate." Meaning that rather than the god of the Abrahamic traditions creating the earth and universe, a world already existed, and this god went about separating parts of it.

The element of interest here?

She concluded that God did not create, he separated: the Earth from the Heaven, the land from the sea, the sea monsters from the birds and the swarming at the ground.

"There was already water," she said.

"There were sea monsters. God did create some things, but not the Heaven and Earth. The usual idea of creating-out-of-nothing, creatio ex nihilo, is a big misunderstanding."

Preternatural sea monsters predating the gods of Man. Yes, I believe I've heard this story before.

More traditional scholars would point to similarities with other Near Eastern myths, like that in the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elish. In this story, in a war of gods, Marduk defeats the sea monster Tiamat (as depicted in the Babylonian cylinder seal above), and uses the components of her body to create the earth. Such a similarity is not terribly surprising, given the famous similarities between the story of Noah's Ark in Genesis, and numerous Flood and Ark stories in the Near East.

Perhaps more surprising is the similarity to the story of the Mesoamerican Earth Monster. There are different versions, but amongst the Aztecs, ideas of this alternated between the sea monster/caiman Cipactli and the goddess Tlahtecutli (statue below), torn to bits by other gods and used to create the land, though like some other monsters in the sea, she is dead but alive, and likes to have blood sacrifices.



Suffice to say, the reactions to Professor van Wolde's thesis have not been warm (here, here, and here). But perhaps it is better that we not voyage far from our placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, even if some sky god wants to separate it for us.

UPDATE: These illustrations of traditional Hebrew monsters are very much on topic.