The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon

by Donald Tyson

  The beasts of burden in blue-litten K'n-yan that are known as gyaa-yothn are the result of deliberate cross-breeding between something reptilian found in Yoth, the cavern world below K'n-yan, and enslaved human beings used by the people of K'n-yan for meat animals. Such a genetic mix was only possible due to the advanced alien science of the race of K'n-yan.

  In Pickman's Model, the ghouls are in the habit of stealing human babies and substituting in their place ghoul babies to be bred up as humans, for the purpose of crossbreeding with humans and thereby keeping the blood of the ghouls, who are related to humans, healthy and strong.

  A young woman in the story The Unnamable has a sexual union with a beast, or some sort of bestial creature, and gives birth to a child with horns that is not human, and must be hidden away in the attic all its life.

  (The Horror at Red Hook; The Dunwich Horror; The Shadow Over Innsmouth; Facts Concerning the Late ArthurJermyn and His Family; The Curse of Yig; The Mound; Pickman's Model; The Unnamable)

  A place beyond the Ultimate Gate that is "outside all earths, all universes, and all matter."

  (Through the Gates of the Silver Key)

  The insult "Spawn of Noth-Yidik and effluvium of K'thun!" is hurled at an unbeliever of Rhan-Tegoth by the proprietor of a London wax museum, George Rogers, self-appointed priest of Rhan-Tegoth. It is obviously a deadly insult, and probably harks back to the mythology of the planetoid Yuggoth, which is the world we know as Pluto, as that was the origin of Rhan-Tegoth. However, there is not enough information given to conjecture its precise meaning.

  (The Horror in the Museum)

  A place outside normal space where the mind of Ephraim Waite, in the body of Edward Pickman Derby, went to practice black magic with his coven. It lies at the bottom of six thousand steps. Access it had through a ring of standing stones in the woods of northern Maine. Lovecraft referred to it as "the unholy pit where the black realm begins and the watcher guards the gate." Reference is made in the sonnet "Night Gaunts" in Fungi from Yuggoth to "nether pits," which contain a foul lake where the "puffed shoggoths splash in doubtful sleep."

  (The Thing on the Doorstep; Fungi from Yuggoth)

  Larger than an elephant, with a head shaped somewhat like the head of a horse, the shantak-bird has slippery scales instead of feathers. The servants of Nyarlathotep use them as transportation. These birds, though shunned by men, are valued for their enormous and richly flavored eggs, which are sought by gourmands because of their exotic taste. The great father of all shantak-birds is said to be housed beneath the central dome of the palace of the Veiled King at the onyx city of Inquanok, in the dreamlands. The shantak-birds are rumored to be unwholesome. It is best not to look upon them, and for this reason the father of shantak-birds is fed in the dark. It is said to send forth queer dreams to those who merely pause and gaze curiously at its domed dwelling place.

  (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)

  The Terrible Old Man of Water Street in Kingsport knew some kind of magic, which he may have picked up in his voyages to the Far East, that enabled him to trap souls in bottles, and to use those souls for his servants and guardians. When a trio of young men tries to rob him one night, they are all killed by these spirit familiars. The Old Man receives communications from the spirits within the bottles by means of small lead weights suspended inside the bottles on strings, so that they strike against the sides of the glass to make tapping sounds. The souls trapped in the bottles appear to be those of the Terrible Old Man's seagoing companions, for some of their names are `Jack, Scar-Face, Long Tom, Spanish Joe, Peters, and Mate Ellis."

  (The Terrible Old Man; The Strange High House in the Mist)

  The Old Ones are reputed in the Necronomicon to be identifiable by their strong and unique stench, even though they walk the earth invisible. When Earl Sawyer of Dunwich visited the farm of Old Whateley, he smelled just such a stench in the tool shed that had served as the temporary shelter for Wilbur Whateley's unnamed invisible brother, who resembled his father, an Old One. Sawyer averred that he had smelled a similar odor in the stone circles on the hills around Dunwich, and in 1917 smelled it coming from the sealed upper story of the Whateley house. Luther Brown, the hired boy of farmer George Corey, is the only one to describe the smell. He said that it "smells like thunder." This suggests that it is a smell similar to burnt sulfur, which is also know as brimstone. It is to be noted that a foul smell of brimstone is one of the accompaniments of demonic manifestation, according to the Renaissance demonologists.

