- One of the most alluring themes in HP Lovecraft’s mythos is the concept of “knowledge that drives you insane”
- People often think of this as creepy mind-control magic, but indoctrination is a more apt analogy
- People who read “red-pill” forums and see everything in terms of sexuality and sexual conquest
- People who become heavily influenced by gender studies and start seeing everything in terms of intersectional oppression
- People in the rationalist community have deified abstract forces like Moloch or Ra
- While Moloch and Ra are impersonal forces, we can explore what happens when people give themselves over entirely to these sorts of impersonal forces
- Each Lovecraftian being can be seen as the symbol of a “mind-consuming belief” - a belief that is so powerful it can completely redefine your values
- Being of fire, imprisoned in a star
- Worshipped by people who believe that there is an essence that makes each person who they are, and as long as that essence is preserved, the person is preserved
- This is the god of the anti-deathism movement
- People who believe in uploading are especially strongly aligned with Cthuga
- People aligned with Cthuga want to meet other people as minds, not bodies - intensely extraverted in online spaces while being introverted in reality
- Cthuga views people as a collection of memes and masks - the space most aligned with Cthuga today would be 4Chan
- Yog Sothoth is an endless mass of glowing orbs, eyes, and tendrils
- The egregore representing natural laws
- Represents the miracle of “fine tuning” (i.e. that the fundamental constants of the universe are precisely those that allow intelligent life to develop)
- Yog Sothoth is the promise that mysteries of the universe can be known
- People strongly interested in understanding the world for the sake of understanding itself are aligned with Yog Sothoth
- Hastur is the god of Grand Narratives
- Manifests as a character in a play: The King In Yellow
- Symbol of stories that are more important than reality
- People aligned with Hastur are those who wish their lives would be part of some kind of epic story
- Hastur’s promise is that your life can have the same level of epic meaning as that of the protagonist in a story
- Ithaqua is the egregore of isolation and introspection
- It is the spirit of self-expression, of doing your own thing not because society approves of it or it brings you some practical benefit, but because it is the thing you want to do
- Ithaqua and Cthuga oppose each other - Cthuga values community and communication, whereas Ithaqua values isolation and introspection
- Ithaqua pushes for having one or two very strong connections, whereas Cthuga pushes for many weak connections
- Those aligned with Ithaqua value personal autonomy above all else
- Cthulhu is by far the most famous of the egregores
- Cthulhu’s worshippers have faith that their god will one day awaken and set them over the rest of the world
- This closely corresponds to the faith in the eventual victory of one’s tribe or nation in tribalism and nationalism
- The notion of a “silent majority” supporting your position is very closely aligned with the notion of a sleeping Cthulhu
- Cthulhu is the egregore of sentimentality, chauvinism, and “my country right or wrong”
- Shub Niggurath is the egregore of “animalistic” drives
- Not just lust and hunger, but also mercy and compassion
- People aligned with Shub Niggurath see the civilization as a thin veneer over people’s primal drives
- People who want to destroy civilization and return to a more “pure” state of nature are aligned with Shub Niggurath
- This includes both eco-terrorists and people who idolize Tyler Durden
- Nyarlythotep is the egregore of manipulation
- Not just book-smart like Yog Sothoth, but clever - can make people pay attention to them and convince them with words
- People aligned with Nyarlythotep value “elegant” social engineering of “crude” brute force
- Values manipulation for its own sake, because it’s fun and challenging
- Worst and most powerful entity of the Lovecraft mythos
- Knowledge that everything is an approximation, and thus, a lie
- People aligned with Azathoth are people who’ve been let down by models
- People who insist on dealing with the full complexity of the world, even when working with simplified models would make them happier or more effective
- Azathoth is also the knowledge that the world is meaningless and that all attempts bring meaning are convenient lies we tell ourselves
- Devotees of Azathoth are active nihilists, in that the deliberately oppose any attempts to impose meaning on the world or on natural processes
- Tsathoggua is the last and least threatening of egregores
- Represents the spirit of not caring
- Ultimate disaffected hipster
- While all the other egregores have serious, intense worldviews, Tsathoggua sits back and uses its wit and irony to make fun of them
- Charming in small doses and addictive in large doses
- Tsathoggua and Azathoth are both nihilist egregores, but while Azathoth is an active nihilist, Tsathoggua is a passive nihilist
- Tsathoggua will make fun of you for trying to introduce meaning, but won’t try to stop you, unlike Azathoth