Ordet "cultist" var inte vanligt vid den tiden . Lovecrafts produktiva period var 1908 ~ 1936. I Google bokkorpus dyker ordet "cultist" bara upp runt 1920-talet, och sedan blir det bara populärt betydligt senare. se här . Det måste ha känt som en neologism då, och vi vet alla hur Lovecraft var förtjust i arkaism snarare än nyheter. Jämför med ’worshipper’ .
När det gäller varför människor idag använder ordet för att beskriva sina tillbedjare, ja, nu har vi ordet i allmänhet och passar det. När allt kommer omkring är en "cultist" bara någon som tillhör en "kult", och en "kult" är:
n. 1. (offensive, derogatory) A group of people with a religious, philosophical or cultural identity sometimes viewed as a sect, often existing on the margins of society or exploitative towards its members. (Wiktionary)
Detta kan verkligen användas för att beskriva de sekter som begär Crawling Chaos eller böjer sig till den Blind Mad Sultan. Vad som händer, även om HPL inte använde det nyare ordet "cultist", använde han den äldre rotkulten -38 gånger, även i samlad fiktion . Första gången han använde den var i The Hound (1922):
Alien it indeed was to all art and literature which sane and balanced readers know, but we recognised it as the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly soul-symbol of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia.
Några andra intressanta avsnitt inkluderar:
Råttorna i väggarna (1923):
Sir William, standing with his searchlight in the Roman ruin, translated aloud the most shocking ritual I have ever known; and told of the diet of the antediluvian cult which the priests of Cybele found and mingled with their own.
Call of Cthulhu (1926):
The writing accompanying this oddity was, aside from a stack of press cuttings, in Professor Angell’s most recent hand; and made no pretence to literary style. What seemed to be the main document was headed “CTHULHU CULT” in characters painstakingly printed to avoid the erroneous reading of a word so unheard-of.
Skuggan över Innsmouth (1931):
[…] and she assured me that the rumours of devil-worship were partly justified by a peculiar secret cult which had gained force there and engulfed all the orthodox churches.
It was called, she said, “The Esoteric Order of Dagon”…
Shadow Out of Time (1934):
Some minds recalled more than others, and the chance joining of memories had at rare times brought hints of the forbidden past to future ages. There probably never was a time when groups or cults did not secretly cherish certain of these hints. In the Necronomicon the presence of such a cult among human beings was suggested—a cult that sometimes gave aid to minds voyaging down the aeons from the days of the Great Race. […]