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A Different Take on the Mythos - Pt. I PDF Print E-mail
Written by Robert J. Parker   
Monday, 26 November 2007

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The following text is in no way an attempt to provide a definitive reference point from which to understand the Mythos, nor do I attempt to claim it is wholly original or in any way superior to other "unified Mythos theories". Further, I do not attempt to synthesize all of the material currently out there, for several reasons. 

First of all, I don't particularly like everything I've seen. Second, and more importantly, I cannot honestly say that I have read even a sizeable fraction of the hundreds of Mythos stories written or even the majority of the gaming material. Hence, the salad bar from which I draw inspiration from is like the one at Pizza Hut: of meager variety and scope. Therefore, ideas that I may consider to be original have likely been employed before, and to better effect.

An example of this sort of error can be seen in my conceptions of the Cult of Cthulhu and their unintentional similarity to the Black Brotherhood, as pointed out by Kenneth Scroggins. Despite this, I believe that I have culled from some very delectable greens, primarily the works of HPL & CAS, Sandy Peterson, Grant Morrison, Kenneth Hite, the Pagan team, and of course the DGML and the ICE CAVE. As always, what is presented here should be considered only the roughest of first drafts, likely to be altered drastically after I receive my copes of Delta Green: Eyes Only, the Cthulhu Live materials, Delta Green Fiction, and Trail of Cthulhu.

Criticism is always appreciated, even if I vocally disagree with your conclusions. Without further ado, here we go.

Ultimately, this essay will take a humanocentric standpoint, perhaps from the necessity that the author is a human being and, therefore, selfishly interested in understanding the universe from his own place within it. Take this secondary disclaimer as you may.
Part 1:
Humanity can best understand its relation to the Mythos by considering the world in which we interact to be a two-dimensional construct that exists within a three-dimensional plane, with the Great Old Ones being three-dimensional that occasionally deign to interact with our more primitive species. Creatures of significantly advanced intelligence (cats, dolphins, humans, Elder Things, etc.) reach a point in which they can successfully interact, in a limited fashion, with the higher dimensions.

This is traditionally achieved through dreams, although this sort of communication is of a limited utility, as the reality of these dimensions are clouded by bits of human memory and symbolic interpretation, which contributes to the seemingly mundane nature of many human dreams as well as more fanciful aspects of the so-called Central Dreamlands such as Ulthar and Celephais. Lucid dreamers, especially, are to blame for these illusory realms, as their nighttime creations reverberate amongst the collective unconscious (more on the collective unconscious later in this essay). The reason for this sort of selective misinterpretation by the dreaming mind can be understood as a subconscious mechanism of self-preservation, as a full exposure and understanding of these higher realms would allow widespread direct contact with the beings within these dimensions.

The second way in which humanity interacts with the higher dimensions is through hyper-geometric formulae, forbidden knowledge that is either gained through dreams and visions (as was the case of the mad Arab Abdul Al-Hazred) or taught by the Great Old Ones (or other hyper-dimensional beings such as the Mi-Go). This hyper-geometry is extremely deleterious not only to the sanity of those who would employ it, but also to the barriers that keep the dimensions separate. These barriers can be understood, in gross metaphor, as a sort of "ozone layer" (known as N-Space) that protects our universe from the ravages of non-Euclidian space-time and hyper-geometric formulae are carcinogens which deplete this layer. To further this metaphor, the Plateau of Leng and similar points where humanity directly interacts with the falsely-named "Dreamlands" are, in fact, holes in this ozone layer where the fundamental laws and forces of ur universe have been replaced by those of the higher, non-Euclidean dimensions.

Humanity has come to enough of an understanding of reality and our place in it where we can conceive that there are multiple dimensions in which certain forces are either strong or weak, and their level of influence can vary widely across these planes of existence. (Editor's note: My understanding of this topic is EXTREMELY limited, and those members of DGML who have better physics-fu who could help me flesh out this concept could really help me here, if they were so inclined). As this pertains to humanity's interpretation of the Mythos, certain fundamental forces gain "strength" by the collapse of our dimension's "ozone layer". Some misguided individuals have chosen to give these forces name, and we now know them as the Outer Gods: Azathoth, Shub-Niggurath, and Yog-Sothoth. As these forces begin to influence our own dimension in a more substantial volume this allows for the hyper-dimensional beings known as the Great Old Ones to interact with our dimension in a more direct manner.
It should be noted here that a third way through which intelligent life stumbles upon these higher dimensions is through experiments with time-travel, which almost universally involve traveling into realms where they are exposed to the Yog-Sothoth principle as a "strong force". Upon once again arriving within this dimension they have inadvertently brought back with them traces of the other-dimensional energies, named by humanity as T-Radiation, which can quickly spread throughout our reality and cause a complete collapse of the walls between worlds (see Project Rainbow by Dennis Detwiller).


