View source for Gardner Graves Briefing Summary

OSI/SOG-22 BRIEFING SUMMARY

BRIEFING DATE: 1 MAY 1965

PRECEPTOR: GRAVES, GARDNER (codename SOLOMON, Level-1 Asset cleared by OSI/SOG-22)

SUMMARY:

In the 1920s a journalist named Howard Phillips (who had ceased using his actual surname of Lovecraft when his father died of syphilis) began having a series of dreams concerning godlike xenomorphs whose presence on earth dated back hundreds of millions of years. These beings were currently imprisoned on a makeshift parallel plane that had been created by an additional group of xenomorphs.

Throughout the 1920s and 1930s Phillips was associated group of occultists and magicians who had attended Miskatonic University. This group began modified classic magical rituals intended to invoke “demons” or “angels” and directed these rituals at the entities in Phillips' dreams. Among the rituals they attempted were seance-like sessions where participants would become possessed by an invoked entity. Phillips became incoherent with fear during one session and had to be sedated. Another associate named Ramsey Parsons became possessed by a number of demonic entities, chief among them an entity who identified itself as “Choronzon.”

The group began referring to itself the Choronzon Club. They developed their own magical rituals and styles, with a focus on achieving practical results at the expense of traditional ritual embellishment. This new approach led to derision from the larger magical and occult community, a group which tends to respect tradition over substance or result. The methods were very successful, however, and the group began to establish chapters throughout the United States. It was one of the few magical groups to survive the 1930s.

After the Atomic War, the group experienced renewed growth, particularly in the city of Los Angeles. Freddie Gumm and others were instrumental in recruiting young men through the United States. The group also established its first international chapters in the late 1950s. A number of rituals were created, but its central practice was the worship and empowerment of Choronzon.

Throughout this growth, an inner circle of magicians were maintaing secret contact with an ancient entity which referred to itself as occupying “the spaces between the spaces between.” The entity claimed to have been on earth since “before the seas were vomited.” It granted visions both beautiful and terrible to those who were able to channel it, and rewarded many with a talent at remote viewing or clairvoyance. In 1958 this group began offering ritual sacrifices to the entity, but little is known of this practice, which ceased in 1963 with the culmination of some unspoken but powerful ritual working.

Freddie Gumm had been a member of the inner circle for many years by the time he was diagnosed with cancer in 1963. He contacted the creature that summer while vacationing with his family and arranged for “eternal life in service.” The result was clearly not what Gumm had in mind: the entity transformed him into something not unlike a vampire or wendigo. As Gumm fed on human flesh, the entity would be sustained by the life energy that was released. Gumm murdered prostitutes and runaways in Los Angeles and San Francisco to quench his thirst and fulfill his bargain.

Once Gumm was thus enslaved, the entity began using him for other purposes. Gumm convinced his associates to begin a series or rituals that would create a kind of “mind share” with the entity. These new rituals were written in a secret language known only to Gumm. The ritual promised to enhance the magical and intellectual abilities of those who participated, but unknown to those involved it also gave the entity a greater and more widespread consciousness by allowing it to share their perception and memory. Ritual participants began traveling to other chapters to perform these rituals in 1964, the year GG joined Gumm's magical cell. GG understood the project was “bringing magic back to the world” and that the ritual's purpose was to “enhance magical energies of people and places.”

By late 1964 Gumm had been driven mad with pain from cancer and by the possession of the entity. He fled into the woods near Cave City during a ritual meant to contact the entity and better understand its intent. The woods were searched extensively for Gumm, but it was believed the entity could easily camouflage or even teleport him into the deep and unexplored regions of the cave system.

In early 1965 GG attempted to establish friendly contact with the Promethean Foundation (PF), but was unable to do so. In his judgment the PF team failed not only due to individual greed, selfishness, or stubbornness among its members, but one or more of the members was also a double-agent. GG thinks Magdalena Carter suffers from paranoia, probably the result of senile dementia. Carter is also obsessed with finding her brother, whom she believes to be still living and lost in some parallel dimension. In GG's opinion, the PF operatives were ill-equipped and too poorly organized to deal with a cosmic development such as this.

After the arrest of the PF operatives, GG returned to the Cave City area to attempt contact with the entity. Prior to destruction of the caverns, and without knowledge of OSI, GG entered the caverns and  achieve brief contact with the xenomorph. With the aid of the entity GG was able to reach unknown depths of the caverns. In this deep chamber GG encountered powerful magical and psionic energies as well as severe spacetime distortions. He was able to make physical contact with a substance that is thought to be a physical secretion or manifestation of this paradimensional entity into our own realm. GG obtained numerous samples of this substance, which he has made available to OSI.

Subsequent to this encounter GG discovered that certain magical or psionic activities involving time and space had become unpredictable due to the growing influence of the xenomorph. GG relocated to a residence outside the Los Angeles area, whereupon he contacted his former Harvard classmate, CIA Associate Director of Operation Geoffrey Abrams.

In addition to information about the PF operatives and the Cave City xenomorph, GG has provided intelligence to OSI/SOG-22. According to GG, a loosely organized group of occultists and magicians in the LA area plan to attempt a magical operation in the remote South Pacific. This operation will ostensibly further empower not only the Cave City xenomorph but also a number of paradimensional beings. The group has no harmful intent, believing they are merely “returning magic to the world.” OSI/SOG-22 is closely monitoring this situation under Operation Deepdish.

[[Category: GURPS Dark Jazz]]