The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon

by Donald Tyson

  We can only imagine the immense battle being waged in Lovecraft's psyche, a battle of which he himself may have remained largely unaware. By his inherent nature he was a dreamer, a visionary, a storyteller, and myth-maker, drawn to the fantastic and the magical, taking delight in the imagination, seeking escape from the mundane. Yet his clear and uncompromising analytical mind informed him in terms that could not be refuted that all this was unreal, that there was no place for myths in the bleak universe revealed by astronomical observation.

  Lovecraft responded in the only way he could respond, by casting his own myths into patterns that were in harmony with the frigid, godless universe he perceived through his telescope. He made his gods and devils into alien species from other worlds and higher dimensions of space. Religion was transformed into the worship by human cults of more advanced intelligent species, and magic became an alien science capable of manipulation by humans who knew the correct angles and spoke the necessary words of power.

  The beloved Hellenic gods of his childhood he did not discard outright, but he relegated them to the dreamlands, and placed them into a kind of sanitarium atop Mount Kadath, with the Other Gods as their warders. Some of the older pagan gods do appear in Lovecraft's stories, but they are usually transformed and adapted to his new cosmic mythology. For example, the Black Man of European witch lore is revealed to be Nyarlathotep, one of the Great Old Ones, in The Dreams in the Witch House. The gorgon Medusa of the Greeks, and Lilith of the Hebrews, make appearances in his stories Medusa's Coil, and The Horror at Red Hook, reshaped as material creatures of alien and monstrous origins around whom mythologies evolved during ancient times.

  It is not quite correct to say that Lovecraft was an atheist. He rejected the faith of Christianity with disgust, and that of the ancient Greeks with infinite sorrow, but in their places he built a new pantheon of gods and devils of his own design that he could reconcile with his bleak cosmic view. He always maintained that he did not himself believe in the mythic figures of his imagination, yet he took the trouble to integrate them with his understanding of the universe. If they were not gods Lovecraft presumed to exist, they were gods he suspected could exist, or at least were not so absurdly impossible as the gods of ancient Greece, or the gods of Rome. Lovecraft thus became the first high priest of a new religion for the scientific age, his place before its altar all the more secure by virtue of his skeptical disbelief in its deities.

  The `All-In-One and One-In-All" is another title for Yog-Sothoth, the keeper of the gateways of time and space. This expression is used in modern Western occultism to describe the highest conception of God, and can be found in the mystical writings of Buddhists, Christians, and Islamics.

  (Through the Gates of the Silver Key)

  Atys (also spelled Attis) was the consort of the goddess Cybele (also spelled Kybele). He was compelled by the goddess to castrate himself as a punishment for his infidelity. The priests of Cybele castrated themselves in imitation of his example. Atys was originally a god of vegetation of the Phrygians. This god is mentioned in the midst of a wild invocation to various Greek deities.

  (The Electric Executioner)

  There is not a huge amount to be written about this god of chaos, who can scarcely be examined apart from his messenger, Nyarlathotep. Perhaps the most important understanding is that he is really no more than an archetype of formless chaos itself. He is an attempt to embody that which cannot be embodied, and to describe that which defies description. In The Dreams in the Witch House, the ancient witch Keziah Mason tells Walter Gilman that Azathoth sits on a throne at the center of ultimate chaos. She also tells him that Azathoth has a book for recording in blood the names of new witches, which appears absurd until it is realized that the throne and the book are merely Keziah's way of interpreting aspects of Azathoth that she can comprehend. To even consider that which lies beyond all understanding, it must be given a form that the mind is able to hold.

  Gilman remembers the name `Azathoth" in the Necronomicon "for a primal evil too horrible for description." Nonetheless, some description must appear in that dread book, since Gilman later considers the reference, which concerns the mindless being Azathoth, who rules all time and space from a black throne. The Necronomicon also alludes to the music that is heard in this chaotic center, the monotonous piping of a flute. The flute of Azathoth is a symbol that represents the engine of creation by which the formless substance of chaos is transformed into cosmos, and by which its diversity of forms is sustained from moment to moment. The music of Azathoth's flute is the very lifeblood of the universe. Lovecraft does not actually place the flute into the hands of Azathoth, but its music is his constant accompaniment.

