"Our work is therefore historically authentic; the rediscovery of the
Sumerian Tradition." - Aleister Crowley
INTRODUCTION
IN THE MID - 1920's, roughly two blocks from where the Warlock Shop once
stood, in Brooklyn Heights, lived a quiet, reclusive man, an author of short
stories, who eventually divorced his wife of two years and returned to his
boyhood home in Rhode Island, where he lived with his two aunts. Born on August
20, 1890, Howard Phillips Lovecraft would come to exert an impact on the
literary world that dwarfs his initial successes with Weird Tales magazine in
1923. He died, tragically, at the age of 46 on March 15, 1937, a victim of
cancer of the intestine and Bright's Disease. Though persons of such renown as
Dashiell Hammett were to become involved in his work, anthologising it for
publication both here an abroad, the reputation of a man generally conceded to
be the "Father of Gothic Horror" did not really come into its own until the past
few years, with the massive re-publication of his works by various houses, a
volume of his selected letters, and his biography. In the July, 1975, issue The
Atlantic Monthly, there appeared a story entitled "There Are More Things",
written by Jorge Luis Borges, "To the memory of H.P. Lovecraft". This gesture by
a man of the literary stature of Borges is certainly an indication that
Lovecraft has finally ascended to his rightful place in the history of American
literature, nearly forty years after his death.
In the same year that
Lovecraft found print in the pages of Weird Takes, another gentleman was seeing
his name in print; but in the British tabloid press.
NEW SINISTER
REVELATIONS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY read the front page of the Sunday Express. It
concerned testimony by one of the notorious magician's former followers (or,
actually, the wife of one of his followers) that Crowley had been responsible
for the death of her husband, at the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalu, Sicily. The
bad press, plus the imagined threat of secret societies, finally forced
Mussolini to deport the Great Beast from Italy. Tales of horrors filled the
pages of the newspapers in England for weeks and months to come: satanic
rituals, black masses, animal sacrifice, and even human sacrifice, were reported
- or blatantly lied about. For although many of the stories were simply not true
or fanciful exaggeration, one thing was certain: Aleister Crowley was a
Magician, and one of the First Order.
Born on October 12, 1875, in
England - in the same country as Shakespeare - Edward Alexander Crowley grew up
in a strict Fundamentalist religious family, members of a sect called the
"Plymouth Brethren". The first person to call him by that Name and Number by
which he would become famous (after the reference in the Book of Revelation),
"The Beast 666", was his mother, and he eventually took this appellation to
heart. He changed his name to Aleister Crowley while still at Cambridge, and by
that name , plus "666", he would never be long out of print, or out of
newspapers. For he believed himself to be the incarnation of a god, an Ancient
One, the vehicle of a New Age of Man's history, the Aeon of Horus, displacing
the old Age of Osiris. In 1904, he had received a message, from what Lovecraft
might have called "out of space", that contained the formula for a New World
Order, a new system of philosophy, science, art and religion, but this New Order
had to begin with the fundamental part, and common denominator, of all four:
Magick.
In 1937, the year Lovecraft dies, the Nazis banned the occult
lodges of Germany, notable among them two organisations which Crowley had
supervised: the A\ A\ and the O.T.O., the latter of which he was elected head in
England, and the former which he founded himself. There are those who believe
that Crowley was somehow, magickally, responsible for the Third Reich, for two
reasons: one, that the emergence of New World Orders generally seems to
instigate holocausts and, two, that he is said to have influenced the mind of
Adolf Hitler. While it is almost certain that Crowley and Hitler never met, it
is known that Hitler belonged to several occult lodges in the early days after
the First War; the symbol of one of these, the Thule Gesellschaft which preached
a doctrine of Aryan racial superiority, was the infamous Swastika which Hitler
was later to adopt as the Symbol of the forms, however, is evident in many of
his writings, notably the essays written in the late 'Thirties. Crowley seemed
to regard the Nazi phenomenon as a Creature of Christianity, in it's
anti-Semitism and sever moral restrictions concerning its adherents, which lead
to various types of lunacies and "hangups" that characterised many of the
Reich's leadership. Yet, there can be perhaps little doubt that the chaos which
engulfed the world in those years was prefigured, and predicted, in Crowley's
Liber AL vel Legis; the Book of the Law.
