{"id":45321,"date":"2011-12-16T16:19:10","date_gmt":"2011-12-16T16:19:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/16\/just-random-info-the-old-ones-and-the-mysterious\/"},"modified":"2011-12-16T16:19:10","modified_gmt":"2011-12-16T16:19:10","slug":"just-random-info-the-old-ones-and-the-mysterious","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/2011\/12\/16\/just-random-info-the-old-ones-and-the-mysterious\/","title":{"rendered":"Just Random Info: The Old Ones and the mysterious Brian Ward"},"content":{"rendered":"

Just Random Info: The Old Ones and the mysterious Brian Ward<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

dydadistracted<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\n

<\/p>\n

pg 112<\/em>
In 1978 a book by an English occultist named\u00a0Peter James Carroll<\/a>\u00a0was published. That book wasLiber Null<\/em>, the text that is widely considered to have given birth to\u00a0Chaos Magic<\/a>. It was followed in 1982 by the book\u00a0Psychonaut<\/em>. From 1987 onwards these two books were published in one volume (\u00a0Liber Null & Psychonaut<\/a><\/em>), which is still an essential primer for anyone desiring to get to grips with the theory and practice of Chaos Magic.<\/p>\n

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<\/p>\n

pg 116<\/em><\/p>\n

When I first read the book back in 1992 in my bedsit in Roath, I was struck by the illustrations by an artist named Brian Ward that appear in\u00a0Psychonaut<\/em>. They were said to be portraits ofLovecraft<\/a>\u2019s dreaded\u00a0Old Ones<\/a>, at least in the urban legends surrounding the book, of which there were already quite a few by the end of the 1980s (back in the days before online shopping).<\/p>\n

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pg 120<\/em><\/p>\n

Certainly this correlation between Ward\u2019s images and the Old Ones was re-enforced by the pseudo-esoteric comic strip\u00a0Zenith<\/a>\u00a0where obvious imitations of Ward\u2019s images were used to portray entities clearly derived from the preternatural deities of the Cthulhu mythos.<\/p>\n

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pg 124<\/em><\/p>\n

And yet there is little actual evidence to confirm any relation between these images and the Old Ones, other than that some of them (particularly the illustration on page 168) bear an uncanny likeness to\u00a0Cthulhu<\/a>\u00a0and his ilk.<\/p>\n

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pg 128<\/em><\/p>\n

We don\u2019t know for certain who they are are what their titles are, with the exception of the rather different illustration on page 172, which is clearly the\u00a0Mithraic leontocephaline<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"image\"<\/p>\n

pg 146<\/em><\/p>\n

Surprisingly – considering the cult status of\u00a0Liber Null & Psychonaut<\/em>\u00a0– none of these images (with the exception of the leontocephaline on page 172) can be found online, or have been marketed at all outside of the covers of the book. I\u2019m not sure how many fans of the book would buy them in the form of T-shirts, posters, models or cards, but I imagine quite a considerable few would.<\/p>\n

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pg 168 – Cthulhu?<\/em><\/p>\n

Brian Ward – despite his obvious talent – does not appear to have any online presence at all. So, giving in to curiosity I decided to email the book\u2019s author – Peter Carroll himself – and ask him to clarify who or what were the subjects of Ward\u2019s illustrations. I didn\u2019t expect a reply, but I got one anyway.<\/p>\n

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pg 172 – Mithraic leontocephaline<\/em><\/p>\n

In his reply Peter explained that the identity of the images are unknown to him (\u201cI selected them because I liked the look of them\u2026It all remains a bit of a mystery\u2026\u2026..\u201d); that he hadn\u2019t seen the artist in \u201cdecades\u201d, and had originally met Brian Ward \u201conly briefly\u201d describing him as \u201ca strangely secretive character\u201d,<\/p>\n

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pg 178<\/em><\/p>\n

Given the mystery surrounding the artist, I guess we can feel fortunate that Peter chose to employ these images in\u00a0Psychonaut<\/em>, as otherwise we would most probably never have encountered them at all. Who knows what other gems this otherwise unknown artist has produced? Just like the identities of these illustrations, we may never know.<\/p>\n

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pg 190<\/em><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Just Random Info: The Old Ones and the mysterious Brian Ward dydadistracted: pg 112In 1978 a book by an English occultist named\u00a0Peter James Carroll\u00a0was published. That book wasLiber Null, the text that is widely considered to have given birth to\u00a0Chaos Magic. It was followed in 1982 by the book\u00a0Psychonaut. From 1987 onwards these two books … Continue reading “Just Random Info: The Old Ones and the mysterious Brian Ward”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45321","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-uncategorized","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45321\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/tumblr.scrollofthoth.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}