Lore Podcast


I'm late to the party - as always. Fashionably late, I'd like to think. But what a party!

Lore is a podcast from the brain and mouth of author Aaron Mahnke, in which he shares true life tales of the supernatural and paranormal.

The stories he uncovers and shares are fascinating, intriguing and chilling. And each episode is a tight and concise 20-minute parcel of goodness.

Highly recommended!

This sure ain't Wedgewood...

 
Yes, it's a terrifying ceramic baby happily tearing at the flesh of an amorphous blob with a screaming mouth. Perfectly normal. Nothing to see here.

This unsettling ceramic art is created by Israeli artist Ronit Baranga.







Demon caught on camera?



If you go down to the woods today...

Imaginary Friends


Children. Tiny miniature people with all sorts of wrong in their minds. Scary midget beings. Don't be fooled by the fact that they sometimes do cute things. Their brains are filled with horrifying things. They must be watched constantly and treated with deep suspicion. If you don't believe me, read on...

[Stories harvested from Reddit by Cara at Popcorn Horror]












The History of Zoltar



Could it be that the popular fairground machines, immortalised in the film 'Big' were based on a real person?

Swami Kaladhar Subhash was a renowned fakir and fortune teller on the streets of Jaipur in the early 1900s. It was said he could know the innermost thoughts and desires of a man by simply by touching his forehead.

A rare photograph of Kaladhar Subhash.

Through his profound knowledge of Vedic astrology, Kaladhar Subhash was thought to be able to tell the entire history and destiny of those who came to him for advice. Those who saw him described him as gentle and softly spoken, and said he lived by the mantra: "Do not impose your opinions; better express your wisdom".

In the 1920s, a struggling English magician, John Pimm, took to the stage in London's West End, performing illusions and "question answering" in the character of 'Kaladar'. It is believed he was inspired by tales of the Swami he had heard from his mother - who had been profoundly affected by meeting the great man while living in India. The show became very successful and toured the world, even enjoying a short run on Broadway.

John Pimm, performing as 'Kaladar'.

In the 1950s, an American fairground and Wild West sideshow operator named James Graham created the first 'Kadar' machine, inspired by bill posters he had seen of Pimm's Broadway show. He later re-branded the machines as 'Zoltar' when they entered mass production in the early 1960s, believing the 'Z' to be a more appealing letter than 'K'.

The Incredible Electric Man



A bright spark from China has discovered he can conduct powerful electrical currents through his body without suffering pain or injury.

Ma Xiangang found his powers when he accidentally touched live cables carrying 220 volts during an attempt to fix his household wiring.

He claims that he is now addicted to feeling electricity coursing through his body, saying it makes him feel "energetic".

Scientific investigations of this real-life X-Man have revealed the secret may lie in his hands. The skin of his hands is much rougher and drier than others, functioning like a pair of insulated gloves.

Scientists say his tough skin prevents most of the electricity from entering Ma's body. The actual current passing through Ma's body only contains six milliamperes, while the safety limits for ordinary people is 8-10 milliamperes.

Wyrd Consumerism 2: Razor Edged Ruby


When your jewellery and tablewares need an edge, like REALLY need an edge, then look no further than Razor Edged Ruby over at Pyewackett and Pecke.

Cutting edge stuff...



Possession in the freezer aisle

Not sure what to make of this one. If it's a hoax, it seems remarkably well done. When I first saw the video, my initial thought was that the guy must be suffering some sort of seizure. But watch the reflection in the glass at the end, just before the apparent poltergeist activity.

Strange stuff indeed...


Scared? You will be...



If you aren't already entered the wonderful world of "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" you are in for a treat!

Catcher In The Rye as a Manchurian Trigger



In the 1950s and 1960s, the CIA conducted a series of experiments in extreme psychological techniques, under the banner "MK Ultra". These experiments explored mind control through drugs, hypnosis and other conditioning techniques, tested on human subjects.

The project was officially shut down in 1973, when the then director of the CIA Richard Helms destroyed almost all records pertaining to the controversial and often illegal activities carried out in its name.

In its 20 year history, MK Ultra had seen the surreptitious administration of drugs and other chemicals, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse, as well as various forms of torture used on US and Canadian citizens. It is widely believed that the project lives on to this day through Psi-Ops schemes with deceptively banal codenames such as 'Bluebird', 'Artichoke' and 'Paperclip'.

One of the stated aims of 'MK Ultra' was the creation of unwitting assassins - 'Manchurian Candidates' - who would be conditioned to kill targets without knowing why, using trigger words, sights or situations.

Many believe that J. D. Salinger's seminal novel 'The Catcher in the Rye' was used as such a trigger in order to arrange the assassination of John Lennon by Mark David Chapman, the attempted shooting of Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. and a host of other, lower profile events - including a high-school shooting and the murder of minor film star Rebecca Schaefer.

'The Catcher in the Rye' was found in the possession of both Hinkley and Chapman after their respective rampages. In fact, when the New York City police apprehended Chapman in the aftermath of Lennon's assassination, he was sitting glassy-eyed and zombified, calmly reading Salinger's book. It was later revealed that Chapman had attempted to legally change his name to Holden Caulfield in the days before the event.

Was the book used to trigger post-hypnotic control, as the Queen of Hearts did in Richard Condon's novel 'The Manchurian Candidate'? Its popularity would make it easily available at short notice in almost any location. Its tale of a disaffected teenage boy may tap into the male psyche, creating a feeling of familiarity that leaves subjects open to manipulation.

Although there is little evidence to prove this theory, there are strong suggestions that mind-controlled killers could be a reality. Robert Kennedy's assassin Sirhan Sirhan has long maintained his innocence, claiming to be an involuntary participant in the crime as he had been subjected to "sophisticated hypno-programing and memory implantation techniques which rendered him unable to consciously control his thoughts and actions at the time the crimes were being committed".

Black Shuck



On 4 August 1577, at Blythburgh in Suffolk, a large black dog with malevolent flaming eyes is said to have burst in through the church doors to a clap of thunder. As large, some say, as a calf, the dog was known as Black Shuck, the Devil's own dog.

He ran up the nave, past a large congregation, killing a man and boy and causing the church steeple to collapse through the roof. As the dog left, he left scorch marks on the north door which can be seen at the church to this day.

