Endless nightmares and insanity.
Ten thousand deaths each worse than the last.
An infinity of suffering.
That’s what befalls those who see the Crawling
Chaos.
Humanity is his play-thing, the Outer Gods
are his master and he is evil.
NYARLATHOTEP:
CRAWLING CHAOS
Greetings Mythstorians.
When the Shadow Monster possessed Will in
season 2 of Stranger Things the creature used
him as an avatar to communicate and spy on
the Mike and the others.
It was sentient and exercised intelligence
higher than most humans.
This is similar to how one of H.P.
Lovecraft’s most terrifying creatures operate.
This man (if we can even call him that) is
the servant and son of Azathoth.
Unlike the Blind Idiot God or Cthulhu, he
typically assumes the form a human man.
Sometimes this can be as a tall, dark and
faceless figure and other times it can be
an Egyptian Pharoah.
He does have countless other forms, many of
which are said to be horrifying.
Nyarlathotep not only enacts Azathoth’s
will, but also acts as a servant to the other
Outer Gods while they slumber.
He delights not in slaughter, although he
is certainly capable of it, but in driving
human minds over the edge, to beyond the point
of insanity and to a dark place of no return.
Nyarlathotep's first appearance was in the
1920 Lovecraft poem of the same name.
During this tale, we find Earth in dire straits.
Politically and economically speaking the
world is screwed.
Humanity is waiting on an old and ancient
evil and soon Nyarlathotep arrives.
Interestingly, the poem seems to allude that
Nyarlathotep is a scientist who is “always
buying strange instruments of glass and metal
and combining them into instruments yet stranger.”
Lovecraft writes, “He spoke much of the
sciences—of electricity and psychology—and
gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators
away speechless, yet which swelled his fame
to exceeding magnitude.”
Could this be referring to Nikola Tesla?
Maybe so, Tesla was certainly a household
name around the time Lovecraft wrote this
piece.
The Crawling Chaos proceeds to travel the
world, and wherever he goes entire populations
fall into a great and perilous sleep filled
with horrific nightmares.
Lovecraft, writing in the first-person as
a witness of Nyarlathotep, sets the scene:
“Never before had the screams of nightmare
been such a public problem; now the wise men
almost wished they could forbid sleep in the
small hours, that the shrieks of cities might
less horribly disturb the pale, pitying moon.”
The narrator doubts what Nyarlathotep represents
and remains defiant against him.
But that plan, as the following will show
you, didn’t turn out too well.
Lovecraft writes,
“..when I, who was colder and more scientific
than the rest, mumbled a trembling protest
... Nyarlathotep drove us all out, down the
dizzy stairs into the damp, hot, deserted
midnight streets.
I screamed aloud that I was not afraid; that
I never could be afraid; and others screamed
with me for solace.”
Very soon the narrator’s city is driven
mad with despair.
“As if beckoned by those who had gone before,
I half floated between the titanic snowdrifts,
quivering and afraid, into the sightless vortex
of the unimaginable.
Screamingly sentient, dumbly delirious, only
the gods that were can tell.”
Yet here on our simple mortal plane, there
is still so much more to explore and even
more to find out.
Is there something we missed?
Write us a comment and tell us below.
Also, check out our videos on Cthulu and Azathoth.
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