Where there is night for every being,
He who has conquered himself is waking; Where there is waking,
There is night for him who seeks but Truth.
-Bhagavad-Gita
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The “Night” which is spoken of in this book is not the exoteric night of Darkness. It is the esoteric night that is the Night when the Black Light of Spirit shines. The climes it illuminates are the Realm Spiritual that in ancient Oriental thought has become known as the Luminous Land or Terra Lucida.
Black is the Spiritual Light that shines forth at Midnight. There, fore we can say it is the Midnight Sun, the Mystical Luminary guiding the Pilgrim toward the all-revealing reconciliation of opposites. The Sun illuminates Polar spaces, but also those Climes-Beyond-the-Pole. The future is rooted in the present.
In classic Greek mythology, it is the White Goddess Cardea, the wife of doubled, headed or two-faced god Ian us, whose symbol is the double-axe. She holds the Hinges at the back of the Wind of Boreas, the mystical North. As the Creatrix she is also called the Goddess of the Mill, for it is the millstone around which manifest Creation revolves. And the Land of the North is Hyperborea or “beyond the reaches of Boreas.”
In Polar Tradition the Mystical Midnight is sometimes called Mother-Night. The Platonic mystic Lucius Apuleius of Madaura speaks of this vision as “media nocte vidi solem coruscatem.” In the middle of the night, the Sacred Quest is high, and when the Light is dawning, it is the maternal night of the Creatrix or Tiamat. Then, vision becomes primordial and serenity settles upon the Pilgrim, for he has achieved the Wisdom-Knowledge that the One is formed by the One, as was taught in the times of the Order of Yore.
The Creatrix is the Mother, but Wisdom went out of the world of manifestation when Tiamat was estranged from Apsu in their loving embrace. We can say that the age of Polar Order was the Day of Maternal Light whereas the present age, to be equated with the Kali Yuga in Vedic lore, is the Age of Night. Yet every night must come to its end.
In the midst of the Polar climes, the Hyperborean Alba or “White Land,” there rises the mystical World-Mountain into spiritual heights. The ancient Sumerians, who, migrating from Central Asia via the Indus Valley, settled in the southern part of Mesopotamia in the pre-Semitic era, were named after the Sacred Mount Sumeru. Sumeru is the Vedic Meru, the World-Mountain, in modern times often exoterically identified with Mount Kailash.
Whatever exoteric name it has been given, it is that snow-clad, two- or three-peaked mountain that Lovecraft calls the “Kadath-in-the-Cold-Waste,” symbolizing ever since the vertical axis of Creation. It is the World-Mountain that must be ascended by the Pilgrim at any rate, and its foremost significance for spiritual revelation is reflected in Dante’s “Purgatorium” in which he and the mercurial guide Virgil scale in spirals the Mountain that, indeed, is crowned by the maternal Sun of Midnight. When Ascent is accomplished, the Pilgrim to the Pole can recover the secret Gateway, sacred to the Tradition of the Mystic Pole. On the heights of the Spiritual Deeps, it opens wide and grants primordial vistas of the Shadowless Land beyond the Barrier of Light. However, the esoteric summits of the World-Mountain are virtually inaccessible to those who remain in the state of cyclic dreaming, who do not awake from illusory spacetime and transcend their sensory existence. As it is Lovecraft’s message, the ancient Gods suffer no man to behold their likeness. The Onyx-Castle that perch, es like an Eagle in his mountainous hideaway, can only be reached when the individual undergoes transformation, crosses the Bridge, the Barrier of Light, and suffers Death-in-Life. Then the Gift of the White Stone, the Sight of the Arcana, is bestowed.
Terra Lucida, the Land of the Black Spirit, Light, is called Hurqalya in Sufi mysticism and can be regarded as prototypical of the biblical Promised Land, the Heavenly Jerusalem, Celtic Avalon or the Yns-Witrin, the Island of Glas.
