“He mentioned the establishment of
the Dynasty in Carcosa, the lakes which connected Hastur, Aldebaran and the
mystery of the Hyades.”
-Robert W.
Chambers
Way back when, through both “An
Inhabitant of Carcosa” (1891) and “Haïta the Shepherd” (1891), both published in the book Can Such Things Be?, Ambrose Bierce may, or
may not, have given us a brief, vague intertextual mythology which actually
tells us very little: there is an ancient city named Carcosa, a prophet called
Hali, a god of shepherds whose name is Hastur. Or did he? There is actually no
true connection between both stories, other than having appeared in the same
book.
Years later, Robert W. Chambers
borrowed all these names for his sole, unforgettable, incursion in weird
fiction, in the series of stories which comprise his book The King in Yellow (1895). Here, the stories are loosely connected
by these elements; a few stories allude to a strange play also titled The King in Yellow, which describes
Carcosa as an unnatural city whose spires rise beyond the Moon, Hali not as a
prophet but apparently as a cloudy lake, Hastur ambiguously may be a place, a
deity, or –in yet another story- a human character. Other equally-ambiguous
characters and places join the cast: Demhe, Yhtill, Aldones, and Camilla and
Cassilda, who –in one of the few quotes from the mysterious play- talk to a
Stranger during a masquerade:
Camilla:
You, sir, should unmask.
Stranger:
Indeed?
Cassilda:
Indeed, it's time. We have all laid aside disguise but you.
Stranger:
I wear no mask.
Camilla:
(Terrified, aside to Cassilda.) No
mask? No mask!
I am going over some of the elements
in Bierce and Chambers’ stories only briefly, in order to set the cards upon
the table, so to speak; much more can be said –and has been said-about these
stories and their contents, and the grouped elements and names have given birth
to several literary storylines, vastly different between each other, such as
the straightforward Lovecraftian horror in August Derleth’s development of
Hastur as a Lovecraftian “Old One,” the sword & sorcery dynasties developed
from Chambers by Marion Zimmer Bradley who chose, in her endless Darkover series, to filter out any and all
horrifying overtones, or the Chambers-inspired reconstructions of the King in
Yellow Mythos in such diverse hands and styles as James Blish, Thomas Ryng,
Joseph S. Pulver, and many others (even my own El último relato de Ambrose Bierce / El grito de la máscara), including attempts at reconstructing the
fabled play.
Now, besides the fascinating,
suggestive names juggled by Bierce and Chambers, other elements are found in
these stories: certain star cluster from the constellation of Taurus, the
Hyades, and the bright star Aldebaran, which are specifically seen in plain day
on the sky by Bierce’s inhabitant of Carcosa, and are later mentioned alongside
Carcosa, Hastur, Cassilda and the Stranger in some of Chambers’ stories, where
they are apparently mentioned in the cursed play.
I wish to stress certain key
elements in both Bierce and Chambers: Hastur the god of Shepherds, Aldebaran
and the Hyades, and the Stranger. And I now suggest that what follows may be
Ambrose Bierce’s inspiration for Hastur and mentioning said stars, and that
Chambers was aware of this source and expanded upon it when he added the
Stranger to his personal mythology.
Allow me to stray a bit from our
main subject in order to introduce you to J.M. Ragón. José María Ragón was a
French erudite, a Freemason of great renown and particularly of note as a
Masonic writer. Born in Braysur-Seine (Seine et Marne) on February 25, 1781 and
died in Paris in 1862 when he was 81 years old and at 60 years after his initiation
to Freemasonry. After being a very Young tax collector in Bruges (Lys), where
he was initiated in 1803, he became chief of the Inner Ministry in 1814, then
moving to Paris, where he would later found the three Trinosophos Masonic
workshops, which would develop into one of the foremost lodges in Paris, with
Ragón as Venerable president for many years. Ragón was well-traveled and worked
hard on networking with Freemasons worldwide, especially in America; he
eventually collected over 400 rituals and other documents, which he drew from
to write abundant essays and books which have also been widely read in Latin
America. Ragón contributed actively to all the reformations in the Grand Orient,
which he strongly endorsed, and particularly those reformations focused in the introduction
and propagation of the Rite of Misraim in France.
