Episode 116 / 117 and Reading 1 -- The Haunter of the Dark

[fishy]

Hey, Balrogs clearly have wings. They're just not very good for flight because they're made out of smoke and fire.

Oh no, here we go.....

Nowhere is it stated clearly that Balrogs have (or have not) wings.
It comes into semantics and what one wants it to be

It is like when Gandalf says "Fly! You fools" he mean that they should get away..not fly out of there

http://www.glyphweb.com/ARDA/b/balrogs.html does a good job clearing it up i think.

But if we shall continue this discussion (which i hope we do not! As it would go on forever...) i say we do this in another part of the forum.

Now, back to topic.

[Miskatonic Philologus]

I love this story, and found some rather awesome pictures someone made of it:

My god, those are really lovely pictures! Thanks for the post. I've got new wallpaper 

[Bob Lovecraft]

1.) It's subtle, and I just noticed it today even though I've read the story probably a dozen times in my life: the Haunter has some strange connection, not only to Robert Blake, but to his fiction. Early on, when Blake has first moved into the apartment in Providence, he writes a short story called "Shaggai." And at the end, when the Haunter is possessing and twisting his mind, he states "I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai, and the ultimate void of the black planets..."  Imagine H.P. Lovecraft is the protagonist of the story, and is receiving visions of R'lyeh. Crazy, huh?

So what is it? Is Shaggai a real place/thing? He rambles a few lines later that the Haunter is "re-created by the thoughts caught in the Shining Trapezohedron," and much of the early setup is devoted to reinforcing the link between Federal Hill and Blake's own stories and pictures. Is everything the Haunter shows him real, or reflections of his own imagination? It's a chillingly cynical thought; even this near-supernatural source of "ancient mysteries" may be telling its followers what they want to hear.

Damn, Genus, I never caught on to any of that, but you make a very good point there. It adds a really disturbing quality to think that the "ancient secrets" revealed by the Haunter really are just reflections and inuendos dredged up from the minds of the viewers. It relegates the Haunter from a place of power as a "keeper of ancient lore" to a parasite or charlatan (otherworldy though it certainly is) preying on the naivete of its cultists. Somehow I find the parasitical aspect of it much more disturbing as it now implies intent on the part of the Haunter when before I thought of it as a stereotypical "big slimey monster" who just took advantage of someone's stupidity. It really makes me wonder mow many more artifacts it has scattered around so that it can "fish" for victims to enslave.

Bob

P.S.- You make me REALLY want to chug some Ny-Quil and set the MP3 player on loop.

[old book]

1.) It's subtle, and I just noticed it today even though I've read the story probably a dozen times in my life: the Haunter has some strange connection, not only to Robert Blake, but to his fiction. Early on, when Blake has first moved into the apartment in Providence, he writes a short story called "Shaggai." And at the end, when the Haunter is possessing and twisting his mind, he states "I remember Yuggoth, and more distant Shaggai, and the ultimate void of the black planets..."  Imagine H.P. Lovecraft is the protagonist of the story, and is receiving visions of R'lyeh. Crazy, huh?

So what is it? Is Shaggai a real place/thing? He rambles a few lines later that the Haunter is "re-created by the thoughts caught in the Shining Trapezohedron," and much of the early setup is devoted to reinforcing the link between Federal Hill and Blake's own stories and pictures. Is everything the Haunter shows him real, or reflections of his own imagination? It's a chillingly cynical thought; even this near-supernatural source of "ancient mysteries" may be telling its followers what they want to hear.

Damn, Genus, I never caught on to any of that, but you make a very good point there. It adds a really disturbing quality to think that the "ancient secrets" revealed by the Haunter really are just reflections and inuendos dredged up from the minds of the viewers. It relegates the Haunter from a place of power as a "keeper of ancient lore" to a parasite or charlatan (otherworldy though it certainly is) preying on the naivete of its cultists. Somehow I find the parasitical aspect of it much more disturbing as it now implies intent on the part of the Haunter when before I thought of it as a stereotypical "big slimey monster" who just took advantage of someone's stupidity. It really makes me wonder mow many more artifacts it has scattered around so that it can "fish" for victims to enslave.