  (The Dunwich Horror)

  A race of short, hairless humanoids described by Lovecraft as "wholly abominable." He did not explain why, but it may have been their practice of cannibalism. They were invented by the writer August Derleth in his 1933 story The Thing that Walked on the Wind, where they are said to be a race of people in Burma who have produced "forbidden and accursed designs."

  (The Shadow Out of Time; The Horror in the Museum)

  The avatar of Nyarlathotep known as the Haunter of the Dark, which was called to Earth through the Shining Trapezohedron by the Church of Starry Wisdom, was described by Robert Harrison Blake: "I see it-coming here-hell-wind-titan blue-black wing- Yog-Sothoth save me-the three-lobed burning eye" The term "three-lobed" probably refers to the pupil of the eye. Humans have a circular pupil. Cats have a vertical pupil. Goats have a horizontal pupil. The thing that came for Blake may have had a pupil with three projections, giving the pupil a roughly triangular shape. The iris of the eye was probably red. Given the aversion of this creature to any light, it may be that its eye was hypersensitive.

  (The Haunter of the Dark)

  A large species of tree, an example of which grows in the valley of Nis. Its leaves are fatal, though whether by ingestion or by skin contact, Lovecraft did not reveal.

  (Memory)

  In the windowless monastery on the plateau of Leng is a domed chamber that contains the golden throne of the High-Priest Not To Be Described. At the foot of the high stone dais the throne occupies, six blood-stained altars surround a gaping circular pit that may reach down to the Vaults of Zin. Into this black well the dreamer Randolph Carter pushed an acolyte of the High-Priest.

  A similar bottomless well is to be found in a domed hall on the rocky island in the northern sea of the dreamlands that serves as a way station for the black galleys of the moon-beasts. The vaultings of the dome are covered with grotesque carvings. On the far side of the hall is a small and strangely wrought bronze door that Carter feared to open, although he had no explicit reason not to open it.

  (The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath)

  An ancient Persian cult that was widely believed to worship the Devil as their god. They have been hated and persecuted by their Muslim neighbors for centuries, causing their numbers to dwindle. Most of their evil reputation is undeserved, as their rituals are no more evil or abhorrent than those of other religious cults. However, there is some truth in the belief that they worship the Devil. The Yazidis worship the first archangel known as Malek Taous (more properly Tawilse Melek, the King Peacock), leader of six other archangels who preside over the world. Malek Taous, who is represented by the image of a peacock with its tail fanned, has the alternative name "Shaytan," the name for the Devil in the Koran. However, Yazidis never speak this name.

  According to Yazidi myth, Malek Taous was created first by God from his own illumination, followed by the other six lesser archangels. God ordered Malek Taous not to bow down before the other archangels. Later, God formed Adam, the first man, from dust gathered by the other six, and breathed life into his body. God ordered all seven archangels to bow down and worship Adam. The lesser six archangels complied, but Malek Taous refused on the grounds that he was formed from the light of God, whereas Adam was made only from the dust of the earth. For this defiance, God praised Malek Taous and appointed him leader of all the angels and God's representative on the Earth.

  The Yazidis pray to the Sun at sunrise and sunset, facing the Sun as they pray. A
t noon they pray facing Lalish, a small valley sixty kilometers northwest of Mosul, in northern Iraq, where the tomb of their prophet Sex Adi is located. They worship small bronze images of a peacock, but assert that they are not worshipping the images themselves but the archangel Malek Taous through the images. Their religious text is known as the Black Book.

  Lovecraft rather uncharitably presented Yazidis as illegal Kurdish immigrants who worshiped the demoness Lilith, queen of Hell, in the district of Red Hook, in the city of New York, and sacrificed abducted children to her.

  (The Horror at Red Hook)

  Lifeless zombies of the resurrected corpses of human slaves, used for slave labor in the subterranean world of blue-litten K'n-yan. Some are headless, or strangely disfigured by surgical grafts.

  (The Mound)

  The Key to the Twelfth Gate

  Sun passes through Scorpius: November 22-November 29

  Constellation is represented by a scorpion.

