H. P. LOVECRAFT &THE BLACK MAGICKAL TRADITION can be PRE-ORDERED now on AMAZON or at BARNES &NOBLE.

AMAZON 
BARNES & NOBLE.

A full description of the book, along with other pertinent information, can be found on my website:

www.johnlsteadman.com.

I have some events coming in the autumn which might be of interest.

The Church of Mabus 
Radio Interview- Friday, 9/4/15 7:00 PM Eastern Time

Mabus is an online multimedia conglomerate which focuses on researching and reporting on supernatural, paranormal, and unexplained phenomenon. Operating since 2001, Mabus has evolved from a simple web-community of paranormal and UFO enthusiasts into a multi-site and multi-medium news network. Mabus consists of the Church of Mabus radio show on the Paranormal UFO Radio Network, the quarterly CONTINUUM Magazine, and the Mabus Incarnate online forum.Mabus was conceptualized by Jeffery Pritchett, host of the Church of Mabus radio show and CEO of Mabus.The Mabus goal is threefold: to disseminate quality information regarding unexplained phenomenon by attracting professional and credible ufologists and paranormal researchers; to create a multimedia exchange and archive in the forms of podcasts, print-on-demand magazine, member blogs, vlogs, live interviews, discussion boards, original articles, and syndicated feeds; and to build a web-based community of enlightened individuals who support full disclosure of sightings and experiences.

The Crazy Wisdom Bookstore & Tea Room.
Book Signing Event- Tuesday, 10/6/15, 7:00-8:30 PM

The Crazy Wisdom  Bookstore & Tea Room is located on 114 South Main Street in Ann Arbor, Michigan between Washington & Huron. The store is one of the largest and well-known bookstores in Michigan, established in March, 1982. Crazy Wisdom offers 200 book categories, from Acupuncture to Zen, Affirmations to Yoga. They also carry gifts, cards, jewelry, crafts, art, music, incense, ritual Items, candles, aromatherapy, body tools & yoga supplies, reflecting the best selection of merchandise available to nurture Body, Mind and Spirit. In addition, the bookstore also hosts the Crazy Wisdom Tea Room,  a great place to dine, relax, unstress and enjoy a great cup of tea; the Tea Room serves over 100 varieties of tea, coffee and coffee specialty drinks, appetizers, entrees, dips, delectable desserts and treats.

A Room of One's Own Bookstore
315 W. Gorham St Madison WI 53703
P: (608) 257-7888

Book Signing Event:  Thursday, October 8, 2015, 6:00 -7:30 PM

A Room of One's Own is located in the beautiful city of Madison, Wisconsin near the University of Wisconsin campus. The Room is an independent, local bookstore that offers a wide selection of current and classic fiction, nonfiction, periodicals, graphic novels, local interest titles, gifts, greeting cards, and t-shirts. The store also has strong children's and young adult, women's studies and LGBT fiction and nonfiction sections.The Room is also proud to be a central part of Madison's women's community and it provides an attractive meeting place, event forum, and safe space for members of this community as well as for visiting authors.

JLS

H. P. LOVECRAFT &THE BLACK MAGICKAL TRADITION can be PRE-ORDERED now on AMAZON or at BARNES &NOBLE.
AMAZON 
BARNES & NOBLE.

A full description of the book, along with other pertinent information, can be found on my website:
www.johnlsteadman.com.

I have some events coming in the autumn which might be of interest.

The Church of Mabus 
Radio Interview- Friday, 9/4/15 7:00 PM Eastern Time
The Crazy Wisdom Bookstore & Tea Room.
Book Signing Event- Tuesday, 10/6/15, 7:00-8:30 PM

Continuing my exploration of different issues associated with H. P. Lovecraft, many fans of horror and fantasy fiction find it rather odd that Lovecraft was a self-professed materialist and an atheist.  These readers often wonder why Lovecraft felt inclined to create a pantheon of gods and goddesses since a “real” atheist wouldn’t commonly do such a thing.  After all, atheists are not supposed to believe in gods or goddesses.

It is true, of course, that Lovecraft identified himself as a “mechanistic materialist”, by which he meant that he was a believer in the doctrine that nothing exists apart from matter and that all the facts of existence and experience can be explained in reference to the laws of material substances.  Since spiritual beings such as gods or goddesses are immaterial, Lovecraft denied their existence.  In this sense, he was, at least philosophically, an atheist.  But Lovecraft also acknowledged that humans have an incomplete and limited knowledge of reality and thus, he tended to keep an open mind on the issue of spirituality, accepting the premise that there might be alternate levels of being that “supplement” rather than contradict the laws of material substances. Consequently, Lovecraft was closer in his thinking to agnosticism rather than to pure atheism.

There are two other things that should be considered in this context.  First, Lovecraft’s mechanistic, materialist side represented only one aspect of his complex psyche; another, more important aspect to Lovecraft was his deep, abiding respect for dreams and the dreamscape.  Lovecraft was an avid dreamer all of this life and he was both fascinated and frightened by what he encountered in his dreams. Secondly, Lovecraft had always been drawn to weird themes and weird literature since his earliest childhood days and his fascination with the weird ultimately led him to creative composition. And when he created, elements of both the materialistic and the dreaming aspects of Lovecraft’s psyche were invariably represented in his work.

Thus, Lovecraft didn’t deliberately go about constructing gods and goddesses; his pantheon of entities naturally arose as his writing and dream life intensified.  And, interestingly enough, his extra-terrestrial entities reflect his scientific approach to the cosmos.  In many of the stories and poems, the Great Old Ones are depicted as actual extra-terrestrial entities and not really gods or goddesses at all; they are demythologized, as S. T. Joshi refers to it.  In other stories and poems, when the Great Old Ones are presented as Gods and Goddesses, Lovecraft gives us very sophisticated entities, entities that conform, as much as possible, to descriptions of the Quantum Universe. 

JLS