Who is Cthulhu. Cthulhu and modern culture

Let's consider the question of who is Cthulhu? Cthulhu is a deity belonging to the genus of the ancients, for the first time it is found in the writer Howard Lightcraft. In his books, he describes this creature sleeping at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean. Externally, Cthulhu is a mixture of man, dragon and octopus. Its body is covered with scales, the rudiments of wings are on its back, and its head is dotted with tentacles. With its gigantic size, Cthulhu is like a huge mountain.

Cthulhu has the ability to penetrate the human mind and control it, but given that the monster is under water, his superpowers lose their power, but nevertheless he can penetrate people's dreams. So we got acquainted with his image and we know who Cthulhu is - this is a green creature that brings nightmares into people's dreams.

There is still a cult of worship of Cthulhu, and its adherents are scattered throughout the earth. Sacrifices, dances and crazy behavior are integral attributes of occult worship Given the popularity of this ancient deity, many directions have arisen where his image is used, for example, games. Card Cthulhu uses all the main areas of the occult: there are battles, sectarians in it, it is explained who Cthulhu is. But all this is served in a playful atmosphere, and this game has a great many fans.

Consider the question of how widespread Cthulhu has acquired among Internet users. These are jokes, scary stories, and your own emoticon - (;,;). Who is Cthulhu at the moment is an Internet meme that has been transformed into a concentration of anger and negativity, having come up with actions that are not typical for him, for example, devouring brains, although it is more characteristic of a zombie than an underwater monster.

It is worth mentioning another board game, which will also explain who the ancient god is. This is Call of Cthulhu, a game where you can fight for human factions and monster factions. The game is live, that is, new cards can be added to it, creating new variations. Cthulhu in it is the main weapon, the most powerful and invincible.

And one more interesting point. When in 2006 at a press conference they wanted to ask Vladimir Putin a question about his view of the awakening of Cthulhu - a terrible event for the entire planet, the question was not officially included in the program, but unofficially V.V. Putin replied that he did not take any serious occult movements, and also recommended that the questioners read the Bible or the Koran.

By the way, the image of Cthulhu is widely used both in films and in animation. For example, in the movie "Pirates of the Caribbean" the hero of the film has Cthulhu paraphernalia. octopus, an appearance resembling an underwater monster, a storyline of behavior. In the Superman cartoon, the hero of our story also acts as the ruler of Atlantis. And even Dr. Zoldberg from Futurama is credited with resemblance to the great Cthulhu, but in a parodic atmosphere.

Summing up, we can determine that Cthulhu, after his appearance, occupied his own niche, his image is recognizable, and many know his name. He is still popular, lives on the Internet, in books and on television. It can be found in games, on T-shirt designs, and also in the form of soft toys.

Among all the monsters, gods and demons created by the fantasy of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, Cthulhu occupies a special place. It is the story "The Call of Cthulhu" that is considered to be the first brick of the author's unique mythology, which inspired both Lovecraft himself and numerous followers. Now "Myths of Cthulhu" can be recognized as a real phenomenon, which has become the basis for many literary works, films, computer games, philosophical essays and occult concepts. Few writers can boast of having created such a "tenacious" mythology.

Although the pantheon of the Great Old Ones has now grown enormously, Cthulhu undoubtedly remains its central figure. An extraterrestrial, immeasurably powerful and equally “evil” monster, sleeping in a sunken city, but even from the abyss, keeping in touch with its fans and sending madness to all of humanity. Most of the Great Old Ones since then have seemed roughly similar: something "huge, shapeless, slimy", sometimes with wings, in most cases with tentacles, as powerful as it is alien to humanity, outside the moral norms that people usually attribute to gods and demons.

Could such a deity, as well as the entire Lovecraftian pantheon, have been created solely by the imagination of one person, even such as our Howard Phillips? With all due respect to Mater, there are doubts about this.

The origins of Lovecraft's inspiration are usually found in literary images. So, the author of one of the most detailed biographies of Lovecraft, Sunand Joshi, names Guy de Maupassant's story "The Eagle" and Abraham Merritt's novel "Moon Pool", as well as theosophical works. Others recall Tennyson's poem "Kraken", which tells of a huge monster dozing in the depths of the sea to wake up before the end of the world. The influence of these, and a number of others, images on Lovecraft's work is quite likely - but not enough to create such a rich and coherent mythology. Recall Tolkien - a British professor, a man of encyclopedic knowledge, when creating his world, he relied on the most powerful layer of Germanic and Celtic mythology, supplemented by the Christian worldview of the author. Could Lovecraft, also a man of the widest erudition, rely on some mythological images? Let's try to understand this issue.

Let's start with the region in which Lovecraft himself locates the location of R'lyeh and Cthulhu sleeping in it - from Oceania. Recall that the boat, on which the sailor Johansen stumbles upon the ancient city rising from the abyss, left Auckland in New Zealand, and the ship of the "cultists" Vigilant, as mentioned in the story, "cruised between the islands of the Pacific Ocean." Is there anything similar to the Great Cthulhu in the myths of the local peoples? Perhaps there is!

Among all the peoples of Oceania, the Polynesians with their rather complex pantheon of gods had the most developed mythological ideas. Among them was Kanaloa (Tangaroa, Taaroa, Tagaloa) - one of the four main gods of Polynesian mythology, along with Tane (Kane), Rongo (Lono) and Ku (Tu). Under different names, these gods were known throughout Polynesia, but their significance in the overall picture of the universe could vary from island to island. Tangaroa, for example, was presented either as the supreme god, the creator of the universe, or as the “dark twin” of a good heavenly deity, the local “devil”. This is how he is depicted in Hawaiian mythology, where he is known under the name of Kanaloa, the enemy of the heavenly god Kane. However, both of these gods are not only rivals, but also co-workers in the matter of creation - a plot well known to many peoples of Eurasia, where the world is created jointly by "good" and "evil" gods. Kane creates a canoe, but Kanaloa makes it float; Kane creates a person, and Kanaloa - all poisonous and simply unpleasant creatures. In particular, he is considered the progenitor of squids, revered as demonic creatures, and he himself appears as a kind of cephalopod. One of Kanaloa's names is "Kaa-he" e-hauna-Vela" or "Smelly Squid".

