by Donald Tyson
Seven are the lords of the Old Ones, six who are as brothers and sisters, and a seventh who is to them as the son of a father’s brother, and who stands apart although he is one with them. The names of others of their race are whispered in the deep caverns, but the others have not the same family blood, and these seven are the leaders or heralds in our world. Among the seven are those better known and those obscure, for not all the Old Ones interest themselves equally in the affairs of this world. Their names are Azathoth, Dagon, Nyarlathotep, Yig, Shub-Niggurath, Yog-Sothoth, and the seventh who stands apart, Cthulhu.
Within the room of seven soul portals, in the nameless subterranean city of the reptilian race, are cut in rock the seven seals of the lords, each above one of the gates, though it is not always apparent what connection the lands beyond these portals bear the Old Ones. Murals in other chambers, and passageways, tell of their forms and natures, so that by a careful study of these images they may be known in part, and only in part, for no man has ever comprehended all their ways or their purposes upon the earth.
The magi who dwell in the valley of the Tigris allotted to these lords of the Old Ones the spheres of the wandering bodies of the heavens, not because they dwell in the planetary spheres, nor yet because the planets have power over them, but for the reason that the rays of the planets are in a certain accord with the potencies of the lords. Under the heads of the planets, as under titles of authority, shall they be severally examined herein.
rom the beginning man has feared the serpent, but why this lowly creature that crawls upon its belly and nests beneath the earth should be an object of dread and wonder has been forgotten, though the causes are echoed in our dreams and in the myths of our ancestors. In the sacred book concerning the creation it is the serpent who teaches wisdom to Eve, and for its reward it is written that humankind and serpentkind are forever after to become deadly enemies, and so it came to pass. The serpent has ever been regarded as the wisest of living things, and deathless, for it renews itself by the shedding of its skin. How shall it be that the wisest of beings is the most reviled and feared?
Know that the wisdom of the serpent is the wisdom of Yig, most ancient of the lords of the Old Ones. In the dimness of time Yig made approach to the ancestors of man and spoke silently in their minds, offering to teach our race the secret of eternal life in return for loyalty and worship; but the prophets feared the knowledge of the serpent and counseled that the covenant with Yig be rejected by the people, lest they be tainted in their souls with the poison of the viper and the asp. For this reason all snakes are killed at first sight, even though they be harmless and offer no inconvenience. Yet not all the people followed the prophets; some made secret pacts with the lord of the serpents, and they are known by their adoration of his favored creature.
The serpent is not native to our world, but was carried here from beyond the stars before the awakening of our race as a thing of amusement and diversion by Yig, and as a reminder of the world where he arose, for the shape of the serpent is the shape of this god, his true shape, for he goes sometimes in the form of a man with the head of a snake, but this is only the shape he puts on for his dealings with men; in his true shape he undulates upon his belly and has no limbs. Damballah he is called by the black-skinned barbarians dwelling on the coast of Africa, and by the Egyptians he is known as Apep. He is remembered in the myths of the Greeks as the cosmic serpent that encircles the world, who is without beginning or end, for he is deathless.
Many are the places of his worship. He is strong in the temples of the eastern lands, where the basilisk is especially revered and protected as the monarch of serpents, for it consumes lesser snakes as prey and stands upright upon its tail to the height of a man, and its gaze has the power of causing entrancement in the minds of those who look into its eyes; there is no power of human will strong enough to resist its seduction. Only by the music of the flute can it be controlled, and when it hears this sound it begins to dance and loses its power to strike so long as the music plays. Learn herein a deep mystery, known to few, that the music of the flute is the song of Azathoth, the blind idiot god, he who is the center of creation, whose song made the myriad of worlds; the flute of Azathoth all created things obey, be they ever so unwilling to do him homage, for in their hearts they despise this lord for his mindlessness.
