I once took on a panelist at a science fiction convention.
It was an Arisia a few years ago, when a popular fantasy writer was the Guest of Honor. I was taking classes at Hartford Seminary, including one on the sociology of religion, and I spent a good deal of time at the convention hitting the "religion in SF and fantasy" panels to see whether any of this was filtering through to the speculative fiction community.
The answer - a pretty resounding "no" - shouldn't have surprised me. Most fen aren't all that religious, at least not in any conventional sense, and never have been. Neopagans abound, especially among lovers of heroic fantasy, and there's always been a strong Jewish component that's as much cultural as religious, but most fen I've known are either atheist, non-religious, or recovering Christians of one stripe or another. I'm one of the few who practices any sort of Christianity, and it's questionable as to whether Unitarian Universalism even qualifies as that these days.
So I shouldn't have been surprised that none of the panelists seemed to know much more about how religions arise than could be gleaned from the works of Joseph Campbell or maybe Ronald Hutton. Peter Berger, Carl Dudley, Emile Durkheim, even Michel Foucault - these names, so common in my coursework, simply weren't mentioned. A lot of these writers, gamers, and fans, these people who would spend hours researching astrophysics, fighting techniques, and Victorian popular culture, seemed to think that everything that everything that needed to be said about religion was contained in decades-old research.
It was pretty disappointing, and I think I ended up walking out of at least one panel that was supposedly about creating religions but was actually creating about alien species. I persisted, though, stubborn creature that I am, and that is how I almost ended up in a shouting match with an author.
The author in question had been nominated for a Very Prestigious Award a few years earlier, which was seemingly why she was a panelist. She was friendly with several well known authors, including a genuine Grand Master of SF that I'd met a few times at previous conventions. She'd just written a book on Egyptian religion, based on her own studies, and had a copy prominently displayed next to her name card.
It was all very normal for a convention, and I sat back in my chair to see what she'd have to say. know little if anything about Egyptian religion beyond the names of a few of the deities – and I sat back, quilting in hand, prepared to be enlightened.
I was, but not quite in the way that the author had intended.
I’m not sure what the others on the panel said about religion; the discussion was completely dominated by Ms. Egyptian, as I’ll call her. She might have been the moderator, in which case her directing the panel would have been logical and acceptable. If she wasn’t, well, soon enough the titular mod had been put in zir place. Ms. Egyptian had something to say, and by Osiris’ false penis beard, she was going to say it.
As for what was actually on her mind…hoo boy, as they say in the Common Speech of the West.
Did you know, fair and tender readers, that Egyptian teachings can be correlated to the ancient Hindu wisdom of the chakkras? It’s true! Ms. Egyptian had taught herself hieroglyphics and read the original inscriptions! And did you know that certain of their religious practices were very, very similar to those of the Dravidian cultures of the Indus Valley? That Egyptian gods were benevolent and kindly disposed toward humans, unlike the evil oppressive Yahweh who blasted his terrified worshippers for no discernible reason and –
That’s when my hand went up.
Ms. Egyptian stopped in mid-sentence and looked at me over her glasses. Her hair, which was very brightly colored, seemed to glow in the overhead lights.
“Yes? Did you have a comment?”
I took a deep breath, set down my needlework, and thought back to my Hebrew Scriptures at seminary. “What you just said about the god of Israel? That wasn’t really accurate.”
Every head in the room whipped around to stare at me. Some of the audience looked bored, others puzzled, and one or two were actively frowning. I wet my lips and plunged ahead.
In for a penny, in for a pound, as they say in a whole bunch of collections of proverbs.
“If you go back and read the Hebrew Scriptures, you’ll see that it’s not simply a case of God smiting the Israelites because he feels like it. It’s a covenant relationship, where first Abraham, and then Moses and the escaped slaves, make a bargain with God that he’ll bless them and reward them with good things as long as they hold up their end and keep the laws and the commandments.”
A couple of people, one of them a panelist who also had a degree in religious studies, were nodding up and down. Others looked a little bewildered – I wasn’t on the panel, after all, so who was I to shoot off my big bazoo?
Ms. Egyptian was staring at me, lips slightly parted. She did not look pleased.