Here we are already close to the image of Cthulhu - a huge monster with the head of an octopus. And the fact that Kalmar-Kanaloa is called "malodorous" is also, as they say, "in the subject." Doesn't Lovecraft himself already in his other work "The Dunwich Horror" write about the Great Old Ones (which include Cthulhu) “Only by their stench will you recognize them”? However, in The Call of Cthulhu, the opening of the grave of the monstrous god was marked by an “unbearable stench”, and later, when the sailor Johansen struck the monster with a bowsprit, “the stench of a thousand open graves” spread.

In the depths of the Pacific Ocean, Lovecraft located the tomb of another monstrous deity, described by him in a co-authored story with Hazel Heald "Out of Time". In an ancient crypt sunken in the depths of the sea, a monster called Ghatanothoa lurks, so terrible that with its very appearance it can turn to stone. Of course, tentacles and other Lovecraftian charms are present in the description of this monster. The very name of Ghatantohoa is consonant with the name of Kanaloa or Tangaroa - is it not because Lovecraft was guided by the same mythological source when creating both literary images?

An interesting detail: Lovecraft mentions in passing that the cult of Ghatanothoa merged into the Polynesian mystical doctrine of Areoi. This is a real-life fertility cult practiced on the islands of French Polynesia, which included ritual murders and ritual orgies. One of the variants of the origin of this cult associates it with Tagaroa or with his son Oro, the god of war. Therefore, we can conclude that Lovecraft had some idea of ​​\u200b\u200bPolynesian cults and this idea could inspire him to create the image of Cthulhu.

Fantasy author and one of Lovecraft's successors, Lin Carter, called Ghatanothoa "the son of Cthulhu". And Tangaroa has sons besides Oro. One of them is Tinirau, the owner of fish and sea animals. Its attributes are two-bodies, a combination in the form of two natures at once - human and fish. Sharks serve as his heralds, and each fish can be considered his wife. Tinirau are praying that he will send a good catch. There is already a connection with other Lovecraft characters - the Deep Ones, which have a half-fish, half-human appearance and are able to mix with people. They can also give those who worship them a lot of fish. The story "Shadows over Innsmouth" mentions the island of Ponape in Oceania, from where Captain Oubed Marsh led the Deep Ones to New England. By the way, nearby, on the islands of Melanesia, there were also legends about certain half-people, half-fish.

It is not known whether Lovecraft was familiar with Hawaiian mythology, but with his wide knowledge and many books read, it would not be surprising that information about Kanaloa nevertheless reached the writer, and the rest was thought up by his rich imagination.

In Polynesian legends, there were also other huge octopus-like creatures, and the cult of Tangaroa has a number of aspects that are interesting for the topic under consideration. Even the Tiirau-Tangaloa anthem, performed by priests from the island of Tahiti, sounds unusually ominous, forcing one to imagine the cultists from Innsmouth:

From the Devourer, from the Master of the Ocean

A cloud is rising here.

In the shadows of the night

A cloud is rising...

For the sun rising from the ocean

For the sun, from the Devourer rising here.

Another possible source of inspiration for Lovecraft is the voodoo cult, as well as the rites and deities associated with it. Perhaps the most eerie moment in "The Call of Cthulhu" is a ritual in honor of Cthulhu in the Louisiana swamps. Lovecraft directly refers to this worship as a "voodoo cult", clearly alluding to the many frightening rumors that were circulating at that time about the Negro gods and their worshipers. In real voodooism, it is rather difficult to find a deity even remotely resembling Cthulhu, but in this case this is not required - voodoo inspired the writer to create not a deity, but his cultists. Lovecraft, a typical son of old America, convinced of the racial inferiority of blacks, was always inclined to demonize them - which he transferred to other stories. As Michel Houellebecq writes in Lovecraft: Against Humanity, Against Progress:

“As for the torturers, servants of nameless cults, they are almost always mestizos, mulattoes, half-breeds of the “lowest breed” ...

To Christ, as the new Adam, who came to revive mankind with love, Lovecraft opposes the “Negro”, who came to revive mankind with bestiality and vice. For the day of the Great Cthulhu is near. The era of his advent will be easy to recognize: “In this hour, people will become like the Old: free, wild, beyond good and evil, rejecting every moral law, exterminating each other with loud cries during merry revelry. The liberated Old Ones will teach them new ways to scream, kill, feast; and the whole earth will glow with the last slaughter of unbridled ecstasy. In the meantime, with proper rites, the cult should keep alive the memory of those former mores and prophesy their return. This text is nothing but an exceptionally strong paraphrase of the Apostle Paul.

We are approaching here the very essence of racism in Lovecraft, who predetermined himself as a victim and who chose his executioners. He harbors no doubts on this subject: “senseful human beings” will be defeated by “greasy chimpanzees”(this is how Lovecraft refers to black people when he justifies the ban on combining beaches for blacks and whites) ; they will be ground, tortured and devoured; their bodies will be torn to pieces in vile rites, to the haunting sounds of frantic drums.

