Non Fiction
“Keeping It R’lyeh” Sell-Out Special Offer on ‘When The Stars Are Right’
012 years ago
UPDATE: SOLD OUT! Thanks for reading!
Folks, the thing is done: we are 1 copy away from being SOLD OUT of the original print run of When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality, the groundbreaking work of Lovecraftian mysticism and life-enhancement by Scott R Jones. Once this last copy is purchased and mailed away from MMP HQ, only electronic versions of the book will be available, at least until we make arrangements for a second printing (which should be soon, by Halloween 2014 at the latest)… but that’s an entire summer season away, people! Do you really want to wait that long to start #KeepingItRlyeh? Nope.
So, we’re loading up this final copy with extra goodies from MMP: purchase your copy of WTSAR (autographed by Jones) and you’ll also receive a very rare copy of R’LYEH SUTRA and two MMP ebooks of your choice at no extra charge. The Sutra has been out-of-print since 2011, and there were only 50 copies made at the time: this copy is from our special reserve of 4.
Here’s how to pick up this blow-out pack of weird goodness (we’ve made it simple): order WTSAR from its page HERE (through Paypal) and we’ll work out all the details from there through email.
Our thanks go out to everyone who bought When The Stars Are Right, all those who reviewed it, and the many individuals who have embraced the #KeepingItRlyeh philosophy!
Martian Migraine Press: the Best Kind of Headache
Sex and the R’lyehian
012 years ago
(the following is an excerpt from the chapter ‘The Unbearable Strangeness of Being: Sex and the R’lyehian’ which may be found in When The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality by Scott R Jones. There are only 2 PRINT COPIES of this provocative title left to order, though the ebook version is always available. Details on how to obtain your copy may be found here… )
Sex is weird. Let’s be honest here: when you get right down into the squelchy, heaving, multi-limbed mass of the thing, sex is very weird indeed. Sex is weird, because just being is weird. The fact that we are conscious entities parading around in flesh, flesh that occasionally comes together to please itself and, when conditions are right, produce more flesh for other conscious entities to parade around in? Completely weird.
Most of the time, we simply don’t notice how odd this is, how utterly strange our existence as a species on this planet has become. We are long past the simple days of our animal bruting-about, and each moment we are engaging more and more with the thing that we are to become. For now, we are strange, soft, pulpy creatures moving about the surface of this rock in our cloths and armours, cloaked in ideas and studded over with glowing memes, parasitical hoardings of belief and faith, ignorance and obsession. Can we truly claim that our behaviours, our proclivities and preferences, are even our own? Our society itself, an epiphenomenal entity sprouting from the fevered bios of its fleshy host if ever there was one, has its own obsessions. In regards to sex, society’s primary obsession is with normative behaviour, and this is a symptom of that not-noticing, that willful ignorance of the outré nature of the human experiment. Of the life experiment.
Sex sells and is sold. Ecstasy and anxiety are its products. It cages even as it frees. Look to the multitude of labels given to gender expression, sexual preference, and lifestyle choice: we are given to understand that the current LGBQT-MNOP alphabet soup of possible roles and modes of sexual being is a progressive movement, a real step forward. And yet this proliferation of labels, each with their staunch and strident defenders and detractors, has contributed little towards any reasonable increase in sexual freedom, and resulted in no real decrease in the level of sexual anxiety in our increasingly fractured society. Labels are for the marketplace, and the marketplace is primarily concerned with cost, supply, demand, brand loyalty, and the act of consuming. Each brand merely serves to define what it is not: by their very existence they shore up and validate the sexualities they set themselves against, reinforcing the standardized behaviours of every other brand. Sexual ghettos are the result, cages in which individuals imagine themselves free.
The R’lyehian, then, sees through this commodification of our sexual nature, to the inherent Being-Strangeness at the core of our existence, and the attendant weird-tantra of the sexual act as an expression of that strangeness. Labels and gender roles flow from the R’lyehian’s skin like water: though they may enjoy and even prefer a primary sexual orientation (heterosexual, homosexual, bi-, queer, and yes, even asexual[i]), they are not fixed there, pinned to the board like a common moth to be gawked at and then forgotten. The R’lyehian way is, again, one of camouflage and stealth, and so, as far as sex is concerned, the R’lyehian is, at her core, an omni-sexual being.
[i] In truth, ones preference here is an entirely surface presentation, as much a stealth cloak as the so-called personality: all modes of sexual expression are open to the R’lyehian and can and should be accessed at any time, should the situation call for it. That being said, the R’lyehian is not “in the closet”, so to speak, or, if they are, that closet is effectively infinite, and the multitude of personalities, ideations, and modes of sexual gratification within it are similarly endless. The R’lyehian is a thousand white-hot compartments. He makes no judgments regarding the modes of being within himself (the very definition of a Sisyphean task!) and extends that openness outwards to others as well. If there is a criteria of judgment at all vis a vis R’lyehian omni-sexual practice, it comes down to one thing: the bare wiring of the nervous system. To wit: all beings, if they are wired up at all, move towards pleasure and away from pain (a basic polymorphic approach), and the means by which this pleasure is attained is inconsequential, merely epiphenomenal. As far as the R’lyehian is concerned, sex is whatever turns you on, and this literally so. The wires must fire.
