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And it was then that Nyarlathotep came out of Egypt.
Who he was, none could tell, but he was of the old native blood and looked
like a Pharaoh. The fellahin knelt when they saw him, yet could not say
why. He said he had risen up out of the blackness of twenty-seven centuries,
and that he had heard messages from places not on this planet. Into the
lands of civilization came Nyarlathotep, swarthy, slender, and sinister,
always buying strange instruments of glass and metal and combining them
into instruments yet stranger. He spoke much of the sciences - of electricity
and psychology - and gave exhibitions of power which sent his spectators
away speechless, yet which swelled his fame to exceeding magnitude. Men
advised one another to see Nyarlathotep, and shuddered. And where Nyarlathotep
went, rest vanished; for the small hours were rent with the screams of
a nightmare. [1]
What his fate would be, he did not know; but
he felt that he was held for the coming of that frightful soul and messenger
of infinity's Other Gods, the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. [2]
There was the immemorial figure of the deputy
or messenger of hidden and terrible powers - the "Black Man"
of the witch cult, and the "Nyarlathotep" of the Necronomicon.
[3]
There are references to a Haunter of the Dark awaked by gazing into
the Shining Trapezohedron, and insane conjectures about the black gulfs
from which it was called. The being is spoken of as holding all knowledge,
and demanding monstrous sacrifices. [4]
One final connection is left to be made to Babalon
and her book, the relationship to the Great Old Ones of Lovecraft’s
Cthulhu mythos. The god Nyarlathotep (NAEQ6: NYARLATHOTEP = 155, 1 + 5
+ 5 = 11) is, as the above shows, associated with Witchcraft, specifically
the “Witchcult” of the Middle Ages[5] , in Lovecraft’s
story Dreams in the Witch House. Interestingly, words with the NAEQ6 value
of 155 are abomination, intimate and mysteries.
While I realize this will be a problematic association
insofar as Lovecraft is a writer of horror stories[6] , it is worth noting
that Lovecraft “dreamt” Nyarlathotep into being, he was not
a literary creation. Second, the connection with the Witch cult is based
on archetypal resonance[7] so the association is not without foundation.
It is also the case that the “Black Man” of the cult is a
legendary figure associated with the Mediaeval resurgence of Witchcraft
and therefore, as we noted earlier, with the establishment of the coven
(NAEQ6, COVEN = 74, 7 + 4 =11).
While there can be little doubt that the Force encountered by Parsons
was a being from out of the black gulfs[8] which are associated with the
Great Old Ones[9] , incredibly this is supported by the fact that the
only other being out of Lovecraft which matches the Key of Liber 49 is
the cosmic power associated with the Gnostic Demiurge is Azathoth, described
as a being that dwells outside the ordered universe (is) that amorphous
blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center
of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name
no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted
chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of
vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes .[10]
The value of Azathoth in NAEQ6 is (AZATHOTH = 73) and words that have
the value of 73 include damned, fates, great, pit, power and
interestingly,
Ra-hoor-khu. It is thought that Lovecraft invented the name Azathoth,
but it is also of note that Lovecraft referred to him as the “Daemon
Sultan”, the “blind, idiot, god Azathoth” and that Daemon
Sultan = 137, Daemon=74, blind = 65 and idiot=83 (all of which reduces
to 11). I will also mention before moving on that Parsons referred to
Horus as “completely blind”.[11]
Name |
NAEQ6 |
Aiq
Bakir |
| Azathoth |
73 |
1 |
| Byatis |
88 |
7 |
| Cthulhu |
81 |
9 |
| Cthylla |
61 |
7 |
| Hastur |
63 |
9 |
| Ithaqua |
89 |
8 |
| Nodens |
71 |
8 |
| Nyarlathotep |
155 |
2 (11) |
| Shub-Niggurath |
163 |
1 |
| Tsathoggua |
105 |
6 |
| Yog-Sothoth |
108 |
9 |
Table 3: I have created a small
table of some of the “major” beings in the Mythos for the
interested reader to use as a start for their own researches. Notably,
the only being whose name is “an 11” in Nyarlathotep which
is in keeping with his being the GOO (Great Old Ones) that has direct
relations to the Witchcult.
The relationship between the two is described as:
Nyarlathotep is one of the more powerful of the “Ancient Ones”
in Lovecraft’s cosmology. At the summit of this diabolical hierarch
is Azathoth, the “blind and idiot” god. Installed at the heart
of Ultimate Chaos (Lovecraft’s Hell), it is he who presides over
human destiny; in this way is the radical absurdity of the world explained.
Lovecraft’s gods are transparent allegories, and Azathoth illustrates
adequately the author’s theses on mechanistic materialism. He is,
for the dreamer Randolph Carter who is searching for marvelous Kadath.