Therefore, it is to the extreme detriment of intelligent beings within our dimension to employ these hyper-geometric formulae or to listen to the vile whispers of the Great Old Ones in our dreams, but in the quest for power that arises amongst social lifeforms it is seemingly inevitable. To those Great Old Ones who wish to spread chaos and murder across our plane of existence, they need only watch and wait, occasionally intervening directly when the opportunity arises. In certain stretches of the cosmos, the overuse of hypergeometry has caused a complete collapse of localized N-Space. When this happens the "stars come right" and Ghroth, cosmic herald of the Great Old Ones, falls into orbit with the planet in question (which then becomes the playground for those hyperdimensional beasts).

An example that humanity is aware of is that of the Shan homeworld, Shaggai. The Shans, due to their worship of the Nuclear Chaos, Azathoth, and the rampant abuse of hypergeometric principles by the scientist/priest caste weakened the N-Space between non-Euclidean dimensions and our own to the degree that they were forever altered so that they could exist in both simultaneously. This allows them to slide their atoms through the electron shell of any organic substance (as described in the PISCES section of Delta Green: Countdown) and, more alarmingly, attracted Ghroth to Shaggai.

As mentioned earlier, the human mind selectively misinterprets and forgets information retained in dreams. The reason for this is not, as one might surmise, an instinctual process. Instead, it is a side-effect of the illusory social reality within which we interact on a daily basis. This side-effect, known as the collective unconscious, is the cultural myths of a race that intrude on our excursions in dreams. The stronger the ties an individual has to one's community the greater the influence of the collective unconscious, which polices thoughts that stray too far from an acceptable, normative reality. When these ties weaken, however, the influence of the collective unconscious is also less able to exert itself on theindividual will, leaving man more susceptible to the reality of non-Euclidean dimensions.
The collective unconscious exists in humanity because of the shared ties we all have to Ubbo-Sathlah, because despite our seeming evolutionary distance between that primal sludge and modern man, a very slight telepathic bond (or genetic memory, if you will) runs across the range of life spawned from those first stirrings of life. Ultimately, we are all a singular life-force, Ubbo-Sathlah, and Ubbo-Sathlah is all of us. Paul Tregardis discovered this truth, and people "gifted" with psychic powers unknowingly tap into this same link.

As an aside, it should be noted that Tregardis, whose undoing came when he meditated too long upon a stone created by the Hyperborean wizard Zon Mezzalmarch, actually fell into a trap laid by the "dwarfish Hebrew" curio-dealer from whom he purchased the orb. The curio-dealer, a Kabbalist and man of great learning, had consciously left the stone there for the occasional misfit who would come into his shop seeking forbidden knowledge, subtly referencing the Book of Eibon so as to entice potential buyers. In this small way, the curio-dealer (and his descendents, to this day) contributed to the protection of our world from those who would seek out that which man should not know.


With this understanding of the collective unconscious we can also begin to understand why humanity reacts, when exposed to the Mythos, with madness when exposed to those hyperdimensional beings from beyond. The survival instincts of the collective will seize up violently in an attempt to discard the information presented before it, rejecting that which is so far outside our cultural mythology. This is certainly a wise stratagem, for if the collective unconscious were to "correlate all of its contents" and all of our historical interactions with the Mythos were fully digested, it would cause a massive awakening across the entire species, perhaps across every species that was born from Ubbo-Sathlah, and all of humanity would be aware of hypergeometric truths that we, as a species, have striven for so long to keep hidden. This social/genetic aversion to the Mythos also helps explain why the authorities in Lovecraft's stories seem to sense that knowledge of these things must always remain hidden, and it is the outcasts and misfits of society who have been historically attracted to dusty old texts and strange, odious cults.