Stronger still is Yig in the temples of the unknown lands that lie beyond the western ocean, where he is worshipped as a god in the form of a winged serpent; the wings express the flight of Yig, who has the power to bear himself through the airy zone of our world as though carried on the wings of a bird. These lands are known to but a few tribes that dwell in the distant northland of Hyperboria where it is perpetual twilight, for these tribes are great seafarers, and worshippers of Yig; their very ships are shaped with the heads of dragons, and their swords are patterned after the scales of serpents. The dragon that flies in its serpentine shape expresses yet another form of this Old One.
A wise man disregards the teaching of the prophets and will not slay a serpent, not even if struck and envenomed, for to kill serpents is to invite the displeasure of this god, who uses the serpent for his eyes in all parts of our world; wherever a serpent crawls and watches, there watches Yig, even though it be the least of snakes scarce larger than a worm. All are his children, for all hold in their nature the essence of this god, who is great with their multitude but diminished when they are slain. It is whispered that were all serpents to be killed, so Yig would pass out of our world, but whether there is truth in this saying only the event will show, and that shall never be witnessed by men, for the serpent is aeons more ancient than our race and will endure aeons after our fall to dust.
Those who worship Yig summon him to their rites by means of his seal coupled with the following invocation, which they chant in unison while swaying their bodies to the sounds of flutes. The constellation sacred to Yig is that known as Draco, and his sect believes that the god dwells there and gazes down upon the world. He is called into the body of a priestess who lies naked upon the sand, writhing her limbs and hissing through her lips, her thighs anointed with blood and her eyes rolled back into her head so that only the whites may be seen.
“Approach, Deathless One; heed the summons of the flute of Azathoth your creator, the song of which none of his blood may deny; descend slithering down the rays of the stars from the coils of the dragon. Great Serpent old of years and wise in wisdom, at the beginning of time you gave the gift of knowledge to the race of man, through the embrace of a woman during the forbidden days of her cycle; enter again this female vessel whose thighs are streaked with blood and insert your teachings into her mind, that your faithful servants may profit from her instruction. Render sweet the fruits of her womb. Empower her with your mighty arts to defend us against our enemies, and against those who would defame your memory. Yë, y’ti mn’g thu’lh ugg’a aeth Yig fl’anglh uuthah!”
The magi likened Yig to the sphere of Saturn, for the reason that Yig is the most ancient of the Old Ones, and Saturn the most ancient of the planets; the serpent is coldest of beasts, and this wandering body inhabits the most distant reaches of the heavens, where the warmth of the sun is least; Yig is wisest of the Old Ones, and Saturn is wise in secrets and mysteries; serpents hunt their prey in the main at night, and Saturn inhabits the darkened depths of space; serpents are slow and sleepy when chilled, and Saturn is the slowest of the wandering bodies. They gave to Yig the number square of Saturn, as a sign and expression of his nature. It is a square of numbers having three rows and three columns, each with three cells that sum fifteen, and a total of nine cells that sum forty-five. From this square the seal of Yig is extracted, for the letters of the Hebrew script, most ancient among the writings still used by mankind, are also numbers, and the letters in the name of the god may be traced upon the square.
It is believed by the magi that this seal, made into a talisman in lead and worn close to the heart, offers protection against the biting of serpe
nts and attracts the benevolence of Yig, or at the least averts possession by the god, for it is the custom of Yig to enter the bodies of his worshippers as a spirit, and his presence is known when they fall on their bellies and writhe on the ground in imitation of the way of all serpents, and hiss with their lips but cease to speak in words of their own tongue; for it is singular with Yig alone among the lords of the Old Ones that he never speaks, but instructs his possessed worshippers with images in their minds. In this condition they forget the use of their hands, and if they must pick up a thing they do so with their mouths, for all of the power of a serpent is in its jaws, wherefore the word yig’a signifies in the tongue of the Old Ones big of mouth.