Another encounter on the same day at nearby Bungay was described in 'A Straunge and Terrible Wunder' by the Reverend Abraham Fleming in 1577:
"This black dog, or the divel in such a linenesse (God hee knoweth al who worketh all,) running all along down the body of the church with great swiftnesse, and incredible haste, among the people, in a visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in somuch that even at a mome[n]t where they kneeled, they stra[n]gely dyed."
Adams was a clergyman from London, and therefore probably only published his account based on exaggerated aural accounts. Other local accounts attribute the event to Satan himself (Abrahams calls the animal "the Divel in such a likeness". The scorch marks on the door are referred to by the locals as "the devil’s fingerprints", and the event is remembered in this verse:
"All down the church in midst of fire, the hellish monster flew, and, passing onward to the quire, he many people slew."
But the gigantic hound does not only terrorise churches.  W. A. Dutt, in his 1901 book 'Highways & Byways in East Anglia' has this to say about Black Shuck:
"He takes the form of a huge black dog, and prowls along dark lanes and lonesome field footpaths, where, although his howling makes the hearer's blood run cold, his footfalls make no sound. You may know him at once, should you see him, by his fiery eye; he has but one, and that, like the Cyclops', is in the middle of his head. But such an encounter might bring you the worst of luck: it is even said that to meet him is to be warned that your death will occur before the end of the year. So you will do well to shut your eyes if you hear him howling; shut them even if you are uncertain whether it is the dog fiend or the voice of the wind you hear. Should you never set eyes on our Norfolk Snarleyow you may perhaps doubt his existence, and, like other learned folks, tell us that his story is nothing but the old Scandinavian myth of the black hound of Odin, brought to us by the Vikings who long ago settled down on the Norfolk coast."


According to some legends, the dog's appearance bodes ill to the beholder - for example in the Malden and Dengue area of Essex, the most southerly point of sightings, where seeing Black Shuck is believed to mean the observer has less than a year to live. Other stories tell of death or illness in the families of those who see the malevolent beast. However, more often than not, stories tell of Black Shuck terrifying his victims, but leaving them alone to continue living normal lives.

It is also very likely that Black Shuck was the inspiration for literature's most infamous canine: Arthur Conan Doyle's 'Hound of the Baskervilles'.



In 1901 the author returned from South Africa suffering from typhoid fever. In order to recuperate, he decided to take a golfing holiday in North Norfolk. He was accompanied by his friend the journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson and stayed at the now demolished Royal Links Hotel in Cromer.

During their visit to Cromer, Conan Doyle and Betram Fletcher Robinson  had dinner with Benjamin Bond Cabbell at Cromer Hall. During dinner Cabbell told them about his ancestor, Richard Cabbell - Lord of Brook Manor and Buckfastleigh - who had been killed by a devilish dog. The story went that Richard Cabbell's wife had been unfaithful and that, after beating her, she had fled out onto Dartmoor. Cabbell pursued her and stabbed her - but while committing the murder his wife's faithful dog attacked him and  tore out his throat. The ghost of the dog was said to haunt Dartmoor and to reappear to each generation of the Cabbell family. It is clear that Richard Cabbell became the model for the evil Hugo Baskerville in Conan Doyle's classic tale.

There is also another fascinating Norfolk connection - namely that the  coachman who drove Conan Doyle to Cromer Hall was apparently called Baskerville. Conan Doyle often drew his character's names from real life.

Also, Conan Doyle would almost certainly have been aware too of the East Anglian legend of Black Shuck - the terrible Hound which terrorised parts of the county and was said to haunt Beeston Bump - which is not far from Cromer.



Interestingly, Conan Doyle's description of Baskerville Hall bears an uncanny likeness to Cromer Hall:
 "The avenue opened into a broad expanse of turf, and the house lay before us. In the fading light I could see that the centre was a heavy block of building from which a porch projected. The whole front was draped in ivy, with a patch clipped bare here and there where a window or a coat-of-arms broke through the dark veil. From this central block rose the twin towers, ancient, crenellated, and pierced with many loopholes. To right and left of the turrets were more modern wings of black granite. A dull light shone through heavy mullioned windows, and from the high chimneys which rose from the steep, high-angled roof there sprang a single black column of smoke."

Mystic Menagerie



Do your ears a favour and subscribe to this excellent podcast that covers the worlds of paranormal entertainment, hauntings, spooky happenings and alternative arts and culture. Featuring Dan Baines of Lebanon Circle and Lord Freddie Valentine along with various special guests.

CLICKY CLICKY

Men in Black... in Scarborough?


This incredible account comes courtesy of Mark Ball at WeirdWorm.

Another MIB encounter - perhaps the strangest of all – took place in the seaside town of Scarborough, North Yorkshire in 1968. Adele (a pseudonym), who was sixteen at the time, answered the door to what appeared to be a very strange insurance salesman. He was tall, wore a black suit and tie, and had a ‘florid’ complexion. After staring at the sixteen year old and smiling for an unnerving length of time he ‘jerked’ into action and asked Adele “do you have insurance? Is it now?” Adele later remarked that his voice seemed to be computerised.

She suggested that the insurance salesman come back later when her parents were home. At that moment, the man suddenly began to sweat profusely. He removed his hat to reveal a bald and extremely pale head. Adele could now see that he was wearing makeup to darken his face. “Can I see a glass of water?” the MIB asked. Inviting the man in because this was before “Stranger Danger”, Adele fetched him a glass of water and he did just that – he looked at the glass of water and set it aside.

Next, he turned his attention to a clock on the mantelpiece. Adele told the MIB that the clock was her father’s retirement present, at which he seemed baffled. “Is it your father’s time?” he asked, “Is it here and now?” Then the MIB seemed to freak out like a malfunctioning robot. He began repeating “your father - his time” over and over and became stiff and immobile. Turning to the door he had to use his hands to move one of his legs. He told Adele to “watch the lights” before leaving in a hurry, disappearing down the street impossibly quickly.

What did he mean when he said ‘watch the lights?’ – Adele would soon find out. Shortly after the MIB left, Adele’s living room filled with small bright lights, which danced around before exiting through the window. Was this a robotic MIB agent, built by aliens and sent to add a little magic to the sleepy Yorkshire town? Or was it just a sweaty creeper with alopecia and a laser pen?

Nearly forgot...


... to wish you all a very happy Walpurgisnacht. No better time than now to burn any surplus witches you have lying around your home.

The Traveller


Possibly just a story. Possibly true. I sort of want it to be true because it is weird in such a low-key, everyday way...

This from the Ghost Theory site:

It certainly was a busy and muggy day at a feverish Tokyo airport one day in 1954. Those passengers who had just deplaned stood in a somber queue, waiting for the Customs agents to review and properly stamp their passports.

As the hordes of passengers spill out from the terminals, one passenger, a tall mysterious man, stood apart from the rest.

The man presented an authentic looking European passport and carried European currency from several countries and carried himself in a professional manner but that wasn't what alerted the authorities. No matter how much they had searched, the Customs agents could not find the European country that had issued him the passport anywhere in their maps. The unheard country of Taured. When they asked the Caucasian man to point on their map where Taured was located, he answered them in fluent Japanese. The man told them that it was a small country in Europe, nestled between France and Spain. When the agents produced a map, he pointed to where the Principality of Andorra, Spain, rests.

