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H. P. Lovecraft and the Black Magickal Tradition: The Master of Horror's Influence on Modern Occultism
Explore Lovecraft's Deep Connections to the Dark Arts
Modern practicing occultists have argued that renowned horror writer H. P. Lovecraft was in possession of in-depth knowledge of black magick. Literary scholars claim that he was a master of his genre and craft, and his findings are purely psychological, nothing more. Was Lovecraft a practitioner of the dark arts himself? Was he privileged to knowledge that cannot be otherwise explained?
Weaving the life story of Lovecraft in and out of an analysis of various modern magickal systems, scholar John L. Steadman has found direct and concrete examples that demonstrate that Lovecraft's works and specifically his Cthulhu Mythos and his creation of the Necronomicon are a legitimate basis for a working magickal system.
Whether you believe Lovecraft had supernatural powers or not, no one can argue against Lovecraft's profound influence on many modern black arts and the darker currents of western occultism.
Modern practicing occultists have argued that renowned horror writer H. P. Lovecraft was in possession of in-depth knowledge of black magick. Literary scholars claim that he was a master of his genre and craft, and his findings are purely psychological, nothing more. Was Lovecraft a practitioner of the dark arts himself? Was he privileged to knowledge that cannot be otherwise explained?
Weaving the life story of Lovecraft in and out of an analysis of various modern magickal systems, scholar John L. Steadman has found direct and concrete examples that demonstrate that Lovecraft's works and specifically his Cthulhu Mythos and his creation of the Necronomicon are a legitimate basis for a working magickal system.
Whether you believe Lovecraft had supernatural powers or not, no one can argue against Lovecraft's profound influence on many modern black arts and the darker currents of western occultism.
304 pages, Paperback
First published September 1, 2015
13 people are currently reading
367 people want to read
About the author
John L. Steadman
5 books4 followersJohn L. Steadman is an independent scholar of science fiction and fantasy literature, and author of Horror as Racism in H. P. Lovecraft: White Fragility in the Weird Tales (2024), Aliens, Robots & Virtual Reality Idols in the Science Fiction of H. P. Lovecraft, Isaac Asimov and William Gibson (2020) and H. P. Lovecraft & the Black Magickal Tradition (2015). He is a retired English Professor, living in Michigan.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
August 16, 2015
I was asked to read this book some time ago in manuscript form with an eye toward writing a potential blurb for it, if I liked it. I found it fascinating and illuminating, and filled with fertile ground for story ideas. So I did provide a blurb, and here's what I said:
"John L. Steadman's fascinating look at the intersection of Lovecraft and the occult is both comprehensive and comprehensible--even to the non-occultist--and provides a wealth of information and inspiration for the aficionado or the practitioner of the weird tale."
"John L. Steadman's fascinating look at the intersection of Lovecraft and the occult is both comprehensive and comprehensible--even to the non-occultist--and provides a wealth of information and inspiration for the aficionado or the practitioner of the weird tale."
November 15, 2015
One of my very few Goodreads Giveaway wins!
This book is full of some intriguing ideas and a fascinating overview of occult interpretations of a fiction author's stories and themes.
Unfortunately, after a while, the fun began to wear off, and the smile on my face faded as I realized that the whole thing is presented as very, very serious. I was left awkwardly closing the book and putting it away, eyebrows lifted high.
All that said, I'm not saying it's aliens, but...
This book is full of some intriguing ideas and a fascinating overview of occult interpretations of a fiction author's stories and themes.
Unfortunately, after a while, the fun began to wear off, and the smile on my face faded as I realized that the whole thing is presented as very, very serious. I was left awkwardly closing the book and putting it away, eyebrows lifted high.
All that said, I'm not saying it's aliens, but...
September 29, 2015
This is a decent overview of the interaction between Lovecraft and the occult in the West. My only issues with this book are the way Steadman seems to take claims of witchcraft/Wiccan and Satanic cults existing continuously prior to the 20th Century at face value, without providing much in the way of supporting those claims.
December 20, 2015
Personally, this whole thing read as a lot of conjecture on the part of the author in trying to assume that Lovecraft was REALLY more than a horror writer with a wild and dark imagination - even if the man himself WAS involved in any sort of occult practices, that was hardly odd at the time and in his particular circles and this topic surely didn't warrant an entire book on the matter.
That, and the author's rather outdated take on the uses of the term 'witch' just didn't sit well with me either.
That, and the author's rather outdated take on the uses of the term 'witch' just didn't sit well with me either.
