In his essay "H. P. Lovecraft and the Cthulhu Mythos",
Robert M. Price described two stages in the development of the Cthulhu Mythos. Price called the first stage the "Cthulhu Mythos proper". This stage was formulated during Lovecraft's lifetime and was subject to his guidance. The second stage was guided by August Derleth who, in addition to publishing Lovecraft's stories after his death, attempted to categorize and expand the Mythos.
First stage An ongoing theme in Lovecraft's work is the complete irrelevance of mankind in the face of the cosmic horrors that apparently exist in the universe. Lovecraft made frequent references to the "
Great Old Ones", a loose pantheon of ancient, powerful
deities from space who once ruled the Earth and have since fallen into a deathlike sleep. Writer
Dirk W. Mosig noted that Lovecraft was a "mechanistic materialist" who embraced the philosophy of
cosmic indifferentism and believed in a purposeless, mechanical, and uncaring universe. Human beings, with their limited faculties, can never fully understand this universe, and the
cognitive dissonance caused by this revelation leads to insanity, in his view. There have been attempts at categorizing this fictional group of beings. Phillip A. Schreffler argues that by carefully scrutinizing Lovecraft's writings, a workable framework emerges that outlines the entire "pantheon"from the unreachable "Outer Ones" (e.g.,
Azathoth, who occupies the centre of the universe) and "Great Old Ones" (e.g., Cthulhu, imprisoned on Earth in the sunken city of
R'lyeh) to the lesser castes (the lowly slave
shoggoths and the
Mi-Go). David E. Schultz said Lovecraft never meant to create a canonical Mythos but rather intended his imaginary pantheon to serve merely as a background element. Lovecraft himself humorously referred to his Mythos as "Yog Sothothery" (Dirk W. Mosig coincidentally suggested the term
Yog-Sothoth Cycle of Myth be substituted for
Cthulhu Mythos). At times, Lovecraft even had to remind his readers that his Mythos creations were entirely fictional. Although the Mythos was not formalized or acknowledged between them, Lovecraft did correspond, meet in person, and share story elements with other contemporary writers including
Clark Ashton Smith,
Robert E. Howard,
Robert Bloch,
Frank Belknap Long,
Henry Kuttner,
Henry S. Whitehead, and
Fritz Leibera group referred to as the "Lovecraft Circle". For example, Robert E. Howard's character
Friedrich Von Junzt reads Lovecraft's
Necronomicon in the short story "The Children of the Night" (1931), and in turn Lovecraft mentions Howard's
Unaussprechlichen Kulten in the stories "Out of the Aeons" (
1935) and "The Shadow Out of Time" (
1936).
Second stage Price denotes the second stage's commencement with August Derleth, with the principal difference between Lovecraft and Derleth being the latter's (deeply debated) use of
hope and development of the idea that the Cthulhu Mythos essentially represented a struggle between
good and evil. Derleth said Lovecraft wished other authors would actively write about the Mythos rather than treat it as a discrete plot device within Lovecraft's own stories. Laney's essay ("The Cthulhu Mythos") was later republished in
Crypt of Cthulhu #32 (1985). In applying the elemental theory to beings that function on a cosmic scale (e.g.,
Yog-Sothoth) some authors created a fifth element that they termed
aethyr. == Fictional cults ==