The mysterious man took a step back when he realized his country did not exist on any of the maps. He claimed that the country of Taured has been there for almost 1,000 years and that he has never heard of Andorra. He produced a driver’s license issued by the government of Taured and accompanying documents such as bank statements and business papers but they were found to be invalid, alongside his bank account. There was an eerie silence in the interrogation room as all of the Customs agents stared at the new arrival. The tall mysterious man from Taured looked as confused as they were.

It had been nine years since the end of World War II and Tokyo was busier than ever. The city began to sprawl as more and more countries landed . Most of the travelers to the Island country found themselves in long queues waiting to get their passport stamped and allowed entry into the country. Life in Japan was returning to normal except of course for the high strangeness that was going on inside the Customs interrogation room.

Eight hours after landing, the mysterious man from Taured sat tired and frustrated in the cramped interrogation room. He kept insisting that he was from the country of Taured and was in Japan on a business trip. The man told the officials that he had been traveling to Japan from Taured for the last five years without problems. He pointed to the past stamps that were issued on his passport to prove that he’d been traveling back and forth from Taured to Japan without any problems in the past.

Airport officials then placed a phone call to the company the man claimed to work for and found that it did not exist. Tired and getting nowhere, they decided to send the man to a guarded hotel room so that he could rest while the proper authorities were contacted and a follow-up investigation was planned. The mystery man left the Tokyo airport escorted by police and Customs officials.

He was placed inside a hotel room high above the hustling city streets. With only a small window and no ledge. After a light dinner at the hotel’s kitchen, he was escorted back to his room where he stayed the entire night. The guards reported not seeing or hearing him after the door was closed. When morning approached, they knocked and received no answer. Upon entering the room they officials were shocked to discover that he had vanished. With no possible escape routes other than the well guarded front door, Japanese officials scratched their heads in total bewilderment.

An extensive search was subsequently launched by the Tokyo police department only to come up empty handed. There was no sign of him anywhere. As mysteriously as he had appeared on that Tokyo airport that fateful day in 1954, the man from Taured vanished.

The story appeared in the book “The Directory of Possibilities”, Colin Wilson & John Grant [Corgi Paperback, 1982. ISBN: 0-552-119946]. No one knows for certain if this was a factual account. No documents or newspaper clippings exist other than what was written by Colin Wilson and John Grant.

In the story of ‘The Man from Taured’ we learn that an European visitor to Tokyo seems to be caught between two worlds. One of which the man’s reality seems similar to ours, except of course for the country that doesn't exist. At least in our wormhole-shanghai-tunnel-flickr-stuck-in-customsworld. Taured exists in no map, yet the man carried official documentation to prove otherwise. So what really happened in that muggy Tokyo airport in 1954?

Could the man from Taured have been a traveler caught between a wormhole? One that sent him unknowingly into our dimension. An alternate universe in which things played out entirely different. A world that lived under the control of the Axis side.

Another explanation is that the man from Taured was telling the truth. As far as he was concerned, he came from the country of Taured. He’s always known of his country to exist, and had never heard of The Principality of Andorra before seeing it printed on the Japanese world map. As far as he was concerned, everyone had to be playing a prank on him. However we all know that Andorra clearly has existed for quite some time and that the Allies won the war. So could this man be a spy for some dark government agency sent on a mission to Japan? A brainwashed spook that was given a false identity alongside all documentation to make him believe.

The Principality of Andorra has certainly had a long history with war and politics, so that explanation wouldn’t be such a stretch.

What happened inside that Tokyo airport we may never know. One thing is for certain, strange things happen every single day.

Dogs are not allowed in the Dog Park

Beautiful, terrifying art by HeyItsJono

Welcome to Nightvale is an excellent podcast. Lovecraft meets X-Files meets Twin Peaks meets The League of Gentlemen meets community radio... Oh and it's funny. Really funny. Sometimes satirical, sometimes silly, sometimes poignant, thought provoking or profound. And always creepy.

Get involved: HERE and HERE.

And remember...


Memories of past lives


This incredible list was gleaned by Chrissy Stockton from several different Reddit threads in which people recounted either their own and their children's memories of past lives.

He showed us his grave
When my brother was about 2 or 3 he told us his name used to be Austin. One day we were picnicking right along side a cemetery, when my brother took off running towards the gravestones, my dad and I followed him and found him touching a large headstone that simply read “Here Lies Austin” no name, no date. My brother did not learn to read until he was 6 and this headstone wasn’t even right out visible from where we were, yet he ran right to it


We don’t watch firefighter things
My son told me a few months ago he “used to be a firefighter, and we got called to a fire. There wasn’t any family inside the house, so we just put the fire out. Then the fire truck caught on fire and I died”.

A few nights later, he elaborated he was taken to a hospital, where he died.


Her “other” mother’s name was Sally
I was talking to my four year old when she began to freak me out. She was telling me a story about her “other mother” and that she “died a long time ago on a Thursday.”

I tried to brush it off, you know, whatever, shes a kid, they have wild imaginations… but then she started to go further into detail about the death of her “other mother,” whose name was apparently Sally. She has never met anyone named Sally, and I can’t recall any shows on TV she watches where “Sally” is a character. She told me that she was playing with her father’s gun that she found and accidentally shot and killed Sally while she was walking upstairs. It’s pretty weird. There are no guns in this house, I haven’t even really told her what guns are all about and how they can hurt or kill someone, shes only four!

I think I am beginning to understand now why when I try to tell her when someone dies, they go away forever, she tells me that, that is not true. “We come back, mommy!”

I'm only 23, I had my daughter very young and despite not being prepared, I don’t think I could have ever prepared for a conversation like that!


“When she lived before she was born”
My daughter did the same thing at the same age. She told me about her life “when she lived before she was born” and described herself as a woman with long hair who lived in an apartment with a long flight of stairs outside of it. She drove a VW Bug and wore long skirts. She then told me that she fell down the stairs and died. Her stories were startlingly vivid and always consistent. Quite spooky.

She is now 19 and doesn't remember it. My advice would be write down everything your daughter tells you on the subject. Everything! Record her stories if you can.


Roanoke?
I would tell my older sister about my death. I told her my husband was captured and fire was everywhere. I took my young son and ran. I told her my son couldn't run fast enough. I knew we would get killed and I had my husbands knife on me, I wanted to leave a clue. I wrote in capitals “CROATOAN” I told her we were caught and how my son was killed before I was killed. I told her how I was stabbed in the stomach with a knife. Then, I went about playing with dolls. I can still picture the scene and my son to this day.


“She used to come visit me”
My son says he remember his great grandmother (my grandmother) and can describe her in perfect detail (how she looks, how she acted, even what brand of cigarettes she smoked) , although she died 11 days before he was born. He says that she used to come visit him in his dreams.


Conchon
Apparently beginning around the time my friend could form sentences until he was little more than 2, he would go on and on about how he was a Native American named Conchon and that after his wife and son got sick and died, he moved to a mountain to live by himself with his horse. He died of a broken neck when he fell into a ravine.


