Dear Professor Beckford,
my name is Sheldon Owens and I am writing to discuss some considerations of mine, supported by personal experience about some of the topics you displayed during your speech at the conference on “Lovecraft and the dreamlike symbols in the Necronomicon”.
During your speech you claimed, quote, “being the whole Lovecraftian pantheon a complex and very structured metaphor of the inner reality and anxieties of the writer, even the known doors opened wide by the ever named Arabic poet Abdul Alhazread, who, alone, would dare to glance into the cosmic horror abyss, losing this way his mental health, is to be equally considered a metaphor of the doorstep keeping the fragile mental balance of the writer away from the same madness which had taken on their turn both his parents”.
Dear professor, I may agree with you that fantasy was, for the solitary in Providence, an important salvation anchor against the abyss of madness in which he would fall if he did not start to put on paper his nightmares, finding in narration a way to expel them from his mind.
Indeed, his fervent fantasy allowed the author to live, in his short life, a nearly normal existence leaving us this way the literary heritage as we know it.
The point on which I disagree with your, please allow me to say, sceptical positions which pushed me to write today is that those doors you claim to be only a literary invention, those doors exist.
If my impressions did not misfit me I guess you already get on your face that smile of yours partly ironic, partly despising you showed on more than one occasion during your speech while answering the questions coming from the floor.
Believe me, professor, I do not mean to criticize you. I am getting in contact only to submit to your attention the evidence that at least some of the things Lovecraft wrote about were and are not just literary inventions.
I am not referring of course to the pnakotic writings or Kutu’s small boards. I am referring as mentioned above, to the doors existing between this level of existence of ours and others not belonging to the realm of matter as we know it.
For years I collected data and witnessings on the so-called paranormal events connected to parapsychology which is trying to leave the realm of superstition to enter the scientific one as evidenced by the existence of the department of parapsychology at Edinburgh University. However, the most surprising and baffling data, though supported by different witnessings remain scientifically inexplicable.
One too many times I read and heard of unwise and inexperienced people, ignorant or supposedly pedantic who played with things they did not understand and unleashed forces they did not comprehend, beyond their control.
The game, played by children searching for fun using simply written paper and a plastic cup, the pseudo mystic sessions acted using the ouija board by individuals looking for answers regarding the afterlife, improvised seances done by a group of friends at the end of a different night of fun...
All these things, professor, are not games, these are all ceremonies that are done for fun or maybe for a joke, really open doors between this world and the other and you can never know who or what is answering the summon is actually who or what they claim to be.
I spoke rightly of an answer, professor. Just the scepticism you also carry with you is one of the reasons why too often people end up playing with dangers beyond imagination.
It is never, as a matter of fact, whatever the used object is, to make the channel connecting different dimensions but the will of the people to communicate. That is one of the reasons why, for example, during a séance, the circle of hands should not be broken not to lose contact.
As regards who answer the summon...
Nobody can say where we go after leaving this plane of existence and it takes great faith only to suppose there are others.
Different witnessings suggest, however, that if a person is not ready to leave this level of conscience, they may wander for an indefinite time in an intermediate dimension between this and the next level of existence where they are aware of what they have lost without the chance to leave this life behind and go on.
I realize too many cinema productions have used so much of this kind of knowledge, reducing it to a sort of fiction completely overlooking the fact, because it is a fact, that what we are talking about is not fiction at all.
When a door is open, a channel is created, making a sort of crevice between two different dimensions, you never know who can answer. Usually not the spirit of the summoned person. Maybe someone caught in the intermediate level desperately trying to return to a reality they do not belong anymore, suffering for that in a way we can not even imagine and often so transforming that pain into something real and negative, something that will manifest itself in a strange, bizarre or terrible way.
Or some other kind of entity could use the same channel to enter this level of reality for purposes I prefer leaving to the fantasy of writers.
The truth seems to be, those who leave this life do not have or should not have a reason to try returning.
I do realize my words could work as a catalyst instead of warning people not to roam dark paths.
So, professor, if my words have somewhat touched your attention, please, keep on revealing the secrets of a literary mind, but do not doubt the fact that Lovecraft, willing or not, really left a warning that is far better to keep in mind and respect: never try opening those doors, never approach them with a detached attitude. Never play with things larger than us.
I respectfully urge you to use a minimum of respect towards the unavoidable destiny that is part of human life.
After that, I leave you returning to your, I hope, many important things. Hope they are so many and so important that you never need to return to this subject.
Apologies for the disturbance given to you by the concerns of an old man, whose main occupation, after so many years devoted to the study of death, consists of enjoying as much as possible the little joys of what remains of his life, here I leave you with my
Kindest regards
Sheldon Owens