The Mythos and
the Magick
We can profitably compare the essence of most of Lovecraft's
short stories with the basic themes of Crowley's unique system of ceremonial
Magick. While the latter was a sophisticated psychological structure, intended
to bring the initiate into contact with his higher Self, via a process of
individuation that is active and dynamic (being brought about by the "patient"
himself) as opposed to the passive depth analysis of the Jungian adepts,
Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos was meant for entertainment. Scholars, of course, are
able to find higher, ulterior motives in Lovecraft's writings, as can be done
with any manifestation of Art.
Lovecraft depicted a kind of Christian
Myth of the struggle between opposing forces of Light and Darkness, between God
and Satan, in the Cthulhu Mythos. Some critics may complain that this smacks
more of the Manichaen heresy than it does of genuine Christian dogma; yet, as a
priest and former monk, I believe it is fair to say that this dogma is
unfortunately very far removed from the majority of the Faithful to be of much
consequence. The idea of a War against Satan, and of the entities of Good and
Evil having roughly equivalent Powers, is perhaps best illustrated by the
belief, common among the Orthodox churches of the East, in a personal devil as
well as a personal angel. This concept has been amplified by the Roman Catholic
Church to such an extent - perhaps subconsciously - that a missal in the
Editor's possession contains an engraving for the Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle,
for November 30, that bears the legend "Ecce Qui Tollis Peccata Mundi" - Behold
Him Who Taketh Away The Sins of the World - and the picture above it is of the
atomic bomb!
Basically, there are two "sets" of gods in the mythos : the
Elder Gods, about whom not much is revealed, save that they are a stellar Race
that occasionally comes to the rescue of man, and which corresponds to the
Christian "Light"; and the Ancient Ones, about which much is told, sometimes in
great detail, who correspond to "Darkness". These latter are the Evil Gods who
wish nothing but ill for the Race of Man, and who constantly strive to break
into our world through a Gate or Door that leads from the Outside, In. There are
certain people, among us, who are devotees of the Ancient Ones, and who try to
open the Gate, so that this evidently repulsive organisation may once again rule
the Earth. Chief among these is Cthulhu, typified as a Sea Monster, dwelling in
the Great Deep, a sort of primeval Ocean; a Being that Lovecraft collaborator
August Derleth wrongly calls a "water elemental". There is also Azazoth, the
blind idiot god of Chaos, Yog Sothot, Azathoth's partner in Chaos, Shub
Niggurath, the "goat with a thousand young", and others. They appear at various
times throughout the stories of the Cthulhu Mythos in frightening forms, which
test the strength and resourcefulness of the protagonists in their attempts to
put the hellish Things back to whence they came. There is an overriding sense of
primitive dear and cosmic terror in those pages, as though man is dealing with
something that threatens other than his physical safety: his very spiritual
nature. This horror-cosmology is extended by the frequent appearance of the
Book, NECRONOMICON.
The NECRONOMICON, is according to Lovecraft's tales,
a volume written in Damascus in the Eighth Century, A.D., by a person called the
"Mad Arab", Abdhul Alhazred. It must run roughly 800 pages in length, as there
is a reference in one of the stories concerning some lacunae on a page in the
700's It had been copied and reprinted in various languages - the story goes -
among them Latin, Greek and English. Doctor Dee, the Magus of Elizabethan fame,
was supposed to have possessed a copy and translated it. This book, according to
the mythos, contains the formulae for evoking incredible things into visible
appearance, beings and monsters which dwell in the Abyss, and Outer Space, of
the human psyche.
Such books have existed in fact, and do exist. Idries
Shah tells us of a search he conducted for a copy of the Book of Power by the
Arab magician Abdul-Kadir (see: The Secret Lore of Magic by Shah), of which only
one copy was ever found. The Keys of Solomon had a similar reputation, as did
The Magus by Barret, until all of these works were eventually reprinted in the
last fifteen years or so. The Golden Dawn, a famous British and American Occult
lodge of the turn of the Century, was said to have possessed a manuscript called
"the Veils of Negative Existence" by another Arab.
These were the
sorcerer's handbooks, and generally not meant as textbooks or encyclopedias of
ceremonial magick. In other words, the sorcerer or magician is supposed to be in
possession of the requisite knowledge and training with which to carry out a
complex magickal ritual, just as a cook is expected to be able to master the
scrambling of eggs before he conjures an "eggs Benedict"; the grimoires, or
Black Books, were simply variations on a theme, like cookbooks, different
records of what previous magicians had done, the spirits they had contacted, and
the successes they had. The magicians who now read these works are expected to
be able to select the wheat from the chaff, in much the same fashion as an
alchemist discerning the deliberate errors in a treatise on his
subject.