“My real mom and dad were killed when the bad men came.”
When I was 2 or 3 I was talking to my grandmother and told her that my mom and dad weren't my real mom and dad. My grandmother, knowing this wasn't true, said they were. I calmly explained that no, my real mom and dad were killed when the bad men came. I had lived because my mom hid me behind a rock. I then went on to describe white men with guns and us “dark” people with long hair. When I was done, I went back to eating my ice cream.


Jesus
My cousin, approximately 3 years old and riding in the car with my mum and dad, pointed out a random house that they went past and declared “I died there”.
Included because, WHAT?

I did something sort of similar I guess. When I was about 3 my mum and I were driving over a bridge on which there’d recently been a major accident that resulted in a car bursting into flames and the driver dying.

Anyway, I asked my mum who the man in the front seat was and when she told me to describe him I said, “Well he’s on fire and he keeps looking back at me.”


I drowned
My mother told me about a story I told her when I was 2 or 3. I told her she was the best mommy I ever had, to which she replied, “I'm the only mommy you've ever had.” “nu-uh, I had another mommy.” I said that my older sister and I went out to a pond in the woods behind my house. Around the pond, all of the trees were the same type: skinny with white paper-like bark. (I had never seen a poplar tree before in this life.) We put some logs together to make a raft, and put it into the water to play boat captain and climbed aboard. The raft fell apart, and I didn't know how to swim. I tried to grab a log, but my hand slipped off. I could see my sister freaking out from underwater. I drowned.


My war memories
One of 6 hopping out of a helicopter into a field, it’s hot as shit, humid, daytime, two house/buildings smoking and heavily burning straight in front of me (to the side of the chopper), and there’s firing from the woods and field to my right. It’s chaotic a noisy, lots of firing and helicopters, my guys are firing back crouched next to the back building, one guy runs out of the other building with a kid he pushes forward and yells at to run, the kid gets shot from out of nowhere, and drops. I see a few of my guys advancing from another chopper behind me duck down in the grass as their chopper leaves, I crouch in tall grass about 10 feet from my chopper, fire my rifle twice from just above the grass line, and my chopper starts to take off, and is taking fire. I get up to move forward, panicky, and am shot dead – I feel a hard thunk, see part my chest explode, fall forward go black, and zoom out above my body.

I also drew this later (still have pics, mom saved them). To me, it’s clear as day, still. Mom said some of my first chatter was about “heavy fire” “zip em boys” (don’t know what that means) and I would ask “Where are the hueys?” I was born in the early 70s, and my family was NOT military (very anti, actually). I err on the side of thinking it’s media (news footage?) I absorbed at some point from the Vietnam war, but I also wonder if it’s not a past-life dream.


“That’s why I don't like water now”
When my kid was 4, we were watching a docu on the Titanic. The scene was a picture of the schematics of the boiler room and the camera panned from left to right over the plans. He pointed at the tv and said, “That’s wrong. The boilers were on the Other side. And I was right here.” And he pointed to a small space in the boiler room. “That’s where I was. And that’s why I don't like water now.”


My family’s farm, burning
When I was younger I would have dreams of living in colonial american. I remember bits very vividly and only when I was older did I realize what they were about and how accurate they were. Most of the dreams consisted of me being in my late teen years and centered around my family’s farm being set on fire during the night. I never dreamed past that night, nothing about the aftermath of the fire, and I haven’t had one in years.


“Nobody scroofs me there”
Getting my two and a half year old daughter out of the bath one night, my wife and I were briefing her on how important it was she kept her privates clean. She casually replied “Oh, nobody ‘scroofs’ me there. They tried one night. They kicked the door in and tried but I fought back. I died and now I'm here.” She said this like it was nothing. My wife and I were catatonic.


Nope
“Before I was born here, I had a sister, right? Her and my other Mom are so old now. They were ok when the car was on fire, but I sure wasn't!”


“Their screams are keeping me up”
I was in my room on the computer at about 11, which is late for my sister to be awake even now. I was thinking about bed, but then my sister knocks on the door. She was maybe 10 at the time, so not so young that she doesn't know when she’s dreaming. She wanted to sleep in my room because she was sad and scared. I asked her why, and she said, “I watched your sons burn up in the fire. Their screams are keeping me up.”


Role reversal
My three year old said, “Remember when I was the grown-up and you were the little boy?” to his Dad.


When he was a grown up
My father used to hate policemen when he was a kid, he used to tell my grandmother that they came to his house and shot him when he was a grown up.

Wyrd Consumerism 1: The Rag N Bone Emporium


It's a perpetual problem for the wyrd-at-heart consumer. Where to buy an authentic Jack the Ripper "From Hell" letter? How can I get hold of a lock of Edgar Allen Poe's beautiful, lank, lifeless hair? Where can I buy another necklace of human ears when this one wears out?

Well fret no more my friends. The Rag N Bone Emporium delivers. The images below showcase just a few of the needful things currently gracing their shelves...






H P Lovecraft's Unused Ideas

Art by the incredible Sean Phillips

This amazing list comes courtesy of La Petite Claudine. It proves that the ideas and snippets that Lovecraft threw away are better than many that other authors spend their lives developing...

This book consists of ideas, images, & quotations hastily jotted down for possible future use in weird fiction. Very few are actually developed plots—for the most part they are merely suggestions or random impressions designed to set the memory or imagination working. Their sources are various—dreams, things read, casual incidents, idle conceptions, & so on.
—H. P. Lovecraft

Presented to R. H. Barlow, Esq., on May 7, 1934—in exchange for an admirably neat typed copy from his skilled hand.


1 Demophon shivered when the sun shone upon him. (Lover of darkness = ignorance.)

2 Inhabitants of Zinge, over whom the star Canopus rises every night, are always gay and without sorrow. [x]

3 The shores of Attica respond in song to the waves of the Aegean. [x]

4 Horror Story
Man dreams of falling—found on floor mangled as tho’ from falling from a vast height. [x]

5 Narrator walks along unfamiliar country road,—comes to strange region of the unreal.

6 In Ld Dunsany’s “Idle Days on the Yann”
The inhabitants of the antient Astahan, on the Yann, do all things according to antient ceremony. Nothing new is found.

