Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Spirit Bottles

Joe Broers brings us some outstanding recreations of the spirit bottles from Lovecraft's "The Terrible Old Man". I love when someone comes up with an obscure prop like this.


4 comments:

CoastConFan said...

Very good. Although previously I had not made the connection, they seem to be a cross between classic voodoo spirit bottles and Lord Kelvin’s telegraph reader for the trans Atlantic cable. The current was so weak that it could not trip a regular telegraphic receiver, so Lord Kelvin produced a pendulum in a jar that oscillated to the very weak current, allowing the binary code to be read; the mirror galvanometer was invented. I wonder if Lovecraft had intended the comparison between two different technologies, or I am just speculating in vain. http://todayinsci.com/K/Kelvin_Lord/Kelvin_Lord.htm
http://www2.webster.edu/~corbetre/haiti/voodoo/overview.htm

Laura Morrigan said...

Creepy, I like them! I was thinking of getting/ making some antique poison bottles. Maybe I will make some of these if I find some old looking bottles.

Schlitzie said...

I had thought about making these props,but some lead weights tied to strings in jars would have not been interesting for others to look at.I didn't think about using a little artistic creativity to put faces on the weights. Cool idea!

bea said...

I submit that the Lovecraft idea/represented prop is clearly an influence in a side reference (but very powerful) in HELLBOY: CONCQOUER WORM when Hellboy rips back a curtain to find that Nazis used the heads of long dead saints/mediums/witches etc to contact his own particular flavor of Lovecraft "elder ones" that sais the prop IS beautiful.