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Sci-Fi, H.P. Lovecraft, and Pseudoarchaeology - Ep 144
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I want you to know that I listen to you. As proof, tonight I’m covering the writer H.P. Lovecraft and his relationship to the Pseudoarchaeology world because a listener suggested it! See, I care (Also I’m a huge sci-fi nerd).
Transcripts
- For rough transcripts of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/pseudo/144
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. You are now entering the pseudo-archaeology podcast, a show that uncovers what's fact, what's fake, and what's fun in the crazy world of pseudo-archaeology.
00:00:23
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the pseudo-archaeology podcast, episode 144. I am your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and tonight, who put aliens in ancient aliens? I'm looking at you, HP Lovecraft.
00:00:44
Speaker
All right, so I want to start today just by saying that I hear you guys. And by that, I mean that I actually read the emails and little missives and notes and things that I get from time to time for this show. And sometimes i I do try and write back. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. It is nothing personal for any of you guys who are out there and you're like, Man, I emailed him. He never emailed me back. That dude sucks. ah What's funny in seriousness, I get so many emails every day, and it's not just about this podcast, but it's just about a lot of things. And if I don't email back immediately and almost without much thought, if that makes sense, if I I either need to just read it and like blather something out. Or I rarely get to it, and I do hate that.
00:01:39
Speaker
I used to pride myself with doing emails that had like decent grammar in them, you know, and that kind of thing. And I've been trying to force myself to at least get back to more of them, but I have to just let go of all grammar and and taste. It's sad. But I do want to just say out there, I tend to read just about everything that I get. I do try. I do want to hear from you guys, but sometimes sometimes I can get back. Sometimes I can't. But with that said, I have had I think more than one person ask about HP Lovecraft. Hey, how does H.P. Lovecraft work into this whole pseudo archaeology thing? And before I started this, I didn't know too much about him. I knew the basics, as I think many of us do. It's like, OK, he was some weird writer guy from like the 20s and 30s. OK, and he did sort of. Sci-fi horror stuff. And then I don't know. And then again, I kind of got picked up.
00:02:37
Speaker
And that's that's basically true, right? And it also got me thinking about science fiction in general. And that helps me a lot because sometimes if I'm like, oh, my God, what am I going to talk about? And in a podcast, you know, like even if I want to do HP Lovecraft, I'm like, man, how long can I actually go on about HP Lovecraft? and I'm like a little bit. But then I was like, wait, this also opens up the whole science fiction thing that I can talk about forever because I'm a huge sci fi nerd. I love science fiction, you guys. And I'm sure most of you do, too. You know, we do have to be honest about science fiction that. While it is awesome, and it's probably my favorite genre of all of them, the downside of it, and again it's OK, everything has a downside. The downside is it really does put the aliens in ancient aliens. Right. And as I thought about this, I was like,
00:03:33
Speaker
oh Yeah, you know before HP Lovecraft before that time and we're talking like 1920s 1930s. That's when that's when he's doing it HP Lovecraft I believe was born in 1890 and I'm pretty sure he dies in 1937 and he was kind of a weird dude. So anyway, he dies when he's like 46 or whatever but It's his writings and he kind of does what you would call, I don't know, speculative science fiction, horror, sci-fi. He's kind of in that world that in between where you kind of have elements of horror, but definitely elements elements of sci-fi too.
00:04:11
Speaker
But, you know, before him, there wasn't any kind of aliens thing in pseudo archaeology world before him. It was like the Ignatius Donnelly stuff. You know, it's stuff from the 1880s, you know, and and before the idea that there were like like ancient civilizations, you know, that that are no longer there, that that were destroyed in the Great Flood, that, you know, that kind of this stuff we're talking about all the time on here. But there's nothing to do with aliens, right? It's all the ideas up until the 1920s in terms of pseudo archaeology, where there were great civilizations, the Atlantis stuff, you know, that it's all interconnected. And we're just leftover pawns in this larger super civilization scheme. But.
00:04:53
Speaker
When do the aliens come in and i think it's right around this time honestly and i think hp lovecraft has a lot to do with that because he's. One of the main writers who kind of. What's these ideas in our brains right and it tends to relate to that larger pseudo archaeology narrative. Now. In terms of science fiction, you know, when I was in college, whenever I had to take an English class, I tried to have it relate to either the movies or science fiction. So I actually ended up taking several sci-fi classes. I took an English class that was just labeled science fiction.