  Right Pillar: Antares (Greek: Rival of Mars). Arabic name: kalb at akrab (Heart of the Scorpion)-in Latin: Cor Scorpii. Astronomical designation: Alpha Scorpii. Astrological nature: Mars Jupiter. Influence: honor and success, but the danger of overconfidence. Magnitude: 1-binary star. Color: fiery red. Sun crosses: December 1. Location: the heart of the scorpion. Comments: One of the four Persian royal stars, called the Watcher of the West.

  Left Pillar: Shaula (Arabic: Al Shaulah-The Sting). Astronomical designation: Lambda Scorpii. Astrological nature: Mercury-Mars. Influence: desperate and dangerous actions, accidents, disasters. Magnitude: 1.6. Color: white. Sun crosses: December 15. Location: sting of the scorpion. Comments: This unfortunate star is usually treated in conjunction with its close neighbor, Lesath, which has similar associations. Together these stars were known as the Two Releasers.

  The astral gate of Scorpius lies between the star of its right pillar, located in the heart of the Scorpion, and the star of its left pillar, located on the sting of the Scorpion. The Sun enters the gate by crossing the longitude of Antares, the star of the right pillar, around December 1. The solar transition of this gate takes fourteen days. The Sun exits the gate around December 15, when it crosses the longitude of the star of the left pillar, Shaula. Note that the time frame of the crossing of this gate is completely outside the timeframe of the crossing of the constellation itself, due to its irregular shape.

  The key to the Twelfth Gate opens the constellation Scorpius, allowing entry into that part of the city of the book that concerns the abominations of the Necronomicon mythos.

  Seal of the Twelfth Key on the Twelfth Gate

  Face the direction of the compass ruled by the Twelfth Gate, which is northwest by west-that is, slightly to the left of the northwest point. Visualize before you the closed gate in the western wall of the city of the book as though it were a real gate in a real city wall.

  With the visualized image of the gate clear in your mind and projected upon the astral plane in the direction northwest by west, speak this invocation to Yog-Sothoth:

  Guardian of the Gate! Defender of the Door! Watcher of the Way! Who art the stout Lock, the slender Key, and the turning Hinge! Lord of All Transition, without whom there is no coming in or going out, I call thee! Keeper of the Threshold, whose dwelling place is between worlds, I summon thee! Yog-Sothoth, wise and mighty lord of the Old Ones, I invoke thee!

  By the authority of the dreaded name, Azathoth, that few dare speak, I charge thee, open to me the gateway of Scorpius, the Scorpion, that lies between the blazing pillar Antares on the right hand and the blazing pillar Shaula on the left hand. As the solar chariot [or, lunar chariot] crosses between these pillars, I enter the city of the Necronomicon through its Twelfth Gate. Selah!

  Visualize the key of the Twelfth Gate in your right hand some six inches long and made of cast silver. Feel its weight, texture, and shape as you hold it. Extend your right arm and use the key to draw upon the surface of the gate the seal of the key, which should be visualized to burn before the bars of the gate in a line of white spiritual fire. Point with the astral key at the center of the gate and speak the words of opening:

  In the name of Azathoth, Ruler of Chaos, by the power of Yog-Sothoth, Lord of Portals, the Twelfth Gate is opened!

  Visualize the bars dissolving and the gate opening inward of its own accord upon a shadowed space. On the astral level, walk through the gateway and stand in the darkness beyond. Hold in your mind whatever abomination or horror of the mythos that you wish to scry or experience later in an oracular dream. Open your mind to receive impressions of the atrocity. In a more general sense, this ritual and this gate may be used to scry or receive oracles concerning all evil or unnatural works of black magic.

  After fulfilling the purpose for which this gate was opened, conclude the ritual by astrally passing out through the gate and visualizing the bars reforming. Draw the seal of the Twelfth Key over the surface of the gate with the astral key you hold in your hand, and mentally cause it to lock itself shut, as it was at the beginning of the ritual. Speak the words of closing:

  By the power of Yog-Sothoth, and authority of the supreme name Azathoth, I close and seal the Twelfth Gate. This ritual is well and truly ended.

  Allow the image of the gate to grow pale in your imagination and fade to nothingness before you turn away from the ritual direction.