March 6, 2016
A really interesting primer in modern occult ideologies and the inspiration they draw from the works of HP Lovecraft. Also gives a great sense of the parallels between the archetypal forms & mythologies, Lovecraftian fiction, and the quantum universe, prompting one to consider whether they're all driving at the same underlying truths.
February 29, 2016
This is an interesting book, but it seems to be a split focus on the history and philosophy of each area of study, such as voodoo, paganism, etc and how each subject relates back to lovecraft. I was hoping for more of the latter, I would still recommend this to anyone that reads lovecraft's works.
May 16, 2021
The author has a good writing style and knows his Lovecraft. But so much of this rubbed me the wrong way. The book is subtitled 'The Master of Horror's Influence on Modern Occultism'. If it had stuck to that brief, it could have been good. As it is, it falls far below the similarly themed book 'The Necronomicon Files' by Harms and Gonce, which the current author is very dismissive of.
The writing is mostly fluid and readable, with two glaring exceptions. The word 'magickian' is an abomination and needs to be killed with fire. It's an abhorrence that one or two modern writers have adopted and serves only to bring the motion of eyes along the lines of text to a juddering halt every time they encounter this monstrosity, which is very often indeed. Crowley, who popularised the (mis)spelling of 'magick' with a 'k', never once extended that practice to magician, recognising it as an affront to language. And so it is.
The second stylistic issue is the overuse of the terms 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian', as if they explained everything, often distorting them to fit. They are abused in this text to the point of being meaningless, but even if that were not the case, NO true system of magic can be shoehorned into such a "You're either for us or against us" straitjacket. Their overuse is intensely irritating and grates more with every (frequent) repetition.
When it comes to magical traditions, the ball completely misses the net. Shallow, idiosyncratic definitions are described and treated as if they were universally accepted. Where did he dig these up from? Because none of the magical groups I have experience with would recognise or accept them, they don't even come close.
The entire book consists of trying to shoehorn stuff in where it doesn't belong. Lovecraft has NO influence on Vodou, for instance. Zero. Zilch. In many places, the book is not trying to show us how Lovecraft may have inspired magical traditions; it is forcing a belief that there is no difference.
He's on surer ground discussing Lovecraft, acknowledging his materialism and that his works are fiction.
The book finally gets around to looking at magical groups which have taken some inspiration from Lovecraft instead of trying to rubber stamp it on others. Anton LaVey's 'The Satanic Rituals' does indeed contain two Lovecraftian rituals ghost-written by Michael Aquino. As has been made explicitly clear publicly in print on several occasions, these are presented as psychodramas, as fictions being used to inspire an emotional and noetic response. They do not for one moment believe these things to be objectively real. Chaos magic too has indeed worked with the Cthulhu mythos, but again very much in the spirit of speculative fiction. None of these people believe the fiction to be real, they use it as an imaginative springboard.
The author rightly discusses the various fake Necronomicons which have appeared, then bizarrely champions the Simon version on the grounds that it gets results. Here's news for you, as any true magician will tell you: it's not the ritual or the names that matter, it's the right stimulation of the psyche via the imagination. I have seen an entire home-made magical system based around 'Doctor Who' which 'got results' because it inspired the person who had developed it. It doesn't mean the fiction is real. The Simon Necronomicon is treated as if it might be real and the aforementioned 'Necronomicon Files' which is a much better book on the same subject is dismissed in consequence (read it as an antidote to this claptrap if you haven't already). In a footnote he also dismisses the testimony of Alan Cabal in relation to the Simon book. Al Cabal is exactly the first person you should listen to if you want to know anything about the 1970s occult scene in New York and what was going on and who was doing what to who!
Add to that the enormous catalogue of factual errors. Here's just one example. Apparently, the Devil card from the Rider-Waite Tarot was the obvious inspiration for Eliphas Levi's famous illustration of Baphomet. This despite the fact that Levi died in 1875 and Waite designed his Tarot deck in 1910, based upon the Golden Dawn Tarot design which was influenced by Levi's drawing of Baphomet! Completely arse about face.
But the most irritating thing of all is that the book is written in an earnest, insistent manner that - like many academic treatments of subjects the writer evidently knows nothing about - presents speculation as fact and tortuous misinterpretation as proven.
Don't. Just don't.