00:05:34
Speaker
And it kicked ass. It was by a professor, Frank McConnell. He was great. he He died a long time ago. He died, I think, in ninety nine or something like that. But he was one of these guys always in bad health. I think he was from Chicago or this kind of thing. So, you know, like bad mouth smoked all the time. Overweight always looks sickly, you know, and um' he died you know way too young, of course, because he took horrible care of himself. But he was one of those professors while taking horrible care of himself was just a fascinating lecturer. And it was so fun. I remember I took this sci-fi class just again, just called science fiction over the summer.
00:06:16
Speaker
because for two reasons. First, it was the only time I could get in and his class, he would teach in the huge rooms, you know, like the 600 cedars and they would fill in two seconds because sci-fi is awesome. And Frank McConnell was just a kickass professor. But so I had in summer because I could get in. Also, it was a slightly smaller class, which was awesome. So you could talk to Frank a little bit more. It was one of those things where I was always so worried and I'd put my hand up, of Professor McConnell, you know, but he was always so cool because he loved science fiction.
00:06:47
Speaker
But in taking his class, also in the summer, I could just chill and take like just that. You know, I didn't have to take like three other classes or four other classes. I could just take it in the summer and enjoy reading some sci-fi. And it was just awesome, you guys. I honestly, I think I still have his syllabus laying around somewhere because the list of books was so good in terms of, hey, this is the history of science fiction. So I took that and I'm going to pull from what I learned in his class when I talk today about about sci-fi. And then I also took a film studies class on science fiction. So sci-fi in the movies, same thing, you know, went through from sci-fi in the very beginning of movies up to present day. And I think one I took one or two other things again, just also from being a sci-fi reader. My favorite book of all time is Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Easy. So with that backdrop,
00:07:38
Speaker
As soon as I heard of like the HP Lovecraft thing, I'm like, OK, let's fit this guy into like the larger world of sci fi and then how that relates to pseudo archaeology. So sci fi first, because we all know the pseudo archaeology part. So if you look up online, you know, first sci fi book ever, dude, who knows? They're going to pull some Greek thing. like 2000 years ago, whatever. I think the best argument for that is Frankenstein from 1818. It actually had another edition reprinted 1831 Mary Shelley. This was the first book that Frank McConnell had us read. My daughter's reading it right now as one of her English books and it really, for me, is the beginning of modern science fiction. And it also has the horror genre, too. As as we know, sci-fi and horror kind of relate. So you have that in the early 1800s. And then if we want to make some sort of timeline to get us up to when H.P. Lovecraft is writing,
00:08:46
Speaker
You know, after that, you have Jules Verne. This can be like the 1860s with stuff like 20,000 leagues under the sea. Then you're going to have like, oh, you know, Edgar Allan Poe is writing in the 1830s, you know, in that time. And and I know that Edgar Allan Poe was a huge influence on HP Lovecraft. for obviously the horror side, then let's see, where does it go? We're 1860s. Oh, you're you're going to have like Edgar Rice Burroughs in the early like the 19 teens. He's going to be doing Tarzan, of course, which is he's best known for, but also like John Carter, Warlord of Mars and all those. I do have to say on a complete side note, I really like the Disney movie John Carter.
00:09:30
Speaker
I think it came out in 2012 or so. I think it's really well done, you guys. I highly recommend it. I think it's just called John Carter of Mars. I think the original book was called John Carter Warlord of Mars, but there's a couple others. Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote a bunch of these things in this sort of pulp genre. But I'm sad that that movie didn't get more play. I really dig it. I watched it recently for the first time. It's killer, dude. i I highly recommend, man. And I wish beyond wishes that they would make a second one. But it did poorly in theaters. Anyway, oh, I forgot.
00:10:06
Speaker
If we go, if we backtrack just a little H.G. Wells, man, he's doing the Time Machine and War of the Worlds like 1890s. Right. I remember War of the Worlds was one of my favorite ones, you know, as as I took this Frank McConnell sci-fi class. I didn't get through Frankenstein very good. It didn't. It didn't pull me. I'm going to try again. I think I'm going to listen to it as an audio book, but I thought that both Time Machine and War of the Worlds were were killer. I dug the whole John Carter thing. I actually dug Tarzan, too. I love the original Tarzan. And then, see, we're that that brings us into that sort of 1920s world, right? And it's going to be people like HP Lovecraft who bring this stuff together for the first time and
00:10:56
Speaker
broaden it out, like kind of flesh out almost a a reality behind this stuff, a reality of very dark, ominous creatures, right? A reality where we as earthlings or people of earth are just one part of a huge universe and where the universe doesn't really care about us, right? We're just, the universe is much huger and more multidimensional, and there's way larger ideas happening, and you're just this little ape on the planet Earth, and you are just a little tiny pawn in this huge, uncaring universe. And that's kind of the backdrop for,
00:11:41
Speaker
that's kind of invented by HP Lovecraft that he uses to tell his stories. And when we come back, focusing down on HP Lovecraft himself.
