Lovecraftian Psycho-Physical Magick

There are two primary forms of magick in Lovecraft. The first involves the Dreamlands and is essentially identical to the traditional arts of scrying and astral projection. This is the specialist field of the modern day Esoteric Order of Dagon. The second involves the evocation of the Old Ones and the opening of Portals. The two are of course entwined. HPL's evocation system is part traditional part novel, the latter element including a strange merger of magick and contemporary physics. This page will explore that aspect.

Lovecraft on Cosmology

HPL never explains his cosmology but makes continual though brief reference to it. The earliest is in talk of the infamous non-Euclidean geometry in the Call of Cthulhu and related stories from the 1920s onwards. This is a clear reference to the Space-Time of Einstein's Relativity Theory which only works in this mode of geometry. It reflects the 'alienness' of reality for HPL and the illusory nature of conventional human views of the world. It is used in the first Cthulhu story to describe 'anomalies' in elliptical non-Euclidean space, one character is swallowed up by an acutely angled corner that acts as if it is obtuse for example. This can be seen as equivalent to a wormhole, and perhaps shines light on the Cthulhu Spawn's means of transportation! This form of elliptical geometry also matches HPL's comments that our cosmos is 'globular'. He goes on to say, in Whisperer in the Dark, that it is a mere atom in a super-cosmos beyond which is something 'infinite and horrific' rather than the 'cosmic harmony' expected by naive Pythagoreans and Platonists. This could be regarded as a model based on a series of worlds linked through 'hyperspace', in 'a juxtaposition of dimensions', much like the cosmic chain of worlds of the Theosophists (who HPL regarded as nutcases and charlatans with one or two good ideas!). The use of the non-scientific Theosophical term cosmic 'planes', in the Dunwich Horror, would seem to confirm this, and demonstrate HPL's more scientific take on it. Alternatively, or perhaps additionally, it could refer to our Universe in Hyper-Inflation Theory, which consists of an ugly conglomerate of Space-Time globules - crystalising out of an explosively and chaotically expanding early universe - regions with variant laws and constants, of which our cosmos is but one, unable to interact with their bizarre sibling globules (its image being rather like that of Yog Sothoth's multi-globular form, rather than the symmetrical spheres or 'doughnuts' of conventional uniform Inflation Theory). This view is supported in the Thing on the Doorstep story where 'complex angles' are the way 'leading through invisible walls to other regions of Time-Space'.

Lovecraft continues this theme but later plays it down, referring to it as the 'Curved Space' of our material world in which ordinary lifeforms dwell. By the 1930s however he has an even more horrific vision, 'Angular Space'. The super-cosmos is made of 'curves, angles, matter and semi-matter' according to HPL. Angular Space is seen as something totally alien and beyond even the weird reality of our cosmos, a chaotic realm of semi-matter, second only in irrationality to the domain of the insane deity Azathoth, 'beyond angled space'. Normal life can't exist here and it is the realm of monsters and the terrible Hounds of Tindalos, who dwell between its angles, haunting the corridors of time and space. The bizarre angles of architecture refered to in Dreams of the Witch House are physical correlates of this geometry, said to open up portals to other worlds, just as the non-Euclidean angles of R'lyeh were earlier said to, and the pentagonal structures of the Elder Thing's city probably also did. Its identity is revealed in the Witch House, where the debates of Einstein and Heisenberg are refered to. Angled Space is simply the Space-Time of the Quantum Realm, the deeper chaotic reality beyond even Einstein, where matter is not quite real and normal Physics breaks down. In the mathematics of Quantum Mechanics, just like everything else, Space-Time is non-continuous, and doesn't curve like an elastic sheet, but rather is discontinous and quantasised, at root a sea of Space-Time 'bits' (sometimed called Geons) that come together in various temporary arrangements to form our curvi-linear Space-Time. While in local microscopic areas it can disintegrate into a seething foam of superpositional Geon particles in the Void. If these Geons were seen as something akin to subatomic versions of the polyhedral Platonic Solids, their combination would indeed be angular at this scale, and only 'curvy' on a much greater scale (though the apparent shift from Euclidean to non-Euclidean geometry would need explanation).

Also interesting here is Lovecraft's solution to the biggest problem in Modern Physics, the incompatability of Relativity and Quantum Theory, not just through using the metaphor of a quantasised Space-Time, but by also suggesting that the realm of Azithoth is not only 'beyond angled space', i.e. in hyperspace, but that this realm is identical to the most chaotic state in QM where Space-Time breaks down into a seething foam (the 'nuclear chaos' of the horrific Azathoth being a reference to subatomic chaos, and not nuclear energy which was unknown in HPL's time).Thus hyperspace and absolute quantum potentia are one and the same. Interestingly modern theory suggests that in this model the Cosmos may arise from Nothing, as if Geons have their own polarity symmetry, like other particles and anti-particles, then all the components just fall out of a chaotic soup of equilibralised binary scalar potential which is mutually negating and so apriory 'nonexistant'. Though this can only be the case if Hyper-Inflation applies, and the micro fluctuations that emerge spontaneously from the Void can proliferate rapidly in the initial phase of the Big Bang. Thus the complex multilobed Yog Sothic universe must also exist. HPL now seems amazingly before his time as far as theoretical Physics goes!

Physics or Magick?

So far this is a possibly thesis within fairly orthodox Physics. However Lovecraft went beyond this far into the realm of pure speculation when he combined this view with magick. In Dreams of the Witch House much is made of the idea that certain physical angles (both architectural and symbolic) can be used to open portals to other worlds (with appropriate incantations to activate them). An analysis of the actual angles of the Witch House indicate that they may have been composed of pentagonal geometry (72 degrees / 108 degrees).

In this house entities were said to emanate in a purple mist from the upper right corner. The pentagram in magick, as shown, is the symbol and tool of evocation. It was originally called the 'five angle' and represented the five gateways to Tartarus, the underworld 'prison' for the Titans, Giants and the Hundred Handed Ones built by Chronos in Greek mythology. Its inversion is used to banish unwanted manifestations, and is preserved in this mythos as one form of the Elder Sign. Curiously HPL said the Elder Thing's cities had pentagonal designs too and that they invented signs to ward off hostile entities like the Deep Ones.


So what does this magical symbolism have to do with the Physics mentioned earlier?

A Hyperdimensional Physics?

One odd feature of pentagramic geometry is something Roger Penrose has called Penrose Tiling. Basically tiles of different shapes can cover a plane in different ways, the simplest being the conventional square tiles of domestic architecture. But only certain shapes can do so without leaving gaps. Mathematicians have spent much time calculating all the possible shapes that can do this. These tiles usually make symmetrical patterns in the process, and the normal symmetries for this are three-fold (triangles), six-fold (heptagons) etc. In the real world of three dimensions the same thing applies, and these normal symmetries correspond to the Platonic Solids, that can fill, or 'tile', a three dimensional space without leaving gaps. Examples of this kind of geometry are reflected in Nature as crystals with various lattice configurations. Penrose Tiles include kite shaped forms based on the geometry of the pentagon. The odd thing about them is that they can tile a plane but in a far more complicated way than ordinary tiles, in that the symmetry they produce is non-periodic and 'irregular'. This can best be seen in a diagram of one form of it:

Note the interesting crypto-dynamics of the pattern produced as an effect of the unusual 'five-fold' symmetry of the tiling on the brain. The impossible 'non-Euclidean' geometries of the Escher paradox drawings are also sometimes based on this effect. It gives the impression of other dimensions emerging from the plane, and this as we shall discover is the key to it. Before Penrose discovered this kind of tiling it was said to be impossible to produce gapless tiling with five-fold symmetry due to the nature of geometric space (only special numbered symmetries being possible in this respect). Just as there was no such thing as a Platonic Solid with five-fold symmetry due to the three dimensionality of normal space. But Penrose demonstrated this was wrong, and did so by using formuli that modeled in more than three dimensions. In fact Penrose tiling can only be mathematically generated by assuming a fourth dimension of space (or a fifth dimension when time is included). This was initially held to be an abstract curiosity with no relevance to actual reality, until the mid 1970s when 'quasi-crystals' were discovered. Crystals whose lattice structure demonstrated 'impossible' five-fold symmetry. The consequences of which are still highly controversial and under intense debate. One extreme consequence is that the crystals exist in more than the normal four dimensions of Space-Time, but few are prepared to accept this (an unusual folding and sharing of atoms is normally suggested to avoid this, and appears to be true in some cases). A less extreme consequence, but one no less startling, is that the individual atoms that make up the crystal must 'know' where they are supposed to go! This is because in normal crystals the regular periodicity of the lattice allows a simple alternating pattern, with atoms forming the crystal arriving one at a time and positioning themselves in relation to the atom of the crystal at the point where thay 'latch on'. But with quasi-crystals this linear Newtonian theory is not possible, as each atom has to instantly orientate itself in relation to distant atoms, and to some extent in relation to the crystal as a whole, in theory even if that crystal is a light year across! Penrose himself argues that this could only happen if the system is operating quantum mechanically and that the forming crystal is in superposition (consisting of every possible configuration at same the time with each atom entangled with the other), with each atom 'knowing' where to go, in the same sence photons 'know' where to go when let through the famous double slit interference experiment one at a time. He argues that this superposition collapses into its manifest form when the crystal grows to a non quantum size. This in itself is controversial and the argument here has obscured the more extreme hyperdimensional interpretation of the crystals. This is explained very concisely here - http://goldennumber.net/penrose.htm

Relating this back to the Lovecraftian Physics above it is easy to imagine that the Geons of Space-Time could have the form of 3D Penrose Tiles. If so Time-Space may in fact have at least five dimensions and the Tiles then be 4D Non-Platonic Solids. This might also be cause of the emergence of non-Euclidean curvatures on a macroscopic scales from such 4D angular tiling on the microscopic scale.

Architecture based on this geometry might be said to somehow uniquely align itself to the true geometry of Space-Time, along with its higher dimensions. It thus could be said (with a considerable, but not impossible, stretch of the imagination!) to also be aligning itself in some way with other dimensions, and generating some form of resonance that brings them into play within our 'normally' 3D reality. It could have been this novel thesis which HPL intuited in his bizarre synthesis of QM, architecture and magick. It certainly seems plausible, if only just! The proof of the pudding is in the eating of course, and all magicians know that such geometry really does evoke. Further indications that something like this may have been in the mind of HPL is his use of the Shining Trapezohedron as a window into the realm of the Old Ones. There are 8 main forms of Trapezohedron, one of which is the Pentagonal Trapezohedron, more familiar as the 10 sided dice used in some games. The faces of which are 2D Penrose Tiles. This pentagonal geometry could be unique to our Cosmos, like other constants, with other universes having other geometries, a useful navigational feature.

However even if this incredible conjecture were true there would have to be more to it than this. Lovecraft suggests that a psychological factors (including visualisations, incantations and energetic unconscious processes) play a role angular portal generation and use, particularly as regards to activation and navigation, and that this works to some extent even in symbolic representations of the angles (as in glyphs carved on walls or floors). This seems to take us firmly back into the realm of magick rather than science. But even here a psycho-physical explanation is possible. But this will require a brief look at a century of conceptual analysis in Quantum Mechanics!


The Current Philosophical State of Quantum Mechanics

There are basically two incompatable ways to understand QM. One in which a mathematical probability 'wave function' - representing two, or more, mutually exclusive states existing simultaneously in 'superposition' - 'collapses' leading to 'ordinary reality' where only one state 'exists', and another thesis in which the wave function does not collapse, so the superposition remains, but we only become aware of one state. The decisive factor in both cases is experimental measurement. Both views face enormous conceptual problems. In thesis one the mysterious process idly refered to with the handy soundbite 'wavefunction collapse' is entirely mysterious, and seems to imply an unheard of change in a fundamental law of nature, under the direction of an unchanging even more fundamental law! This is so totally unlike anything else we have ever experienced, or even concieved of, that it is perhaps totally incomprehensible and unknowable. Such a novel process would involve some new (meta)physical force, a unique influence on matter, and the laws of nature themselves, found nowhere else, or the uncharacteristic behaviour of a familiar force, neither of these have high probability weightings at present. This has led many to argue that the wavefunction just is and never goes away, much like the formula for the area of a circle, an irreducible mathematical description of reality requiring no further explanation. The most popular version of this position is the Many Worlds multiverse concept. Where the wave function describes a Multiverse with several Space-Time branches (effectively parallel universes) one of which we enter after a measurement is made. The wavefunction thus applies as we approach a branching, but not after we enter it, even though it never actually collapses or changes at all. The big problem with this is that quantum events are reversible even after branching, and the two alternative realities can in theory still interact because the wavefunction still applies. But how can two branches, essentially two distinct Space-Time continuums seperating out actually interact, or even achieve Space-Time conjunction, when in disjunction? No cross world interaction seems possible in this model. Moreover if the branches consist of complete continuums, meaning the totality of all possible dimensionality, what dimension are they branching into exactly!? We can invoke 'hyperspace' for this role, but this may us further problems of a runaway infinity of nested hyperspaces (which is also a problem for Relativity). This leads to ideas of parallel 'ghost' states in a single universe, rather than several disconnected worlds in a partioned multiverse, but what these are and how they interact, or stop interacting, is totally mysterious. These conceptual problems may not be insurmountable but they are serious problems, and we cannot wiggle out of them by rejecting rational solutions like religious nutters.

The long held belief that Quantum Mechanics is applicable only at the microscopic level and does not apply at the macroscopic level has been seen by many as the clue to the mystery. The obvious thing to do being to identify the difference between the two realms. However there only seems to be two differences, a difference of scale and a difference of experience or sensibility. The former can be subdivided into a problem involving the mass statistics for large numbers of particles, or one of just gravitational mass. The statistical arguement involved probabilities, and suggested that because weird quantum phenomena were statistically rare we can see them occassionally in single particle interactions, but never in events involving masses of particles, which were based on averages. The problem with this is that we now know that 'weird quantum phenomena' are not rare at all but are actually the norm in the lab (the probabilty curve seems longer and flatter today, the very opposite of the wave collapse), and even traditionally 'normal' or commonplace states, like 'having a location', can appear in superposition, and so mass statistics will not effect this, as it will apply to every particle half the time. The other alternative is that it is sufficient mass which has the switching effect. This has led some, such as Roger Penrose, to suggest ideas along the lines that some 'unknown factor' in an 'undiscovered link' between QM and Relativity Theory causes a 'law switch' passed a certain mass, or collapses the wavefunction in some sence. But on close examination these statements actually say nothing at all, other than 'QM doesn't work at the macro level', and we knew that already, so it adds nothing but further mystification. All that seems to remain is sensibility or the ability of direct experiencability. And here focus usually shifts to the 'results of observation' or the effects of 'the measurement problem'. This is also difficult to grasp in terms of what it means. Measurement certainly does not 'disrupt' the process through interaction, as experiments have carefully screened this possibility out. Some have suggested that the 'observer collapses the wavefunction', implying a role for conscious perception, a hidden variable in the equation, 'to be is to be percieved', as Bishop Berkeley said, but if this were true we would all be living in our own very different solipsistic worlds, as my perception might be different to someone else's, so this is usually rejected (Berkeley evoked God as the referee, but this is obviously absurd). The Many Worlds approach is the main arguement of those who reject any place for consciousness in Quantum Mechanics, maintaining an independent completely physicalist reality in the form of the multiverse. Though as we've seen this doesn't really work in its present form either (though this hasn't stopped well funded reductive materialists, like David Deutsch, from flogging a dead horse). As it turns out the belief that QM only applies at the micro level is probably false after all so all the above tends to be based on a false premise. Quantum Mechanics is regarded by some as a cul de sac due to these huge problems. However it is the only scientific theory ever to be near 100 percent accurate in its predictions and so cannot really be rejected! It is likely that all of the above attempts at rationalising the mystery contain an element of truth but are misconcieved.

However there is a very interesting alternative that may solve many of these problems, and also finally shed light on our original analysis of Lovecraft's Psycho-Physics.

