Current mood:	quixotic
Current music:	Liszt, "Fantasia and Fugue on 'Ad nos, ad salutarem undam'"
Entry tags:	angels, azathoth, church of starry wisdon, crystal, cthulhu, edward kelly, enochian, great old ones, hp lovecraft, john dee, lovecraft, neophilic irreligion, nyarlathotep, polyhedron, rpg, shining trapezohedron, trapezohedron, yuggoth

further explorations into The Shining Trapezohedron

Everything You Never Wanted To Know About The Shining Trapezohedron But Weren't Afraid Enough To Know Better Than To Ask!


Continuing with one of the major themes in my previous post, in which i mentioned a bit about the dangers of playing Call of Cthulhu with Trapezohedrons, as well as other semi-related stuff & things...


--


One of the most fascinating connections i have found recently is in _The Dark Messenger,_ by John Beal, which mentions The Shining Trapezohedron, as a crystal used to send messages across "the horrible abyss of radiance" in the context of Kabballah & Dr Richard Muller's "Nemesis Theory"


--


In cyberspace, among the The NetherReal Awards of Excellence Program, The Shining Trapezohedron is "(a) special award presented to sites which, by the superior quality of their content and the overall dedication to all things Mythos, further all aspects of the world of H.P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos. This award is very rare indeed, and requires additional time in order to present."

One of the possessors of this ultimate award is the esteemed E.P. Berglund, according to whom, "The Shining Trapezohedron was the key, the gate, the way -- the part of Yog-Sothoth utilized by the travellers of the space-time ways." (for a good primer on the mystical relationships between all of the Great Old Ones, check out Cults of Cthulhu, by Frater Tenebrous)


--


A simple, but accurate description of the "The Shining Trapezohedron" has been provided by Frater Tenebrous, who had this to say in, _Cults of Cthulhu_ (which is one of the best primers on the intricate mystical relationships between Lovecraft's "Other Gods"):

` ` In "The Haunter of the Dark," Lovecraft describes how (‘the Starry Wisdom Sect’) held meetings in a church in Providence, where it communed with an avatar of Nyarlathotep via a magical object known as "The Shining Trapezohedron." ' '

Another summary, in complete agreement with this analysis, can be found @ Servants of Tulzscha: Artifacts


--


This next selection is taken from, "A Review of _Mysteries of the Worm,_ by Robert M. Price and Robert Bloch & Published in Paperback by Chaosium (1993):"

` ` Bloch later looked back on many of these early tales with some embarrassment, pointing out the amateur quality many of them possessed. I, however, find all of these stories quite good and great fun to read. I would just point to one other story at this time as being of special interest. After Bloch killed "Lovecraft" in The Shambler From the Stars, HPL kindly reciprocated by killing a Bloch-based character in his classic tale The Haunter of the Dark. That happens to be one of my favorite HPL stories, so I was quite happy to find that Bloch had actually written a sequel to it in the form of The Shadow From the Steeple. While it lacks the stultifying menace of HPL's master work, it proved quite interesting and nostalgic to take up the events surrounding that old church steeple and the Shining Trapezohedron found there, the frightful jewel that served as a gateway through which Nyarlathotep, the Haunter of the Dark, could manifest himself on Earth. ' '


--


According to _Lovecraft's Cthulhu: The Structure of Lovecraft's Universe (The Great Old Ones),_ by Maurice Levy, ` ` Nyarlathotep is the faithful servant of Azathoth. He is most often designated vaguely, such as the "Crawling Chaos." But he has many other names: he is sometimes the "Dark God," sometimes "The Dweller in Darkness," sometimes "The Faceless God," or again "The Howler in the Night." His most notable appearance is made in "The Haunter of the Dark," in the form of a jet-black "flying thing" who, emitting an intense stench, is endowed with an enormous three-lobed eye, which throws off a deadly light. He is invoked and worshipped in this form, by means of the Shining Trapezohedron, in the steeple of an old church in Providence, where his appearance in a night storm strews panic. ' '


--


For further elucidation, this version of _The Necronomicon_ says:

