The Facing of the Eagle

The emblem of the Office of Unidentified Phenomena

The other week someone asked me about the symbolism behind the emblem of the Office of Unidentified Phenomena (OUP). The fictional agency for which my paranormal investigator Pierce Mostyn works to save America and the world from those things that make big bumps in the night. It’s a good question, because the design wasn’t haphazard.

The creator of the design was none other than Crispian Thurlborn, who is no stranger to you if you are a reader of this blog. He’s a fabulous writer. In addition, he’s a superb book cover designer, and  trailer maker. He designed all of the promo materials I use for the Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigation books.

So what does all that stuff on the above emblem mean? Let’s take a look at the symbolism.

The red triangle on which the circle is placed represents the depth of the OUP. It is in the background of our daily lives and it’s reach is very deep. It is behind everything.

The shield covering the eagle’s body represents defense in the air (the stars), on the land (the mountain), and on the sea (the waves). There is also a Lovecraftian dimension to those three aspects in addition to the normal heraldic symbolism. The OUP protects us from all things deep under the sea (where Cthulhu sleeps), in space and beyond (where the Great Old Ones originated), and under the earth (where Tsathoggua sleeps).

The all-seeing eye in the pyramid on the shield symbolizes the ever vigilant nature of the OUP.

The eagle itself is a bird of prey, but has for a very long time symbolized nobility, strength, and bravery. The wings in the displayed position symbolize protection. And the rays, or rayonnee emanating from the eagle’s head symbolize intelligence and enlightenment.

The olive branch and the arrows show that all of the traits are present in both peace and war.

And now to the eagle’s head. Why is it facing to the eagle’s left? If you notice any symbolism which uses an eagle the head is usually turned to the eagle’s right. The right hand symbolizing honor and nobility. At least most of the time.

But what does it mean when the head faces to the left? That is an excellent question. Our word “sinister” comes from the Latin word for left. Hm. Gives one pause to think, doesn’t it?

Does the eagle’s head facing left mean the OUP is a sinister organization, one that actually doesn’t do good? Well, the eagle on the US President’s seal faced left until President Truman changed it to the right. More food for thought.

For the OUP, the left facing eagle symbolizes the fine line the agency walks in protecting us from that of which we aren’t aware. The all-seeing eye, the rays of enlightenment and intelligence, and the sinister facing eagle together imply the danger of the OUP’s mission and methodology and the wisdom needed to thread a very fine needle, or walk a very fine line.

It is a case of fighting fire with fire. Of fighting the forces of darkness with darkness. Of using the two-edged sword which can cut both ways. Fighting evil by frequently having to resort to using evil.

All of this is, of course, perfectly in line with the Lovecraftian base underlying the Pierce Mostyn stories.

The Great Old Ones, while appearing evil to us because they mean the end of the world as we know it, are not intrinsically evil. They simply exist as we exist. They appear evil to us because they are unlike us and appear to be at cross purposes with us. They are aliens, foreigners to our universe. And by nature we tend to feel uncomfortable with what we do not know or understand. But perhaps most damning from our perspective is that we are to them as ants are to us. Nothing. A mere nuisance.

If ants bug us, we exterminate them. The same with the Great Old Ones. To them we are pests.

For Lovecraft, human beings are not the apex of all creation. We are essentially nothing in the face of the great cosmos. We are a highly developed primate, having evolved on a tiny speck of rock and dirt, orbiting a star of no particular significance. Our position in the universe is so infinitesimally tiny, we are in essence insignificant.

Prior to Lovecraft, Nietzsche posited our essential meaninglessness.  He cites, in The Birth of Tragedy, the story of Midas and Silenus. Midas asks the god what is the best thing for us. And Silenus answers him by saying that the best thing for us humans is to never be born. Otherwise our best course is to die soon.

Nietzsche goes on to posit that when we gaze into the deep black abyss and come away knowing our insignificance, our meaninglessness, our essential lack of any objective purpose — it is then the words of Silenus come home to us.

However, Nietzsche didn’t leave us in the depths of despair and nihilism. It is why he advocated we must create our own purpose. We are the creators. We are the gods. Not the beings we fashioned in our own image. We must embrace our senses and emotions, we must resort to art to find our own meaning and purpose. If left to our rational nature alone, we will sink into despair. We will go insane.

The Great Old Ones are not rational by our standards, which is perhaps why so many go insane immediately upon seeing them.