The writing is mostly fluid and readable, with two glaring exceptions. The word 'magickian' is an abomination and needs to be killed with fire. It's an abhorrence that one or two modern writers have adopted and serves only to bring the motion of eyes along the lines of text to a juddering halt every time they encounter this monstrosity, which is very often indeed. Crowley, who popularised the (mis)spelling of 'magick' with a 'k', never once extended that practice to magician, recognising it as an affront to language. And so it is.
The second stylistic issue is the overuse of the terms 'Apollonian' and 'Dionysian', as if they explained everything, often distorting them to fit. They are abused in this text to the point of being meaningless, but even if that were not the case, NO true system of magic can be shoehorned into such a "You're either for us or against us" straitjacket. Their overuse is intensely irritating and grates more with every (frequent) repetition.
When it comes to magical traditions, the ball completely misses the net. Shallow, idiosyncratic definitions are described and treated as if they were universally accepted. Where did he dig these up from? Because none of the magical groups I have experience with would recognise or accept them, they don't even come close.
The entire book consists of trying to shoehorn stuff in where it doesn't belong. Lovecraft has NO influence on Vodou, for instance. Zero. Zilch. In many places, the book is not trying to show us how Lovecraft may have inspired magical traditions; it is forcing a belief that there is no difference.
He's on surer ground discussing Lovecraft, acknowledging his materialism and that his works are fiction.
The book finally gets around to looking at magical groups which have taken some inspiration from Lovecraft instead of trying to rubber stamp it on others. Anton LaVey's 'The Satanic Rituals' does indeed contain two Lovecraftian rituals ghost-written by Michael Aquino. As has been made explicitly clear publicly in print on several occasions, these are presented as psychodramas, as fictions being used to inspire an emotional and noetic response. They do not for one moment believe these things to be objectively real. Chaos magic too has indeed worked with the Cthulhu mythos, but again very much in the spirit of speculative fiction. None of these people believe the fiction to be real, they use it as an imaginative springboard.
The author rightly discusses the various fake Necronomicons which have appeared, then bizarrely champions the Simon version on the grounds that it gets results. Here's news for you, as any true magician will tell you: it's not the ritual or the names that matter, it's the right stimulation of the psyche via the imagination. I have seen an entire home-made magical system based around 'Doctor Who' which 'got results' because it inspired the person who had developed it. It doesn't mean the fiction is real. The Simon Necronomicon is treated as if it might be real and the aforementioned 'Necronomicon Files' which is a much better book on the same subject is dismissed in consequence (read it as an antidote to this claptrap if you haven't already). In a footnote he also dismisses the testimony of Alan Cabal in relation to the Simon book. Al Cabal is exactly the first person you should listen to if you want to know anything about the 1970s occult scene in New York and what was going on and who was doing what to who!
Add to that the enormous catalogue of factual errors. Here's just one example. Apparently, the Devil card from the Rider-Waite Tarot was the obvious inspiration for Eliphas Levi's famous illustration of Baphomet. This despite the fact that Levi died in 1875 and Waite designed his Tarot deck in 1910, based upon the Golden Dawn Tarot design which was influenced by Levi's drawing of Baphomet! Completely arse about face.
But the most irritating thing of all is that the book is written in an earnest, insistent manner that - like many academic treatments of subjects the writer evidently knows nothing about - presents speculation as fact and tortuous misinterpretation as proven.
Don't. Just don't.
October 30, 2024
I will confess to some surprise at S T Joshi's glowing endorsement of the book because, though well researched and argued, Steadman is also an occultist who shows some lack of detachment when it comes to the existence of a credible 'Necronomicon'.
Nevertheless, apart from this oddity of belief, Joshi is correct in praising Steadman for applying a reasonable amount of academic rigour in investigating the twin problems of any alleged connection of Lovecraft to the occult as a believer and the use of Lovecraft's work by 'black magicians'.
Where Steadman is useful is in defining what is meant today by 'black magic' as opposed to 'white magic' and in removing much of the propagandistic Halloween aspects of the former. It is cogently presented as a 'spiritual practice' that certainly has nothing to do with (say) Satanism.
'Black magic' is essentially a matter of self development in the face of the Void (although, of course, it is all a lot more complicated than that), a 'beyond good and evil' practice that strikes me as very similar to the ultimate self-annihilation of Budddhism.
The first Lovecraftian problem is easy to solve. HPL was a scientific materialist ((albeit not of the Marxist type), well versed in science and taking much of the logic implicit in Darwin's atheism and translating it to extraterrestrial and extratemporal possibilities.