“It’s only when the Hebrews don’t do this, when their rulers oppress the poor and allow the strong to bully the weak and otherwise break the law, that God punishes them,” I continued. “Saying that the god of the Hebrew Scriptures is doing this simply because he feels like it is a drastic oversimplification – “
“Thank you,” said Ms. Egyptian, very coolly. “As I was saying, the Egyptians – “
“ – of the actual texts,” I finished.
“Thank. You.” Ms. Egyptian had very, very blue eyes. Right now they were about the color of an ice floe, and only slightly colder. “The Egyptians had a very different relationship to their deities, particularly – “
The panelist who’d gone to seminary looked straight at me and shook her head a millimeter or two. I drew another breath, then nodded just as minutely as Ms. Egyptian continued to ramble on about the perfect wisdom of Luxor, and Thebes, and Karnak, and Cairo, and –
Call me a coward, but I kept my mouth shut after that. Getting into a shouting match with a fanatic at a science fiction convention is neither fun nor productive, not to mention a fine way to get one’s self blackballed at future events. I’m many things, but stupid isn’t one of them.
I hope.
Needless to say, I didn’t buy Ms. Egyptian’s book – it was surprisingly expensive given its slim size and lack of non-royalty free illustrations, and I was saving my cash for food and other expenses. I did manage to sneak a look at it in the Dealers’ Room and found that, as I’d expected, it was chock full of chakkras and other material that had zero relationship to ancient Egypt. Even better, the most recent works in the bibliography dated from about half a century earlier, meaning that for all her research into Pharaoh, pyramids, Osirisian prosthetics, etc., Ms. Egyptian hadn’t exactly kept up with the most recent scholarship even if she had taught herself to read hieroglyphics.
It was all quite horrifying, and hilarious, and if I’d actually spent my meal money buying this slender and worthless tome you can be assured that I’d already have devoted at least part of a column to it for your Saturday night dining and dancing pleasure. I didn’t, though – even I have my limits, strange to say – and I’m sure as heck not going to bother at this point.
Alas, Ms. Egyptian is scarcely the only person who’s become enamored of the Mysteries of the Pyramids, started reading some nicely packaged Dover reprints of early 20th century books, and decided that she knows as much (or more) than actual archaeologists who’ve devoted their careers to pre-Hellenic Egypt. Beginning with Napoleon’s little adventure in Pyramidland two centuries ago, the Land of the Pharoahs has been the subject of a truly stunning quantity of Books So Bad They’re Good. Fiction, archaeology, religion, hieroglyphics themselves…there’s scarcely an aspect of Egyptian culture that hasn’t been examined by a denizen of Badbookistan.
Tonight I bring you not a book, but a short story that more than deserves to be considered So Bad It's Good. Allegedly by a famous non-Egyptian magician, it is an exciting, fast-paced, and surprisingly enjoyable pulp creation that was the first notable effort of a writer who became a legend in a completely different field of literature:
Imprisoned with the Pharaohs, by H.P. Lovecraft cosplaying as Harry Houdini - Harry Houdini was one of the most famous men of pre-Depression America. The legendary showman, magician, and escape artist had lived a life that outshines most fictional heroes; born Erik Weisz to an impoverished rabbi and his second wife, Houdini had worked his way up from failed circus wild man to the greatest stage magician of his age. Along the way he'd flown his own airplane, escaped from jails, straitjackets, and even coffins, devised numerous brutal stunts (including the famous Chinese Water Torture Cell, which required him to hold his breath for over three minutes), revived the Society of American Magicians, and written or co-written several books.
If that weren't enough, Houdini starred in several movies, co-written a number of books, debunked fake spirit mediums, and became the darling of the rich and famous. Among his friends and associates were Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, magus/poet/self-aggrandizer Aleister Crowley, and his younger brother Hardeen. By the time he died of peritonitis in 1926, it's safe to say that there was very little that the great Houdini hadn't at least tried.
He was also, at least if the title pages of certain publications can be believed, an author.