The power of Yig to become present to human sight, and to work his will in the world, is greatest at two days of each cycle of the moon, when the course of the moon and the course of the sun intersect; these conjunctions are known to the astrologers as the caput draconis and cauda draconis, or in the common tongue as the Head and Tail of the Dragon. These conjunctions are sacred to Yog-Sothoth, the keeper of the gates between worlds. On these days of each month, the worshippers of Yig rejoice and celebrate his rites, but the enemies of the serpent god conceal themselves and dread in terror his approach, for his coming brings either exaltation or punishment, and no man has seen him who has not been moved either to happiness or sorrow.
he race of Yuggoth who came to our world in the distant beginning of time before the making of man, and who fought the Elder Ones and drove them deep into the south where lies frozen the land of perpetual ice, give greatest honor apart from their moon to Yog-Sothoth, whose existence is in unending harmony with all dimension and all continuance; but the creatures of Yuggoth call him in their own tongue of flashing colored lights Him Who Lies Beyond, or the transcendent lord. The meegoh remaining in our world in the high lands of the east continue to serve him, and act as his agents and messengers; only Yog-Sothoth has the power to open the way between their distant homeland that is beyond the changeable star known as Thahr al Dubb al Akbar, the Back of the Greater Bear, and their colony on Yuggoth that is beneath the sphere of the fixed stars, for he guards the heavenly gates jealously even as he creates and destroys them from moment to moment with his dancing colors.
Truly did the sage Ibn Schacabao write that the face of Yog-Sothoth is the face of the heavens itself; he and the vastness of space are the same, and the turning, interlocked circles of the spheres are the orderly progression of his thoughts, some moving fast and others slowly, even as turn the bands of the astrolabe to mark the motions of the wandering stars. He is seen only by his face; body he has none, for his body is the universe, yet not the very matter of creation but the measurements of angles and distances between, for he is composed of no tangible thing and can only be perceived as a shimmering array of ever-changing colors such as may be seen on the shell of a beetle or the wing of a dragonfly beneath the sun.
He is known by the cults of men that adore his gates as the All In One Who Is One In All. They worship him within stone circles composed of great monoliths, and the chief of these is on the grassy plains of Albion; though its builders have been forgotten, its function is unimpeded, for from it open outward gateways to all reaches of this cosmos and countless lesser gates. It is the great mother of doors, and Yog-Sothoth holds the key. These gates he cannot open wantonly, but only when the stars align and the angles come right for passage. A gate is opened when he appears, and his face of flashing colored spheres, all overlapping and turning one within another at varying rates, is the gate, and the key, and the way. Those who pass through become for a timeless aeon Yog-Sothoth, knowing all things that were, that are, and shall be; but having transited the gate they forget everything save only for a lingering sadness and sense of regret that cannot be set into words; and so profound and enduring is this sorrow that many are those who find life unbearable after opening the face of the transcendent All.
While there are men who have dared to seek glimpses beyond the threshold, and to accept him as a herald, they would have been more prudent to have shunned commerce with him; for as Ibn Schacabao relates, it is written in the Book of Thoth how fatal is the payment for but one glimpse of his face. Neither is it permitted that those who pass through the higher gates ever return, for in the empty spaces transcending our world are patterns of shadow that grasp and bind. The thing that stumbles by night, the wickedness that defies even the Elder Seal, the throng that gather watchfully at the secret portal possessed by each tomb and make themselves fat on what grows out of the corpse within: all these abominations are less than he who guards the gateways, he who will guide the rash traveler that speaks the words rightly beyond all the spheres and into the void of unnamable hungers. For he is called Tawil
At’Umr, the First Ancient One, which the scribe has rendered imperfectly in our tongue as the Prolonged of Life.
When the road of the moon and the road of the sun cross in the heavens, then is Yog-Sothoth exalted and empowered to open the spaces between the stars, and greater still is his power when the sun and moon copulate, and the gateways spawned are his children, for he is sun and moon united in lust. The sweat of the sun falls, but the dew of the moon rises to maintain his balance of turning circles.
This is the invocation, cried out in the tongue of the Old Ones, that calls him at these pregnant times within the circles of stone, having met all requirements of worship and sacrifice:
N’gai, n’gha’ghaa, bugg-shoggog, y’hah!
Yog-Sothoth, Yog-Sothoth, aï!