Now, allow me to quote extensively
from J.M. Ragón’s Philosophical Course of Ancient and Modern Initiations (my
translation from the Spanish version; cursives are Ragón’s, bolds are mine;
I’ll rejoin you after you read this passage:
“For the same reason, it is said
that the Greater Bear, the Lion and Bacchus’ Tiger, or the celestial Wolf
spoken of in the ancient rites, walk in concert westward with the sun, that is
with the Scorpion, and guard the
entrance to the cavern, because they are still on the edge of the horizon when
the sun is no longer seen.
“When discussing the degree of master
we have demonstrated the identity between the sun and Hiram; starting off from
this undeniable starting point we may easily find in all the accessory elements
of the degree of elect a perfect
astronomical theme, which will tell us in an obvious manner the time of the
year with which it is related and will facilitate the understanding of useful
truths.
“We have seen already that the three
assassins are none but the three signs of autumn which cause the death of the
sun. The name Abi Balah (the father’s
murderer) with which the one with greater guilt is known, sufficiently designates
the Saggitarius, constellation which
slays the sun, itself father of all things (rerum
omnium pater). Let us follow along the path we’ve started, which shall lead
us to the complete interpretation of the allegory.
“The culprits retreat after
performing the crime to the edge of the sea, near Joppé, city situated West of
Jerusalem. Now, everybody knows that all the ancient peoples believed the Western sea to be the lower
portion of the skies, where the stars end their race and disappear from sight. The
cavern spoken of in this degree’s legend receives the name Benacar, abode of sterility,
because the Western portion of the sky, which looks like an abyss into which
the stars plunge, was of old considered the dwelling place of death and the
place of sterility. Therefore the Egyptian Serapis
and the Greek Pluto reigned in the
West, and the Gauls believed that Britain and, therefore, the isle of Saín, situated West of the Armorican
peninsula, was the refuge of death and the dwelling place of shades.
“In this story there is a stranger
who plays a most important role. This character is astronomical, like all the
rest; he is the
star whose appearance causes the death or disappearance
into the West of Hiram’s murderers, in the same way as the mysterious star of
the magi announced the birth or appearance of the savior-god. Now, if we look
up which is the notorious star that appears in the East of the horizon at the
precise moment when the Saggitarius is
about to disappear in the West, we shall see that it is Aldebaran, which is
one of the most beautiful luminaries in the sky and the most outstanding in the
constellation of the Bull.
“The stranger was a guardian of
herds, and Aldebaran is surrounded by
Hyades, which form a group around it, while the Pleiads, situated upon the neck of the celestial Bull, form a second flock at
its sides.
“Nine masters
are elected to go in search of the
killers; Y have previously stated that these nine masters correspond to the
nine signs of winter, spring and summer, since, even though in this number are
included three lower signs, these are not considered baneful, because they do
not cause the death of the sun like the autumn signs do. The dead Christ spent only three days in the
tomb, which is to say, in the abode of death, that is in hell (the underworld),
and those three days again correspond to the three killers, or the three signs of
autumn.
“The nine elects go in search of the culprits led by the stranger and traveling
along twisted, scarcely-trodden paths. This route reminds us of that of the
Zodiac described by Ovid. Does it not seem, indeed, as if Aldebaran, which is the brightest star on the horizon, towed the
zodiacal constellations in pursuit of the Balance
and the Scorpion, which disappeared
at the moment when the Ram appeared
on the horizon and after the Saggitarius,
which dies when the Bull appears?
“Who leads Johaben along the perilous road? A dog. Here too the astronomical interpretation is perfect, since, upon
the moment when the Scorpion disappeared,
rose Phocion or Can minor over the horizon opposing the Western constellation; while
the Eridán occupies the meridional portion
of the sky. Effectively, after the death of Abibala,
Johaben drinks from a nearby fountain.