00:11:55
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to the pseudo-archaeology podcast episode 144. I'm your host Dr. Andrew Cankella and we are talking about science fiction and also HP Lovecraft. So who is this HP Lovecraft guy anyway? Well, I don't know if he'd be doing very well in the modern era and and here's here's why. So I've read into him ah a little bit and some of this I think we've maybe heard a little bit before, you know, or heard sort of inklings of I will say this, HP Lovecraft comes off as a very kind of East Coasty elitist kind of guy, you know, those kind of guys, right. And he's going to be doing this thing in like the 1920s, 1930s.
00:12:39
Speaker
I think he was one of these guys, although an American, very pro-monarchy, one of those guys, very pro-British, British as kind of the highest end of society, the most refined, that kind of idea. And of course, what goes with this is he was also very, very much a racist. And I am using the term racist in the old school over over the top. Man, you're not a very nice person kind of racist situation, right? He really he wrote about how, you know, the white race was the best and all this kind of BS. He was he was unfortunately, he was that guy.
00:13:21
Speaker
You know, he was he was very over the top. And I think probably had a vibe of very much like a snob, like kind of like your classic cliche snob. And also on top of that. The kind of person who's super snobby. to everyone except themselves. you know So while he's a snob and tell and tells you how much of a second-class citizen you are, for whatever reason, he has all kinds of odd health problems, mental problems. right he is He is not the grand specimen of human being. right Just these these broken, damaged people you know who write this stuff.
00:14:02
Speaker
so in his sort of depressive, anxiety-ridden state, starts writing these books. As I talked about before, this background of like. what is is sometimes called cosmicism, or, you know, we've heard of it as like cosmic horror, sci-fi horror, this kind of thing, where we're just this tiny part of the cosmos, we can be destroyed at any time, you know, but he starts to write these books for the pulp, kind of pulp magazine, pulp, really, honestly, you know, pulp fiction, world of things of the 20s and 30s, and these are just sort of mass-produced,
00:14:43
Speaker
Almost any writer can do them fairly easy to get published, but not very many copies. Right. And and the idea is just to crank these suckers out and every every few months, that kind of thing. he So he did that and he wrote a bunch of stories. The one the one for me that I when I hear the title, I'm like, oh, yeah, he did Call of Cthulhu. Right, youre like, oh, called Cthulhu. OK, that guy. Right. there's There's also a handful of other titles that I recognize, like ah Shadow Over Inn's Mouth and At the Mountains of Madness. I've heard of those three before. Call of Cthulhu. I've heard by far the most.
00:15:23
Speaker
But all of these have that sort of nightmarish, monstrous creatures. You're just a little, you know, tiny nothing in the world and you could be crushed. It's very there's like an dark ominousness to them as he wrote these things. He wasn't very successful, like his whole life, even when he died in 1937, he was one of those guys who was not appreciated during his life. Like he would write these books, they wouldn't go anywhere. He'd write one, he would kind of almost do okay, but then the next one would suck. you know like He had that life. He got married, it didn't really work out. He got divorced. I mean, it's just, it's he's got this sad, sad life. He dies fairly unknown. But,
00:16:10
Speaker
Then you're like, why do we even know this name, HP Lovecraft? Because his stuff had a resurgence in the 1970s. And that's when HP Lovecraft kind of becomes a name, kind of becomes known, right? For this for this kind of stuff, for these for these themes. And you start seeing these influences all over the place, right? One of the main magazines that he was published in was called Weird Tales. See, just that. Right. And and some of that is precursors to modern comic books, modern like Marvel and DC comic books. you There were stories and things like that that that would later morph into the into the comic book world. And some of the stuff he came up with, but again, just the word Cthulhu, you're like, oh, yeah, here's another one. Watch this Necronomicon.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yep. Him. a The Necronomicon. How many times have you heard Necronomicon, this idea of this, you know, this book of evil bound in human flesh, right? We've seen this in so many, so many places, right? You know, evil dead movies, anyone? Right? And It's like, oh, my God, this is this. It starts with this crazy weirdo dude in the 1920s. And and right again, right as I tell you this stuff, you can think of 20 other books, movies you're like, OK. And the idea of the creature, like the creature that's following you, it's no longer like Frankenstein's monster, which is just a you know large man. This is a huge amorphous kind of.