Therefore it was (and is) insanity for the tyro to pick up a
work on ceremonial Magick like the Lesser Key of Solomon to practise
conjurations. It would also be folly to pick up Crowley's Magick in Theory and
Practise with the same intention. Both books are definitely not for beginners, a
point which cannot be made too often. Unfortunately, perhaps, the dread
NECRONOMICON falls into this category.
Crowley's Magick was a testimony
of what he has found in his researches into the forbidden, and forgotten, lore
of past civilisations and ancient times. His Book of the Law was written in
Cairo in the Spring of 1904, when he believed himself to be in contact with a
praeter-human intelligence called Aiwass who dictated to him the Three Chapters
that make up the Book. It had influenced him more than any other, and the
remainder of his life was spent trying to understand it fully, and to make its
message known to the world. It, too, contains the formulae necessary to summon
the invisible into visibility, and the secrets of transformations are hidden
within its pages, but this is Crowley's own NECRONOMICON, received in the Middle
East in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh, and therein is writ not only
the beauty, but the Beast that yet awaits mankind.
It would be vain to
attempt to deliver a synopsis of Crowley's philosophy, save that its 'leitmotif'
is the Rabelaisian
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of
the Law.
The actual meaning of this phrase has taken volumes to explain, but
roughly it concerns the uniting of the conscious Self, a process of
individuation which culminates in a rite called "Knowledge and Conversation of
the Holy Guardian Angel"; the Angel signifying the pure, evolved
Self.
Yet, there are many terrors on the Way to the Self, and an Abyss to
cross before victory can be declared. Demons, vampires, psychic leeches, ghastly
forms accost the aspiring magician from every angle, from every quarter around
the circumference of the magick circle, and they must be destroyed lest they
devour the magician himself. When Crowley professed to have passed the
obstacles, and crossed the Abyss of Knowledge, and found his true Self, he found
it was identical with the Beast of the Book of Revelation, 666, whom
Christianity considers to represent the Devil. Indeed, Crowley had nothing but
admiration for the Shaitan (Satan) of the so-called "devil-worshipping" cult of
the Yezidis of Mesopotamia, knowledge of which led him to declare the lines that
open this Introduction. For he saw that the Yezidis possess a Great Secret and a
Great Tradition that extends far back into time, beyond the origin of the Sun
cults of Osiris, Mithra and Christ; even before the formation of the Judaic
religion, and the Hebrew tongue. Crowley harkened back to a time before the Moon
was worshipped, to the "Shadow Out of Time"; and in this, whether he realised it
as such or not, he had heard the "Call of Cthulhu".
Sumeria
That a reclusive author of short stories who lived in a quiet
neighbourhood in New England, and the manic, infamous Master Magician who called
the world his home, should have somehow met in the sandy wastes of some
forgotten civilisation seems incredible. That they should both have become
Prophets and Forerunners of a New Aeon of Man's history is equally, if not more,
unbelievable. Yet, with H.P. Lovecraft and Aleister Crowley, the unbelievable
was a commonplace of life. These two men, both acclaimed as geniuses by their
followers and admirers, and who never actually met, stretched their legs across
the world, and in the Seven League Boots of the mind they did meet, and on
common soil . . . . Sumeria.
Sumeria is the name given to a once
flourishing civilisation that existed in what is now known as Iraq, in the area
called by the Greeks "Mesopotamia" and by the Arabs as, simply, "The Island" for
it existed between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates, which run down from
the mountains to the Persian Gulf. This is the site of the fabled city of
Babylon, as well as of Ur of the Chaldees and Kish, with Nineveh far to the
north. Each of the seven principal cities of Sumeria was ruled by a different
deity, who was worshipped in the strange, non-Semitic language of the Sumerians;
and language which has been closely allied to that of the Aryan race, having in
fact many words identical to that of Sanskrit (and, it is said, to
Chinese!).
For no one knows where the Sumerians came from, and they
vanished just as mysteriously as they appeared, after the Assyrian invasions
which decimated their culture, yet providing the Assyrians with much of their
mythology and religion; so much so that Sumerian became the official language of
the state church, much as Latin is today of the Roman Catholic Church. They had
a list of their kings before the Flood, which even they carefully chronicled, as
did many another ancient civilisation around the world. It is believed that they
had a sophisticated system of astronomy (and astrology) as well as an equally
religious rituale. Magick, as well in history, begins at Sumer for the Western
World, for it his here, in the sand-buried cuneiform tablets that recorded an
Age, that the first Creation Epic is found, the first exorcism, the first ritual
invocations of planetary deities, the first dark summonings of evil Powers, and
ironically, the first "burnings" of people the anthropologists call
"Witches".