A disgusting to the grotesque ritual, where human sacrifices are made under the rustling of the wings of unknown devils from the depths of the black forest, under the gaze of an unknown creature with tentacles - the quintessence of Lovecraft's attitude towards blacks in general and voodooism in particular. However, there were already terrible rumors about the latter, especially common in the American South. The newspaper passage quoted below, describing an alleged voodoo rite, would be quite worthy of Lovecraft's pen, if not for its explicit sexual overtones:

“As the rhythm of tom-toms and banjos speeds up, the usually decent behavior of the Negroes is replaced by unbridled bacchanalia. Their tread and all the twists of their bodies are full of primitive power, unknown to those who move only in a decent society. The women strip off their clothes and return naked to the frantic festivities, screaming along with the rest... A naked white girl who performs the duties of a voodoo priestess is driven into a frenzy by spells and dances that followed the sacrifice of a black and white chicken. The snake, trained in its role, moves to the beat of the music, coiling around the girl's limbs, and the faithful stand around or dance, watching the coils of the snake. Finally, when the poor girl fell, writhing in an epileptic fit, the observer fled in horror.

This New York Times article (1894) tells of a ceremony held in Mobile, Alabama. There were plenty of similar stories in the South, especially in Louisiana, in New Orleans, with its "voodoo queens" and bizarre French-Negro folklore. Although Lovecraft visited the southern states after writing The Call of Cthulhu, nevertheless, he knew the history of the South before, admired the “knights” of the Ku Klux Klan and fully approved of the racial orders established in the southern states. It is possible that the voodoo motifs in The Call of Cthulhu owe their appearance to an article like the one quoted above.

Probably, the impressions of the trip to the South also inspired Lovecraft when writing the story "The Curl of Medusa" (co-authored with Zelia Bishop). By the way, it was written in Richmond, the former capital of the Confederate States of the South. In this story, the African roots of the Cthulhu cult come through more clearly, as well as the attachments to specific voodoo beliefs. The entourage of the abandoned estate of the old South, the mysterious and sinister beauty Marceline Bertrand with hair like snakes (an echo of the mysteries of Damballa, the voodoo snake god?), the old Zulu sorceress Sofonizba, almost praying for the mysterious mistress, who, as Lovecraft notes in the very last sentence, "was, albeit in a deceptively insignificant degree ... a Negro." Marceline's hair, after her death, mysteriously turns into a huge snake that retains a mystical connection with its mistress rotting in the grave - references both to the cult of Damballa and to the "living dead", the legends about which are so rich in voodooism. Well, the final cry of the old sorceress further confirms us in the idea that the origins of the Cthulhu cult are on the Black Continent:

« Ie! Ie! fur coat‑ Niggurath! Ya R "Laikh! N" gag n "bulu bwana n" lolo! Ya, yo, poor Missy Tanit, poor Missy Isis! Marse Klulu, emerge from the water and take your child - she is dead! She died! Hair no longer has any mistress, Marse Klulu. Old Sophie, she knows! Old Sophie, she got the black stone from Great Zimbabwe in old Africa! Old Sophie, she danced in the moonlight around a crocodile stone before N "bangus caught her and sold her to a ship carrying people! No more Tanit! No more Isis! No more woman‑ a witch who would keep the fire burning in a big stone place! Ya, yo! N "gagi n" bulu bwana n "lolo! Ie! Fur coat‑ Niggurath! She died! Old Sophie knows!»

All these examples seem to confirm the opinion of authors like Joshi or Houellebecq, who emphasize Lovecraft's "racism" and "snobbery", his emphasized fear of "lower races" and "half-breeds", which became the prototypes of Lovecraft's monsters. However, there is another mythological layer, which also may have influenced the creation of the Cthulhu Mythos. The layer is especially close to Lovecraft, because it is closely connected with his "small homeland" - New England and some nearby states. This is a region in whose history there was the most dense obscurantism, up to the burning of witches; where the prejudices brought by the colonists from old Europe took root and strengthened. Best of all, the mood from which the witch folklore of the British colonies grew was described by Lovecraft himself:

“Fanatical adherents of beliefs that made them outcasts among their own kind, whose ancestors settled in the wilderness in search of freedom. Here they prospered beyond the limitations that fettered their fellow citizens, but they themselves found themselves in shameful slavery to the dark creations of their own imagination. Separated from civilization and enlightenment, all the spiritual forces of these Puritans rushed into completely unknown channels, and a painful tendency to self-restraint and a fierce struggle for survival among the wild nature that surrounded them developed in them the most gloomy and mysterious traits of character, originating from the prehistoric depths of the cold northern homeland of their ancestors. Practical by nature and strict in their views, they did not know how to sin beautifully, and when they sinned - for it is human nature to err - they cared more than anything else in the world that the secret did not become obvious, and therefore gradually lost all sense of proportion in what they I had to hide."

"Picture in an old book"

« Huge expanses of gloomy virgin forests, eternally twilight, in which any evil spirits could be found; hordes of copper-skinned Indians, whose strange gloomy appearance and cruel customs directly indicated their diabolical origin; freedom, given under the influence of the Puritan theocracy, in relation to the strict and vengeful God of the Calvinists and the infernal rival of that God, about whom much was said every Sunday; gloomy focus on their inner world due to the forest lifestyle of people deprived of normal entertainment and amusements, exhausted by the requirements of constant religious self-knowledge, doomed to unnatural emotional repression, and even forced to wage a constant fierce struggle for survival - all this inevitably gave rise to an environment in which not only whispered in the corners about the black deeds of witches and tales of witchcraft and incredible horrors were passed from mouth to mouth long after the terrible days of the Salem nightmare».