“Here we have fetter’d and manacled Time, who wou’d otherwise slay the Gods.” [x]

7 Horror Story
The sculptured hand—or other artificial hand—which strangles its creator. [x]

8 Hor. Sto.
Man makes appt. with old enemy. Dies—body keeps appt.

9 Dr. Eben Spencer plot. [x]

10 Dream of flying over city. [Celephaïs]

11 Odd nocturnal ritual. Beasts dance and march to musick. [x]

12 Happenings in interval between preliminary sound and striking of clock—ending—

“it was the tones of the clock striking three”. [x]

13 House and garden—old—associations. Scene takes on strange aspect.

14 Hideous sound in the dark.

15 Bridge and slimy black waters. [Fungi—The Canal]

16 The walking dead—seemingly alive, but—. [x]

17 Doors found mysteriously open and shut etc.—excite terror.

18 Calamander-wood—a very valuable cabinet wood of Ceylon and S. India, resembling rosewood.

19 Revise 1907 tale—painting of ultimate horror.

20 Man journeys into the past—or imaginative realm—leaving bodily shell behind.

21 A very ancient colossus in a very ancient desert. Face gone—no man hath seen it.

22 Mermaid Legend—Encyc. Britt. XVI—40.

23 The man who would not sleep—dares not sleep—takes drugs to keep himself awake. Finally falls asleep—and something happens. Motto from Baudelaire p. 214. [Hypnos]

24 Dunsany—Go-By Street
Man stumbles on dream world—returns to earth—seeks to go back—succeeds, but finds dream world ancient and decayed as though by thousands of years.

Art by the incredible Sean Phillips

1919

25 Man visits museum of antiquities—asks that it accept a bas-relief he has just made—old and learned curator laughs and says he cannot accept anything so modern. Man says that

‘dreams are older than brooding Egypt or the contemplative Sphinx or garden-girdled Babylonia’

and that he had fashioned the sculpture in his dreams. Curator bids him shew his product, and when he does so curator shews horror. Asks who the man may be. He tells modern name. “No—before that” says curator. Man does not remember except in dreams. Then curator offers high price, but man fears he means to destroy sculpture. Asks fabulous price—curator will consult directors.

Add good development and describe nature of bas-relief. [Cthulhu]

26 Dream of ancient castle stairs—sleeping guards—narrow window—battle on plain between men of England and men of yellow tabards with red dragons. Leader of English challenges leader of foe to single combat. They fight. Foe unhelmeted, but there is no head revealed. Whole army of foe fades into mist, and watcher finds himself to be the English knight on the plain, mounted. Looks at castle, and sees a peculiar concentration of fantastic clouds over the highest battlements.

27 Life and Death
Death—its desolation and horror—bleak spaces—sea-bottom—dead cities. But Life—the greater horror! Vast unheard-of reptiles and leviathans—hideous beasts of prehistoric jungle—rank slimy vegetation—evil instincts of primal man—Life is more horrible than death.

28 The Cats of Ulthar
The cat is the soul of antique Ægyptus and bearer of tales from forgotten cities of Meroë and Ophir. He is the kin of the jungle’s lords, and heir to the secrets of hoary and sinister Africa. The Sphinx is his cousin, and he speaks her language; but he is more ancient than the Sphinx, and remembers that which she hath forgotten.

29 Dream of Seekonk—ebbing tide—bolt from sky—exodus from Providence—fall of Congregational dome.

30 Strange visit to a place at night—moonlight—castle of great magnificence etc. Daylight shews either abandonment or unrecognisable ruins—perhaps of vast antiquity.

31 Prehistoric man preserved in Siberian ice. (See Winchell—Walks and Talks in the Geological field—p. 156 et seq.)

32 As dinosaurs were once surpassed by mammals, so will man-mammal be surpassed by insect or bird—fall of man before the new race. [x]

33 Determinism and prophecy. [x]

34 Moving away from earth more swiftly than light—past gradually unfolded—horrible revelation.

35 Special beings with special senses from remote universes. Advent of an external universe to view.

36 Disintegration of all matter to electrons and finally empty space assured, just as devolution of energy to radiant heat is known. Case of acceleration—man passes into space.

37 Peculiar odour of a book of childhood induces repetition of childhood fancy.

38 Drowning sensations—undersea—cities—ships—souls of the dead. Drowning is a horrible death.

39 Sounds—possibly musical—heard in the night from other worlds or realms of being.

40 Warning that certain ground is sacred or accursed; that a house or city must not be built upon it—or must be abandoned or destroyed if built, under penalty of catastrophe.

41 The Italians call Fear La figlia della Morte—the daughter of Death. [x]

42 Fear of mirrors—memory of dream in which scene is altered and climax is hideous surprise at seeing oneself in the water or a mirror. (Identity?) [Outsider?]

43 Monsters born living—burrow underground and multiply, forming race of unsuspected daemons.

44 Castle by pool or river—reflection fixed thro’ centuries—castle destroyed, reflection lives to avenge destroyers weirdly.

45 Race of immortal Pharaohs dwelling beneath pyramids in vast subterranean halls down black staircases.

46 Hawthorne—unwritten plot

Visitor from tomb—stranger at some publick concourse followed at midnight to graveyard where he descends into the earth.

47 From Arabia Encyc. Britan. II—255

Prehistoric fabulous tribes of Ad in the south, Thamood in the north, and Tasm and Jadis in the centre of the peninsula. “Very gorgeous are the descriptions given of Irem, the City of Pillars (as the Koran styles it) supposed to have been erected by Shedad, the latest despot of Ad, in the regions of Hadramaut, and which yet, after the annihilation of its tenants, remains entire, so Arabs say, invisible to ordinary eyes, but occasionally and at rare intervals, revealed to some heaven-favoured traveller.” // Rock excavations in N.W. Hejaz ascribed to Thamood tribe.

48 Cities wiped out by supernatural wrath.

49 AZATHOTH—hideous name. [x]

50 Phleg′-e-thon—

a river of liquid fire in Hades. [x]

51 Enchanted garden where moon casts shadow of object or ghost invisible to the human eye.

52 Calling on the dead—voice or familiar sound in adjacent room.

53 Hand of dead man writes.

54 Transposition of identity.

55 Man followed by invisible thing.

56 Book or MS. too horrible to read—warned against reading it—someone reads and is found dead. Haverhill incident.

57 Sailing or rowing on lake in moonlight—sailing into invisibility.

58 A queer village—in a valley, reached by a long road and visible from the crest of the hill from which that road descends—or close to a dense and antique forest.

59 Man in strange subterranean chamber—seeks to force door of bronze—overwhelmed by influx of waters.

60 Fisherman casts his net into the sea by moonlight—what he finds.

61 A terrible pilgrimage to seek the nighted throne of the far daemon-sultan Azathoth.

62 Live man buried in bridge masonry according to superstition—or black cat.

63 Sinister names—Nasht—Kaman-Thah. [x]

64 Identity—reconstruction of personality—man makes duplicate of himself. [x]

65 Riley’s fear of undertakers—door locked on inside after death.

66 Catacombs discovered beneath a city (in America?).

67 An impression—city in peril—dead city—equestrian statue—men in closed room—clattering of hooves heard from outside—marvel disclosed on looking out—doubtful ending.

68 Murder discovered—body located—by psychological detective who pretends he has made walls of room transparent. Works on fear of murderer.