Lovecraft did not 'believe in' his inventions. His stories are weird fiction and even science fiction even more than they are fantasies although fantasy as a genre influenced him and he influenced it. The Necronomicon and all the other quaint tomes he cites are literary creations.
Steadman makes a reasonable speculative case that, as a scientific materialist, Lovecraft would have been responsive to the development of thinking about the quantum world. His literary possibilities may equally reasonably be said to become a little more scientifically possible because of it.
This allows Steadman to switch from HPL and consider the credibility of the 'occult sciences' in the light of scientific possibility. Nothing is proved but a healthy scientific scepticism ironically allows him the benefit of the doubt as he outlines his case.
The second half of the book is a run-through of the various modern 'magical' traditions (Vodou, Wiccca, the Typhonian, the Satanic and Chaos Magick) and how each has approached Lovecraftian themes and ideas.
There is nice term used by the author and occultist Don Webb - 'neo-mythology' - which helps us to understand what is going on here. Vodou possession is very old but the other four traditions are no older than the 1950s to all intents and purposes. HPL becomes a 'ready-made' in that context.
Vodou is introduced not to demonstrate any HPL influence (which would be absurd) but to give us a sense of entity-possession that is clearly at the heart of Steadman's interpretation of his own spirituality.
He is keen to give us a picture of the universe that is as bleak as HPL's (and philosophically only matched by existentialism) but one in which the practitioner of magick is prepared to face its reality and enter into its ultimate no-meaning through transcendence beyond the human condition.
This is, of course, very much going to be an acquired taste. It cannot honestly be said that HPL shared it. It is those who believe such things who have appropriated him. Most of this appropriation is down to the fantastical post-Crowley Typhonian and later Chaos Magick practices.
The Typhonian is a very odd beast centred on the character of Kenneth Grant who was an intense neo-mythologist. He dedicated his life to his dark spirituality as outlined in a series of dense books that eclectically drew on multiple traditions (including Lovecraftian).
Chaos Magick takes itself less seriously. Its chaotics also involve appropriation and eclecticism but in a way more in tune with the seventies and eighties generation than the post-Crowleian forties and fifties. It too enjoys (probably the right word) play-acting Lovecraft.
In fact (see below), Steadman concentrates not on Chaos Magick as Lovecraftian play in later generations but on Austin Osman Spare, the artist, whose imaginative world was contemporary with that of Lovecraft but without any connection between them.
The answer to the two problems becomes clear enough by the end of the book in this wider determination on the appropriation of the work of a man who was too dead to protest and who, in any case, may have enjoyed the appropriation as a real life playful extension of his fantasy creations.
We cannot, of course, know what he would have thought. The facts are the facts and Steadman is actually (mostly) quite good at sticking to them but the interpretation is very much in the eye of the beholder. It is only in regard to the Necronomicon that the author loses his bearings.
Assuming that you are reasonably open-minded, Steadman's attempt to educate his reader about the black magickal tradition is rational and completely lacking in hysterics. His position stands as plausible and has no necessary connection to any lack of moral compass in the world.
Certainly he presents (for me) the most cogent account of the cosmic aspects of all the traditions he reviews. Even Chaos Magick comes out (through an analysis of Austin Osman Spare's originating ideas) as a lot more sophisticated than popular accounts often allow.
And how do we characterise his neo-mythology at the end of all this? I would suggest that Lovecraftian occultism has become as detached from the reality of HPL as Christianity in practice is detached from the personality of Jesus Christ.
It is an aesthetic that masks a variety of emotional and meaning-hungry responses to the death of God announced through Nietzsche culturally but Darwin scientifically. If there is no meaning in the world, then it can be invented or no-meaning be embraced as meaning.
The occultism described by Steadman (he clearly has his bias) is artistically appealing because it does both - it ultimately embraces no-meaning as ultimate meaning and invents or appropriates cultural forms as a way station. It is biological Man as fundamentally ludic.
The ludic is carnival, turning the world upside down without getting trapped in 'politics' with its depressing high seriousness. It is slave revolt (Vodou), spiritual feminism ((Wicca), 'secret' initiation (Typhonian), sticking it to the man (Satanic) and individualism (Chaos Magick).
Lovecraft's work is a useful tool in this game of cultural revolt, aesthetising and personifying the no-Thing (a true contradiction) and lack of meaning, creating opportunities for playful ritual, attacking conformity and the 'given' in society. It has little to do with him by this point.
