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.
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.
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