69 Man with unnatural face—oddity of speaking—found to be a mask—Revelation.

70 Tone of extreme phantasy
Man transformed to island or mountain. [x]

71 Man has sold his soul to devil—returns to family from trip—life afterward—fear—culminating horror—novel length.

72 Hallowe’en incident—mirror in cellar—face seen therein—death (claw-mark?).

73 Rats multiply and exterminate first a single city and then all mankind. Increased size and intelligence.

74 Italian revenge—killing self in cell with enemy—under castle. [used by FBL, Jr.]

75 Black Mass under antique church.

76 Ancient cathedral—hideous gargoyle—man seeks to rob—found dead—gargoyle’s jaw bloody.

77 Unspeakable dance of the gargoyles—in morning several gargoyles on old cathedral found transposed.

78 Wandering thro’ labyrinth of narrow slum streets—come on distant light—unheard-of rites of swarming beggars—like Court of Miracles in Notre Dame de Paris.

79 Horrible secret in crypt of ancient castle—discovered by dweller.

80 Shapeless living thing forming nucleus of ancient building.

81 Marblehead—dream—burying hill—evening—unreality. [x] [Festival?]

82 Power of wizard to influence dreams of others.

Art by the incredible Sean Phillips


1920

83 Quotation
“. . . a defunct nightmare, which had perished in the midst of its wickedness, and left its flabby corpse on the breast of the tormented one, to be gotten rid of as it might.”—Hawthorne

84 Hideous cracked discords of bass musick from (ruin’d) organ in (abandon’d) abbey or cathedral. [Red Hook]

85 “For has not Nature, too, her grotesques—the rent rock, the distorting lights of evening on lonely roads, the unveiled structure of man in the embryo, or the skeleton?”

Pater—Renaissance (da Vinci).

86 To find something horrible in a (perhaps familiar) book, and not to be able to find it again.

87 Borellus says, “that the Essential Salts of animals may be so prepared and preserved, that an ingenious man may have the whole ark of Noah in his own Study, and raise the fine shape of an animal out of its ashes at his pleasure; and that by the like method from the Essential Salts of humane dust, a Philosopher may, without any criminal necromancy, call up the shape of any dead ancestor from the dust whereinto his body has been incinerated.” [Charles Dexter Ward]

88 Lonely philosopher fond of cat. Hypnotises it—as it were—by repeatedly talking to it and looking at it. After his death the cat evinces signs of possessing his personality. N.B. He has trained cat, and leaves it to a friend, with instructions as to fitting a pen to its right fore paw by means of a harness. Later writes with deceased’s own handwriting.

89 Lone lagoons and swamps of Louisiana—death daemon—ancient house and gardens—moss-grown trees—festoons of Spanish moss.


1922?

90 Anencephalous or brainless monster who survives and attains prodigious size.

91 Lost winter day—slept over—20 yrs. later. Sleep in chair on summer night—false dawn—old scenery and sensations—cold—old persons now dead—horror—frozen?


1922?

92 Man’s body dies—but corpse retains life. Stalks about—tries to conceal odour of decay—detained somewhere—hideous climax. [Cool Air]

93 A place one has been—a beautiful view of a village or farm-dotted valley in the sunset—which one cannot find again or locate in memory.

94 Change comes over the sun—shews objects in strange form, perhaps restoring landscape of the past.

95 Horrible Colonial farmhouse and overgrown garden on city hillside—overtaken by growth. Verse “The House” as basis of story. [Shunned House]

96 Unknown fires seen across the hills at night.

97 Blind fear of a certain woodland hollow where streams writhe among crooked roots, and where on a buried altar terrible sacrifices have occur’d—Phosphorescence of dead trees. Ground bubbles.

98 Hideous old house on steep city hillside—Bowen St.—beckons in the night—black windows—horror unnam’d—cold touch and voice—the welcome of the dead.


1923

99 Salem story—the cottage of an aged witch—wherein after her death are found sundry terrible things.

100 Subterranean region beneath placid New England village, inhabited by (living or extinct) creatures of prehistoric antiquity and strangeness.

101 Hideous secret society—widespread—horrible rites in caverns under familiar scenes—one’s own neighbour may belong. [x]

102 Corpse in room performs some act—prompted by discussion in its presence. Tears up or hides will, etc.

103 Sealed room—or at least no lamp allowed there. Shadow on wall. [x]

104 Old sea tavern now far inland from made land. Strange occurrences—sound of lapping of waves—

105 Vampire visits man in ancestral abode—is his own father.

106 A thing that sat on a sleeper’s chest. Gone in morning, but something left behind.


1923

107 Wall paper cracks off in sinister shape—man dies of fright. [x] [Rats in Walls]

108 Educated mulatto seeks to displace personality of white man and occupy his body.

109 Ancient negro voodoo wizard in cabin in swamp—possesses white man.

110 Antediluvian—Cyclopean ruins on lonely Pacific island. Centre of earthwide subterranean witch cult.

111 Ancient ruin in Alabama swamp—voodoo.

112 Man lives near graveyard—how does he live? Eats no food. [x]

113 Biological-hereditary memories of other worlds and universes. Butler—God Known and Unk. p. 59. [Belknap]

114 Death lights dancing over a salt marsh.

115 Ancient castle within sound of weird waterfall—sound ceases for a time under strange conditions.

116 Prowling at night around an unlighted castle amidst strange scenery.

117 A secret living thing kept and fed in an old house.


1924

118 Something seen at oriel window of forbidden room in ancient manor house.

119 Art note—fantastick daemons of Salvator Rosa or Fuseli (trunk-proboscis).

120 Talking bird of great longevity—tells secret long afterward.

121 Photius tells of a (lost) writer named Damascius, who wrote

“Incredible Fictions”
“Tales of Daemons”
“Marvellous Stories of Appearances from the Dead”.

122 Horrible things whispered in the lines of Gauthier de Metz (13th cen.) “Image du Monde”.

123 Dried-up man living for centuries in cataleptic state in ancient tomb.

124 Hideous secret assemblage at night in antique alley—disperse furtively one by one—one seen to drop something—a human hand—

125 Man abandon’d by ship—swimming in sea—pickt up hours later with strange story of undersea region he has visited—mad??

126 Castaways on island eat unknown vegetation and become strangely transformed.

127 Ancient and unknown ruins—strange and immortal bird who speaks in a language horrifying and revelatory to the explorers.

128 Individual, by some strange process, retraces the path of evolution and becomes amphibious.

 Dr. insists that the particular amphibian from which man descends is not like any known to palaeontology. To prove it, indulges in (or relates) strange experiment.

Art by the incredible Sean Phillips


1925

129 Marble Faun p. 346—strange and prehistorick Italian city of stone.

130 N.E. region call’d “Witches’ Hollow”—along course of a river. Rumours of witches’ sabbaths and Indian powwows on a broad mound rising out of the level where some old hemlocks and beeches formed a dark grove or daemon-temple. Legends hard to account for. Holmes—Guardian Angel.