(Note: Hurqalya, otherwise, Ard haqiqa, is “the Earth in its ‘absolute state,’ that is, ‘absolved’ from the empirical ‘appearance’ displayed to the senses, and on the other hand, the ‘real apparition restored by the transcendental Imagination alone. Here all realities exist in the state of Images, and these Images are ‘a priori’ or archetypal, they are themselves, as it were, ‘pre-meditant,’ in the meditation of the soul whose world they are.” Citation from H. Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, Bollingen Series XCI:2, I. B. Taurus & Co., London, 1990.)
In Persian astronomical science, from which most of the equivalent concepts in Sufism are derived, it is called the Sphere of Spheres, indicating the Black Light that illuminates the regions that are beheld by inward-looking eyes and experienced in the Mystical Orient. And there is where the precious treasure can be found. Therefore it is said that the Way to the Pole leads out of the Occidental Exile, metaphorical for materialism, and into the climes of the Orient.
In The Other Gods (in Lovecraft Omnibus 2, Harper Collins, Lon, don, 1994), written in 1921 and reminiscent of Dante’s mystical quest, Lovecraft alludes to the Tradition of the Mystic Pole. The name of the Pilgrim who sets out for the esoteric conquest of the World, Mountain is Barzai the Wise. Together with his disciple, Atal by name, he resolves to climb the World-Mountain. We are told that ‘on the thirteenth day” they arrive at the “mountain’s lonely base.” After having ascended for some days, Barzai sees “on the fifth night of the full moon … dense clouds far to the north,” indicating the advent of the gods from Kadath in their “ships of cloud and mist.”
Atal is pronounced ”Atl” and indicates the Island of Isis and the Land of Living, elucidated in the next chapter, while the word Barzai is very reminiscent of a concept used in Sufism where we have “barzakh” designating the intermediary mode of being upon entering the axial climes of the Mystic Pole. Accordingly, the “Chashm-i-barzakhi” is the “Eye of the World Beyond” (H. Corbin, Spiritual Body and Celestial Earth, Bollingen Series XCI: 2, I. B. Tauris & Co., London, 1990). The path to this Heavenly Earth leads across the “Chin vat-Bridge” in Shi’ite Sufism or “Bridge of Fog or Mist” out of the Labyrinth of Illusions.
Having achieved Polar equilibrium, the Pilgrim is destined to discover the Seed Indestructible and to raise it from its cyclic Exile. This Seed is the true Entity, the entitative nature, to be recovered, being otherwise called the Luz, often depicted as embedded in frozen water. Luz is a Hebrew word of ancient origins having the meaning of “kernel” or the “inmost part of a fruit.” Esoterically seen, it is the Seed Indestructible or the Black Fire Divine in man. In his “Purgatorium,” Dante, one of the foremost mystics of the middle ages, provides us with imagery meant to depict that state of transformation. In “Purgatorium” the two venturers find Luzifer, the Fallen One, imprisoned in ice, unable to ascend to heaven. The medieval mage Agrippa (quoted in J. Evola, Die Hermetische Tradition, Bibliotheca Hermetica, Ansata, Interlaken, 1989) wrote in respect of the Seed Imprisoned: ” … as the plant springs forth from the seed, our new body grows when Resurrection takes place.” The body meant here by Agrippa, and often mentioned in medieval Alchemy, cannot be destroyed by fire, since it is made of creative Spirit-Fire itself.
Yet, in the untransformed state of existence, that very divine Fire in man is inactive, otherwise caught in ice; the primordial Waters are frozen, and the Message cannot be transmitted. Therefore, the individual who has not undergone a transformation, “purgatory” in medieval thought, is indeed like Luzifer, unable to ascend to the Realm Spiritual. And it is the purpose of the cycle of manifestation to make the Fallen-One soar to spiritual heights again. The individual, caught in the illusions of the Matrix, space-time existence is like a bird that has lost one wing; and indeed the esoteric symbolism of the lost wing is of utmost importance in Polar Tradition. The recovery of the wing, the mystical achievement of the Polar and Transpolar Sight, the Wisdom-Knowledge of the Two-in-One, is the purpose of man in this sensory cycle of Creation. Without his two wings regained, without his inward, looking sight recovered and Wisdom or White Sight, man is like the Black Stone.
