We’ve received the Foreword (or Foreweird, as he appropriately titles it) by Jordan Stratford (author of Mechanicals, Living Gnosticism: An Ancient Way of Knowing, and A Dictionary of Western Alchemy) for Scott R JonesWhen The Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R’lyehian Spirituality and we gotta tell ya, Migraineers, it is some erudite stuff and no mistake! Stratford describes the work as an exercise in “cryptarchaeoxenotheology”, even. Grok the following excerpt…

“… the Madness of Cthulhu is not clinical dysfunction or psychosis, but a hermeneutic suspension of the pedestrian, rational mind that is required to successfully navigate the waking world. In its place is the supra-rational, the information that comes without the need for communication, egoic disassociation, the disintermediated experience of experience. What Jones refers to here as the Black Gnosis.

If I were to tell you I actually saw a beautifully strange city emerge from the sea, and in its seeing that I gained deep insight into my own psyche, you would have reasonable grounds to demand physical evidence or else have me institutionalized. Yet if I told you I dreamt this, and because of this dream I gained these same insights, you would no doubt nod and take another sip of your coffee. In our Nietzschean age of mechanistic meaninglessness, flensed horses and droning Dawkinistas, where the machine has been scrubbed clean of any ghosts; dreams, apparently, are granted a certain pass.

You can take your head apart with this book if you like, but you will never get it back together again. Unlike the sophomoric tattoo-parlour-flash of Carroll, the lunatic-trickster Bertiaux, or the almost-brilliant Grant – not to mention the gaptoothed carny antics of LaVey, whose Aynrandian quotes are eagerly nodded along-to by Creationist tea-partiers – Jones is not so easy to dismiss.”

We agree. He really isn’t. When The Stars Are Right (with illustrations by Michael Lee Macdonald) is coming soon in paperback and ebook formats and will be available for pre-order. Keep watching this space or follow us on Twitter or Facebook for updates.

THE CONQUEROR WOMB Submissions Rolling In…

Submissions for our second annual MMP anthology are beginning to show in our inbox and so far the range of pieces is interesting indeed! For more info on how you can submit your Shub-Niggurath themed weird-smut, please consult our SUBMISSIONS page.

She Blinded Me with Eldritch Science!

We’d like to take a second to give a shout-out to Fred Lubnow, who writes the very smart and interesting Lovecraftian Science blog. Curious about the sexual reproduction of Elder Things? Ever wondered how shoggoths get it on? Fred’s got everything you ever wanted to know about the squamous biology of the Great Old Ones but were (reasonably!) afraid to ask!