What They’re Saying About ‘When The Stars Are Right’
012 years ago
Ross E. Lockhart, editor of The Book of Cthulhu
“In the decades since H. P. Lovecraft’s untimely death, countless objects, films, novels, stories, and poems have expanded upon The Old Man of Providence’s oeuvre and its associated pantheon of alien god-things. Among those secondary creations, alongside such nameless horrors as plush Cthulhus and stranger things, have been numerous false Necronomicons, promising arcane wisdom and occult power, but too-often turning out to be a gamut of unpronounceable gobbledygook and a handful of incomprehensible rituals borrowing heavily from Buckland, Crowley, and Spare.
No longer. Canadian author, editor, and poet Scott R. Jones eschews such fannish faux-cult nonsense by approaching Old Grandpa Theobald’s life’s work and literary legacy as a true spiritual seeker, and, as a result, uncovers real spiritual truths. This is no Simon Necronomicon, no coy cash-in; instead, the book you hold in your hands is a sort of Cosmic Horror How to Win Friends and Influence Cultists, filled with potentially life-changing wisdom, provocative observation, and beautiful madness. When the Stars Are Right is the first real self-help book for the weird fiction crowd.”
Richard Gavin, author of At Fear’s Altar and The Darkly Splendid Realm
“With this book Scott R. Jones manages to transcend the mire of pseudo-Necronomicons and the pop Cthulhu cottage industry. When The Stars Are Right is a stirring examination of the genuine Darkness that churns not only in the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft but in the universe at large.”
Leeman Kessler, AskLovecraft.com
“Lovecraft has endured a great deal of violence to his name, his reputation, and his legacy over the years, not all of it undeserved, but the particular violence that Mr. Jones has wrought upon him is a thing to behold. One could easily imagine Mads Mikkelsen portraying this level of cool, methodical, and above all stylish act of brutality all while beautiful music plays in the background, enticing us to enjoy but horrifying us at the same time and leaving us confused and alone with our own feelings.
When The Stars Are Right is not a book; it’s a crime scene. We are invited to watch the crime take place and are made accomplices in the act, following Mr. Jones as he not only carries out this crime but tells how he will accomplish it and then serves us up the cadaver in delicious morsels that we swallow with every turn of the page, knowing we should tell someone, anyone but not sure if they will even believe us.
For devotees of an atheist, Lovecraft’s followers can come across as dogmatic and unyielding as any Barnstomping Baptist and Mr. Jones delights in slitting the throats of every one of their sacred cows all while somehow remaining more true than should be considered a good thing. So read this book, safe in the knowledge that you will enjoy the journey into darkness, just know that it may not be the same you that comes out the other side nor, perhaps, should it be.”
Bryan Thao Worra, NEA Fellow in Literature, author of DEMONSTRA
“When The Stars Are Right constitutes an important contribution to Weird literature. At points profound, perverse, and personal, Jones provides a reading of the Mythos that reclaims the horror and cosmic strangeness, contradictions and all, framing them as a journey along a dreamer’s path, deep among infinitely inexpressible wonders. This book comes at a critical point in space and time as Lovecraft’s literary legacy expands globally. As one might expect, this work frequently dances on the edge of madness and genius. But it boldly contemplates the life-changing notions that chortled and skittered along the edges of Lovecraft’s best work. Highly recommended, but don’t expect any gates to close easily afterwards”
Luke R. J. Maynard
“The William Blake of Cosmic Horror … Jones is a thinking person’s spiritualist, and debunks the mindless-cultist stereotype once and for all by exploring R’lyehian spirituality here not through the repetitive rote chanting of a preacher, nor even through the mysteries and ambiguities of a vision-poet, but through the targeted and sensitive analysis of a theologian … [his] work here is, in essence, not to write the mysterious, inscrutable gospel of R’lyehian spirituality, but rather to write a functional theology … what it really means to draw one’s spirituality out of somebody else’s writing, and how that ought to be done, and what we must understand about it in order to do so. This is serious work; that he has done it at all suggests that we ought to take R’lyehian spirituality a little more seriously. That he has done it well demands it.” (full review here)
If you’re Canadian (and congratulations if you are!) you can pre-order WTSAR HERE (15.99 + 3.50CAD shipping & handling)
If you’re American (brave! free! delightfully weird!) you can pre-order WTSAR HERE (15.99 + 8.00CAD shipping & handling)
If you live anywhere else on this bizarre spinning mudspeck, you can pre-order WTSAR HERE (15.99 + 16.00CAD shipping & handling)
Want your copy autographed by the author? Please indicate this in the SPECIAL INSTRUCTIONS section before completing your transaction.
When The Stars Are Right will be officially released for general purchase in both print and ebook formats on FRIDAY MARCH 21, and we will do our utmost to ensure that readers who pre-order the book early (say, within the first two weeks of March) receive their copies as close to the release date as possible.
Martian Migraine Press: the Best Kind of Headache