` ` Now it is also written of those of ye Begotten of Azathoth who abide not within ye secret places of ye Earth, that when ye Great Old Ones came down from ye stars in ye misty prime They brought ye image and likeness of Their Brethern with Them. In this wise it was, ye Outer Ones that serve Hastur ye Unspeakable, brought down ye Shining Trapezohedron from dark Yuggoth on ye Rim, whereupon had it been fashioned with curious art in ye days ere Earth had yet brought forth its first life. And it was through ye Shining Trapezohedron, that is ye very talisman of dread Nyarlathotep, that ye Great Old Ones summoned to Their aid ye might of ye Crawling Chaos in ye hour of Their great need, what time ye Elder Gods came hither in Their wrath. ' '


--


And finally, according to "Cthulhu Mythos Timeline," by James "JEB" Bowman:

` ` 160 million years ago: The mi-go set up a mining operation on Earth. The Elder Things try to battle them in space, but find they have devolved so much that they can no longer do so. The mi-go eventually control much of the northern portion of Earth. ("At the Mountains of Madness," Lovecraft; ("Timeline of the Cthulhu Mythos," Appel))
Some mi-go settle in the land that will become Mu, and worship Ghatanothoa. ("Out of the Aeons," Heald and Lovecraft)
The mi-go also bring with them two objects, later known as the Black Seal of Iraan and the Shining Trapezohedron.

...

c. 2613 BC: Nephren-Ka, a truly foul pharaoh, rises to power in Third Dynasty Egypt. He revives the worship of dark gods such as Nyarlat, whom he renames Nyarlathotep. He also finds the Shining Trapezohedron and builds a temple around it. The pharaoh Snefru overthrows Nephren-Ka, and his name is utterly erased from Egyptian history. However, the dark religions he rediscovered are not forgotten again. (; "Fane of the Black Pharaoh," Bloch)

...

c. 2200 BC: Queen Nitocris, the Ghoul-Queen, rises to power in Sixth Dynasty Egypt. She revives the worship of Nyarlathotep once more, and uncovers the Shining Trapezohedron. She engages in many unspeakable acts during her reign, weakening her nation sufficiently to usher in the First Intermediate Period of Egyptian history. She leaves behind an artifact known as the Mirror of Nitocris. (??; "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," Lovecraft and Houdini; "The Mirror of Nitocris," Lumley)

...

1844: May Professor Enoch Bowen ceases his excavations of Nephren-Ka's tomb upon finding the Shining Trapezohedron, and returns to Providence. Once there, he founds the Church of Starry Wisdom. ("The Haunter of the Dark," Lovecraft)

...

1935: Spring to Summer Robert Blake becomes obsessed with a deserted church on Federal Hill in Providence. Inside, he finds the Shining Trapezohedron. ("The Haunter of the Dark," Lovecraft)

...

August 8 Robert Blake is found dead from electric shock in his apartment after a thunderstorm. Shortly after, his physician, Ambrose Dexter, bears away the Shining Trapezohedron and the Starry Wisdom cult's books. Inexplicably, he spends the next 16 years as a nuclear physicist. ("The Haunter of the Dark," Lovecraft; "The Shadow from the Steeple," Bloch) ' '


--


But one of the most profound references to this interdimensional artifact, is that John Dee and his associate, Edward Kelly, used a crystal trapezohedron for skrying, to communicate with "The Angels," and channel communication in the "Enochian" language, as reported here on p.78 of "The Satanic Bible:

` ` THE ENOCHIAN LANGUAGE AND THE ENOCHIAN KEYS

THE magical language used in Satanic ritual is Enochian, a language thought to be older than Sanskrit, with a sound grammatical and syntactical bases. It resembles Arabic in some sounds and Hebrew and Latin in others. It first appeared in print in 1659 in a biography of John Dee, the famous Sixteenth Century seer and court astrologer. This work, by Meric Casaubon, describes the occultist Dee's activities with his associate, Edward Kelly, in the art of scrying or crystal gazing.

Instead of the usual crystal ball, Kelly, who was the gazer, used a many-faceted trapezohedron. The "angels" referred to in Kelly's first revelation of the Enochian Keys, obtained through the windows of the crystal, are only "angels" because occultists to this day have lain ill with metaphysical constipation. Now the crystal clears, and the "angels" are
seen as "angles" and the windows to the fourth dimension are thrown open - and to the frightened, the Gates of Hell. ' '