"Supernatural Horror in Literature"

English, Scottish, German, Irish folklore of the 18th and 19th centuries was filled with bizarre creatures that could compete with the most terrible characters of Polynesian or African legends. London toshers believed in the “rat queen” living in the sewers, the inhabitants of Lincolshire in the swamp spirit Tiddy Man with a white beard and deer horns, the sea monster Nakilevi appeared on the Orkney Islands, a skinless one-eyed “centaur” with fins instead of hooves and a huge whale mouth, and in the rivers of Wales lived the Water Jumper, a malevolent spirit resembling a huge toad with wings and a tail instead of paws. Folk fantasy has also spawned more bizarre creatures, sometimes suspiciously reminiscent of the "shapeless" and "terrible" Shoggoths of Lovecraft's fantasies. Such, for example, are the Boneless monster of Somerset, or the jellyfish Shetland Ono. Legends about witches' sabbaths, about "foundlings", about the Little People, in various variations, were available almost throughout Western Europe. Many of these superstitions have penetrated across the ocean: beliefs about letters to rats, Maine mermen, the Bloody Bones monster, which was used to frighten children, or the Jersey Devil. Some of these creatures could have arisen under the influence of Indian legends, like the Wendigo, the ogre, but many creatures were of completely European origin. Lovecraft, as a man who thoroughly knew the history of the British colonies in America, with his lively interest in his native state, could not help but know at least some of these superstitions - and some of them are guessed in the stories - "Pickman's Fashion Model", "The Hidden Horror", " Rats in the Walls”, “Unnameable” and even “Shadows over Innsmouth”. Lovecraft may well have known the legend of the Snalgeister, an unknown winged creature that lives near the Blue Ridge in Maryland. Stories about him appeared among German immigrants. "Shnelle Geist", meaning "swift spirit", is described as a cross between a bird and a dragon with a metal beak, razor-sharp teeth, and sometimes octopus-like tentacles. Recall again the "Call of Cthulhu":

“If I say that in my imagination, which is also distinguished by extravagance, images of an octopus, a dragon and a caricature of a person arose simultaneously, then I think I can convey the spirit of the depicted creature. A fleshy head, equipped with tentacles, crowned an absurd scaly body with underdeveloped wings; moreover, it was the general contour of this figure that made it so frighteningly terrible.

The Snalgeister swoops silently from the sky and carries off its victims. The earliest stories claim that this monster sucks blood. The seven-pointed stars that reputedly kept Snellgeister at bay were painted by local medicine men on barns. Similar symbols are often found in the works of both Lovecraft and his followers.

It cannot be argued that any of the deities or monsters mentioned above became a specific prototype of Cthulhu, but it is obvious that all these dark legends, rumors and superstitions had a considerable influence on Lovecraft's work. American culture and American folklore are much more diverse than is commonly believed in Russia, and a mixture of different traditions can give rise to bizarre, sometimes frightening images. Lovecraft, with his broadest erudition and deep love for his native New England, of which he was the flesh of the flesh, brilliantly captured all these "satanic depths" of American culture, embodying them in the form of monsters "who came from the stars", being both their creator and unwitting prophet . From the swampy Louisiana swamps, from the dense forests and caves of the Appalachians and the bottomless depths of Oceania, the Great Cthulhu came out to begin a victorious march around the world since then.

Once, from the cosmic Chaos, the Ancient Gods arrived on planet Earth, founded their civilization, engaged in the selection of creatures, turning them into their slaves. The ancient gods did atrocities. However, there was a god who protected these slaves. It was Cthulhu. Who is it? What is a protector?

Cthulhu

Cthulhu was first mentioned in 1928 in the short story "The Call of Cthulhu" by Howard Lovecraft. Cthulhu is a monster sleeping at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which affects the human mind. The image of Cthulhu is close to the Sumerian deity Kululu, whose roots of origin can be found in ancient manuscripts.

Parts of the body of Cthulhu are similar to an octopus, a dragon, a man. An octopus-headed monster with tentacles, a scaly humanoid body, and two vestigial wings. Living Cthulhu squishes, when moving, mucus flows from it. The body of this monster is green, gelatinous. The exact height of Cthulhu is not indicated, but he is like a "walking mountain" and larger than the Cyclops.

Cthulhu from the lineage of the Old Gods. It lies in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on top of the city of R'lyeh. When R'lyeh, "with the right position of the stars" appears above the water, then Cthulhu is freed. The awakening of Cthuhlu threatens the decline of human civilization and the return of the Old Gods.

In the area of ​​R'lyeh, indicated by Lovecraft, an underwater sound was recorded in 1997, which was named "Bloop". The power of this sound is much greater than the sound made by marine animals.

Cultists living in different parts of the Earth worship Cthulhu. Among the Eskimos of Greenland and the inhabitants of New England there are many cultists who arrange human sacrifices, dances and rituals at their meetings.

Cthulhu can influence the human mind, but because of the water column, his abilities are drowned out and only dreams remain subject to it. Dreams cast by Cthulhu are terrifying, driven to madness. Who is Cthulhu? This is a creature completely alien to human nature and the history of mankind depends only on his sleep.

Cthulhu and modern culture

Unlike other gods from myths, Cthulhu is quite popular and famous. He is one of the characters in the Internet comic "User Friendly".

In 1984 Metallica performed the musical composition "The Call of Ktulu". Then there were the groups Therion, Draconian, Cradle Of Filth, who also turned to this mythical hero. The Endura group in their work connected a lot with Cthulhu.

In 1994, the fantasy game "Quest for Glory IV: Shadows of Darkness" was released, in which, in addition to other heroes, there is also Cthulhu. In 2007, a computer game was released, in the Russian version - "Sherlock Holmes 3: The Secret of Cthulhu". The play "Awakening of Cthulhu" is now on the stage of the Bolshoi Drama Theater. Cthulhu has repeatedly made his way to the movie screens - "Pirates of the Caribbean."

The image of Cthulhu in the youth communities of Runet is popular along with Medved, Masyanya, Krevedko and has acquired an emoticon (;,;) or (:€. Cthulhu is the subject of anecdotes, caricatures, jokes and parodies.

Oddly enough, I want to know the history of the appearance of Cthulhu.
The whole genesis, so to speak.

