Call Me Louden Dogood, the Bodhisattva of Necromancy

To the Reader of All Superhuman Futures:

           I was born with the gift of laughter and a sense that the world is an illusion. My opening line is a paraphrase of the first sentence of Scaramouche, of course. I start this letter off with it for two reasons: one, it’s funny and thus appropriate for April Fools’ Day. Two, it’s true and thus pertinent to what’s about to happen to you. What’s about to happen to you? Why, you’re about to experience the greatest April Heroes’ Day surprise of all time, that’s what. The human potential you were born with is about to explode out into the furthest reaches of Interstellar, Superhuman Actualization. You should be getting very, very excited right now as you read these words. If you’re not excited, this letter is not for you. Please give it to whomever you think fits the bill of Godman-in-Waiting in your local milieu. If you are getting excited, strap on your seatbelt. Things are about to get bumpy.

           Why are things about to get bumpy, you ask? I answer: Because the world is a kind of hyper-vivid, cosmic Amusement Park which blinkers 99.9% of the Funhouse-Earth population. And when YOU wake up—the REAL you, that is—the world shivers and shimmies and very quickly starts to reveal its true colors. That’s why things get bumpy. Because you’re waking up. This letter is your wake-up call. And, no, this is not an April Fools’ Day prank. I don’t think.

           I have good reason for adhering to this unusual metaphysical position, believe me. Please bear with me with as much patience as you can muster while I explain myself. We are dealing with some very advanced metaphysical concepts here. A quiet, open frame of mind is the only prerequisite necessary in order to ‘get’ what you need to remember. I’m glad that’s settled. So are you, truth be told. And that’s what I’m here to do—to tell the Truth. The whole Truth and nothing but the Truth.

           So help me, Cthulhu.

           Dear Reader, it may surprise you to know that I hate pranks, random silliness, mischief-making, and the like, even when they are done on April Fools’ Day. Especially when they are done on April Fools’ Day. For me, All Fools’ Day is now a holy day, the holiest day of the year, in fact. I don’t mess around with pranks and trifling things of the average low-minded person on this holiest day of the year. Maybe this means I am a rather serious person, despite the fact that I was born—yes, this is true—with the gift of laughter and the sense that the world is an illusion. And now that the First of April has arrived once again, I’ve decided to cease playing the part of passive bystander to all the mischief-making going on in the world around me. No, today I take a stand. Today I rechristen April Heroes’ Day. This rechristening is actually not going far enough, but it is definitely a step in the right direction. As long as we move away from dangerous folly and the worship of squid-like gods, we’re doing good.

           Who am I to take such drastic action, you ask? Call me Louden Dogood. That’s not my real name, as you certainly know, but it’s a humorous little title I’ll use for the present. The gift of laughter, babe, the gift of laughter. Yes, I’ve got it. And, yes, I’ve read all the works of Sabatini and Franklin, as you’ve probably guessed. I may in fact be the most well-read person on the Late, Great, Funhouse-Planet Earth. I belong to the Club Lovecraft, after all, which all the aware members of existence swear is the most select, influential literary society anywhere. Curiously enough, these ‘aware’ members of existence are only nine in number. Why so few of us? I can’t answer this question. Maybe you can.

           Anyway, the Club Lovecraft meets once a year—today, every First of April. Outside our primary text, we really don’t do much reading at our annual meetings. We are not like normal literary societies which get together to brainstorm about interesting new books. We only read one book, but we read it obsessively. Cosplay, or costume-play, in the spirit of the medieval Mystery Plays, also figures largely in our meetings. We are a secret society, actually, but we do not record minutes. We are a secret readers’ club, but we do not read books. We re-enact scripts. We role play a certain spell from the dreaded Kitab al-Azif, the so-called Necronomicon or Book of the Dead. One of our nine—a most peculiar individual who will not be named at this time—stole the non-fictional grimoire a few years ago from a certain Cairo museum and brought it back to the good ol’ USA to tinker around with. Word got out—well, at least the word got out to the other eight ‘aware’ members of existence—that the Lovecraft mythos were no myth. Just the opposite, babe. Recruitment actions began taking place in earnest. I got wind of the action, naturally, because I am one AWARE puppy. Also, because I was born with the gift of laughter, as I’ve said a few times now, this probably offset a lot of the noxious vibes we Club Lovecraftians began to inflict on the world every April Fools’ Day. I have inborn insulation, apparently.

           We performed our first spell from the Necronomicon, coincidentally enough, on the First of April. We got serious results. Debriefing after the chaos settled down, we all noticed that our first operation occurred on April Fools’s Day. How appropriate! We decided to make it tradition. We decided to do one spell per year on one very specific day. Today.