131 Phosphorescence of decaying wood—called in New England “fox-fire”.

132 Mad artist in ancient sinister house draws things. What were his models? Glimpse. [Pickman’s Model]

133 Man has miniature shapeless Siamese twin—exhib. in circus—twin surgically detached—disappears—does hideous things with malign life of his own. [HSW—Cassius]

134 Witches’ Hollow novel? Man hired as teacher in private school misses road on first trip—encounters dark hollow with unnaturally swollen trees and small cottage (light in window?). Reaches school and hears that boys are forbidden to visit hollow. One boy is strange—teacher sees him visit hollow—odd doings—mysterious disappearance or hideous fate.

135 Hideous world superimposed on visible world—gate through—power guides narrator to ancient and forbidden book with directions for access.

136 A secret language spoken by a very few old men in a wild country leads to hidden marvels and terrors still surviving.

137 Strange man seen in lonely mountain place talking with great winged thing which flies away as others approach.

138 Someone or something cries in fright at sight of the rising moon, as if it were something strange. [x]

139 DELRIO asks “An sint unquam daemones incubi et succubae, et an ex tali congressu proles nasci queat?” [Red Hook]

140 Explorer enters strange land where some atmospheric quality darkens the sky to virtual blackness—marvels therein.


1926

141 Footnote by Haggard or Lang in “The World’s Desire”

“Probably the mysterious and indecipherable ancient books, which were occasionally excavated in old Egypt, were written in this dead language of a more ancient and now forgotten people. Such was the book discovered at Coptos, in the ancient sanctuary there, by a priest of the Goddess. ‘The whole earth was dark, but the moon shone all about the Book.’ A scribe of the period of the Ramessids mentions another in indecipherable ancient writing. ‘Thou tellest me thou understandest no word of it, good or bad. There is, as it were, a wall about it that none may climb. Thou art instructed, yet thou knowest it not; this makes me afraid.’

“Birch Zeitschrift 1871 pp. 61–64 Papyrus Anastasi I pl. X, l.8, pl. X l.4. Maspero, Hist. Anc. pp. 66–67.”

142 Members of witch-cult were buried face downward. Man investigates ancestor in family tomb and finds disquieting condition.

143 Strange well in Arkham country—water gives out (or was never struck —hole kept tightly covered by a stone ever since dug)—no bottom—shunned and feared—what lay beneath (either unholy temple or other very ancient thing, or great cave-world). [Fungi—The Well]

144 Hideous book glimpsed in ancient shop—never seen again.

145 Horrible boarding house—closed door never opened.

146 Ancient lamp found in tomb—when filled and used, its light reveals strange world. [Fungi]

147 Any very ancient, unknown, or prehistoric object—its power of suggestion—forbidden memories.

148 Vampire dog.

149 Evil alley or enclosed court in ancient city—Union or Milligan St. [Fungi]

150 Visit to someone in wild and remote house—ride from station through the night—into the haunted hills—house by forest or water—terrible things live there.

151 Man forced to take shelter in strange house. Host has thick beard and dark glasses. Retires. In night guest rises and sees host’s clothes about—also mask which was the apparent face of whatever the host was. Flight.

152 Autonomic nervous system and subconscious mind do not reside in the head. Have mad physician decapitate a man but keep him alive and subconsciously controlled. Avoid copying tale by W. C. Morrow.


1928

153 Black cat on hill near dark gulf of ancient inn yard. Mew hoarsely—invites artist to nighted mysteries beyond. Finally dies at advanced age. Haunts dreams of artist—lures him to follow—strange outcome (never wakes up? or makes bizarre discovery of an elder world outside 3-dimensioned space?) [Used by Dwyer]

154 Trophonius—cave of. Vide Class. Dict. and Atlantic article.

155 Steepled town seen from afar at sunset—does not light up at night. Sail has been seen putting out to sea. [Fungi]

156 Adventures of a disembodied spirit—thro’ dim, half-familiar cities and over strange moors—thro’ space and time—other planets and universes in the end.

157 Vague lights, geometrical figures, etc., seen on retina when eyes are closed. Caus’d by rays from other dimensions acting on optick nerve? From other planets? Connected with a life or phase of being in which person could live if he only knew how to get there? Man afraid to shut eyes—he has been somewhere on a terrible pilgrimage and this fearsome seeing faculty remains.

158 Man has terrible wizard friend who gains influence over him. Kills him in defence of his soul—walls body up in ancient cellar—BUT—the dead wizard (who has said strange things about soul lingering in body) changes bodies with him . . . leaving him a conscious corpse in cellar. [Thing on Doorstep]

159 Certain kind of deep-toned stately music of the style of the 1870’s or 1880’s recalls certain visions of that period—gas-litten parlours of the dead, moonlight on old floors, decaying business streets with gas lamps, etc.—under terrible circumstances.

160 Book which induces sleep on reading—cannot be read—determined man reads it—goes mad—precautions taken by aged initiate who knows—protection (as of author and translator) by incantation.

161 Time and space—past event—150 yrs ago—unexplained. Modern period—person intensely homesick for past says or does something which is psychically transmitted back and actually causes the past event.

162 Ultimate horror—grandfather returns from strange trip—mystery in house—wind and darkness—grandf. and mother engulfed—questions forbidden—somnolence—investigation—cataclysm—screams overheard—

163 Man whose money was obscurely made loses it. Tells his family he must go again to THE PLACE (horrible and sinister and extra-dimensional) where he got his gold. Hints of possible pursuers—or of his possible non-return. He goes—record of what happens to him—or what happens at his home when he returns. Perhaps connect with preceding topic. Give fantastic, quasi-Dunsanian treatment.

164 Man observed in a publick place with features (or ring or jewel) identified with those of man long (perhaps generations) buried.

165 Terrible trip to an ancient and forgotten tomb.

166 Hideous family living in shadow in ancient castle by edge of wood near black cliffs and monstrous waterfall.

167 Boy rear’d in atmosphere of considerable mystery. Believes father dead. Suddenly is told that father is about to return. Strange preparations—consequences.

168 Lonely bleak islands off N.E. coast. Horrors they harbour—outpost of cosmic influences.

169 What hatches from primordial egg.

170 Strange man in shadowy quarter of ancient city possesses something of immemorial archaic horror.

171 Hideous old book discovered—directions for shocking evocation.

Art by the incredible Sean Phillips


1930

172 Pre-human idol found in desert.

173 Idol in museum moves in a certain way.

174 Migration of Lemmings—Atlantis.

175 Little green Celtic figures dug up in an ancient Irish bog.

176 Man blindfolded and taken in closed cab or car to some very ancient and secret place.

177 The dreams of one man actually create a strange half-mad world of quasi-material substance in another dimension. Another man, also a dreamer, blunders into this world in a dream. What he finds. Intelligence of denizens. Their dependence on the first dreamer. What happens at his death.

178 A very ancient tomb in the deep woods near where a 17th century Virginia manor-house used to be. The undecayed, bloated thing found within.