In the Kaaba, translated as “House of the Mother,” the Black Stone has to be circumambulated seven times by the pilgrim. The holy ceremony of circumambulation is in meaning one with the Ascent of the Sacred Mountain. There are seven planetary energy patterns to be transcended before the actual essencification, the return into the Bowels of Earth can take place with the opening of the Eighth Chakra. In that very moment, which is no longer experienced in sensory spacetime, the Black Stone is whitened, the ultimate Gate opened, and the individual liberated from his bonds.
(Note: Essencification designates the alchemical process of spiritual growth. Planted in the Earth, the Seed gradually ripens to a Fruit. Essencification is arcane, it culminates in the Mystical Harvest that is the Harvest in Heaven when the Fruits are taken out of the Fields of Earth, ready for another Creation.)
The symbolism of the Black Stone, to be found in Polar or Polar, orientated cultures, has its analog in the Black Madonna, particularly popular in France. Her deep esoteric meaning, however, appears shrouded in mystery for most people.
As the Stone must be whitened during the process of human trans, formation, the Black Madonna will have to become the White Lady. Isis is called the White Lady or White Goddess, one in meaning with Tiamat. If the Stone is whitened, Tiamat, Isis is unleashed, and the primordial state of spiritual unity-the Order of Yore-is restored.
The land of Tiamat-Unleased is the land of Resurrection when the octopod Old Ones Lovecraft spoke of will guide man to New Horizons of Old. In his epic “At the Mountains of Madness” (in Lovecraft Omnibus 1, Harper Collins, London, 1994), written in 1931, the Recluse of Providence described the gods of his Primor, dial Pantheon as the star-headed Great Race. The Star-Head is the apex of Starry Wisdom. It is the Lost Word that must be recovered in the Underworld. Resurrection in the Land of the Thousand-Named Isis, shining white as the revealing Black Light radiating forth from the Pillars of Irem.
Tiamat-Isis is the Black Stone under a silver crescent. Since ancient times, the color (respectively, the metal of silver,) “Argentum” in Latin, originally derived from the all-important Sanscrit rootword arka, corresponds to the plane of the Moon. In Polar Tradition, Moon and Earth form one planetary unit. So, starting off counting with the exoteric luminary of the solar system, we arrive at ten planetary planes existing now, the seventh one and mystical Guardian of the Threshold being Saturn.
In Alchemy silver is the symbol of birth. Thus Tiamat-Isis is the Goddess of Birth. Lovecraft makes mention of the Creatrix in his work. In a story of great esoteric importance, “The Whisperer in Darkness” (in Lovecraft Omnibus 3, Harper Collins, London, 1994), written in 1930, in which the Old Ones are alternatively called the Outer Ones, he mentions a mysterious Black Stone reared in New England, and we can also read of Tiamat-Isis under the name ShubNiggurath or the Black Goat of the Woods who gives birth to a Thousand Young.
Shub-Niggurath is an encoded-word, and, according to the grammatical rules of Akkadian-Babylonian, it can be segmented as follows. The letters in quotation marks give alternative readings possible in the Semitic sister-languages Akkadian and Babylonian:
(S)hub(ur) means “Mother” or “Goddess.” In Akkadian theology, we have “umma-hubur” as a cognominal form of Tiamat, Sumerian “tamtu” or “sea.” An alternative translation of umma-hubur is “gulf.” Occasionally, there is mentioned in cuneiform texts a “Chubur-River” which is cognate with the “River of the Underworld,” respectively, “Underworld,” if used as a pars-pro-toto.
• Nig-, infixed as in this case, means “everything” or “whatever”
• gur- refers to “bearer of something” or “everything giving birth”
• es or “-esh,” as suffixed here, is the word for “being.”
So examining “Shub-Niggurath” segmentwise, we obtain its original form: “(S) hub-nig-gur-es,” to be translated as “Bearer, Mother or Goddess of Everything Giving Birth.”