Yhah, bugg-shoggog, n’gha’ghaa, ngai!
The charm to open the gate is to be inscribed with the seal of the caput draconis and may be voiced following the preliminary summons on either day of the month, for both Head and Tail of the Dragon are times when the heavens are in balance, so that on these days the way may be opened or closed; and the charm of opening is this:
Y’ai ’ng’ngah,
Yog-Sothoth
h’ee-l’geb
f’ai throdog
uaaah!
The charm to be inscribed and cried out with the seal of cauda draconis for the sealing of the gate that was opened by Yog-Sothoth is the same but turned against the course of the sun, even as the first charm follows his golden chariot; the charm of closing is this:
Ogtbrod ai’f
geb’l-ee’h
Yog-Sothoth ’
ngah’ng ai’y
zhro!
In this way are unlocked the gateways of the soul, and also of the flesh, but after another manner. Soul can carry flesh with it, either upward or downward, either into the light or into the shadow; yet flesh has no will to bear the soul where the soul refuses to travel, and if the gateways of flesh are opened without the willing concord of the mind, the body becomes hollow and a vessel for demons, and the soul a wraith howling in the wind.
In invocation of the First Ancient One, or when summoned before him by his power, the supplicant demonstrates his fidelity to the god by falling to his knees and placing his palms over his eyes with the fingers up, then rhythmically bowing at the waist until his head touches the ground, as though in silent lamentation. This he does nine times, having a care to the number, for if the obeisance is given incorrectly or the number is more or less, the god will blast to glowing cinders the body of his careless worshipper.
The searchers of the heavens who dwell in the valley of the Tigris have joined Yog-Sothoth with the sphere of Jupiter, for the reason that mighty Jove is the father of lesser gods, who rules their comings and goings and holds the keys to the gates of Olympus; to journey all must seek his sufferance, and all owe him the tax that is levied at the entrance of the city from travelers seeking to pass either to or fro. They held the belief that the seal of this god formed upon the square of numbers sacred to the sphere of Jupiter, having four rows and four columns, each of which sums thirty-four, and sixteen cells overall, the sum of which is 136, when inscribed on a square of tin would avert the wrath of Yog-Sothoth and
would afford good luck and protection to the traveler on his road; to which belief the wise may ascribe little value, for many are the stragglers after the caravans who wear this square about their necks, and their bones lie white on the sands where the carrion hawks have scattered them.
reat Cthulhu is ever a warrior god, and of all the Old Ones he is the most terrible, for it is his delight to slay and lay waste to everything that lies beneath his feet, and the very lust to conquer what was once free drives him onward across the heavens and through the spheres; it was he together with his star spawn that defeated the Elder Things, who had long possessed the sovereignty of this world before he descended on his gray and leathern wings through the upper gate opened by Yog-Sothoth. As hungry wolves on an unguarded flock they fell and crushed the great stones of the barrier walls of the elder cities into sand. Even the shoggoths were driven as chaff in the wind before their fury; who can measure the strength of a shoggoth, yet it is whispered by ancient things that dwell in the depths that its strength was without avail against the might of this god. Into the sea the Elder Ones fled, little dreaming that through the changes of fortune and the passage of ages they would once again walk the frozen stones of their greatest city far to the south, and Cthulhu would lie trapped beneath the waves in the sea.
Long aeons the Old Ones reigned in our world after the vanquishing of the Elder Race, their palaces and cities secure under the protection of Cthulhu and his armies. No foe could defeat him, save only time itself, for the heavens revolve unceasing in their courses and care nothing for the will of men or gods. The stars became poisonous to the Old Ones in our world, and so they withdrew in bitter rage to bide their purpose until the sky was once more wholesome; yet Cthulhu would not depart from the lands he had conquered. He devised a work of potent magic that would keep him safe within the house he had made for himself on the mountain that overshadowed his island city of R’lyeh. Within a tomb protected by great seals he lay as in death, yet he dreamed and in his dreams continued to rule the world, for his thoughts mastered the wills of all lesser creatures.