  The Thirteenth Gate

  (here are a surprisingly large number of references to technical details of ritual magic in the Necronomicon mythos, given that Lovecraft knew next to nothing about the subject and always professed a complete disdain for it. The actual practice of ceremonial magic may never have appealed to him, but he felt the allure of its glamour in spite of his protestations to the contrary. Magic shows up again and again in his stories. It is a puzzle why a man who claimed to regard all occultism, and indeed all religion, as no more than pernicious superstition, should have devoted so much of his energies to writings about magic.

  In my opinion, Lovecraft was a creative artist torn between two attracting poles. On the one hand, he celebrated a philosophy of rationalism and materialism that exalted the latest discoveries of astronomy, chemistry, geology, archaeology, and the other sciences. But on the other hand, there was a romantic part of him that was powerfully moved against its will by the irrational and fantastic, the weird and uncanny. The rationalism lay on the surface and was Lovecraft's consciously professed belief. The irresistible attraction towards the fantastic and occult was hidden and rooted much deeper. Lovecraft would probably have denied its very existence. It sprang from the same fathomless black well as his strange dreams, which he could only exorcise and gain control over by writing them down.

  He did his best to be plausible when writing about the procedural aspects of magic, but bemoaned his lack of background knowledge that forced him to rely on articles in the ninth edition of Encyclopaedia Britannica. In a letter to Clark Ashton Smith he asked, `Are there any good translations of any mediaeval necromancers for raising spirits, invoking Lucifer, & all that sort of thing?" (Lovecraft, Sel. Let. vol. 2, p. 28).

  Lovecraft never did find his way directly to the grimoires. His study of ritual magic was made up largely of secondary sources such as A. E. Waite's 1898 Book of Black Magic and Pacts and Lewis Spence's 1920 work Encyclopaedia of Occultism. He had done some superficial studying of astrology and spiritualism, but only to debunk these subjects for Houdini, who hired Lovecraft as his ghostwriter. Houdini paid Lovecraft $75 for an article critical of astrology, which seems to have been lost, but Houdini died before his planned expose of spiritualism, The Cancer of Superstition, in the process of being put together by Lovecraft and C. M. Eddy, could get well off the ground.

  In spite of the bit of folklore that Lovecraft's wife, Sonia Greene, whom he met in 1921 and married in 1924, had been a friend, or even a former lover, of Aleister Crowley in 1918 when Crowley visited New York, there is no hard evidence to connect her with the infamous Great Beast so prominently featured in the newspaper
scandals of the time. Lovecraft thought the publicity surrounding Crowley excessive but knew little or nothing of his teachings, and, had he been exposed to them, would undoubtedly have dismissed them as fantasies. He was almost as ignorant of the doctrine of Theosophy, although later in his life Lovecraft began to read more on the subject. The sheer cosmic scope of the history of the world that was part of the teachings of Madame Blavatsky appealed to him.

  Magic usually appears in Lovecraft's stories for malignant purposes, such as cursing and ensnaring the souls of the innocent, or raising the dead back to life, or summoning the Old Ones from beyond the spheres. Occasionally the wise professors of Miskatonic University use their extensive theoretical knowledge of the occult to combat its abuses, fighting elemental fire with elemental fire, as it were. In The Dunwich Horror, Wilbur Whateley's inhuman, invisible brother is banished by magic before he can be used to bring about the end of all life on this planet, and in The Case of Charles Dexter Ward, the evil necromancer Joseph Curwen has the same spell that was used to raise him up from his essential salts turned against him, returning him once again to dust.

  Lovecraft seems to have regarded magic, at least within the context of the Necronomicon mythos, as a kind of blind force that could be worked for good or evil, depending on the intention of the person wielding it, but which was most often turned to evil uses. Magic is always unsavory in the mythos-there is something vaguely tainted about it, and about those who are drawn to study it, with only a few exceptions. One exception is Randolph Carter, who had descended from a long line of magicians but who never used magic maliciously. Yet in the end, even Carter is caught up in the coils of magic and undone by it. The fascination for magic in Lovecraft's stories is usually a siren song from which comes little good but a great deal of harm. Those who study it, as did Charles Ward and Arthur Gilman, have a kind of fatalism draped around their shoulders. Their passion for the occult is their doom.