Cthulhu (English Cthulhu) in Myths Cthulhu is a monster sleeping at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, capable of influencing the human mind. First mentioned in Howard Lovecraft's short story "The Call of Cthulhu" (1928).

In appearance, Cthulhu in different parts of the body is similar to an octopus, a dragon and a man: judging by the bas-relief from Anthony Wilcox, the hero of The Call of Cthulhu, and the mysterious ancient statue from the story, the monster has a head with tentacles, a humanoid body covered with scales, and a pair of rudimentary wings. A description from Gustaf Johansen's fictional journal adds that the living Cthulhu squishes and oozes as it moves, and its body is green, gelatinous, and miraculously regenerates with observable rapidity. Its exact growth is not indicated; Johansen likened the monster to a "walking mountain" larger than the "legendary Cyclops"; Cthulhu (floating or walking along the bottom) "raised above the impure foam, like the stern of a demonic galleon."

Cthulhu belongs to the genus of the Ancients. He lies in a death-like dream atop the underwater city of R'lyeh in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. "With the correct alignment of the stars," R'lyeh appears above the water, and Cthulhu is freed.

The Cthulhu Mythos describes an ancient religious tradition of worship (cult) of Cthulhu. According to Lovecraft, cultists are present all over the world; in particular, among the Eskimos of Greenland, and among the inhabitants of New England. At their meetings, cultists arrange human sacrifices, rage, dance and read the mantra "Ph'nglui mglv'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh vgah'nagl fhtagn", which, according to the testimony of some cultists (according to the "Call of Cthulhu"), should be understood as "In In his house in R'lyeh, the dead Cthulhu waits, sees dreams.

Cthulhu is able to influence the mind of human beings, but his abilities are drowned out by the water column, so that only the dreams of especially sensitive people remain subject to him. In The Call of Cthulhu, the dreams cast by Cthulhu greatly horrify those who see them, and sometimes drive them to madness. Cthulhu is an alien creature, completely alien to human nature, and the whole history of mankind is just a moment of his sleep. Cultists are convinced of the great power of their idol, and the death of civilization seems to them a very likely, albeit insignificant, consequence of the awakening of Cthulhu.

Here's what the myths say about it:

CTHULHU (also KUTULU, CTHULHUT, THU THU, TULU). A formless Great Old One who is most often described as a clawed, octopus-headed creature with large, bat-like wings. Cthulhu sleeps in a death trance in R "lyeh, but one day he will wake up in order to rule the world once again.

Records of Cthulhu are sketchy, but it seems that he was born on the world of Wurl in the twenty-third nebula. Later He roamed the green double star Hoth where He copulated with a being called Idh-yaa to beget the Great Old Ones Ghatanothoa, Ythhogtha, and Tsog-Ommoga. Then Cthulhu and his offspring flew to Yuggoth, from where they descended to Earth.

Upon Their arrival, Cthulhu and his retinue on an island in the Pacific Ocean built a huge stone city R "lieh. At first, the offspring of Cthulhu were resisted by the Elder Beings who lived on earth for millions of years before the arrival of Cthulhu. After the war in which the descendants of Cthulhu destroyed all the cities of the Elder Beings , both camps declared peace and agreed not to interfere with each other.

After this, Cthulhu and his descendants enjoyed freedom in this world for many years, but they soon fell into a period of deep expectation. For millions of years, humanity has slowly evolved. Cthulhu spoke to these new creatures in their dreams, telling them where the statues with his image were, which he brought from the stars. Thus the cult of Cthulhu was born. But one day a black R "lieh suffered a disaster. Perhaps it was the revenge of unknown deities or changes in the stars, the moon, separated from the Earth (although it is believed that the servants of Cthulhu would know about this). The time of this disaster is also unknown; according to the doctrine of the cult, this happened after the birth of his first cults, others believe that this happened long before the beginning of the development of mankind. For no reason, the city of R "lieh plunged into the waters of the Pacific Ocean, slamming Cthulhu and his descendants into a trap. The water blocked most of their telepathic signals, preventing any contact with their servants except through random dreams. Cthulhu couldn't do anything and is waiting for the stars to align in their proper order; only then will he be released from prison.

Since then, Cthulhu's tomb has risen from the water from time to time, freeing Cthulhu for brief periods. Every time, after several days or weeks, R "lieh again plunged back into the sea. However, the day will come when the black city will not return to the seabed. Zasim Cthulhu will kill and rush around the world.

The cults of Cthulhu are widespread; traces of his worship remained in Haiti, Louisiana, the South Pacific Ocean, Mexico City, Arabia, Siberia, K "n-yan, and Greenland. Immortal priests supported the cult somewhere in the mountains of China, but the true center of the cult was located somewhere in Arabia, near Irem.The first work of Professor Angell and his successors gave much information about hidden cults.

Mostly this cult has remained secret, but legends still circulate in the Hawaiian Islands about Kana-loa, an evil squid god who is imprisoned in the underworld. The rituals of Cthulhu are often performed near the ocean or a large bay, and it is believed that halloween- one of its highest festivities. Rumor has it that Cthulhu is simply the high priest of Yog-Sothoth. Some enmity exists between Cthulhu and his brother, the Unspeakable Hastur. However, no one knows what caused the conflict between them.

In some texts, Cthulhu is called a water elemental, despite the ocean blocking his telepathic signals to humanity. The Sassekh manuscript mentions Cthulhu as a manifestation of Nyarlathotep, although no other source interprets it that way. Francis Laney tried to connect Cthulhu Kuiha-Ayar with the god of war Huitzilopohtli. This is an obvious nonsense; Huitzilopohtli is the god of the Aztecs and he does not look like Cthulhu at all. Finally, some have drawn parallels between Cthulhu and K'thulu Souhis, the high priest of Mu who escaped to South America. Some accept either of these hypotheses.