Lovecraft’s Shub-Niggurath is thus a code genuinely indicating Tiamat. In its original meaning, this word is derived directly from the Epic of Creation where in Tablet 1, Line 4 (S. Langdon, The Epic of Creation, Semitic Study Series, Oxford, 1923) we read:
“( … ) Ti,amat mu,al,li,da,at gim,ri,su,un.” Translated, we obtain: “Tiamat, the Bearer of All of Them.”
Shub-Niggurath can in its proper decoded form be read and understood on different levels. One of its side-meanings was used verbatim by Lovecraft: “Shub-nig-gur-es,” in which shub means “goat,” exemplified in the Akkadian word udu-shub. In ki-a-ge-su-ub, i.e., “on the ground thou mayest fall,” we find a “sub” with the additional meaning of “prayer.” Another meaning is evidenced in “Sub-nig-gur-es,” where we have another “sub,” however without the “sh- sound” as in “shub.” Here the name means “Shepherdess.” Shub-Niggurath is the Creatrix, the Shepherdess, and Bearer of Everything Giving Birth. As we shall see in the course of these investigations, she is the ancient allegory of the sensory cycle of space-time or the Matrix, indeed being the Mater Dei.
The Age of Tiamat-Isis, the White Goddess, was the age of spirituality. It was the so-called Golden Age or Age of Chronos before he fell asleep and became the Threshold. Her return will be another turning point in human evolution. Still, the sacred Stone once reared for Titan worship in Pessinus, Phrygia, is black. In Enmessa, there stands another Stone that is said to have once been brought to Rome by the emperor Heliogabalus, the name meaning translated “Horse of the Sun.” But also in the Ka’aba in Mecca, the spiritual center of the Muslim world, we can see the Stone of the Goddess.
As the golden sun throws its rays creating shadows on Earth, the Land of the Mystical Luminary is shadowless. In the City of Stone that sank under the ocean waves, given the name R’leyh by Love, craft, the Old Ones dream deathless. So in The Nameless City (in Lovecraft Omnibus 2, Harper Collins, London, 1994), written in 1921, he indicated the destination of mystical death: “That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange eons, even death may die.”
The place to be found, the treasure to be recovered, is deep in man himself, and the inner is like the outer. Such is the Quest of Liberation. Liberation is transformation which is involution, the only purpose of evolution. It is the return to the One through Death, in, Life. If the individual does not transform, the Seed is not freed from its bonds, and the energies are freed uncontrollably. This applies to the individual as much as to the species.
Right at this time, human civilization is being haunted by dramatic events. Wars are raging throughout the world, and man has lost the keys to see and understand himself in what is happening. While conflicts are increasing in number, nature is striking back vehemently. With ever-growing panic, humanity tries to cling to a doubtful scientific worldview. An “elixir” may soon be found to prolong the physical life span of the individual. But for what purpose, one should ask. Unfortunately, it is not meant for a change. For Solar and Polar Orders have not yet been reunited.
The keepers of the Solar Order of materialism are pillaging the planet. Untransformed animal-man has but swapped his scraping talons for greed sanctioned by the intellect. Yet, intellectual knowledge without the illumination of Wisdom is barren like the King’s Land that is all waste. The whitening process or the achievement of Polar Wisdom is the thread leading out of the Labyrinth; it is the ball of thread that in classic Greek mythology is given to the seeker by Ariadne.
Evolution is moving on toward another climax. The stars will come round again. Though there might be a summer sun in the skies, the species that is flattered to be called “the crown of evolution” is in its wintertime. And it is in winter that the Eagle is born.
Man must transform, and so must the Earth, the place where Resurrection takes place. For the individual, the unleashing of Tiamat is the undoing of the Web of space-time, the leaving of the Labyrinth. The spiritual energies, potentialized in the human form, are out of control unless transformed. Transformation and purification take place, at any rate, and no one can ultimately avoid it.
The Earth will be purified. The Baptism of Water is followed by the Baptism of Fire. The Flood is followed by Fire. The English hermeticist Dr. John Dee puts it thus in his “Propaedeumata Aphoristica,” published in 1568: “When the Waters flood the Heavens, the Earth will yield its fruit.”
