The Cult Of Cthulhu.

The most detailed descriptions of Cthulhu in “The call of Cthulhu” are based on statues of the creature. Cthulhu is an octopus, a dragon, with wings and a human.

 

Cthulhu is depicted as having a worldwide cult cantered in Arabia, with followers in regions as far-flung as Greenland and Louisiana.

There are leaders of the cult “in the mountains of China” who are said to be immortal. Cthulhu is described by some of these cultists as the “great priest” of ‘the Great Old Ones who lived ages before there were any men, and who came to the young world out of the sky.”

The cult is noted for chanting its horrid phrase or ritual: “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh C’thulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn,” which translates as “In his house at R’lyeh dead C’thulhu waits dreaming.” This is often shortened to “C’thulhu fhtagn,”which might possibly mean “C’thulhu waits,” “C’thulhu dreams,’ or “C’thulhu waits dreaming.”

One cultist, known as Old Castro, provides the most elaborate information the Great Old Ones, according to Castro, had come from the stars to rule the world in ages past.

 

They were not composed altogether of flesh and blood. They had shape...but that shape was not made of matter. When the stars were right, they could plunge from world to world through the sky; but when the stars were wrong, they could not live. But although they no longer lived, they would never really die. They all lay in stone houses in their great city of R’lyeh, preserved by the spells of mighty Cthulhu for a glorious resurrection when the stars and the earth might once more be ready for them.

 

Castro points to the “much – discussed couplet” from Abdul Alhazred’s Necronomicon: That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.

 

Castro explains the role of the Cthulhu Cult: When the stars have come right for the Great Old Ones, “some force from outside must serve to liberate their bodies. The spells that preserved them intact likewise prevented them from making an initial move.” At the proper time.

The secret priests would take great Cthulhu from his tomb to revive his subjects and resume his rule of earth...Then mankind would have become as the Great Old Ones; free and wild and beyond good and evil, with laws and morals thrown aside and all men shouting and killing and revelling in joy.

 Then the liberated Old Ones would teach them new ways to shout and kill and revel and enjoy themselves, and all the earth would flame with a holocaust of ecstasy and freedom.