Once you accept the premise of 'neo-mythology' the book becomes a pleasure to read. Steadman's research has resulted in some material new even to me (and I have actually ploughed through both Joshi's magisterial biography of HPL and the first dense volume of Grant's oeuvre).
Anyone interested in the modern occult (whose current form is a very late development in the human imagination) and in the Lovecraftian mythos as a cultural phenomenon will get some value out of the book. Steadman also writes clearly and well.
September 6, 2020
Contains some interesting information, but still manages to be quite dry and tedious at various points despite its subject matter. Worth checking out if you can rent a copy and skim through to find the engaging bits.
April 22, 2019
Found it extremely interesting!
March 24, 2022
This book is interesting and thorough, but marred at times by sloppy historiography.
January 4, 2024
A labour of love.
December 23, 2018
I was made aware of this book when it was repped in one of Joshi’s blog posts. Specifically, one of the blog posts collected in this book: Lovecraft and Weird Fiction: Selected Blog Posts, 2009-2017. After seeing the title and hearing his praise for it, I immediately put his book down like the bad fan I am and picked this one up.
Interesting cover art aside, this was actually an educational read for me! Since I’m basically completely ignorant of various occult groups, this book was a good overview of some of the big modern day organizations. Steadman examines Vodou, Wicca, Satanism, Crowley/Grant’s OTO, and modern chaos magicians and any similarities or influence Lovecraft’s Mythos has on said groups.
In my opinion the chapter on Vodou was probably the weakest. Even though I learned a lot about the history of Vodou, I felt any connection with Lovecraft was weak at best, as basically admitted by Steadman himself when he says Lovecraft knew very little if anything at all about actual Vodoun practices.
His examinations of the different Necronomicons that exist, though good as an overview of their existence, fell flat for me by trying to examine them all as works of actual occult significance since many of these were meant as nothing more than hoaxes, and therefore should be examined and judged as such. I also feel Steadman puts a little too much stock in the Simon Necronomicon, while he was seemingly very critical of Tyson’s Necronomicon even though that is very obviously a work of fiction and not meant to be taken seriously as a grimoire.
To get the most out of the book I had to be willing to put aside any biases I had about considering the Mythos entities as anything more than fictional creations from an imaginative man. So while I may not agree with Steadman’s views on everything, and I continued to take issue with some of his phrasing such as ‘Lovecraft was justified in making this or that entity a member of the Great Old Ones’ (the man is justified in whatever he does with the Mythos cause it was his creation), being open allowed me to be exposed to some neat ideas. Such as many occultists latching onto modern revelations in quantum physics as it aligns very closely with their own views of the universe.
I would have to agree with Joshi that this book is worth looking at if you’re at all interested in both Lovecraft and the occult. The intersection of these two subjects is fascinating and given a very thorough look in this book.
Interesting cover art aside, this was actually an educational read for me! Since I’m basically completely ignorant of various occult groups, this book was a good overview of some of the big modern day organizations. Steadman examines Vodou, Wicca, Satanism, Crowley/Grant’s OTO, and modern chaos magicians and any similarities or influence Lovecraft’s Mythos has on said groups.
In my opinion the chapter on Vodou was probably the weakest. Even though I learned a lot about the history of Vodou, I felt any connection with Lovecraft was weak at best, as basically admitted by Steadman himself when he says Lovecraft knew very little if anything at all about actual Vodoun practices.
His examinations of the different Necronomicons that exist, though good as an overview of their existence, fell flat for me by trying to examine them all as works of actual occult significance since many of these were meant as nothing more than hoaxes, and therefore should be examined and judged as such. I also feel Steadman puts a little too much stock in the Simon Necronomicon, while he was seemingly very critical of Tyson’s Necronomicon even though that is very obviously a work of fiction and not meant to be taken seriously as a grimoire.
To get the most out of the book I had to be willing to put aside any biases I had about considering the Mythos entities as anything more than fictional creations from an imaginative man. So while I may not agree with Steadman’s views on everything, and I continued to take issue with some of his phrasing such as ‘Lovecraft was justified in making this or that entity a member of the Great Old Ones’ (the man is justified in whatever he does with the Mythos cause it was his creation), being open allowed me to be exposed to some neat ideas. Such as many occultists latching onto modern revelations in quantum physics as it aligns very closely with their own views of the universe.
I would have to agree with Joshi that this book is worth looking at if you’re at all interested in both Lovecraft and the occult. The intersection of these two subjects is fascinating and given a very thorough look in this book.
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews