Wednesday, June 17, 2015

I've been out of the habit of reviewing books for quite some time, but this one was so good that the following review practically wrote itself in my mind, out of pure zeal for the contents! Now check out my Amazon review for When the Stars Are Right: Towards An Authentic R'lyehian Spirituality, by Scott R Jones, reprinted below....

The Stars Are Definitely Right!

Scott R Jones' When the Stars Are Right: Towards an Authentic R'lyehian Spirituality is quite literally the most fascinating and thought provoking book I have read in years. This is not a book for the faux-Cultist looking to summon Yog-Sothoth; this is a book for the real 'cultist' looking to explore and even embrace the primal energies—ideas—forces—Truths—that lie beneath the fictional entity. Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Cthulhu—all easily function as fictional names for very real concepts: Chaos, The Unknown, the ultimate insignificance of humanity, even the non-existence of what we think of as The Self.... The average person, when confronted with the question: Is Cthulhu real?, would say, 'Of course not!' Well...this tome takes one on a provocative journey into the Abyss, and shows how—yes—Big C is real....

Above all, this very serious and, in my estimation, extremely successful attempt at organizing something that may be called a 'R'lyehian' spirituality is a book for the thinking man (or woman!). Whether one has a thorough understanding, or any at all, of Lovecraft's fiction or not, all are sure to be challenged, mentally stretched, even—entertained!

When one gets down to it, Scott Jones has in this book brilliantly done what it is man's nature to do: taken primal concepts, given them names (borrowed from Lovecraft, though really it's irrelevant WHERE the names come from, the underlying Concepts being the core of the matter), and arranged them into a System that helps us think about the universe—just one more Lens through which to view the vast and largely unknowable cosmos.

And I, for one, found it Really. Damn. Interesting.

Come one, come all, the curious, the intrigued, the philosophers—hell, even the plain ol' Lovecraft devotees! Come! And learn what it is to experience The Black Gnosis....

Your life will change, people—mine did.

IA!

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