With transformation there comes the emergence of primordial Wisdom. This process of revelation can be called the Reading in the Book of the Deeps. The individual reborn into spiritual existence can read in this Book. And only he is able to do so. That rebirth is in identical meaning with the rise of the Fifth Element out of the Bowels of Earth, as exemplified in the Vedic concept of Agni or the Fire Divine that dwells deep in the planet.
We say in Polar Tradition that the ascent of the Spirit-Fire is the descent into the Bowels of Earth. The descent into the Earth for the individual brings about its mystical Death-in-Life and the ultimate emergence of the entity. These entities are the Old Ones in Lovecraft. They are the mystical masters. And as Lovecraft indicated in a double-meaning phrase in The Dunwich Horror (in Lovecraft Omnibus 3, Harper Collins, London, 1994): “Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now.”
Mystical Ascent and Descent are crucial to the Mystic Pole Tradition. The Descent is when the divine Seed drops into the ocean of space-time, becoming unveiled by sensory perception. The Ascent is when the inward journey begins, the transcendence of the sensory cycle of manifest appearance. This process is called the Rite of Involution leading across the Barrier of Light.
The Mystical Ascent of the World-Axis or the World-Mountain as taught in Polar Tradition is omnipresent in Lovecraft’s work, sometimes on the surface, sometimes hidden underneath.
In Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, (in At the Mountain of Madness and Other Novels, Arkham House Publishers, Sauk City, WI, 1985) the mystical venturer named Randolph Carter embarks upon his Quest of the World, Mountain Kadath atop of which the Fastness of the Old Ones is located. His “Dreamquest” is essentially Saturnian in which we can discover the genuine Polar spirituality that the author experienced while nearing and traversing the Thresh, old. A complete study of “Dreamquest” would exceed the scope of this publication. Therefore the three most important laps of the Quest to Unknown Kadath will be explained in detail.
Desirous to dwell in his marvelous Sunset City, Carter dares to descend into the Realm of Deeper Slumber. Every step he takes on his transformative journey is a step out of sensory dreaming. The place he desires to dwell in are the Spirit, Deeps, otherwise called the Old Spaces.
So first over seventy steps in light slumber, then down the seven hundred steps to the Gate of Deeper Slumber he has to descend. These are 770 steps, being a mystical number of great significance. First, 700 is the numerical enhancement of 7; secondly, 7 and 7 is 14, the Polar number expressing the Barrier of Light. 7 multiplied by itself equals 4,9. 4 plus 9 being 13, the number of the thirteenth sign of the zodiac and Gateway-out-of-Space-and-Time, explained in full later on. Apart from the fact that seven planetary energypatterns have to be transcended, 7 is the all-important number of the Pole Constellation marking the goal of the Quest.
Carter-Lovecraft descends into the cavern of flame where he is to meet two priests guarding the Gateway. The venturer’s Sacred Quest has begun in the state of sensory existence. He has been dreaming. Now he is gradually awakening, shaking off the illusions of the Web of Manifestation. The cavern of flame indicates the Plane of Saturn, being the Seventh Dreamer. In an earlier, but unfortunately lost story, bearing the title “The Club of Seven Dreamers,” Lovecraft likely referred to the Ascent on a planetary level and to the Ladder-out-of-Dream.
The names of the priests he meets in the cavern are Nasht and Kaman-Thah.
Lovecraft’s Nasht can be equated to Na-asht, an Arabic word used to designate the constellation of the Great Bear, otherwise called the Great Coffin (E. van Buren, Refuge of the Apocalypse, The C. W Daniel Company Ltd., Saffron Walden, U. K. 1986).
Phonetically “Na-asht” is similar to the Arabic “najd,” having the meaning of “horn” and meant to designate the “Horn of Arabia,” the southern part of the Peninsula, where, according to Lovecraft the cult of the Old Ones has one of its principal centers (in The Call of Cthulhu, Lovecraft Omnibus 3, Harper Collins, London, 1994).