Bob

P.S.- You make me REALLY want to chug some Ny-Quil and set the MP3 player on loop.

Genus Unknown: "I Remember Lemuria" by Richard Shaver, who discovered an underground world telepathically while listening to the hum of his electric welder. Also, "fairy music," which entices its hearers and promises many nice things, but only delivers darkness. Or is the Shining Trap using human imagination as a sort of battery to recharge itself? Also, the ETs always tell the abductees a mule-team load of lies about their motives, plans and operations, whatever sounds slightly plausible at the time, such as mining gold from the oceans and processing it in Antarctica in order to export it to their home planet to protect their atmosphere from cosmic rays or some such nonsense.

Shaddai is an ancient Semito-Hebraic word for "Almighty," the strong God. I associate it with the period of Samson for some reason.

Kryptych: Any chance of a digital copy of the Bloch stories? I'd love to read them finally.

Bob: Go easy on the Ny-Quil!

[donatelli]

Those concept drawings are very close to what I picture when I read this story. Beautiful.

[Bob Lovecraft]

I actually pictured the interior of the church much more desolate, though I have now changed my internal image of it to match the picture. I would love to see some other stories painted like this.

Bob

[Genus Unknown]

How do you get more desolate than a room full of broken furniture and cobwebs?

[Kaelestes]

Trogdor

[Bob Lovecraft]

Trogdor

LOL!

How do you get more desolate than a room full of broken furniture and cobwebs?

I had imagined pretty much emptied out, like when you vacate an area but don't care enough to make that one last trip. So I imagined a pew here or there, maybe a scrap of moldering carpet, but that picture fleshed it out much more. In the story, the Stary Wisdom Cult is shut down pretty quickly and that meant they probably had no time to move anything out of the place, thus letting it all go to ruin where it was. Somehow, I just kind of glazed over that last part and imagined a big, dusty, mostly-empty room.

Bob

[Genus Unknown]

If they'd had time to pack, surely they would have taken the occult library along.

[Bob Lovecraft]

Oh yeah, I agree. But then again, depending on what the Haunter told them to do, they might have left it behind to tempt another victim. But probably not.

Bob

[Miskatonic Philologus]

First, thanks to all for the comments on this great story. I have long had a vague admiration for it, but never really examined it closely.

Over the last weeks I have been listening to the Wayne June recording again and again... He really does a magnificent job!

My little comment I would like to add is, as with several HPL tales, I am always impressed by the depth of the story in relation to the minimal plot. I mean, look what you have: 1) a writer/artist becomes obsessed with some findings connected with a now-defunct aberrant sect,  2) he finds he has accidentally re-summoned a creature from another space or dimension, and 3) it comes and kills him...

From this HPL cranks out a gripping 15 page story!

Following his own, and Poe's, aesthetic, Haunter is nearly all atmosphere, ambiance.

Wonderful story.

 

[Bob Lovecraft]

Yeah, it's one of my favorites too.

Bob

[Atom]

Can anyone think of a reason why they might not have returned for the Occult library at a later date? They weren't destroyed after all (as far as we know and according to other writers there have been Starry Wisdom cells elsewhere since).

[Eric Lofgren]

Can anyone think of a reason why they might not have returned for the Occult library at a later date? They weren't destroyed after all (as far as we know and according to other writers there have been Starry Wisdom cells elsewhere since).

Lovecraft indicates a couple times that the church members were driven off. No doubt at the end of a few pitchforks and torches. Which I suspect is the reasoning for the abandonment of the church's contents. But it really isn't an overly satisfactory solution when you think about it. At least, that's the way I've viewed it.