Lovecraft's mythos deals with what are known chthonic deities,
that is, underworld gods and goddesses, much like the Leviathan of the Old
Testament. The pronunciation of chthonic is 'katonic', which explains
Lovecraft's famous Miskatonic River and Miskatonic University, not to mention
the chief deity of his pantheon, Cthulhu, a sea monster who lies, "not dead, but
dreaming" below the world; an Ancient One and supposed enemy of Mankind and the
intelligent Race. Cthulhu is accompanied by an assortment of other
grotesqueries, such as Azathot and Shub Niggurath. It is of extreme importance
to occult scholars that many of these deities had actual counterparts, at least
in name, to deities of the Sumerian Tradition, that same Tradition that the
Magus Aleister Crowley deemed it so necessary to "rediscover".
The
Underworld in ancient Sumer was known by many names, among them ABSU or "Abyss",
sometimes as Nar Mattaru, the great Underworld Ocean, and also as Cutha or KUTU
as it is called in the Enuma Elish (the Creation Epic of the Sumerians). The
phonetic similarity between Cutha and KUTU and Chthonic, as well as Cthulhu, is
striking. Judging by a Sumerian grammar at hand, the word KUTULU or Cuthalu
(Lovecraft's's Cthulhu Sumerianised) would mean "The Man of KUTU (Cutha); the
Man of the Underworld; Satan or Shaitan, as he is known to the Yezidis (whom
Crowley considered to be the remnants of the Sumerian Tradition). The list of
similarities, both between Lovecraft's creations and the Sumerian gods, as well
as between Lovecraft's mythos and Crowley's magick, can go on nearly
indefinitely, and in depth, for which there is no space here at present. An
exhaustive examination of Crowley's occultism in light of recent findings
concerning Sumeria, and exegesis on Lovecraft's stories, is presently in
preparation and is hoped to be available shortly. Until that time, a few
examples should suffice.
Although a list is appended hereto containing
various entities and concepts of Lovecraft, Crowley, and Sumeria
cross-referenced, it will do to show how the Editor found relationships to be
valid and even startling. AZATOT is frequently mentioned in the grim pages of
the Cthulhu Mythos, and appears in the NECRONOMICON as AZAG-THOTH, a combination
of two words, the first Sumerian and the second Coptic, which gives us a clue as
to Its identity. AZAG in Sumerian means "Enchanter" or "Magician"; THOTH in
Coptic is the name given to the Egyptian God of Magick and Wisdom, TAHUTI, who
was evoked by both the Golden Dawn and by Crowley himself (and known to the
Greeks as Hermes, from whence we get "Hermetic"). AZAG-THOTH is, therefore, a
Lord of Magicians, but of the "Black" magicians, or the sorcerers of the "Other
Side".
There is a seeming reference to SHUB NIGGURATH in the
NECRONOMICON, in the name of a Sumerian deity, the "Answerer of Prayers", called
ISHNIGARRAB. The word "Shub" is to be found in the Sumerian language in
reference to the Rite of Exorcism, one of which is called Nam Shub and means
"the Throwing". It is, however, as yet unclear as to what the combination SHUB
ISHNIGARRAB (SHUB NIGGURATH) might actually mean.
There was a battle
between the forces of "light" and "darkness" (so-called) that took place long
before man was created, before even the cosmos as we know it existed. It is
described fully in the Enuma Elish and in the bastardised version found in the
NECRONOMICON, and involved the Ancient Ones, led by the Serpent MUMMU-TIAMAT and
her male counterpart ABSU, against the ELDER GODS (called such in the N.) led by
the Warrior MARDUK, son of the Sea God ENKI, Lord of Magicians of this Side, or
what could be called "White Magicians" - although close examination of the myths
of ancient times makes one pause before attempting to judge which of the two
warring factions was "good" or "evil". MARDUK won this battle - in much the same
way that later St. George and St. Michael would defeat the Serpent again - the
cosmos was created from the body of the slain Serpent, and man was created from
the blood of the slain commander of the Ancient Army, KINGU, thereby making man
a descendent of the Blood of the Enemy, as well as the "breath" of the Elder
Gods; a close parallel to the "sons of God and daughters of men" reference in
the Old Testament. Yet, though the identity of the Victor is clear, there were -
and are - certain persons and organisations that dared side with the vanquished,
believing the Ancient Ones to be a source of tremendous, and most unbelievable,
power.