In appearance, Cthulhu is similar to an octopus, a dragon and a man in various parts of the body: according to Lovecraft's description, it is green, sticky and fat, has an octopus-like head, a twisted dragon-like body covered with scales and a pair of rudimentary wings. Its exact size is not indicated, but, judging by the story "The Call of Cthulhu", it is clearly no smaller than a medium-sized ship. It was first mentioned in the story "Dagon" (1917) by the same grandfather.

Cthulhu lies "in a dream like death" in the sunken crypt city of R'lye (R'layh in another translation) in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. "When the stars are in the right position," R'lye will rise from the seabed and Cthulhu will wake up. The Cthulhu Mythos describes an ancient religious tradition of Cthulhu worship. According to Lovecraft, cultists are present among the Eskimos of Greenland, and among the inhabitants of New England, and in general throughout the world. At their meetings, the cultists arrange human sacrifices, dance and chant the mantra "Ph'nglui mglv'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh vgah'nagl fhtagn", which, according to the testimony of some cultists, should be understood as "In his home in R'lyeh, the dead Cthulhu sleeps, waiting in the wings".

Cthulhu is able to influence the mind of human beings, but his abilities are drowned out by the water column, so that only dreams remain subject to him. In the story, the dreams cast by Cthulhu greatly horrify those who saw them, and sometimes drive them to madness.

Lovecraft's spelling is surprisingly close in pronunciation to the Sumerian deity Kululu - the main deity of the Sumerians Enki lives in his house at the bottom of the sea.

His name is pronounced in the language of mortals, something like Khlûl'hloo or Kathooloo, as Grandpa Lovecraft bequeathed to us:

None of the English pronunciations of the sound "c" ( Cthulhu) No. In English for sound c combination is used ts, while the letter With reads like Russian With before letters e, i and y("fifty With ent”, for example, against the Russian transcription “cent”) or as “k” in all other cases. In this way Cthulhu cannot be in English sources, just like Stulhu, because the letter combination "ct" can only be read as "ct". Exceptions are abbreviations. Most likely, such a pronunciation came from one of the translations of the pseudonecronomicon (Simon's Necronomicon).

In the youth layers of the Runet, the image of Cthulhu gained popularity along with the bear and even acquired its own emoticons - (;,;), (:?,: -E, (jlj), and also?. Cthulhu has become the subject of many caricatures, anecdotes, jokes and parodies (common phrases “Cthulhu is shaking fsekh!”; “Cthulhu fhtagn!”; “Cthulhu is shaking your mosk!”). In these jokes, Cthulhu is sometimes attributed to actions unusual for him, borrowed from similar images, for example, eating the human “mosk” (brain) ( perhaps because of the similarity with the illithids and because of the property of Cthulhu himself to control the minds of people at a distance, that is, the absorption of the mind, and then paraphrased as "absorption of the brain").

The cult of Cthulhu, which causes quite justified fears of the heads of many states, from North Korea to France and the United States, has long been in the darkness of scientific oblivion on the part of ethnographers and religious scholars, being the property of a few scattered and isolated sects. The first mention of the worship of Cthulhu is found in "Kitab al-Azif" by the Arab traveler and occultist Abdullah ibn-Hazred (or Abdul Alhazred, as he is often called in English sources). This book was written in Damascus around the year 730 and is not so much a mystical as a historical treatise by an aged wanderer about what was and gone. There were many works of this kind in the enlightened Arab East. A native of Yemen, Abdullah ibn Khazred traveled a lot, from the Punjab to the Maghreb, easily learned foreign languages ​​​​and did not miss the opportunity to boast of the ability to read and translate manuscripts that were beyond the power of less learned people.

Ibn Khazred showed a rather specific interest in the forgotten beliefs, secret cults and dark superstitions of the various tribes and sects he encountered along the way. The famous American writer Howard Phillips Lovecraft undeservedly calls him "the mad Arab". In fact, even if by modern standards Ibn Khazred behaved somewhat eccentrically, sometimes risking his life to reach the sand-covered ruins of the "city of pillars" of Irem, such actions are quite justified by the desire to achieve the goal known to any serious traveler.

In the final book of his entire life - "Kitab al-Azif" ibn-Hazred spoke about a sect, or rather, a group of sects that worship the Elder Gods and seek to help them subjugate the entire Earth to their power. An important role in this is played by the high priest of the Elder Gods, the monstrous Cthulhu, sleeping in a dead sleep in the abyss of the sea and under the water column waiting in the wings when the stars and planets line up in a certain order. Then, with the help of the will of the adepts, Cthulhu will wake up himself and wake up the Elder Gods. Until then, adherents do not allow their religion to fade away, regularly conducting rituals and chants.

All these gloomy beliefs would have remained the property of researchers in the history of religions if at the beginning of the 20th century the location of the sunken city of R "Laikh and the crypt of the sleeping priest of the Elder Gods - Cthulhu" had not been accurately established.

For the first time, civilized white people started talking about Cthulhu in 1860. An Arctic expedition from Princeton University searched Iceland and Greenland for ancient Viking sites and runic inscriptions carved on stones. The hypothesis of the discovery of America by Scandinavian sailors, popular in those years, was tested. The inscriptions were not found, but on the west coast of Greenland they discovered an endangered tribe of Eskimos who worshiped the devil - tornasuk. In any case, so claimed the neighboring tribes, who tried to stay away from adherents of a frightening religion. This was doubly strange, given the cruel and sometimes savage pagan rites common among the Eskimos of Greenland and the Canadian Arctic. The head of the expedition, professor of anthropology Joel Korn, visited the tribe fading in isolation and even managed to talk to the chief shaman - angekok. The tribe had a fetish: a small figurine of porous black-green stone, standing on a tall granite boulder. The Eskimos danced around it as they welcomed the sunrise after the long polar winter. In the same place, near the boulder, human sacrifices of captives or fellow tribesmen were performed. Professor Korn was interested in rituals hitherto unknown among the Eskimos, passed down from generation to generation from time immemorial. Of particular interest was the chant with which they addressed the figurine symbolizing the tornasuka. These were the words of a completely different language, unknown to science and unlike anything else! Angekok carefully reproduced the phoneme of the words of the diabolical liturgy for the curious professor. The Eskimos worshiped the powerful Cthulhu sleeping at the bottom of the sea and made sacrifices to him, assuring them of their loyalty to the day of awakening.

