I make no secret of my fascination with the paratexts that grow up around religions, both factual and fictional (a distinction that I think needs troubling). I've just finished reading a piece by Lovecraft scholar Robert M. Price about the various canonical, apocryphal, and pseudepigraphical pieces of sacred writing in the volumes of the Cthulhu Mythos, and it got me thinking of where such independently published, or small press published, texts fit into these distinctions.
I discovered these lovely little cards in various books that came into my used book shop in 2001. A large proportion of my initial donations for the store came from a priest who was retiring from very active service and wanted to downsize his library, and I get the suspicion that these were bookmarks he'd used. The top one is the oldest piece in this collection, dating from 1903, with the subsequent two from a decade later. I think these are beautiful little bits of religious art, and I keep my eyes open for more. Two of them have the name "Agnes" written across the top, perhaps indicating that, regardless of the subject matter of collectible cards, those who possess them are adamant about their ownership!
A couple of years ago I was riding the train to school, and I caught sight of this little pamphlet sitting on a seat next to someone across from me. Immediately I realized I was looking at one of the great oddities of the comic book world, a
Chick Tract. These evangelical little comics are famed for being both deeply disturbing and, unintentionally, hilariously bad. While I was growing up in the 80s, the "Dark Dungeons" issue, a paranoid denunciation of
Dungeons & Dragons, was a well-known and well-mocked example of these pieces. Just before I got off the train, I actually ventured to ask the young man sitting next to it if it belonged to him, to which he replied in the negative. And so I acquired my first Chick Tract in a very cool way, as if it had been left, either as addition to my collection, or warning against my sins. (I haven't scanned the whole thing, just bits that I thought were interesting.)
I'll just offer one more piece today, otherwise this post will run long. Where the
Golden Text cards were in books, and the Chick Tract was on the train, I found this next piece sitting in an icy puddle while walking down Kensington Street in Calgary. I brought it home, dried it out, and gave it a read, and it immediately found a place in my heart. I don't want to imply that it converted me or anything, only that these sorts of independent writings, printed at home and posted or distributed with the fervent desire to spread helpful truth, are amongst the most earnest and valuable religious writings in some ways. Many creeds will propose that the truest way to salvation is to have a personal relationship with whatever deity presides over one's faith. Writing such as this are testaments to that personal relationship.
I'm afraid I can't comment on the strength of Ashmore's exegesis here, but that he was driven to produce such exegesis speaks volumes (and, should he ever see this, I hope he doesn't mind me posting it, and takes my thoughts on it in the spirit they're intended, as praise). This is the work of someone figuring for himself how to fit himself into the typological narrative of the Bible and the dogma that has grown up about it. There is something genuine about it, something lacking in much of the more polished and produced religious exegesis that is popularly available.
Going back to Price's look at the texts of the Lovecraft Mythos' fictional religion, he leaves out these kinds of works, though perhaps in the case of the first two examples, it's because the fictional religion is meant to be a secret. Ashmore's work on the Bible comes closer to the exegetic texts Price describes in another article on the various sorts of books that populate the Lovecraftian Mythos, a working out of meaning and connotation, and one's place within it.
As the title notes, this is part 1 of this collection. I'll come back with more in the near future.