“Therefore, according to its symbols,
the degree of elect is related to the
springtime sky, a time in which the King of Nature exacts revenge upon his
enemies and rises in triumph in his sky after having succumbed to his opposers’
blows, that is, after having descended to the lowest point in his course and
disappeared from the sight of many peoples and after having been born anew to again begin his renewed
race, which is here represented by the honors and tribute commanded by Solomon
in the memory of Hiram. Meanwhile his
enemies are plunged into the abyss. This sun is the Osiris who, traitorously slain by his brother, descends unto hell,
and resurrects triumphant, himself, over Typhon,
who is the ruler of darkness and the spirit of autumn, whose main abode is the
Scorpion. This sun if Horus, who is
born, dies, and resurrects like his father; he is Hercules, who goes down into hell after having imprisoned Cerberus therein; he is the mystical Christ Sun, who descends likewise into
hell and returns therefrom as defeater of Satan
and death in the times of Easter, that is, of the passing of the sun from the
lower signs unto the higher signs.
“Everything serves here to complete
the allegory: the place where we find ourselves, due to its somber sadness, evokes
the Winter we now approach.
“Nine weeks passed before the crime
was punished; indeed, the vengeance begins halfway through the third month, when
the celestial Ram or lamb begins to
appear above the horizon. At the same time the Balance and the Scorpion sink beneath the horizon, over
which Abibala or the Sagittarius reigns still, and does not
disappear until the Bull approaches.”
I apologize for the overlong quote,
but I thought it best to cover most of the mythical and astrological context
(there is more, but this will suffice to adequately place the stranger, Aldebaran, within its mythical role).
I propose, then, that we connect the
dots. Ambrose Bierce describes, in “Haïta the Shepherd” Hastur as a god of
shepherds, “Hastur, who never disclosed himself;” it is in “An Inhabitant of
Carcosa” that he describes “through a sudden rift in the clouds Aldebaran and
the Hyades.” Truly, although he sometimes loosely connected his stories (for
example, the prophet Hali is not only mentioned in “An Inhabitant of Carcosa”
but also in “The Death of Halpin Frayser”), there is nothing truly connecting
Hastur and Aldebaran in Bierce’s own stories; however, the connection is
explicitly made by Robert W. Chambers when, drawing from all these stories,
pieces together his own ambiguous mythology. Chambers’ fictitious play, The
King in Yellow, is supposed to be a French play, and some of his stories which
deal with this subject are actually set in France, so, given that the Hiram
myth and astrological symbolism described by Ragón is presumably found in various
Masonic rites the world over, it is hardly a stretch to assume that Chambers
might have been acquainted with it –perhaps even through Ragón’s very book!-
and he might either have recognized Bierce’s vague allusions or, otherwise,
having read Bierce’s stories in a row, might have seen the parallels between
the mentions of a shepherd and those of Aldebaran and the Hyades.
In Chambers’ stories, a Stranger
plays an essential, if unclear, role, and thus, when he brings together
Bierce’s perhaps separate allusions along with this additional Stranger, it
would be a stretch to believe that he didn’t have the Masonic myth above
described in mind! If this is so, then Hastur, the shepherd god, would be the
shepherd star Aldebaran, followed by the herd of the Hyades, as well as the
mysterious Stranger himself who so terrifies Camilla and Cassilda. If this is
so, then Lovecraft might have been right when, in spite of the vague mentions
by Chambers of Hastur as both a human groundskeeper in “The Demoiselle d’Ys” and
possibly a city or place, he identifies Hastur as the object of an "accursed cult" in The Supernatural Horror in Literature.
At any rate, he would be a terrible supernatural entity who needs no mask to
participate in a masquerade. And what then is his role? A role of revenge and
punishment, like the original myth states concerning the Stranger representing
the star Aldebaran? It is a terrible thing to fall in the hands of the living
God, says Chambers. Perhaps the myth of Hiram might somehow shed light upon
Chambers’ original conception of what the never-described plot of the cursed
play, The King in Yellow, might have
been about?
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