Dr Rafe Bardon, the OUP’s director, and Pierce Mostyn have gazed into the abyss and survived. They realize that the eagle facing to the right will not save the planet from the roiling insane chaos (at least by our standards) threatening to over take it.

Only by facing the sinister is there any hope for survival.

Stop by this Friday for the fourth installment of The Medusa Ritual. Lovecraftian adventure coming your way, as Pierce Mostyn and the OUP battle a nemesis hellbent on opening the gate for the Great Old Ones. 

Comments are always welcome! And until next time, happy reading!

The Medusa Ritual - Installment 2

The Medusa Ritual

A Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigation

by

CW Hawes

In this second installment, Dr Bardon briefs Mostyn and his team on their new assignment. They are to recover a book. But not just any book. This book contains terrifying rituals and spells that could end life as we know it on good old mother earth.

The adventure continues!

2

The time was late. Well past 11PM. Dr Rafe Bardon stood at the front of the conference room, pipe in hand. Mostyn and his team sat around the table; except for Helene Dubreuil, who was at a secret hospital run by the Office of Unidentified Phenomena, the office over which Bardon was the director.

There was no coffee and no boxes of doughnuts. A sign Dr Bardon was not happy.

Bardon puffed on his pipe for a moment before speaking. “We lost a great opportunity today to learn more about The Great Old Ones.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” Mostyn said.

“It was Ms Dubreuil and her superstitious worship of those monstrosities,” Dr Winifred Petrie declared.

“Unfortunately,” Bardon replied, “we did not realize Tommy John MacIlhenney would bear such a close semblance to his father. The mistake is mine.”

“Nevertheless, she should have maintained cover,” Petrie said. “She could have gotten us all killed.”

A look of displeasure crossed Bardon’s face. However, all he said was, “Point taken, Dr Petrie.”

“Do we know who the Father was?” Dr Otto Stoppen asked.

Bardon looked at his pipe and put it in his coat pocket. “Preliminary tests of the remains indicate the father was possibly Abholos, the Devourer in the Mist. But our DNA files are incomplete. It’s possible the father was Tsathoggua, the greater brother of Abholos.”

“Is there anymore we can do on this case?” Mostyn asked.

“Unfortunately, no,” Bardon answered. “We are however in a better position than those at Dunwich, some ninety years ago, because of the remains you recovered and Mr Baker’s photographs.”

“Thanks goes to Dr Kemper for the remains, sir,” Mostyn said.

“Duly noted,” Bardon replied. He looked at Dotty. “Thank you, Dr Kemper for your quick thinking, which salvaged the operation.”

“You’re welcome, sir,” Dotty said, a big smile on her face.

Bardon gave Dotty a nod, and turned to Mostyn. “No, Pierce, my boy, nothing more we can do on the MacIlhenney case. I have another mission for you.”

Jones snapped his fingers in protest.

“You do like your paychecks, do you not, Mr Jones?” Bardon said.

“I do, sir.”

“Good. Soon you’ll be earning another one,” Bardon said.

“What’s our new mission, sir?” Mostyn asked.

“There are many avenues by which The Great Old Ones may be summoned or awakened,” Bardon assumed a stance as though he was lecturing a class at some university. “One of the avenues consists of resorting to the formulae contained in ancient books of arcane lore, many of which were handwritten. Some of these ancient tomes we have copies of. Others are known to us only by name. And we must always be cognizant of the fact that there are probably others in existence of which we know nothing.”

Dotty Kemper raised her hand.

“Yes, Dr Kemper?”

“What is the basis on which these formulas work?”

“A good question,” Bardon said. “The simple answer is magic.”

Dotty snorted her disgust. Mostyn, who was sitting next to her, gently touched her arm. She responded by folding her arms across her chest.

“What’s the non-simple answer?” she asked.

Bardon smiled. “The non-simple answer is also simple, Dr Kemper. We don’t actually know. That brilliant seer of the future, Arthur C Clarke, wrote that any technology which is sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic to those not so advanced.”

“Muskets to Native Americans,” Mostyn said.

“Precisely, Mr Pierce,” Bardon replied. He took a bent bulldog and tobacco pouch out of his coat pocket, and began filling the pipe. Once the pipe was filled, he continued.

“So, Dr Kemper, one could say the formulae in these esoteric and eldritch tomes are science at a level to which we have not attained, and therefore appear to us as magic.”

Dotty shook her head and muttered, “Science is not magic.”

“Perhaps not to you, Dr Kemper,” Bardon replied.