00:17:49
Speaker
often octopus like dark poisonous from the other world, you know, coming to get you. Scary. What I think is awesome is he also worked with Harry Houdini. Yes, the Harry Houdini on a book that was called Under the Pyramids. And it's as cliche as you would think, right? The idea that there's like a hidden labyrinth under the pyramids and somebody has to make a great escape. Oh, like Harry Houdini, right? It's it's sort of almost a vehicle for Harry Houdini.
00:18:26
Speaker
Totally makes sense. And you can see even from that the tendrils of how that can affect the pseudo archaeology world, just this idea planted out there, even though it's totally science fiction, you know, of of lost a lost labyrinth under the pyramids. Again, it's great science fiction. It's super fun. It's just when that starts to masquerade as reality. Right. That's the bummer. And again, do I have anything against HP Lovecraft for coming up with a bunch of cool stuff? No, no. You're a writer. You're trying to come up with cool stuff. But again, these are these are fiction. You you know how it's like science fiction. It's not science nonfiction. Right. These are stories. Do I love them? Of course I do. I'm a science a science nerd. I'm a science fiction nerd. I'm the nerd when it comes to all this kind of stuff. I just really dig them. I think it's
00:19:25
Speaker
It's fun to think about this stuff. I think it's fun to think of the HP Lovecraft idea of something as even as brutal and big as cosmicism as like we're just this little earth out in this immensely vast universe. Because there's truth in that. It's not crazy. It's not over the top, right? That setup is a fair ball. Now, when you start, you know, putting dark, ominous creatures from parallel dimensions in an act. But but that's OK. And when we return, HP Lovecraft's influence in the modern era.
00:20:08
Speaker
Welcome back to the pseudo archaeology podcast episode 144. I'm your host, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, and we have been discussing HP Lovecraft and we want to talk about his influence in the modern day, which is actually pretty wide ranging, I would say. But first off, I forgot to brag a little more. And, you know, if I've forgotten to brag, dude, I got to break in and do that. that my old professor, Frank McConnell, now long gone, he used to be in contact with this young up and coming writer who he really liked and who he turned us on to this nobody named Neil Gaiman or Neil Gaiman. I think is I think it's ah yeah Neil Gaiman. What am I doing? Neil Gaiman. What's wrong with me? Anyway, Neil Gaiman.
00:20:56
Speaker
He would talk about, you know, Frank McConnell would talk about the Sandman. And he's like, look, you guys, there's this new guy, Neil Gaiman. Sandman is really, really great comic book. and And Frank would just talk about how great it was. Now, Frank McConnell himself wrote, i I think he wrote a couple kind of detective novels. That was his that was his thing. But I've i've seen one or two interviews with Neil Gaiman where Neil talks about Frank McConnell a little bit. And that's always cool for me. I'm like, oh, my God, he knew him. You know, and he does talk about how thankful he was that Frank was kind of in his court in the early in the early days. So that's my little that's my little totally non humble brag about Frank McConnell and his his relationship to Neil Gaiman.
00:21:41
Speaker
So, but in terms of HP Lovecraft, OK, where do we see HP Lovecraft today? I mean, first and foremost, I'm sure by now you're like, stranger things, anyone? Right. Stranger things to me is just straight up. Hey, let's take HP Lovecraft. Let's take his ideas and let's make a make a series that sort of pivots around this view of reality, you know, this this idea, you know, the monster in. Stranger Things, very Lovecraftian, the idea of the upside down place, that that alternate reality, I think it kind of wraps all H.P. Lovecraft ideas into one very successfully. I mean, we got to admit, Stranger Things is it
00:22:31
Speaker
It's just a fantastic show and it and it does have that sci-fi horror vibe to it. Well done. You see HP Lovecraft in heavy metal all over the place. I think the first time I ever heard the word Cthulhu was not in some book. I think it was the Metallica song. There's a Metallica song called Call of Cthulhu on Ride the Lightning, I believe. It's an instrumental. But I'm like, yeah, and it has that sort of darkness vibe and the HP Lovecraft stuff hasn't left the heavy metal world. You still hear like call outs to that sort of the Cthulhu darkness, you know, that type of of universe, Necronomicon, you know, this idea. HP Lovecraft had this idea of like kind of.