Several of these books were about magic, which made perfect sense for the most famous magician in the world. Others, most notably A Magician Among the Spirits, were devoted to debunking the fakery of spiritualism. This also made sense given Houdini’s side career exposing mediums who preyed upon the millions who’d lost loved ones during the Great War, even if this noble work eventually cost Houdini his friendship with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
That Houdini relied upon others (usually his close friend Walter Brown Gibson, creator of The Shadow) to do the bulk of the actual writing wasn’t really an issue. Ghostwriters were every bit as useful, and as gainfully employed, a century ago as they are today. Houdini was a very busy man, after all, and if all he did was provide ideas and information to do turn those ideas into words, well, that was more than a lot of celebrities did, or do. Stage costumes, travel costs, and basic living expenses were not cheap even then, and Houdini had to support himself, his wife/stage assistant Bess, and (at least until her death), his beloved mother. Royalties and book fees were a welcome supplement to his income, plus were a fine way to get the word out about fraudulent psychics.
Thus it was that when J.C. Henneberger, owner of the pulp magazine Weird Tales, came to Houdini with the idea of him "authoring" a column in the struggling magazine, Houdini said yes. He also agreed to let Henneberger put his name on two short stories, plus other works to be determined later. He would get his payment, Henneberger would see his circulation go up, and everyone would be happy: Houdini, Henneberger, and the ghostwriter Henneberger hired to write the third “Houdini” story for Weird Tales.
This ghostwriter was a somewhat unusual choice. Born to a genteel but no longer wealthy New England family, he was intelligent, snobbish, talented, prone to anxiety attacks, unusually dependent upon his female relatives, and kept up the pretense that he was writing for the pulps solely as an amusing hobby rather than to pay the bills. It is entirely possible that if his family had kept its fortune, he never would have written anything but letters to the surprisingly large number of friends he’d accumulated thanks to his work in the amateur press.
This ghostwriter’s name was Howard Phillips Lovecraft. You may have heard of him.
I first heard about this giant of American horror fiction when I was in college. I'd been enamored of science fiction and fantasy since my early teens, and had just recently been turned on to comic books by a friend, but I'd somehow avoided reading all that many horror stories. Oh, I'd worked my way through Poe in high school, just like everyone else, and I'd had the pants scared off of me by a radio adaptation of "The Monkey's Paw," but true horror stories were simply not my cup of tranya; I've never been much for blood, dead heroes/heroines, and zombies sucking up other people's precious bodily fluids because I'm a great big coward whether on film or in literature.
My college friends thought this was silly - it was just fiction, so why was I so afraid? There weren't really any monsters or zombies or ghosts, so why not read something scary for fun? Lovecraft was a great place to start, or so I heard, and so I purchased a used paperback of At the Mountains of Madness and began to read.
At around 11:00 pm.
After my roommate had gone to sleep.
Those of you who've read this mesmerizing creepfest about ancient horrors in a frozen wasteland will have some idea of a profound mistake I had made. Oh, I was enjoying it - I literally could not stop reading - but I was becoming more and more disturbed as the pages turned and the suspense built. It should have been ridiculous - giant penguins? shoggoths? ancient aliens? - but thanks to Lovecraft's gifts as a storyteller and my own tender imagination, I was little short of petrified by the time I finished the story, swallowed several times, and turned out the light....
Only to have someone knock on the door about five seconds later.
It was only a friend looking for a chat buddy, but the experience was so traumatic that I've avoided Lovecraft's works except during broad daylight, preferably in July or August, usually in a public place surrounded by close friends, for the last thirty-four years.
"Imprisoned with the Pharaohs" isn't on the same level as At the Mountains of Madness. It's an early effort, and it shows...but even in 1924 it was obvious that Mrs. Lovecraft's little boy could and would deliver the goods when it came to entertaining and terrifying his audience. He'd been writing for Weird Tales and other pulps for long enough to have acquired a reputation for turning out derivative but still enjoyable Poe-esque horror stories. He was intrigued by the idea of collaborating with the great Houdini on turning an allegedly true tale of skulduggery and mayhem among the mysterious Pyramids into a publishable tale, and even more intrigued when Henneberger offered him the munificent sum of $100.00 for his efforts.