A guilty look crossed Kemper’s face. “You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

Bardon chuckled. “I have excellent hearing, in part due to magic. Or science, if you prefer.” He lit his pipe and went on. “Some of these ancient books are well-known. The Necronomicon, for example. Others, the domain of specialists, such as the Tarsoid Psalms and the Eltdown Shards, which are actually pottery fragments and not a book.”

Jones called out, “What’s the point of all this, sir?”

Bardon puffed on his pipe before answering. “The point, Mr Jones, is this: I have learned that a previously unknown book has come to light and may be used to create, let us say, issues for the Western World.”

“And you want us to find the book,” Jones said.

“I do,” Bardon affirmed.

“That’s right up your alley, Stoppen,” Jones said.

“Which is why Dr Stoppen will be on this mission,” Bardon said.

“Do we know what this book looks like?” Kemper asked. “And why am I here if you want a book? I’m a forensic anthropologist.”

Bardon smiled. “I’ll answer your second question first. There is an interesting phenomenon associated with the book. At least we think it is associated with the book. As for what the book looks like, my sources tell me it is apparently a bound codex, with boards that are covered in black leather. The size of the book is approximately five by eight inches, and it is four inches thick. The title of the volume is Die Unaussprechlichen Riten von Dem dessen Name Nicht Genannt Werden Kann. Which translates to The Unspeakable rites of the One Who Cannot be Named.”

Jones rubbed his hands together, and said, “Ooh, spooky.”

“Terrifying is more appropriate, Mr Jones,” Bardon replied. “We do not know what Die Unaussprechlichen Riten contains. My sources are unsure when the codex was written, or even who the author was. The best guess is the volume dates from sometime in the thirteenth century, and may actually be a translation of a much older Latin manuscript.”

“When do we leave, Dr Bardon?” Mostyn asked.

“Tomorrow morning. The folder here,” Bardon pointed to the  brown object on the table, “outlines your mission. The flash drive inside contains the mission details. Any questions?”

No one had any questions for the OUP director.

“Mr Mostyn, you’ll see Jeffries for any special equipment you might need. Good luck to you all.”

To Be Continued!

In the meantime, Nightmare in Agate Bay is available for your reading pleasure.

“Hawes has managed to capture that Lovecraftian atmosphere that so many get wrong, superbly managing to weave a contemporary thread to the shadowed tapestry of the past. A well-crafted story that slowly builds in tension. Trust me, you won’t want to put it down!”  —Crispian Thurlborn, author of Exit, Cinder, and 01134.

Get the Book!

Are engaging characters your thing? Join my VIP Readers and you’ll get the Pierce Mostyn short story, “The Feeder” — available only to my VIP Readers!

The Medusa Ritual is copyright © 2019 by CW Hawes. All rights reserved.

HP Lovecraft and Pierce Mostyn - Part 3

Office of Unidentified Phenomena Logo

HP Lovecraft was the creator of the cosmic horror subgenre. I find cosmic horror much more terrifying than some crazy axe wielding maniac jumping out of a closet and chopping up someone.

We want to have value. Today’s educational system is busy trying to build children’s self-esteem. “We’re all winners.” “Everyone has value.” “You have a purpose.”

And while those are indeed lofty sentiments, in reality the children taught those sentiments are going to have a difficult time when they encounter their first selfish SOB out in the real world.

When I was in fifth grade, I lived in terror of the bullies who every recess when we were outside pantsed wallflowers such as myself. Those bullies didn’t give a fig about playing nice, or that everyone had value, or that everyone was a winner. They operated on a primeval level. Those who were stronger got their way. They were the winners.

Lovecraft’s point was no different. We humans sit on this speck of dirt and tell ourselves how important we are. That we have intrinsic value just because we’re human. However, the universe isn’t listening. And it isn’t listening because it doesn’t care. We don’t matter. It’s indifferent to us. We have as much value as the ball of ice orbiting our sun known as Haley’s Comet.

Everyone in the tiny Greek city-states was important (if you weren’t a slave, that is). When Alexander the Great suddenly expanded the world across a huge chunk of Asia, those same Greeks were suddenly faced with an identity crisis.

“Who am I in this huge new world?” they asked. The Epicurean and Stoic schools of philosophy arose in response to that question and attempted to provide answers.

Today we are faced with the same question. For the sake of literary convention, Lovecraft personified the universe’s indifference to us in The Great Old Ones. For Lovecraft, the Cthulhu Mythos was an attack on religion and it’s false hope. And the irony should not be lost that Lovecraft gave The Great Old Ones worshipers.