00:23:18
Speaker
The old ones are the great old ones that there were these old ancient ancient beyond our knowledge beings right in this world the goth world the occult world right all the all the sort of really nasty alien stuff like in the movie alien kind of hp lovecraft ish right dungeons and dragons
00:23:42
Speaker
Yeah. And again, I don't have to really argue these points. I think you guys you guys get where this comes from. And I just think, again, that it's cool to think about that. It's how it comes from this guy. Right now, with this, this sort of influence of this guy, we have two things that we can kind of. end up talking about first is where did sci-fi go after that? You know, how did sci-fi wrap this up and and continue? So again, HP Lovecraft dies of cancer, cancer that of course he didn't get checked out until it was like way too late. So one of those guys, you know, and then he he dies at 46 in 1937. So you have this extra piece in the sci-fi world that's used all over the place now.
00:24:31
Speaker
If you just historically want to move on from the HP Lovecraft world, you get to sort of the 1930s early post-war years. Stuff that I remember from the Frank McConnell syllabus, you're going to start hitting on like Robert Heinlein. These are all writers, Theodore Sturgeon, writers that started and that were younger than Lovecraft a little bit, but started in that same pulp world. there's old du If you guys are really into this stuff, there's old sort short stories like Helen O'Loy. I want to say that's late 1930s. I remember digging that one.
00:25:07
Speaker
So many of these angle on what is it to be human? Isaac Asimov is going to start, you know, 30s, 40s, 50s story like Nightfall. You guys read Nightfall. Nightfall might be my favorite short sci-fi story ever. I did read it for the first time in Frank McConnell's class. Nightfall did. It's it's funny. It's simple. Like if I told you about it, you'd be like, big deal. But it's. It's awesome. I can't ruin it for you guys. It's short. Read it, read it, read it. You know, in the Heinlein world, when I was a kid, Robert Heinlein is what I read almost more than anything else when I was like 12, 13, 14, 15 in that world. You know, Moon is ah is a harsh mistress. You know, his many, many titles.
00:25:56
Speaker
Oh, Starship Troopers, which, of course, they made into a movie in the 90s, which I kind of think works. Starship Troopers, it depends on the mood you're in when you watch it. You could think it's terrible or you could think it's really funny and fun. I tend to be the second vote on that. You're also going to get stuff like Philip K. Dick. Why? Why do androids dream of electric sheep, which is going to become Blade Runner later? Philip K. Dick is we're going into the 50s, 60s, right? That world of stuff. One that I really love that tends to be forgotten sometimes that we also read in Frank's class is Flowers for Algernon. Oh, dude, Flowers for Algernon to me is just a freaking masterpiece. It's amazing. You got it. You got to read that. So. Of course, you're going to start to get these more wide ranging.
00:26:47
Speaker
world building titles like Dune is going to come out in the 1960s as well. So and then we can go onward to today. And I mean, if you don't think some of these ideas are powerful, Dianetics by L. Ron Hubbard Scientology. Yeah, one or two people went for that. You know what I'm saying? These they seem silly sometimes, but these things can catch on. So as we continue to talk about these, you know, we have fantastic sci-fi here. I mean, you guys do it for Frank. Read some of those books. They're killer. Read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, right? Read Blade Runner. Philip K. Dick. It's a killer book. and So to bring this around now,
00:27:31
Speaker
How does HP Lovecraft relate to like pseudo archaeology? And it's as you can see, as we piece through this, right, these these themes of these ancient creatures that are living in this massive universe where we're just little tiny pawns, that idea from the 1930s, you know, pioneered by HP Lovecraft is going to be bastardized afterwards, post World War Two, into, oh, there were ancient aliens here on Earth, right? This is fairly new idea. Again, post-Lovecraft comes from him.
00:28:10
Speaker
So, yes, we still get the Graham Hancock stuff of there was a super civilization, you know, 12000 years ago at the end of the last ice age. But we had there's the ancient alien show that's been going on forever. And that's why we're aliens come into the mix. It starts there. But then, of course, it's going to get. picked up by like Eric Von Dineken in the late 60s. We've already talked that one to death, you know, and then and then it's in it's in forever. Right. So the next time you hear a story that has to do with that, the Maya kings were actually aliens sent here thousands of years ago, you can blame HP Lovecraft.
00:28:54
Speaker
But not really. What are you going to do? Blame the modern guys who still keep talking about this, because at the time, HP Lovecraft, he's just trying to write some stories, sell some stories. They didn't go anywhere. And he died a sad, unhappy man.
00:29:12
Speaker
On that note, I'll see you guys next time. Read those books.
00:29:22
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the pseudo archeology podcast. Please like and subscribe wherever you'd like and subscribe. And if you have questions for me, Dr. Andrew Kinkella, feel free to reach out using the links below or go to my YouTube channel, Kinkella teaches archeology. See you guys next time.
00:29:43
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.