Cthulhu

Cthulhu (pronounced "Khlûl'hloo" or "Kathooloo") Other spellings: Kutulu, Ktulu, Cthulu, Kthulhut, Thu Thu, Tulu.

Pre-Judeo-Christian deity/demon whose influence extended from the Middle East (in areas now under Islamic control) to Greenland, China and New Zealand. Variously described as a "sleeping" or "dreaming" creature whose followers thought spoke to them in dreams, though scholars aren't sure.

The uncertainty arises as very little first-hand information about Cthulhu still exists. Supposedly the 7th Century A.D. Islamic writer Abdul Alhazred(Abd-el-Hazred, عبدالله الحظرد, "he prohibited.") wrote an influential book about Cthulhu and its rites in 738 A.D. titled "al-Azif." The book was purportedly translated into Greek and circulated to various parts of the world, but this is believed to be false, as Alhazred's 13th Century biographer Ibn Khallikan said al-Azif was declared to be an evil book by the then ruling Islamic Caliphate, with all copies subsequently burned.

It was believed that Cthulhu worship died out as a result of these efforts, as there is little mention of any parishioners in subsequent Catholic or Protestant writings. The Malleus Maleficarum (The Witch Hammer) a guidebook published in 1486 to help priests and laity in Biblically dealing with witches and witchcraft, makes no mention of Cthulhu or its followers.

However in 1926, during a period of massive unrestricted immigration to the United States, investigative journalist Howard P. Lovecraft published an article about the sudden appearance of American versions of the cult in Massachusetts and Louisiana. The article, titled "The Call of Cthulhu," is a first person retelling of his findings. The article can be found in-print today.

Over the ensuing years, Hollywood as well as popular novelists have kept Cthulhu "alive" in numerous written stories, games, TV shows and movies, by combining real (and dangerous) rites recounted by Lovecraft with fictional ones of their own creation. This only contributes to the confusion regarding what "Cthulhu" really is.