179 Appearance of an ancient god in a lonely and archaic place—prob. temple ruin. Atmosphere of beauty rather than horror. Subtle handling—presence revealed by faint sound or shadow. Landscape changes? Seen by child? Impossible to reach or identify locale again?

180 A general house of horror—nameless crime—sounds—later tenants—(Flammarion) (novel length?).

181 Inhabitant of another world—face masked, perhaps with human skin or surgically alter’d human shape, but body alien beneath robes. Having reached earth, tries to mix with mankind. Hideous revelation. [Suggested by CAS.]

182 In ancient buried city a man finds a mouldering prehistoric document in English and in his own handwriting, telling an incredible tale. Voyage from present into past implied. Possible actualisation of this.

183 Reference in Egyptian papyrus to a secret of secrets under tomb of high-priest Ka-Nefer. Tomb finally found and identified—trap door in stone floor—staircase, and the illimitable black abyss. [x]

184 Expedition lost in Antarctic or other weird place. Skeletons and effects found years later. Camera films used but undeveloped. Finders develop—and find strange horror.

185 Scene of an urban horror—Sous le Cap or Champlain Sts.—Quebec—rugged cliff-face—moss, mildew, dampness—houses half-burrowing into cliff.

186 Thing from sea—in dark house, man finds doorknobs etc. wet as from touch of something. He has been a sea-captain, and once found a strange temple on a volcanically risen island.


1931

187 Dream of awaking in vast hall of strange architecture, with sheet-covered forms on slabs—in positions similar to one’s own. Suggestions of disturbingly non-human outlines under sheets. One of the objects moves and throws off sheet—non-terrestrial being revealed. Sugg. that oneself is also such a being—mind has become transferred to body on other planet.

188 Desert of rock—prehistoric door in cliff, in the valley around which lie the bones of uncounted billions of animals both modern and prehistoric—some of them puzzlingly gnawed.

189 Ancient necropolis—bronze door in hillside which opens as the moonlight strikes it—focussed by ancient lens in pylon opposite?


1932

190 Primal mummy in museum—awakes and changes place with visitor.

191 An odd wound appears on a man’s hand suddenly and without apparent cause. Spreads. Consequences.


1933

192 Thibetan ROLANG—Sorcerer (or NGAGSPA) reanimates a corpse by holding it in a dark room—lying on it mouth to mouth and repeating a magic formula with all else banished from his mind. Corpse slowly comes to life and stands up. Tries to escape—leaps, bounds, and struggles—but sorcerer holds it. Continues with magic formula. Corpse sticks out tongue and sorcerer bites it off. Corpse then collapses. Tongue become a valuable magic talisman. If corpse escapes—hideous results and death to sorcerer.

193 Strange book of horror discovered in ancient library. Paragraphs of terrible significance copies. Later unable to find and verify text. Perhaps discover body or image or charm under floor, in secret cupboard, or elsewhere. Idea that book was merely hypnotic delusion induced by dead brain or ancient magic.

194 Man enters (supposedly) own house in pitch dark. Feels way to room and shuts door behind him. Strange horrors—or turns on lights and finds alien place or presence. Or finds past restored or future indicated.

195 Pane of peculiar-looking glass from a ruined monastery reputed to have harboured devil-worship set up in modern house at edge of wild country. Landscape looks vaguely and unplaceably wrong through it. It has some unknown time-distorting quality, and comes from a primal, lost civilisation. Finally, hideous things in other world seen through it.

196 Daemons, when desiring an human form for evil purposes, take to themselves the bodies of hanged men.

197 Loss of memory and entry into a cloudy world of strange sights and experiences after shock, accident, reading of strange book, participation in strange rite, draught of strange brew, etc. Things seen have vague and disquieting familiarity. Emergence. Inability to retrace course.


1934

198 Distant tower visible from hillside window. Bats cluster thickly around it at night. Observer fascinated. One night wakes to find self on unknown black circular staircase. In tower? Hideous goal.

199 Black winged thing flies into one’s house at night. Cannot be found or identified—but subtle developments ensue.

200 Invisible Thing felt—or seen to make prints—on mountain top or other height, inaccessible place.

201 Planets form’d of invisible matter.


——————————

202 A monstrous derelict—found and boarded by a castaway or shipwreck survivor.

203 A return to a place under dreamlike, horrible, and only dimly comprehended circumstances. Death and decay reigning—town fails to light up at night—Revelation.

204 Disturbing conviction that all life is only a deceptive dream with some dismal or sinister horror lurking behind.

205 Person gazes out window and finds city and world dark and dead (or oddly changed) outside.

206 Trying to identify and visit the distant scenes dimly seen from one’s window—bizarre consequences.

207 Something snatched away from one in the dark—in a lonely, ancient, and generally shunned place.

208 (Dream of) some vehicle—railway train, coach, etc.—which is boarded in a stupor or fever, and which is a fragment of some past or ultra-dimensional world—taking the passenger out of reality—into vague, age-crumbled regions or unbelievable gulfs of marvel.


1935

209 Special Correspondence of NY Times—March 3, 1935

“Halifax, N.S.—Etched deeply into the face of an island which rises from the Atlantic surges off the S. coast of Nova Scotia 20 m. from Halifax is the strangest rock phenomenon which Canada boasts. Storm, sea, and frost have graven into the solid cliff of what has come to be known as Virgin’s Island an almost perfect outline of the Madonna with the Christ Child in her arms.

The island has sheer and wave-bound sides, is a danger to ships, and is absolutely uninhabited. So far as is known, no human being has ever set foot on its shores.”

210 An ancient house with blackened pictures on the walls—so obscured that their subjects cannot be deciphered. Cleaning—and revelation. Cf. Hawthorne—Edw. Rand. Port.

211 Begin story with presence of narrator—inexplicable to himself—in utterly alien and terrifying scenes (dream?).

212 Strange human being (or beings) living in some ancient house or ruins far from populous district (either old N.E. or far exotic land). Suspicion (based on shape and habits) that it is not all human.

213 Ancient winter woods—moss—great boles—twisted branches—dark—ribbed roots—always dripping. . . .

214 Talking rock of Africa—immemorially ancient oracle in desolate jungle ruins that speaks with a voice out of the aeons.

215 Man with lost memory in strange, imperfectly comprehended environment. Fears to regain memory—a glimpse. . . .

216 Man idly shapes a queer image—some power impels him to make it queerer than he understands. Throws it away in disgust—but something is abroad in the night.

217 Ancient (Roman? prehistoric?) stone bridge washed away by a (sudden and curious?) storm. Something liberated which had been sealed up in the masonry of years ago. Things happen.

218 Mirage in time—image of long-vanish’d pre-human city.

219 Fog or smoke—assumes shaped under incantations.

220 Bell of some ancient church or castle rung by some unknown hand—a thing . . . or an invisible Presence.

221 Insects or other entities from space attack and penetrate a man’s head and cause him to remember alien and exotic things—possible displacement of personality.

Art by the incredible Sean Phillips