Worship of the Ancient Ones in History
"Let them curse it that curse the day, who are
skilful to rouse Leviathan." - JOB 3:8
S.H. Hooke, in his excellent Middle Eastern Mythology, tells us that the
Leviathan mentioned in JOB, and elsewhere in the Old Testament, is the Hebrew
name given to the Serpent TIAMAT, and reveals that there was in existence either
a cult, or scattered individuals, who worshipped or called up the Serpent of the
Sea, or Abyss. Indeed, the Hebrew word for Abyss that is found in GENESIS 1:2
is, Hooke tells us, tehom, which the majority of scholars take to be a survival
of the name of the chaos-dragon TIAMAT or Leviathan that is identified closely
with KUTULU or Cthulhu within the pages are mentioned independently of each
other, indicating that somehow KUTULU is the male counterpart of TIAMAT, similar
to ABSU.
This monster is well known to cult worship all over the world.
In China, however, there is an interesting twist. Far from being considered a
completely hostile creature, dedicated to the erasure of mankind from the page
of existence, the Dragon is given a place of pre-eminence and one does not hear
of a Chinese angel or saint striving to slay the dragon, but rather to cultivate
it. The Chinese system of geomancy, feng shui (pronounced fung shway) is the
science of understanding the "dragon currents" which exist beneath the earth,
these same telluric energies that are distilled in such places as Chartres
Cathedral in France, Glastonbury Tor in England, and the Ziggurats of
Mesopotamia. In both the European and Chinese cultures, the Dragon or Serpent is
said to reside somewhere "below the earth"; it is a powerful force, a magickal
force, which is identified with mastery over the created world; it is also a
power that can be summoned by the few and not the many. However, in China, there
did not seem to be a backlash of fear or resentment against this force as was
known in Europe and Palestine, and the symbol of might and kingship in China is
still the Dragon. In the West, the conjuration, cultivation, or worship of this
Power was strenuously opposes with the advent of the Solar, Monotheistic
religions and those who clung to the Old Ways were effectively extinguished. The
wholesale slaughter of those called "Witches" during the Inquisition is an
example of this, as well as the solemn and twisted - that is to say, purposeless
and unenlightened - celibacy that the Church espoused. For the orgone of Wilhelm
Reich is just as much Leviathan as the Kundalini of Tantrick adepts, and the
Power raised by the Witches. It has always, at least in the past two thousand
years, been associated with occultism and essentially with Rites of Evil Magick,
or the Forbidden Magick, of the Enemy, and of Satan . . .
. . . and the
twisting, sacred Spiral formed by the Serpent of the Caduceus, and by the
spinning of the galaxies, is also the same Leviathan as the Spiral of the
biologists' Code of Life : DNA
The Goddess of the
Witches
The current revival of the cult called WICCA is a manifestation
of the ancient secret societies that sought to tap this telluric, occult force
and use it to their own advantage, and to the advantage of humanity as was the
original intent. The raising of the Cone of Power through the circle dancing is
probably the simplest method of attaining results in "rousing Leviathan", and
has been used by societies as diverse as the Dervishes in the Middle East and
the Python Dancers of Africa, not to mention the round dances that were familiar
to the Gnostic Christians, and the ones held every year in the past at
Chartres.
The Witches of today, however, while acknowledging the
importance of the Male element of telluric Power, generally prefer to give the
greater honour to the Female Principle, personified as the Goddess. The Goddess
has also been worshipped all over the world, and under many names, but is still
essentially the same Goddess. That TIAMAT was undoubtedly female is to the
point; and that the Chinese as well as the Sumerians perceived of two dragon
currents, male and female, gives the researchers a more complex picture. The
Green Dragon and the Red Dragon of the alchemists are thus identified, as the
positive and negative energies that compromise the cosmos of our perception, as
manifest in the famous Chinese yin-yang symbol.
But what of INANNA, the
single planetary deity having a female manifestation among the Sumerians? She is
invoked in the NECRONOMICON and identified as the vanquisher of Death, for she
descended into the Underworld and defeated her sister, the Goddess of the Abyss,
Queen ERESHKIGAL (possibly another name for TIAMAT). Interestingly enough, the
myth has many parallels with the Christian concept of Christ's death and
resurrection, among which the Crucifixion (INANNA was impaled on a stake as a
corpse), the three days in the Sumerian Hades, and the eventual Resurrection are
outstanding examples of how Sumerian mythology previewed the Christian religion
by perhaps as many as three thousand years - a fact that beautifully illustrates
the cosmic and eternal nature of this myth.