Lovecraft was throwing down the gauntlet. All of our cherished beliefs are false. We have no objective meaning. We are living in a dream world if we think we do.

And the terror comes when we suddenly awake and are confronted with the meaninglessness of reality. That’s why I think The Great Old Ones and their minions are described as insanities, contrary to nature, blasphemous, and the like. They are contrary to everything that we think is normal.

Those bullies on my playground didn’t care about values or artificial constructs of behavior. They were contrary to everything that was considered normal behavior. If they could catch you, they would pants you. That was their reality. And their laughter at your pain and embarrassment was a reminder that the universe did not play fair and did not care.

Lovecraft’s heroes are basically helpless. They can do nothing to stop The Great Old Ones. All they can do is warn us that they are coming.

Pierce Mostyn, then, is not your typical Lovecraftian hero. He fights back against that cosmic indifference. He does so out of a sense of duty. Much like the Stoic who lives his life according to the principles of virtue and duty. Duty arises out of our being part of a whole, and we have obligations to that whole. Obligations that the virtuous person is bound to discharge.

Mostyn doesn’t see himself as helpless, even when facing an entity such as a shoggoth (one of those walking insanities that is a blasphemy of nature). He’s willing to admit there is a lot out there that we don’t understand. And maybe can never understand. He uses reason, and approaches the problems of life rationally. Not unlike the Stoics before him.

Dr Dotty Kemper, Mostyn’s main sidekick, on the other hand is a materialist. She believes science has all the answers. She’s a paranormal skeptic. It is science that replaces superstition with knowledge. Sometimes though she has a rough time of it, especially when science has no explanation.

In a sense, the Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations aren’t pure cosmic horror. Because in the face of the universe’s indifference, and I do agree with Lovecraft on that, I think Marcus Aurelius provides us with a ready answer. Namely, that life is opinion. Or, if we expand the translation, life is what you make it to be.

I hope you enjoyed this little discussion of Lovecraft, cosmic horror, and Pierce Mostyn. The series, Pierce Mostyn Paranormal Investigations, launches in 3 weeks on the 29th. So mark your calendars!

The emblem at the top of this post is the emblem of the Office of Unidentified Phenomena (OUP), which is part of the Office of Intelligence and Analysis, which is a child agency of the US Department of Homeland Security. But don’t Google it, or check Wikipedia. You won’t find it there. Maybe if you went to the dark web…

Comments are always welcome, and, until next time, happy reading!

Dr Dotty Kemper trying to prove the efficacy of this dimension's lead bullets and physical laws versus the physical properties of other dimensional beings.

HP Lovecraft and Pierce Mostyn - Part 2

Cosmic, or Lovecraftian, Horror

Cosmic horror is largely, if not solely, the creation of HP Lovecraft. Of whom Stephen King said he “has yet to be surpassed as the Twentieth Century’s greatest practitioner of the classic horror tale.”

There are certain themes that differentiate Lovecraft’s brand of horror from other horror subgenres. Let’s take a look at some of the key themes.

Humans Are Insignificant

It’s a big universe out there. And we don’t know even a fraction of it.  As Lovecraft commented often (and I’m paraphrasing), we are an insignificant species on a fly speck. And if there are in fact multiverses, then that fly speck just became innumerable times smaller.

Philosophically, Lovecraft was basically a mechanistic materialist. We exist, but that doesn’t mean we’re more important than anything else. In fact, the universe is indifferent to us. We aren’t objectively special. For Lovecraft, we definitely weren’t made in God’s image. There’s no God, for starters. Rather, he was inspired by the atheistic Epicureans and the theory of evolution.

Therefore, in the typical cosmic horror story there is little focus on characterization. The main character is usually the story’s narrator. We get to know something of him, although sometimes he’s an unreliable narrator.

The focus of the story is on the gradual revelation of that which is hiding behind the narrator’s (and our) illusion of reality. That which is greater than us and views us as we view ants on the sidewalk.

The Great Old Ones, at least for Lovecraft, didn’t actually exist. They were literary devices to convey our position in the vastness of the universe and that the universe doesn’t give a fig about us.

The Heroes Are Loners

The hero of the cosmic horror tale has affinities with the punk hero. He is socially isolated, and therefore frequently a loner. Occasionally an outcast. He is often reclusive, and possesses a scholarly bent.

This puts the cosmic horror hero in the unique position of being able to peel back the veneer of what we think is reality to see the real reality behind it. Often at the expense of his sanity.