The publication of Joel Korn's report in the annual collection of the Royal Geographical Society, of which the professor was a member, aroused the interest of the enlightened world. The British court poet Alfred Tennyson immediately reacted to this with the poem "Cthulhu":

Far from the storms raging above him
At the bottom of the abyss, under the abyss of the higher waters,
Deep sleep, eternal and deaf,
Cthulhu sleeps soundly; a rare beam will shine
In the bottomless darkness; the flesh of the sides is covered
Giant sponges with eternal armor.
And looks up at the weak light of day,
From many hidden corners
Having sensitively spread the network of living branches,
Polyps gigantic predatory forest.
He sleeps for centuries, monstrous worms
In a dream, swallowing; but wait for the day
The hour of the last fire will come;
And to the world of people and inhabitants of heaven

For the first time he will emerge - and all will come to an end.

Interest in the degenerate Eskimo tribe quickly faded, and another time they started talking about Cthulhu in 1908. At a meeting of the American Archaeological Society in New Orleans, police inspector John R. Legrasse brought a figurine of black and green stone for identification. The figurine was captured during a police raid in the woods of Louisiana. A sect of idolaters, suspected of human sacrifice, held their disgusting worship on an island in the middle of a swamp. Taken by surprise, the mestizos hardly resisted. The police were able to find the decomposed remains and an eight-foot granite pillar with an incomprehensibly tiny stone idol on top. Since Legrasse, who was investigating this case, could not identify a strange cult, the conscientious inspector turned to specialists.

To his surprise, the figurine aroused the frantic interest of Professor William Channing Webb, who had taken part in Korn's Arctic expedition almost half a century ago. Webb stated that the mestizo fetish strongly resembles the idol of Eskimo devil worshipers. But how could the figurine get from distant Greenland to the American South? It is obvious that these were two different statues. Professor Webb asked if Legrasse knew about the chants of the sectarians? This was also recorded in the inspector's papers. A strange litany in an unknown language sounded like "Ph" nglui mglw "nafh Cthulhu R" lyeh wgah "nagl fhtagn", a pathetic imitation of the phonetics of absolutely inhuman words, determined by the physiological structure of the speech apparatus, completely different from the earth.

These are the words William Webb heard on the west coast of Greenland!

Two identical cults, two identical figurines of savage tribes in different parts of the Earth - it was incredible! Inspector Legrasse added that during interrogations he found out the translation of the pagan chant: "In his house in R," dead Cthulhu waits in a dream. "The arrested mestizos told a lot about the Elder Gods and the great priest of Cthulhu in a dark crypt at the bottom of the sea. Visiting New Orleans Howard Phillips Lovecraft sketched a statue of Cthulhu.

Lovecraft, an extraordinarily erudite man, made a connection between these two strange sects and the description of the forgotten cults made in Kitab al-Azif. He outlined his observations in the story "The Call of Cthulhu", thanks to which Cthulhu gained a lot of admirers, especially in today's Russia. Modern sectarians conduct role-playing games, and the results of the Internet voting, when more than sixteen thousand people thought about the awakening of Cthulhu at the same time, is a good example of the wild popularity of the Elder Gods.

The final chord in this story was the discovery in 1925 by the crew of the Alert yacht of strange ruins that rose from the bottom of the Pacific Ocean as a result of seismic activity in the region of 47 degrees 9 minutes south latitude and 126 degrees 43 minutes west longitude. This is how the city of R "Laich was found. The island did not have time to be blurred, as it soon went under water again. The studies carried out by the US Navy in the second half of the twentieth century did not remain a state secret for long. The phenomenon of R" Laich was recognized as real. The heads of state left Cthulhu alone until better times. Treating him with suspicion, and anxiously waiting for the great sleeper to wake up.

Cthulhuism

Cthulhuism is a parodic religion similar to Pastafarianism. Cthulhians claim that Cthulhu will wake up and "zohavait fsekh".

The Cthulhians practice several playful religious rituals:
Offering sacrifices. Each cultist is obliged to perform a ritual zokhavyvanie at least once a month. To do this, you need to eat something tasty and say loudly: “Zohavano in the name of Cthulhu!”
offerings. Any cultist who has spent, lost or otherwise parted with some property must consider this a membership fee for the benefit of Cthulhu, of which he must immediately notify others by saying “Cthulhu zohawal!”

Although Cthulhuism is a Russian phenomenon, there are also parody Cthulhu cults in other countries, such as the American Campus Crusade for Cthulhu.

Cthulhuism, as a trend, in turn gave rise to new pseudo-cult manifestations: in particular, a doctrine called fkhtagnizm appeared in Chelyabinsk. Adherents of Phtagnism, perceiving Cthulhuism as a kind of Old Testament, generalize it and claim that there is an unknown force inside everyone that can wake up and make truly global changes. The basic postulate of fkhtagnizma says: "In his house, everyone will wake up at the appointed hour!" He draws a parallel with the main spell of the Cthulhu cult: "Pkhnglui mglunawh Cthulhu Rleich ugahnagl fhtagn!" (In his house, the dead Cthulhu will wake up at the appointed hour), cited by Howard F. Lovecraft himself.