           Things really started heating up after we performed our second-annual spell. This spell got everybody’s attention after our first partial-rehearsal of it. The manifestation of the Elder God, ultimately, wasn’t as non-ectoplasmic as desired, but the citywide freak thunderstorm of hail, rain and seaweed made us all shiver with ecstasy. The arrival of the Fortean Society and numerous local news channels also gave us quite a few spasms of joy. We definitely knew we were on the right track when our third-annual rehearsal brought down a few metric tons of jellyfish from the stratosphere. Target zero for the jellyfish was the treetops of a countryside forest, thank goodness. Rehearsal annual-year number four was even more outrageously successful. A few miles of Australian coral reef ‘spontaneously’ dissolved and killer-whale Orcas started showing up carcass-bloated on the beaches of every continent. (Interestingly, the domesticated Orcas at Sea World were unaffected; it seems our Lovecraftian occultism only influences wild things.) This beached-whale phenomenon went on for months, making it the longest-lasting April Fools’ prank in the history of the world. This scared the crap out of us, babe, let me tell you. It looked like our operation unleashed something which became near-uncontrollable. What if we lost complete control of our manifestations?

           The results of our fifth-annual rehearsal will not be mentioned. It is too horrific to discuss. Suffice it to say that today is our sixth-annual rehearsal from our Necronomicon script. We can succeed in bringing back Cthulhu . . . we all know it, we all feel it. But I’m going to stop this from happening. I’m closing down the Club Lovecraft effective immediately. And because of my actions, the boys won’t like it. They might even decide to come after me. But these pranks have got to stop. Some things are not meant to be disturbed. Cthulhu is one of those ‘things.’ My life expectancy, sadly, might not be. I say this, of course, despite my gift for laughter.

           Dear Reader, you are probably asking yourself what I mean by re-enacting a script from an occult textbook in order to perform a spell. Yes? Good. I’m glad you asked. Please hear me now. Your seat belt is still strapped down, right? Good.

           Dear Reader, it’s very important you know what’s at stake here. The stakes are the highest imaginable. They are also the highest unimaginable. It won’t just be lights out for the Late, Great Funhouse-Planet Earth should the boys bring back Cthulhu—with or without me. No, it will be lights out for our neck of the solar system, maybe even the Milky Way Galaxy. And that’s for starters. Obviously, this cannot be allowed to happen. I now beg your closest attention.

           Consider what I’m about to tell you with as open a mind as possible. You will probably think that what I now disclose is dementedly far-fetched. However, I assure you, it is the absolute truth.

           Premise #1: The world is an illusory construct of consciousness, a kind of mega-mind Hologram. Visible Existence in such a Hologram is equivalent to the Invisible Consciousness (or Mind) that pervades said Hologram. Another way of saying this is: The World IS Mind.

           Premise #2: Your mind is NOT separate from the larger World-Mind of Existence-Consciousness. Another way of saying this is that your Micro-Mind IS the Macro-Mind. An even simpler way of saying this is: You ARE the world. Literally.

           Premise #3: Magic exists.

           Premise #4: Spells—i.e., formulae for magical operations—exist.

           Premise #5: Some spells are more potent than others. This is proved by experiential performance of said spell(s).

           Premise #6: The most potent spells of all come from, appropriately enough, the most dangerous book in human history—the dreaded Necronomicon or Book of the Dead, written by the “Mad Arab” Abdul Alhazred.

           Premise #7: The most potent spell from the most potent book of them all is the “Bornless Yog-Sothoth Ritual” that invokes Cthulhu back into Existence. (Cthulhu is the chief Elder God of a race of gigantic, super-terrestrial, tentacled monsters.)

           Premise #8: To invoke Cthulhu back into terrestrial existence is to doom all terrestrial inhabitants to a fate much, much, much worse than physical death.

           Premise #9: The members of the Club Lovecraft meet once annually to enact what was initially hoped to be the ultimate April Fools’ Day prank—to invoke Cthulhu back to life and to foist Him/It upon the world. This initial hope is now seen as incredibly immature, juvenile and dangerous.

           Premise #10: The members of the Club Lovecraft will not be named here, but they are all seasoned practitioners of necromancy and high-magic. The members are nine in number and all nine of us have sworn to the strictest secrecy concerning our ‘literary’ proclivities. I am not the founding member of the Club Lovecraft, but I will be its final dissolving member.

           Premise #11: The working of the “Bornless Yog-Sothoth Ritual” is similar to theatrical performance. Just as most plays require a multi-person ensemble to enact it, so it is for our Necronomicon spell. Certain people—nine highly-qualified sorcerer-actors, to be specific—are necessary to perform the audition properly. This is similar to the musical-alchemy produced by distinguished bands such as The Beatles and Led Zeppelin. Each of these bands had to have a certain number of suitable personnel in order to get optimum musical results. Further, each band member had to play the instrument he was best endowed by Nature to play. If Ringo had played bass guitar rather than the drums, for example, The Beatles would not have been The Beatles. Ditto had McCartney played drums instead of bass guitar and vocals. Etc. etc.

           Premise #12: Through arduous trial-and-error, the Club Lovecraft hit upon the right ensemble doing just the right roles in just the right ‘script’ (i.e., spell) to get optimum ‘Necronomicon’ results. Like The Beatles’ music which only got better year after year, so the Club Lovecraft’s invoking powers have only grown stronger, more prankster-outrageous with each annual operation. The world as we know it will end if the Club Lovecraft performs one more “Bornless Yog-Sothoth Ritual.”