  Elsewhere, Gilman characterizes the place of Azathoth as "spiral black vortices." It is central to the creation myth of the Kabbalah that the universe emanated within a chaotic primal swirling or vortex that is the highest conceivable expression of God. This swirling occurs in Kether (The Crown), the first emanation, which is literally the crown of creation. The place of Azathoth seems to be a kind of dark reflection of the primal swirling of bright sparks that gave rise to the universe. Perhaps it is the end of things, as Kether is their beginning. Yet on that level of reality, the timeless serpent of infinity bites its own tail, and the end and beginning are one. Lovecraft explicitly states that Azathoth exists "beyond time."

  In a more tangible sense, the chaos of Azathoth resembles a black hole, which is a super-dense object that distorts time and space to such a degree that not even light can escape from it. It is theorized that stars can under the right conditions collapse into a black hole. At the center of our spiral galaxy there is believed to be a massive black hole composed of the conglutination of millions of collapsed stars. Perhaps at the center of the universe there is an even larger black hole that is made up of millions of collapsed galaxies. This would be the physical corollary to the spiral chaos of Azathoth. Scientists have theorized that the universe sprang forth from an exploding black hole in what is known as the Big Bang. In The Whisperer in Darkness Azathoth is described as that "monstrous nuclear chaos beyond angled space." This is a good description of a black hole. Many times in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath Azathoth is characterized as "gnawing" and "ravenous"-apt descriptions for a black hole, which consumes everything around it, yet is never filled.

  Dancing to the notes of Azathoth's ceaseless flute are the Other Gods, called this to distinguish them from our earthly gods of classical mythology. They are strange beings described by Lovecraft as slow, awkward, gigantic, blind, voiceless, black, and mindless. They represent potential forms, potential essences and qualities. That is why they are mindless, dark, blind, and voiceless. They do not exist in actuality, but only in potentiality. From their potential substance, the actual universe is spun forth. They are in a sense the angels of Azathoth. The ultimate blasphemy, which Lovecraft never dared to utter, is that Azathoth and God are one. Azathoth is God's dark mirror reflection, a role that is in part fulfilled in Christian myth by the figure of Satan. However, Azathoth is a much greater being than the fallen angel Satan. He is the chaotic shadow-twin of God, or to put it another way, God's alter ego.

  It is significant in this respect that Lovecraft frequently asserts that the name Azathoth is never to be spoken aloud. For example, in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath he is referred to as "the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud." In a Jewish religious practice that began not long before the fall of the Temple at Jerusalem in 70 AD, Jews were, and still are, forbidden to say the ultimate name of God aloud. Instead, a title of God such as "Lord" or `Almighty" must be substituted for it. This alone would suggest that Azathoth and Yahweh are at root one and the same, but viewed through opposite ends of the telescope, one the Alpha and the other the Omega. A title of Azathoth is "Lord of All Things."

  Nyarlathotep is the messenger of Azathoth. The word "angel" means "messenger." He serves as the active and manifest agent for Azathoth, who exists outsi
de of time and space. He is Azathoth's chief or archangel, who manifests the thoughts of Azathoth, which could not have any existence without this medium of manifestation. He serves as the eyes, ears, and voice of Azathoth. Yet since the blind idiot god does not have a mind, in the manifest sense, Nyarlathotep believes these thoughts to be his own, and resents his dependence on Azathoth-in the poem `Azathoth" of Lovecraft's sonnet cycle Fungi from Yuggoth he contemptuously strikes Azathoth in the head. The truth is that without Azathoth, Nyarlathotep would have no purpose, and would be merely a hollow vessel, assuming that he had any existence at all. Nyarlathotep is a puppet who believes himself to be pulling the strings of the cosmos, which lead outside time and space.

  (The Haunter of the Dark; The Dreams in the Witch House; The Whisperer in Darkness; The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath; Fungi from Yuggoth)

  The name under which the Mi-Go of Yuggoth worship Yog-Sothoth.