In July 2006, while preparing for the Internet conference of Russian President V.V. Putin, a playful question “How do you feel about the awakening of Cthulhu?” was among the leaders in popularity. 16682 people voted for him. At the conference itself, the answer to it, as well as to other questions of "unnaturally high popularity", did not follow. However, in an informal conversation with journalists, Putin said: "I am generally suspicious of any otherworldly forces. If someone wants to turn to true values, then it is better to read the Bible, the Talmud or the Koran. It will be more useful."

Cthulhu is a mythical creature that has limitless power and is able to remotely influence the minds of all the inhabitants of the planet, but remains dormant at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean for many years. The world first learned about him from Howard Lovecraft's story "The Call of Cthulhu", released in 1928. Subsequently, Lovecraft built a voluminous mythology around this creature, making him an invisible but often mentioned character in many of his works.

The dimensions of Cthulhu are huge, and in appearance it resembles several creatures at once:

• has a head with tentacles, like an octopus;
• his body is covered with scales;
• he has dragon limbs, tail and wings.

At the same time, Cthulhu, like a person, moves on two limbs, can fly. Foul-smelling mucus oozes from the monster's skin as it moves. Killing him is almost impossible due to the ability to quickly regenerate. The heroes of various works of Lovecraft supplemented the description with other details, including the ability to walk on water and make a roar that causes huge waves.

Origin of Cthulhu

According to the mythology in the works of Lovecraft, Cthulhu belongs to the so-called great family of the Ancients. At the beginning of time, a creature arrived on Earth from another reality, along with its numerous offspring and the strongest elders, including:

• Ythogth;
• Ghatanoth;
• Tsog-Ommoga.

They built a huge city on the site of the Pacific Ocean. However, the Elder Beings or Elders already lived on the planet, who did not accept the capture and started a war with Cthulhu and his minions. Due to the equivalence of forces, no one managed to win, and both races decided to live in peace. Gradually, they fell into a state of deep expectation, and their communication was limited to telepathy.

Due to numerous cosmic processes, under the influence of which the planet was constantly changing, the ancient cities were increasingly submerged under water. Cthulhu and his retinue were buried so deeply that their connection with the outside world was practically lost. There is also an opinion that the monsters fell into a dream under the influence of a certain race from another planet, who decided to cleanse the Earth. However, when the stars and planets are formed in a special way, Cthulhu and other monsters can briefly go to the surface of the ocean, trying to plunge the world into a primitive state, free it from people and other creatures.

Cults of Cthulhu

According to Lovecraft, there is no reliable information in history about whether anyone saw Cthulhu and other ancient creatures in reality, but their ability to telepathy still allowed people to know about their existence. For centuries, monsters have penetrated the dreams and thoughts of mankind, forcing its representatives to look for a way to fully awaken the deity and raise the ancient city to the surface. So in many countries the cult of Cthulhu was born.

From generation to generation, secret societies passed on information about various relics, the use of which will help return the gods to the world of the living and completely change the planet. Some fanatics seek to simply plunge the world into chaos and cause its demise, others see Cthulhu as salvation and a wise ruler who will rule the way the world deserves. It is believed that anyone who learns about the cult and its goals is immediately killed and sacrificed in the name of awakening the god.

Worship and rites

According to Lovecraft, in today's world the main Cthulhu cults are found in places like:

• the southern states of the USA;
• Mexico;
• Arabia;
• Siberia;
• Greenland.

Societies carefully hide their whereabouts. Many of them create entire underground cities, hiding in them from everyone. Others inhabit remote areas where outsiders are not allowed. The observance of numerous rites and the use of arcane relics helps minions maintain a connection with the ancient gods. This endows them with inhuman abilities: they can grow limbs characteristic of ocean creatures, they become very hardy and live for a very long time. In addition, in his works, Lovecraft mentions mysterious laboratories and underwater bunkers in which cult scientists are working to create monstrous machines that can awaken Cthulhu.

Legacy of Cthulhu

The stories of Howard Lovecraft had a huge impact on the whole world. There is no conclusive evidence of the existence of real cults worshiping Cthulhu, however, a sufficiently large number of adherents of the theory are known that there is actually a secret power at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, which no one has yet been able to comprehend. Among them are the Hawaiian cult of Tangaroa, worshiping the giant octopus Kraken, as well as the West Semitic cult of Dagon, worshiping an underwater deity with fish features. All these cults are characterized by similar rituals, the presence of special relics, reminiscent of those described by Howard Lovecraft.

The mythology of Lovecraft is reflected in the works of art of various authors. Cthulhu is mentioned in the stories of Stephen King, Andrzej Sapkowski, Neil Gaiman, Roger Zelazny and other science fiction writers. Since 2006, after the release of the computer game "Call of Cthulhu", an active growth in the popularity of this fantastic deity among young people and youth movements began. Most often, a comical image is assigned to him: in various animated series and films, Cthulhu appears with careless actions of characters on water or land.

Over time, Cthulhu acquired the status of an Internet meme - a phenomenon often used to create humorous images and video sketches. This phenomenon arose in Russia during the years of the popularity of the deliberate distortion of the Russian language when communicating online. There was a kind of joke "Cthulhu stole my brain", which means the maximum level of mental fatigue or stupidity. At the same time, emoticon pictures and just humoresques appeared, in which Cthulhu was depicted not in a formidable, but rather touching form, like a pet.

Eating the human brain and some other abilities were invented by Russian Internet users and are not mentioned in Lovecraft's work. Most likely, people liked Cthulhu as a character thanks to his tentacles and other characteristic features that give him a comical effect.

Currently in Russia there is a parodic religion similar to Pastafarianism and called Cthulhuism. Her adherents jokingly claim that Cthulhu will soon wake up and "grab everyone." They even perform various rituals as a joke, such as eating something unusual once a month and posting it online. They also periodically throw away unnecessary things as an offering to the ancient god. There are also parody Cthulhu cults in other countries, for example, Campus Crusade for Cthulhu in the USA.