Decoherence and Entanglement

The latest approach is called Decoherence Theory and is based on the strict realist intuition that the equations of QM are the most accurate in science and therefore the best reflection of reality, and that the Wave Function is a 'mathematical truth' that always applies and never really collapses. This means that real Physics is Quantum Physics and that it applies at every scale, and has something in common with the multiple 'ghost worlds' view. The key to the realisation of everyday reality from quantum weirdness is said to be 'entanglement' and the ordering principle 'consistent history'.

According to the Schroedinger eqaution the quantum variables of any particles that become linked in a physical system are from then always linked for as long as they remain in superposition and the informational transfer between them is instantaneous or 'transluminal'. Their interaction being 'non-local' and not a 'normal physical interaction'. This means for instance two electrons emerging from a single quantum event, whose up or down spin is undetermined, and in a superposition of either possibility, will be permanently linked even if they end up on either side of the universe. So that the resolution of the spin of one electron through measurement instantly effects the other in the opposite direction. This is a well known thought experiment which once seemed exotic, but now entanglement seems to be the norm in quantum effected systems and not the rarity this example suggests. This has led to the notion that quantum measurement is actually an entanglement event. That is that a superpositional particle when measured becomes part of a 'measurement system' and thus entangled with the particles making up the measuring device, which in turn is entangled with many other quantum systems in the environment. But because the environment requires a 'consistent history' (a logically consistent account of a series of interrelated events in a single story) the most 'logical combination of values' for all the superpositional states involved causes them all to 'fall in line' and 'become classical'. Oddly the influence here is not from the measuring instrument onto the measured particle (as is normally assumed), but from the particle onto the instrument which enters a superposition itself due to the measurement (or perhaps is maintained in one). However the superposition of the instrument is constrained by the fact it is macroscopic and so simultaneously entangled with billlions of other quantum events, and these have the effect of averaging out into the most logical overall symmetrical pattern, thus causing the instrument to 'become classical'. This in turn feeds back to the measured particle which falls in line with the macro-entaglement. The same could occur to any superpositional particle that interacts with a large scale system, not just a measuring event. The mathematical details of this are still being calculated, but conceptually this appears to be unproblematic and is consistent with all known observations and equational predictions. The consequence of it being that if a bus could be shielded from quantum entanglement with its environment it would become superpositional, behave like a quantum particle and do equally impossible things!

There is of course still a bizarre consequence even in this thesis. That is because the wave function remains and doesn't collapse (it can't in this theory) the change to classical physics has to be said to be an 'illusion' and the 'reality' is still the superposition. So in effect we are talking about the 'ghost worlds' again only one of which becomes 'real for us' in the 'history' we operate in. As some physicists put it 'the other superpositions still exist, and can interact, they are just not really there'! What ever this state might mean it is called Decoherence, because the coherent equilibrium of superpositions is disrupted into a disequilibrium in which one state becomes real for those interacting with it in a given history (but only for them). This is like a 'wave function collapse' that only applies locally while the eqaution remains intact globally, a relativistic Quantum Mechanics! There is thus still a little mystery involved.

The other unaccounted for fact is why the macrocosmos has to be 'logical consistent' in a way accessible to human reason. When logical consistency seems simply a property of human language and rational minds. Mainstream Decoherentists have no problem with this as they are essentially Pythagoreans, believing reality is founded on logical laws and mathematical truths. Those that wisely reject this view have to find another explanation.