Pessimism, or Indifference

Lovecraft insisted later in life that his philosophy was not pessimistic, but rather led one to indifference. A fine line there. Basically, though, there is nothing in the universe that cares about us or values us. We humans are alone on a tiny speck of dust. We are dwarfed by the vastness of space. The very vastnesses of which Whitman sang so positively and eloquently about. For Lovecraft, there is nothing positive about them.

In this, Lovecraft was very much in line with the ancient Greek Epicurean philosophy. The universe was simply chaos. It provides us nothing. We must focus on ourselves and find pleasure and happiness in intellectual pursuits away from the madding crowd.

The Great Old Ones of Lovecraft’s invention aren’t so much malignant or malevolent as that they just don’t give a fig about us. We are inconsequential to them.

However, to us their indifference might seem to be malevolent or evil. But in reality, like us, they just are. They’re doing their thing. If we suffer as a result, well, do we care about the ants we step on?

Therefore the hero in the cosmic horror tale is often incapable of doing much to thwart the cosmic forces ranged against him. The best he can do is warn us of the truth that is out there.

The Veneer of Reality

We live in a dream state, as it were. Lovecraft was fascinated by dream worlds. In The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath he postulates a parallel world only attainable by means of dreams.

Because we are in a dream, as it were, what we see and think to be reality isn’t in fact reality at all. It’s Dorothy in Oz. Only we see a nice old man until Toto pulls back the curtain and reveals the monster at the controls.

The real reality is too horrible for us to comprehend. In our dream state we believe we have value — when in reality we have no value at all. We have no significance in the universe. And by extension nothing else has any significance either.

That is the true terror of cosmic horror: the revelation and realization that we are living a lie. It is the literary portrayal of the Nietzschian coming to awareness of who and what we really are.

That realization is also the basis for the “leap of faith” to find meaning for our existence. Epicurus sought meaning in intellectual pleasure. Nietzsche sought meaning in the pursuit of art; that is, creativity. The Existentialists made that leap to whatever might have meaning for them as individuals. And argued that we do the same.

Not unlike the Stoic philosopher Marcus Aurelius’s statement that “life is opinion”. That is, life is what we think it is. Although, for the Roman emperor, the statement was more an affirmation of the contemporary saying, It’s all in your ‘tude. Because Stoicism is inherently a much more positive philosophy.

Fear Of The Other

We have an innate fear of that which is not like us. This goes back to the very beginnings of the human species when we existed in family units and tribes. Anything that was not us, was to be viewed with suspicion — if not outright fear.

Lovecraft is frequently criticized today for being xenophobic and racist. By today’s standards he was — but in his own era I’m not so sure he was any different than most of his peers. There is a danger in judging the past by other than it’s own standards.

Even today, Western views of what constitutes xenophobia and racism are not universally shared. Which means the question must be asked, what makes Western views any more valid than any other views? That, though, is another discussion.

One thing is for sure — the xenophobia and racism we see in Lovecraft’s stories feeds on our own innate and latent fear of those people and things that are different from us and of our fear of the unknown in general. They feed on our own tribal mentality. The primeval us-them dynamic. The dynamic that made us who we are today: too often judgmental, critical, and suspicious. We and our opinions are good. Everyone else and there opinions are bad.

Throughout most of our history as a species, the tribal mentality allowed us to survive. The problem being that as we developed civilization, many of those survival traits became a hindrance to our working together in a genteel environment. Hence the creation of religious moral codes and cultural mores and folkways to control those “undesirable” traits.

As Will Durant noted, “Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, as hatred becomes respectable in war. Brutality and greed where once necessary in the struggle for existence, and are now ridiculous atavisms; men’s sins are not the result of his fall; they are the relics of his rise.” Do note that every vice may become respectable again. Something to think about.

In Lovecraft’s worldview, the Other consists of all the impersonal cosmic forces that exist. In his fiction, he personified these impersonal forces as The Great Old Ones. Inter- or Other-dimensional beings who have moved into our territory.

Just as we give little thought to mosquitoes, or gnats, or ants, so The Great Old Ones give little, if any, thought to us. To repeat, they aren’t so much malevolent, as they are indifferent to our existence and survival. Just as we are indifferent to the survival of mosquitoes, gnats, or ants.

Lovecraft is simply positing that cosmically speaking — we aren’t necessarily at the top of the food chain. Something to think about as we venture into outer space. Which was cleverly addressed in The Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man”.

In light of the above, the Pierce Mostyn adventures may not be pure examples of cosmic horror. But we’ll look at that next week.

Comments are always welcome! And until next week, happy reading!