Therefore, the Goddess of the
Witches has two distinct forms: the Ancient One, Goddess of the Dragon-like
telluric Power which is raised in Magickal rituals, and the Elder Goddess,
Defeater of Death, who brings the promise of Resurrection and Rejuvenation to
her followers those who must reside for a time after death and between
incarnations in what is called the "Summerland".
Sumer-land?
Another hallmark of the Craft of the Wise is evident within the
NECRONOMICON, as well as in general Sumerian literature, and that is the
arrangement of the cross-quarter days, which make up half of the Craft's
official pagan holidays. These occur on the eves of February 2nd, May 1st,
August 1st, and November 1st, and are called Candlemas, Beltane, Lammas and
Samhain (or Hallows), respectively.
The name Lammas has a curious origin
in the dunes at Sumer. It is not less than the name of one of the four
mythological Beasts of the astrological fixed signs, Lamas being the name of the
half-lion, half-man Guardian of Leo (the sign governing most of August, when the
feast of Lammas takes place), and USTUR being that of Aquarius (February), SED
that of Taurus (May) and NATTIG that of Scorpio (November). I do not believe
that this is a fantastic assumption, the Sumerian origin of the Feast of Lammas.
Indeed, it seems just as valid as the ideas of Idries Shah concerning Craft
etymology as presented in his book, The Sufis. It is also not far-fetched to
assume that these four beasts were known to the entire region of the Middle
East, as they appear on the Sphinx in Egypt, and have become the symbols of the
Four Evangelists of the Christian New Testament - an ironic and splendid result
of the ignorance of the Greek religious historians concerning the ancient
mysteries!
Probable the most inconsistent concept the Sumerians possesses
with reference to the Craft is the naming of the Goddess as a deity, not of the
Moon (as the Craft would have it), but of the planet Venus. The Moon was
governed by a male divinity, NANNA (like INANNA but minus the initial 'I'), and
was considered the Father of the Gods by the earliest Sumerian religion. It
should be noted, however, that all of the planetary deities, termed "the zoned
Ones" or zonei in Greek, and indeed all of the Sumerian deities, had both male
and female manifestations, showing that the Sumerians definitely recognised a
yin-yang composition if the universe (the "male Moon" idea is, the Editor is
given to understand, common to so-called Aryan mythologies). There is also
evidence to show that every god and goddess also had both a good and an evil
nature, and evil gods were banished in the exorcism formulae of that
civilisation as well as the lesser forms of demon.
The
Horned Moon
As mentioned, the God of the Moon was called NANNA by the
Sumerians. By the later Sumerians and Assyrians, he was called SIN. In both
cases, he was the Father of the Gods (of the planetary realm, the zonei), and
was depicted as wearing horns, a symbol familiar to the Witches as
representative of their God. The horn shaped crown is illustrative of the
crescent phases of the Moon, and were symbolic of divinity in many cultures
around the world, and were also thought to represent certain animals who were
horned, and worshipped for their particular qualities, such as the goat and
bull. They also represent sexual power.
The fact that, in ancient Sumeria
and Egypt, horns were solely representative of evil gods, but of many different
deities, was used by the Christian Church in their attempt to eradicate pagan
faiths. It was a simple enough symbol to identify with the Author of Evil,
Satan, which the Church depicted as a half-animal, half-human creature with
horns, claws, and sometimes a tail. The Church's use of the horns as a sort of
archetype of Evil is quite similar to the feeling many people have today with
regards to the swastika used by the Nazis, a symbol which has become the
archetype of an evil sigil in the West. The fact that it is a highly valued
mystical and religious symbol in the East is something that is not well-known.
What is worse, the image of the Devil as perpetrated by the Church is
simultaneously representative of sexual energy, and can be safely compared to
Jung's archetype of the Shadow, the psychic repository of a man's innate
maleness, as the anima represents that part of a man which is feminine. Truly,
the pictures painted of a Satanic ritual by the pious Catholic clergymen was one
of sexual orgies and "perversions", and the handbook of the Inquisitors, the
Malleus Maleficarum - which has been responsible for the deaths of many more
people than even Hitler's Mein Kampf - is full of detailed sexual imagery and
reveals the nature of the souls of the monks who wrote it, rather than of the
innocents it was used to massacre. Eventually, Satanism, Protestantism and
Judaism were inextricably woven together to form a patchwork quilt of Evil that
the Church attempted to destroy during the Middle Ages, with fire and
sword.