Psycho-Physics and Magick

An obvious solution is that the rational structure of our experienced 'history' is partly imposed by the rational structures of our minds. Thus species that have a similarly ordered nervous system will experience the same ordering of reality. Though note this must be a dialectical relation beyond linear time, as the nervous system is the product of a consistent history in turn. The two are thus now locked into each other within our particular history. This ordering only effects the constructed reality of the macroworld that we experience through our sences though, and not the quantum reality level (until the two interact). But the ordering of a history is about more than logical structure, it is also about arbitrary rules of possibility and their closely related stablising 'constants', and memories of prior history (if more than one logical timeline is possible). All of these seem to be in the realm of belief, or more precisely of cognitive states. We need to know 'what reality is' before we experience it, and so in a sence create it with our 'true beliefs' or 'certainties'. Thus again consciousness is shaping the macroworld. However this is not to say cranky New Age ideas like the shaping of reality through belief or 'positive thinking' are true, nor is it the same as the solipsistic 'observer effect', because the location of the cognitive states is not the mind of any individual but rather the 'species mind', the collective knowledge and 'facts' aquired by the human race. Some of which may be neuro-genetically hardwired, and likewise dialectically locked into reality. The only optimistic position in this is the plasticity of the human constitution and the fact that collective knowledge is merely the sum of individual belief. If culture plays a role in this, as it possibly does, then micro-cultures may be able to create local cognitive norms that effect local reality to some extent, and powerful individuals or small groups may even be able to generate a temporary group consensus that operates in a similar way. Trusted subcultures, such as religions, could shift an entire culture's beliefs, and maybe even human cognition as a whole. This will not be easy however as the species norms will be strongly inertial. Any effects would probably be felt as a shift in probability or strange coincidences. An easy alternative might be a local derrangement of the senses or confusion that seeks to disrupt the 'consensus reality', or a deliberate derationalisation that disrupts order. Perhaps explaining why weird 'paranormal' phenomena are allegedly common in asylums. Successful magick may be using a combination of both these techniques.

But how could such a thing be possible within a purely physical theory? The answer is it isn't, so purely physical theory must be wrong.
We've already seen it doesn't work without deploying absurd Pythagorean ideas (pun intended). The answer I think is that the 'mental space' of our consciousness is that other dimension that the Penrose Tilings infer, it is the 5th dimension. In other words objects must exist in 'cognitive space', with its own 'information fields', before they fully manifest to us (though may still exist without this). Just as 3D objects must exist in our 4th dimensional time frame before they are experienced by us (though obviously once existed, or will exist, some time, and so in Relativity Theory do exist in an eternal 'now', but are just not present to some people). Existant things that arent really there being mere ghosts otherwise (and the past and future really can influence the present in quantum reality). Thus some impossible crystal formations only appear (or have their wavefunction locally collapse) when enough people believe them possible. The fact that in these cases 'enough people' is often a tiny scientific community may indicate the above comments on micro-cultural effects (and the power of certain micro-cultures in human society etc) may be spot on. If so there may be a direct parallel between the idea of special entanglement properties of physical systems and a special property of micro-cultures as 'cognitive' or 'informational systems'. It seems also likely that this same 5th Dimension is the direction space curves in and so is in effect hyperspace, and is also the 'way into' the realm of quantum chaos, as well as the medium through which entanglement operates. Confirming Lovecraft's identification of the two. If it is also a 'gravitational dimension' it may also correlate to the 4th spatial dimension of Superstring theory interconnecting different membranes or Space-Time continuums, as well as the mysterious 'Implicate Order' of Bohm's Holistic Physics.

Thus in conclusion the psychological factors of Magick may play a role in 'cognitive space' as much as the physical factors do in 'ordinary space'. Emotion being its 'energy', desire and will its 'forces', images its 'forms' and ideas its 'matter'. Though such a Psycho-Physics has yet to be developed in detail and further analysis beyond the scope of this essay.

Speculation remains possible however and Lovecraft's stories are not short of them. For instance the secret alphabet called the Aklo, not only seems to be a symbol system like the Runes, or any magical alphabet, that archetypally activates certain ancient human conceptual archetypes and so influences 'cognitive space'. But if it is the same as the 'angular marks' of the Witch House, and the 'geometrical symbols' of the Mi-Go, it might also be psycho-physically linked to the 'physical effects' of the real angles. Thus a symbollically reversed, inverted pentagram (point up) can become a conceptual image of a closure of gates rather than an opening of them, empowering symbols like the Elder Sign and the Banishing Pentagram. But how such structures in 'cognitive space' might influence structures in 'normal space' remains a mystery to be solved by a future science. For now we can just say it is possible, and develop vague hypotheses for pragmatic deployment.