Nyarlathotep is the faithful servant of Azathoth. He is most often designated
vaguely, such as the “Crawling Chaos.” But he has many other
names: he is sometimes the “Dark God,” sometimes “The
Dweller in Darkness… But he can take on other aspects: In The Dream
Quest of Unknown Kadath he appears to Randolph Carter in the form of a
young man of great beauty, clothed in the austere dignity of an Egyptian
god and in a scarlet robe.[12]
In the Dream-quest of Unknown Kadeth, Lovecraft connects the dots for
us: that shocking final peril which gibbers unmentionably outside
the ordered universe, where no dreams reach; that last amorphous blight
of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the centre of
all infinity--the boundless daemon-sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips
dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers
beyond time amidst the muffled, maddening beat of vile drums and the thin,
monotonous whine of accursed flutes; to which detestable pounding and
piping dance slowly, awkwardly, and absurdly the gigantic ultimate gods,
the blind, voiceless, tenebrous, and mindless Other Gods whose soul and
messenger is the crawling chaos Nyarlathotep. [13]
Finally, the function in the Witchcraft of Nyarlathotep
is spelled out in Dreams in the Witchhouse:
The expression on her face was one of hideous malevolence and exultation,
and when he awaked he could recall a croaking voice that persuaded and
threatened. He must meet the Black Man and go with them all to the throne
of Azathoth at the centre of ultimate chaos. That was what she said. He
must sign the book of Azathoth in his own blood and take a new secret
name now that his independent delvings had gone so far. What kept him
from going with her and Brown Jenkin and the other to the throne of Chaos
where the thin flutes pipe mindlessly was the fact that he had seen the
name "Azathoth" in the Necronomicon, and knew it stood for a
primal evil too horrible for description .[14]
If we wish to add Babalon to the rolls of Great Old Ones, the preceding
is problematic but this is not what is intended here. Rather, I would
suggest that the force that came to Parsons in the Mojave was in sympathy
with the same current Lovecraft dreamed of in the 20’s. It is not
a matter of real or unreal, but I think, the expression of a power (or
powers) that are only vaguely perceived by mankind. Interestingly, neither
Babalon nor the gods of the Cthulhu stories are of any pedigree beyond
the 1920’s, and this seems to be a truth proven in the resurgence
of Pagan and magical practice in the 20th Century [15] ; that the gods
are not humans writ large that sit around in a timeless realm and look
down upon the Earth waiting for us to pay attention to them. This does
not mean, however, that the forces that manifest in these forms are not
real or awesome; quite the contrary, actually, as we can never circumscribe
the gods and all of our attempts to catalog these forces or beings like
cosmic insects are as doomed to failure as surely as our attempts to ignore
or banish them from the world.
[1] H.P. Lovecraft, "Nyarlathotep"
[2] H.P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
[3] H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House"
[4] H.P. Lovecraft, "The Haunter of the Dark"
[5] Though it should be noted that Lovecraft got this concept from Margaret
Murray’s The Witchcult in Western Europe, a book that is considered
unreliable as an historical reading of the records of the Witch trials.
The god of the Witches, as viewed by Murray, was
IT is impossible to understand the witch-cult without first understanding
the position of the chief personage of that cult. He was known to the contemporary
Christian judges and recorders as the Devil, and was called by them Satan,
Lucifer, Beelzebub, the Foul Fiend, the Enemy of Salvation, and similar
names appropriate to the Principle of Evil, the Devil of the Scriptures,
with whom they identified him.
This was far from the view of the witches themselves. To them this so-called
Devil was God, manifest and incarnate; they adored him on their knees, they
addressed their prayers to him, they offered thanks to him as the giver
of food and the necessities of life, they dedicated their children to him,
and, there are indications that, like many another god, he was sacrificed
for the good of his people.
The contemporary writers state in so many words that the witches believed
in the divinity of their Master. Danaeus, writing in 1575, says, 'The Diuell
com{m}aundeth them that they shall acknowledge him for their god, cal vpo{n}
him, pray to him, and trust in him. Then doe they all repeate the othe which
they haue geuen vnto him; in acknowledging him to be their God.' Gaule,
in 1646, nearly a century later, says that the witches vow 'to take him
[the Devil] for their God, worship, invoke, obey him'. [Margaret Murray,
The Witchcult in Western Europe]
This theory – that the Witches were a Pagan survival of Pre-Christian
Europe, had a huge impact on Gardner in his creation of is Witchcult. Lovecraft’s
view of this deity is more of an adoption of form rather than substance,
as he clearly considered Nyarlathotep to be a Demonic being.
[6] and I realize “serious” magicians, i.e. those who fail to
grasp Grant and Bertiaux in particular, the sort who thinks Grant is “unreadable”
will dismiss this out of hand. I confess that I view this chapter as having
the additional benefit of being a repellent to those who think that reading
books and getting degrees – or whatever – is the same thing
as Magick.
[7] Which is to say by the magical theory of correspondences, see Sepher Sephirot.
[8] i.e., Transplutonic (Yuggothian) space or Kabbalistically, the Abyss.
This may also refer to Bertiaux’s Universe B or the Tunnels of Set
described by Grant.
[9] Though again, as we discussed in The Ordeal of the Abyss, this is only
apparent, from the perspective of the Earth-bound soul. Babalon, of course,
dwells in the most rarified of the Aethyrs.
[10] H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
[11] Book of Babalon, introduction; This force is completely blind, depending
upon the men and women in whom it manifests and who guide it. Obviously,
its guidance now tends towards catastrophy.(sic)
[12] Maurice Levy. “Cthulhu.” Lovecraft: A Study in the Fantastic.
81-82.
[13] H. P. Lovecraft, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath
[14] H.P. Lovecraft, "The Dreams in the Witch House". This is a
fitting description of Choronzon, at least before the Abyss has been conquered.
It is noteworthy that Lovecraft encountered these beings in dreams and
was clearly repulsed by them.
[15] particularly how these practices have changed with the times far more
adroitly than traditional religion
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