As a matter of fact, a certain type of devil worship did exist
during those times but, ironically, the acolytes of Hell were usually never
brought to trial; something which stems from the fact that many of those who
celebrated and attended the infamous Black Masses of the period were Roman
Catholic clergymen, many of whom has been pressed into His Service at a young
age by their parents, who wished to see their sons brought up well-fed and
educated in those uncertain times, where the Church was the sole power and
refuge. The frustration at being "condemned" to a life that demanded the
abandonment of society and a "normal" life led many priests to express their
hostilities through the Office of the Demon, the Black Mass. Often, this was
also a means of political demonstration, as the Church controlled virtually all
the political life of the period. In a way, as though in a test tube at a
philosophical laboratory, Aleister Crowley was brought up under similar
circumstances - although ver far removed in time from the days of the Church's
immense temporal power. Coming from a fanatically religious Christian family,
and suddenly freed upon the neighbourhood of Cambridge, Crowley did, in a sense,
turn Satanist. He identified strongly with the underdog, politically as well as
spiritually, and came eventually to take the Name of the Beast as his own, and
expound a philosophy that he hoped would rip apart the worn tapestry of the
established moral Christian atmosphere of Victorian England, and expose it for
what it really was, a carpet made of many ingenious threads and not God - or
eternal happiness - at all; only nap.
Therefore, it seemed almost logical
that he should seek in the defeated, Old Religions of the world for the basis of
his new philosophy and, some say, his new "religion". He raised the female
aspect back up to one of equality with the male, as it was in the rites of
Egypt, and of Eleusis. "Our Lady Babalon" (his spelling) became a theme of many
of his magickal writings, and he received he Credo, the Book of the Law, through
a Woman, his wife Rose Kelly. The lunar element, as well as the Venusian, are
certainly accessible in his works. It has even been said in occult circles that
he had a hand in putting together the grimoire of one Gerald Gardner, founder of
a contemporary Witchcraft movement, called the Book of Shadows.
The Moon
has an extremely important, indeed indispensable, role in the tantrick sex
magick rites that so preoccupied Crowley and the O.T.O. There can be no true
magick without woman, nor without man, and in the symbolic language of the
occult there can be no Sun without the Moon. In alchemy, ceremonial magick, and
Witchcraft, the formula is the same, for they all deal with identical
properties; whether they are called the Sun and Moon of the Elixir Vitae, the
male and female participants in a rite of Indian or Chinese tantricism, or the
Shadow and the Anima of Jungian depth psychology.
For many years, the
Moon remained the prime deity of the Sumerians, constituting the essential
Personum of a religious and mystical drama that was performed roughly 3000 B.C.
amid the deserts and marshes of Mesopotamia. Side by side with the worship of
the Moon, NANNA, there was fear of the Demon, PAZUZU, a genie so amply recreated
in the book and the movie by Blatty, The Exorcist, and similarly recognised as
the Devil Himself by the Church. PAZUZU, the Beast, was brought to life by
Aleister Crowley, and the Demon walked the Earth once more.
With
publicity provided by H.P. Lovecraft.
The Devil
PAZUZU was a prime example of the type of Devil of which the
Sumerians were particularly aware, and which they depicted constantly in their
carvings and statues. The purpose of this iconography was to ward off the
spiritual - and psychic - circumstances which would precipitate a plague, or
some other evil. "Evil to destroy evil." Although the ancient people of the
world were conscious of an entity we might call the :Author of all Evil", the
Devil or Satan, as evident in the Sumerian Creation Epic and the rumoured
existences of the Cult of Set of the Egyptians, the more pressing concern was
usually the exorcism of TIAMAT, she exists, somehow, just as the Abyss exists
and is perhaps indispensable to human life if we think of Her as typifying the
female quality of Energy. Although MARDUK was responsible for halving the
Monster from the Sea, the Sumerian Tradition has it that the Monster is not
dead, but dreaming, asleep below the surface of the Earth, strong, potent,
dangerous, and very real. her powers can be tapped by the knowledgeable, "who
are skilful to rouse Leviathan."