This was the most money he’d made to date for his work, and if it sounds relatively pathetic today, remember that the average American only made about $1,200.00 a year back then. Lovecraft may have been a snob but he wasn’t stupid, and accordingly traveled to New York to interview Houdini and do some research into Egyptian antiquities at the Metropolitan Museum. He then returned home to Providence and began to write.
The resulting yarn, which was thrilling, chilling, and about as close to reality as a $4.00 bill with Charles Ponzi’s grinning mug on it, was completed just in time for Lovecraft to pack it into his luggage when he journeyed to Philadelphia for his wedding. Alas for romance, Lovecraft was so excited, and so distracted, that he managed to lose the story in the Providence train station. He spent much of what should have been the happiest days of his life retyping the manuscript, but thanks to a patient bride and his own innate talent as a writer, he was able to complete the story he called “Under the Pyramids” and deliver it to Weird Tales in a relatively timely fashion.
J.C. Henneberger was delighted. Lovecraft had taken Houdini’s original idea (a clearly bogus yarn about Houdini being kidnapped by an unscrupulous tour guide in 1910 and whisked away to the Great Pyramid to be sacrificed to Ancient Mummified Gods of Evil and their Horrible Minions) and turned it into a bang-up pulp yarn that combined the following elements in surprisingly enjoyable style:
- A resourceful, multitalented, and fearless narrator (Houdini), who is traveling in a mysterious and exotic land (Egypt).
- A duplicitous local whose name is a vile, vile pun (and who may be more than he appears).
- Misunderstood ancient architecture that conceals temples of doom - whoops, wrong franchise! horrible ancient cults.
- Ancient Mummified Gods of Evil and their Horrible Minions who attempt to kill Houdini.
- Strange references to American popular culture, such as Houdini allegedly being asked to participate in a boxing match on top of a pyramid.
- Prose purple enough to have cost the lives of approximately 30 or 40 trillionmurex snails.
Needless to say, all of the above made the newly titled “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” an instant hit when it was published in the middle of 1924. Horror aficionados loved it and clamored for more, and at least one writer, Psycho author Robert Bloch, cited “Imprisoned with the Pharaohs” as an influence upon their own work.
Houdini himself was so impressed by the story that he hired Lovecraft to ghostwrite at least two more works, an article bashing astrology and a whole book slamming assorted superstitions. Lovecraft earned another nice fee for the former ($75.00, or a little over a thousand dollars today), and an autographed copy of Houdini’s 1924 opus A Magician Among the Spirits for the latter (which unfortunately never went beyond the planning stages). Had Houdini not inconveniently died of peritonitis in 1926, it’s possible that Lovecraft’s career might have taken an entirely different, and quite a bit more lucrative, direction.
Alas for literary history, Lovecraft's luck did not hold. He turned down the editorship of Weird Tales because it would have required him to relocate to Chicago, which the 34 year old author considered beyond the capacity of such an "aged antiquarian" as himself. His marriage failed, and he returned to Providence to eke out an existence selling stories for much less than they were worth, stretching a small inheritance to piano-wire tension, and engaging in an extensive correspondence with other writers and horror fans that would have made him a natural for blogging and mailing lists. He died young of cancer, never realizing that he had earned himself a spot in American letters as the most influential horror author since Edgar Allan Poe.
As for "Imprisoned with the Pharaohs," it was not correctly attributed to Lovecraft until 1939, two years after Lovecraft's death. Lovecraft scholars regard it as one of his best early works, and it’s been reprinted in numerous horror and pulp anthologies. It’s even been retconned to be part of Lovecraft’s greatest literary work, the Cthulhu Mythos, thanks to Robert Bloch’s insistence that the Enormous Evil Sphinx God that nearly eats Houdini is actually Nyarlathotep, one of Uncle Wiggly'scosmic drinking buddies.
Now, if only someone would write a story where Houdini really does box with Cthulhu....
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Have you ever read a book by Houdini? H.P. Lovecraft? Were you ever stupid enough to read a horror tale at midnight? Did it traumatize you? Do you dream of giant penguins? Boxing magicians on top of pyramids? We're all safe here, no Great Old Ones in sight, so feel free to share....
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