  (Through the Gates of the Silver Key)

  An avatar of Nyarlathotep, used when he presides over the sabbats of European witches. The Black Man was a common feature of European witchcraft lore. Margaret A. Murray quoted one of the Lancashire witches, Margaret Johnson, concerning the Black Man, who said in her trial testimony of 1633 that he was "a spirit or divell in the similitude and proportion of a man, apparelled in a suite of black, tyed about with silke pointes." In the same place Murray quoted Joan Wallis, the Huntingdonshire witch, who reported in 1646 that "the Devill came to her in the likenesse of a man in blackish cloathing, but had cloven feet." By another account of her testimony, Wallis confessed that the Devil came to her "like a man something ancient, in blackish cloathes, but he had ugly feet uncovered" (Murray, Witch-Cult, pp. 33-4).

  (The Man of Stone; The Dreams in the Witch House; The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  The water-lizard god of the inhuman green-skinned people of the gray city of Ib, which was built beside a nameless lake in the land of Mnar. The statue of the god is carved from a sea-green stone. It was stolen by the men of Sarnath, another city on the same lakeshore, when they killed the people of Ib and cast their corpses and all their idols into the lake. Only the statue of Bokrug did they preserve to set up in their temple, as a tangible sign of their victory over Ib. The night after it was erected in the temple at Sarnath, it mysteriously vanished, and the high priest of Sarnath, Taran-Ish, was found dead from fright, after having scrawled on the chrysolite altar of the temple the sign of doom.

  (The Doom That Came to Sarnath)

  Lovecraft described this god of the Australian Aborigines as a "gigantic old man who lies asleep for ages underground with his head on his arm, and who will some day awake and eat up the world." He indicated that this sleeping god was connected with "great stones with marks on them."

  In his 1899 study of the Aborigines, John Mathew quoted the folklorist Andrew Lang as having written: "There are certain traditions among the aborigines that appear to me to have somewhat of an Asiatic character and aspect. Buddai, or, as it is pronounced by the aborigines towards the mountains in the Moreton Bay district, Budjah (Buddah), they regard as a common ancestor of their race, and describe as an old man of great stature, who has been asleep for ages" (Mathew, p. 147). Lang probably had in mind the giant statues of reclining Buddha, common in Thailand, that depict him with his head cradled on his hand, propped up by his arm. The reclining Buddha at Wat Pho, Thailand, is fifty yards long. "Buddai" is an alternative form of the term "Buddha." However, Mathew disputed Lang's conjecture.

  Various hills and mountains around the world are said by local peoples to be the bodies or bones of reclining gods, which at times come to wakefulness and arise from their earthy beds. For example, Sleeping Giant, also known as Mount Carmel, is a mountain in south-central Connecticut, so-called due to its resemblance to a reclining humanoid form. There are many such formations in North America alone, such as the Old Man of the Mountain in Bridgeport, California; Sleeping Ute in the San Juan Basin of Colorado; Sleeping Beauty Mountain in Columbia Gorge, Oregon; Sleeping Princess at Mount Timpanogos, Utah; Sleeping Chief in Squamish, British Columbia; and Sleeping Giant on the Sibley Peninsula of Ontario-to name only a few.

  (The Shadow Out of Time)

  An alien being who descended to Earth ages ago from another dimension. He is humanoid, with physical characteristics that resemble features of the octopus and the elephant. The god is able to move with astonishing quickness, and uses his elephant-like trunk to drain blood from living creatures. From amphibians native to this planet he created the race of Miri Nigri to be his servants. These things later bred with primitive human beings to produce the repellent Tcho-Tcho people. Chaugner Faugn is a creation of the writer Frank Belknap Long and appeared first in Long's 1931 novel The Horror From the Hills. He was mentioned by Lovecraft in his story The Horror in the Museum, and in this way found himself a part of the Necronomicon mythos.