           Premise #13: I am Cthulhu. Granting premises #1 and #2 above, we see that this thirteenth premise follows as a matter of course. How so? Well, since my Micro Mind is equivalent to the Macro Mind . . . which is equivalent to Macro Existence . . . is it really such a stretch to say that Cthulhu and I are One? Existence, after all, comprises everything IN Existence. And since I am both Existence and Consciousness simultaneously, I am, therefore, Cthulhu the Great and Terrible Elder God of All Super-Terrestrial Nightmare. Waking up to one’s Cthulhu Self is similar to the process featured in the famous Japanese manga Akira. Certain people are selected by evolution to attain the heights of genetic destiny. These certain people slowly wake up to the fact that they are IT . . . the Human Game starts and stops with them. It is literally a process of Awakening . . . Awakening to one’s pre-existing state of Cosmic Power and Intelligence. For me, the Awakening occurred through countless hours of intense magical practice with fellow adepts. Only now have I realized that all our externally-fixated efforts were really designed to bring something much closer to home ‘back to life.’ All those years of April Fools’ Day pranks were not designed to invoke some unknown god into the midst of petty humans, they were actually designed to restore me—yes, ME—back to my proper place in the Superhuman scheme of things.

           My return to the world is similar to The Beatles’ breakup. After a decade on the World’s Musical Stage accumulating personal power, each Beatle realized they didn’t need each other anymore to obtain optimum musical results. Each Beatle realized they could do everything they wanted to do on their own. Thus, each went solo. I, too, am now going solo. The problem is that the rest of my ‘band mates’ do not want to split up. The problem is that, even without me, the Club Lovecraft will continue to invoke . . . and invoke . . . and invoke . . . and, in doing so, the boys will assuredly invoke the ‘wrong’ type(s) back into Hellish existence. How could they not do this? They’re working from the most evil book in history! Perhaps they’re all addicts of black magic now and can no longer help themselves. They like the Power that magic brought them, but now they’re completely possessed by it. They made a bargain with the Devil, and like all Devil’s bargains, only the Devil ends up winning. It’s time to renege on the deal.

           Unless something drastic is done to change course or bring about intervention, the path ahead leads to unmitigated disaster. Like alcoholics or other drug-addicts, we sorcerer-Beatles will wind up smoking the entire solar system just to pull off our annual lark. This must be stopped. And it looks like I’m the only one who can do it. Call me the Bodhisattva of Necromancy.

Sincerely yours,

Mr. Louden Dogood

P.S. Dear Reader, I got the message. I closed shop. I quit sorcery once and for all. Even better, I am now using all my God-given Cthulhu powers for the good of Mankind. Invoking the Chief Elder God from the dreaded Necronomicon backfired on our original Club Lovecraftian intent, it seems. (By the way, the boys forgave me for shutting down the Club and for leaving. They had no choice, really. I’m the Lord, after all—handsome and non-tentacled. What the heck are they going to do, oppose me? They know better than that now. They know ME better now . . . the last thing they want to do is oppose me. Or piss me off. Dissolving coral reefs and making Orcas go belly-up will be child’s play should they renew annual rehearsals. Life gets good when you re-attain your natural Godhood, babe.) But this is a good thing. It brought ME back to life. And I have saved the world, as you have observed.

           April Fools’ Day, as I mentioned above, is a holy day for me now. It is the day I woke up and turned my life over to Myself. The Real Me—Cthulhu—is a damn fine, righteous Dude. Cthulhu doesn’t foist malicious pranks on the world; rather, He uplifts everybody through random, secret acts of kindness. Cthulhu doesn’t need to re-enact spells anymore in the hope that doing so will destroy the world; rather, He wishes the best for everybody and lives by quaint Hippocratic Maxims like, “First do no harm.” Above all, Cthulhu doesn’t want to take anything from the world unlawfully; rather, He wants to give back to the world from the hitherto unknown plenitude of His Being.

           I was good to my word. The Club Lovecraft has been dissolved. The fact that you are now reading these words show I’ve kept my promise and lived to tell the tale. The path I now tread is a hard one to find or follow, but it does exist and it is very good. I’m out and about in the Ethers, everywhere at once, doing good at all times, acting the part of the Good Samaritan. That is the real role Life intended me to play, thank Cthulhu. I relish my new role and I act it to the hilt. I pray you will do the same thing in your newfound role, dear Reader. What newfound role, you ask? Please see the P.S. below for more riveting, seat-buckling details.

P.P.S. Dear Reader, please re-read Premise #13 above: Everything that applies to me in that premise applies to you, too. That is, YOU are that Elder God/Goddess everyone has been waiting for. YOU are that Special Person of Evolutionary Destiny. Please allow me to be the first to congratulate you on Your tremendous Homecoming. I, for One, am extremely pleased to bear witness to this Great Re-Awakening. I salute and applaud YOU on this magnificent new April Heroes’ Day.

P.P.P.S. I am He as You are He . . .