Although the Christian religion has gone
to great lengths to prove that the Devil is inferior to God and exists solely
for His purpose, as the Tempter of Man - surely a dubious raison d'etre - the
Sumerian Tradition acknowledges that the Person of "Evil" is actually the
oldest, most Ancient of the Gods. Whereas Christianity states that Lucifer was a
rebel in heaven, and fell from God's grace to ignominy below, the original story
was that MARDUK was the rebel, and severed the Body of the Ancient of Ancient
Ones to create the Cosmos in other words, the precise reverse of the
Judeo-Christian dogma. The Elder Gods evidently possessed a certain Wisdom that
was not held by their Parents, yet their Parents held the Power, the Primal
Strength, the First Magick, that the Elder Ones tapped to their own advantage,
for they were begotten of Her.
It generally accepted in the Halls of
Magick that all of the Wisdom in the world is useless without the necessary
adjunct of Power. This Power has gone by many names, as the Goddess and the
Devil have, but the Chinese symbolise It by the Dragon. It is the force of Will,
and relies heavily upon the biochemical matter that makes up the human body, and
hence, the human consciousness, to give it existence. Science is coming around
to accept the fact that the Will does exist, just at the point where Psychology
has determined it does not - in the behaviourists vain attempt to eradicate what
has always been known to constitute vital parts of the psyche from their
consideration in pseudo scientific experimentation, leaving us with the "white
mice and pigeons" of Koestler's The Ghost In The Machine. Science, ancient
Sister of Magick, has begun to realize the human potential that resides,
inconspicuously, in the spiral-mapped matter of the brain. Just as the
magicians, accused of trafficking with the Devil, were said to have developed
tremendous power over natural phenomena, Science has ascended to that realm
unblamed, and guiltless. The Pope has ridden in aircraft. Cardinals have flown
in 'choppers' over battlefields in Southeast Asia, urging technological
eco-side, invoking Christ; pronouncing damnation and the Devil on the
industrially inferior man. Ecce Qui Tollit Peccata Mundi.
And a rock
group from England, home of the Anglican heresy, sings of "sympathy" for the
Devil. PAZUZU. TIAMAT. The Seven Deadly Sins. The fear of Lovecraft. The pride
of Crowley.
The lunar landing was the symbolic manifestation of man's
newly acquired potential power to alter the nature - and perhaps, via nuclear
weapons, the course - of the heavenly bodies, the zonei, the Elder Gods. It has
a power the Ancient Ones have been waiting for, for millennia, and it is now
within their grasp. The next century may deliver unto mankind this awesome power
and responsibility, and will leave him knocking on the dread doors of the
azonei, the IGIGI, approaching the barrier that keeps out the ABSU.
And
one day, without the benefit of NECRONOMICON, the Race of Man will smash the
barrier and the Ancient Ones will rule once more.
An alternative
possibility exists: that, by landing on the Moon, we have come to reinstate the
ancient Covenant and thereby assure our protection against the Outside. Since
"the gods are forgetful", buy treading on their celestial spheres we are
reminding them of their ancient obligations to us, their created ones. For, as
it is said in one of man's most ancient of Covenants, the Emerald Table, "As
Above, So Below". Man's power to alter the nature of his environment must
develop simultaneously with his ability to master his inner environment, his own
mind his psyche, soul, spirit. Perhaps, then, the lunar landing was the first
collective initiation for humanity, which will bring it one step closer to a
beneficial Force that resides beyond the race of the "cruel celestial spirits",
past the Abyss of Knowledge. Yet, he must remember that the occult powers that
accompany magickal attainment are ornamental only, indications of obstacles
overcome on the Path to Perfection, and are not to be sought after in
themselves, for therein lies the truth Death. Lovecraft saw this Evil, as the
world passed from one War and moved menacingly towards another. Crowley prepared
for it, and provided us with the formulae. The Mad Arab saw it all, in a vision,
and wrote it down. He was, perhaps, one of the most advanced adepts of his time,
and her certainly has something to say to us, today, in a language the Intuition
understands. Yet they called him "Mad".
Accompanied in the ranks of the
"insane" by such "madmen" as Neitzsche, Artaud, and Reich, the Mad Arab makes a
Fourth, in a life-and-death game of cosmic bridge. They are all voices crying in
that wilderness of madness that men call Society, and as such were ostracised,
stoned, and deemed mentally unfit for life. But, for them, Justice will come
when we have realised that the Ship of State and the Ship of St Peter have
become mere Ships of Fools - with Captains who course the seas by stars,
ignoring the eternal Ocean - and then, we will have to look to the Prisoners in
the Hold for navigational guidance.
It is there, always, and Cthulhu
Calls.