  (The Horror in the Museum)

  In Through the Gates of the Silver Key, Lovecraft referred to the Children of the Fire Mist, who "came to Earth to teach the Elder Lore to man." These ancient beings appear to be derived from The Secret Doctrine of Madame H. P. Blavatsky, published in 1888, where reference is made (vol. 1, p. 86) to the "Sons of the Fire-Mist" in connection with the apocryphal Book of Dzyan. These Sons of the Fire-Mist, or Sons of the Fire are, according to Blavatsky, the first beings evolved from primordial fire. In the fourth stanza of the Book of Dzyan, they are called the "instructors" of the Sons of Earth. The Book of Dzyan is their teachings.

  The Theosophist W. Scott-Elliot, while making reference to the Book of Dzyan in his own 1904 work Lost Lemuria (p. 35), wrote that these teachers came from the more advanced world Venus in spiritual form to inhabit the bodies of the Lemurian race. They naturally became "rulers, instructors in religion, and teachers of the arts" (p. 36) in Lemuria due to their superior intellects.

  There is a parallel here with the myth in the Book of Enoch of the angels known as the Watchers, who lusted after the daughters of men, and who descended to Earth to take them as wives and to engender a race of hybrid demi-gods or heroes, called in Genesis 6:4 "mighty men which were of old, men of renown," whom they instructed in the forbidden arts and sciences of heaven.

  Lovecraft chose not to use in this context the concept that the minds of the Children of the Fire Mist were projected across space from Venus, but rather in his story The Diary of Alonzo Typer, he wrote that the Book of Dzyan "was old when the lords of Venus came through space in their ships to civilize our planet." Elsewhere in his fiction, Lovecraft does describe beings who project their minds through space while their bodies remain behind. For example, in Through the Gates of the Silver Key, the mind of Randolph Carter is projected into the body of the alien wizard Zkauba, and in The Shadow Out of Time, the mind of Nathaniel Wingate Peaslee is forcibly displaced from its body for several years by the projected mind of a Yithian.

  (Through the Gates of the Silver Key; The Diary of Alonzo Typer)

  Whether Cthulhu qualifies for god status is open to debate, but he was worshipped as a god by human beings. He is an alien creature of immense power from beyond the stars, who crossed space to reach our planet. Who is to say that all the gods of our mythologies are not based on alien beings that originated in distant star systems or in other dimensions of reality? When we humans become aware of the power and presence of these beings, we worship them, and so they become gods to us. What they are in their essence is probably beyond our limited comprehension.

  In At the Mountains of Madness Lovecraft wrote that a land-dwelling race of beings shaped like octopi filtered down to our planet from cosmic infinity long before the evolution of humanity. These beings came to be known as the spawn of Cthulhu. They immediately fought a war with the Elder Things (which Lovecraft called "the Old Ones" in this story), the crinoid race that had the center of their civilization in their great stone city in Antarctica. For a time the spawn were able to drive the Elder Things completely off the land and into the sea, but eventuall
y the tide of war shifted, and the Elder Things secured a treaty of peace that ceded the new lands arising from the floor of the ocean to the spawn of Cthulhu, while retaining all the old land masses for their own habitations.

  Lovecraft mentioned in this story that both the spawn of Cthulhu and the Mi-Go are composed of radically different matter from that of the Elder Things, whose bodies are made of more or less normal substances. From this Lovecraft deduced that the spawn of Cthulhu had originated from "even remoter gulfs of the cosmic space" than had given rise to the Elder Things.

  The center of the civilization of the octopi of the Cthulhu spawn was the island of R'lyeh, in the Pacific Ocean, where they constructed their great capital city of the same name. Lovecraft provided its exact location, which is "S. Latitude 47° 9', W. Longitude 123 ° 43'." Like the Antarctic city of the crinoid race with which the spawn shared the Earth, it was built of cyclopean blocks of stone, using a strange geometry that defies human understanding. The stone was said to be greenish in color. On R'lyeh was a mountain, and on the top of this mountain Cthulhu built his mighty house, surrounded by the houses of his spawn. His house was crowned with a great monolith covered with strange hieroglyphics. For ages he dwelled here, sending out his thoughts to control those earthly creatures who worshipped him. Eventually his servants included the primitive race of man.