Yet, if the stars are to come right and the Earth be consumed in an orgy of violence and mayhem led by the Great Old Ones, the collective unconscious must be shattered completely and with it the social reality to which we all ascribe. It is only then, when mankind is "free and wild and beyond good and evil with laws and morals thrown aside" and the social experiment has collapsed completely that we will all be capable of piercing the veil that shrouds our dreams and clearly hear the voices of the Great Old Ones, who will be more than happy to share their hypergeometic formulae with us. Soon thereafter the N-Space surrounding Earth will come crashing down completely and the Great Old Ones will rule us all.

Previously mentioned in this treatise was the fall of Shaggai, and to better understand the importance of the social bonds that empower the collective unconscious, we shall once more return to the example set forth by the homeworld of the Shans. It is revealed in Delta Green: Countdown that when the Shans opened a portal to Azathoth's court they were immediately "touched" by the Daemon Sultan because their minds were vulnerable to the emanations of that place. This was not due entirely to their telepathic nature, but instead to the fact that they had developed into a highly individualistic society where self-pleasure and brutal violence in the name of hedonistic excess was the norm. Each Shan was an island unto itself, and this egoistic non-society provided the Shans no cultural barriers through which the Shans could filter and process the information transmitted to them.

Another example, this one from our own solar system on the planetoid known as Yuggoth, can be found with the Mi-Go. The Mi-Go, whose ruthless continual revision of their mental facilities (as discussed in Delta Green) long ago eradicated any sort of collective unconscious as completely unnecessary, and by doing so inadvertently left themselves without the capacity for intuition or the ability to slip into dreams. While this initially shielded them from direct contact with the Great Old Ones, in the end it proved to be their undoing.

As the scientists of the Mi-Go made ever greater strides they came into contact with other space-faring races such as Travelers and the Elder Things. They quickly absorbed the knowledge gained by these races, including what they had learned of the Mythos. Unchecked by the primal urge to avoid such terrible truths, the Mi-Go relentlessly worked to unravel the secrets of the higher dimensions, even going so far as to alter their genetic structure to allow space flight by slipping into phase with non-Euclidean realms. Soon, their widespread usage of hyper-geometry broke down the walls of N-Space and, eons ago, Ghroth first entered our solar system to visit Yuggoth.

Now, the Fungi from Yuggoth theorize that, if they can learn how to recreate the collective unconscious for their species they can escape from the direct influence of the Great Old Ones. This is why they traveled to Earth and why they are now desperately attempting to understand human intuition. Their experiments with "proto-matter", like in Groversville (see the adventure "Convergence", found in Delta Green), are simply to further their understanding of the link between mankind and from that which we came. They know their time runs short, however, and are not keen to be on Earth when the Great Old Ones come to Earth.

Three specific incidents that involve the Mi-Go's attempts to experiment with the collective unconscious should be mentioned here. First, the Mi-Go, recognizing that humanity rejected them because of their extra-dimensional natures, built the Greys to see if mankind would be more receptive to Mythos encounters when they were cloaked by fictions already considered acceptable by a wider populace. This theory was proved true.

Second, the Mi-Go developed the brain containers to observe if the human brain would remain connected to the collective unconscious when put under the most severe sort of sensory deprivation. What they discovered was that these brains underwent a sort of hyperactivity in which they experienced visions of ever-increasing clarity, a perpetual dream-state that quickly became unclouded by memory and symbolism, allowing them to interact fully with the higher dimensions and the beings that dwelt within. This, of course, drove all their subjects completely mad.

Third, the Mi-Go (after decades of experiments with the brain cylinders) had managed to create a secondary, highly telepathic, collective unconscious by interlocking the brain cylinders they had gathered. Although they could transmit their altered understanding of reality to a small number of individuals, this would prove to be both interesting and useful to the Mi-Go, allowing them to interact with humans under the influence of the brain-hive without fear of rejection of them or their sciences. The first successful test subject of this secondary collective was the MJ-12 scientist Dr. Stephen Courtis. (Editor's Note: I do not currently have access to Machinations of the Mi-Go, and this sidebar will likely change drastically when I do.)

Continue to Part 2

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Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved.
 
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