In the further course of events, Carter has to traverse the Enchanted Forest, which is to be equated to the Forest where the precious treasure must be recovered. It is the Seed Indestructible that lies hidden in the Forest of the Mystical Orient. The symbol of the Forest is allegorical of the Weave of Isis, the Web of Manifestation also called the Forest or Wood of Iron. The present age, the Kali Yuga in Vedic terms is the Age of Iron. Iron corresponds to the fifth planer Mars and the fifth chakra, the center of human vocalization. We will return to it several times in our investigations.
The Enchanted Forest in Lovecraft’s Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath is identical with the Matrix of God, the Element of Awakening, the cycle of Repose Divine. The Mother-Goddess is mater in Latin. This word, exemplified in “mater dei,” is derived from the ancient Sanscrit “matr,” that is, “Matrix.” Originally, “mater dei” is the Matrix of the One,” the Dream-Matrix from which the individual must awake to become entitative again. The process of Awakening is the Rite of Involution which Lovecraft cloaked in the term “Rite of the Silver Key,” as we shall investigate later.
There are seven planets including the Threshold; their interstelar equivalents are the Mystical Pole Constellations being two groups of seven stars each. Here we are encountering the important Polar number 14 again.
Ancient Vedic lore knows of these stars as the “Seven Rishis,” otherwise “sapta risksha” that are spinning around the Axis Mundi, the actual Pole Star. In lndo-European Mongolia, the same stargoup is called “Seven Tengris.” In Greek, they are the “Twice-Seven-Stars,” forming 14 again. The “Seven Rishis” can also be called “Seven Sages,” being conceptually identical with the “Seven Apkallu” in Akkadian-Babylonian tradition. Those are the Bringers of Divine Truth throughout the ages of man.
There are two Mystic Pole Constellations, the one being Ursa major or the Great Bear, otherwise the Plough, Big Dipper, or Charlie’s Wain; the other being Ursa Minor or the Little Bear. One of the Pole Stars is named Arktos. According to Greek mythology, Arkas was the son of Artemis-Calliste, the White Goddess or Goddess of the Mill, who by Zeus was changed into the Great and Little Bears. Arkas was the son of the first Arcadians, the first men on Earth. Hermes, the Messenger of the Gods, born on Mount Cyllene was an Arcadian. His Caduceus, the Arcadian Rod of Hermes-Mercury is the symbol of the World-Axis. The Caduceus is the Staff of Hermes, around which are entwined two Serpents, symbolizing the alchemical “conjunctio” or mystical Marriage.
In ancient Egypt, the stars of Ursa Major were called the “Car of Osiris,” shown on some planispheres by an Ark, situated near the polar point. In the Book of the Dead, there is a mention of the Mysde Pole Constellation as the “Thigh” in the northern celestial hemisphere. It must be said in this context that the Greek word for “thigh” is meros, to be traced back to the Vedic term “Meru,” the name for the World-Mountain.
(Note: There is a Jewish legend of the Middle Ages relating to the mystical meaning of the “thigh”: “The Hidden Name was secretly inscribed in the innermost recesses of the Temple, guarded by a sculptured lion. If, as was most unlikely, an intruder saw the name, the lion would give such a supernatural roar that all memory of it would be driven from his mind. But Jesus knew this, he evaded the lion, wrote the Name, cut his thigh open, and hid it within the wound, closing it by magic. Once out of the Temple he reopened the incision and took out the sacred letters.” Cited in M. Caine, “The Glastonbury Zodiac,” 1978.)
The stars of Ursa Major spin counter-clockwise around the fulcrum or Polar Axis, currently located near Polaris. In “close” astronomical proximity we can see the seven, star configuration called Ursa Minor, likewise spinning around axial Polaris. In between these two constellations lies Draco, the Dragon or World-Serpent that guards the precious treasure of Transformation sometimes called the Apples of Hesperides. These Apples are the Spiritual Fruits of the Axial Tree.
In Sufism, we find the expression of “qutb,” meaning Pole, either applied to that constellation or to a sage. Accordingly, the axial star is called “naymat al-qutb.” Connected with “qutb” there is the letter “alif.” Both are numerically identical: “alif” is 1 + 30 + 80 = 111; “qutb” is 100 + 9 + 2 = 111 (R. Guenon, Fundamental Symbols, The Universal Language of Sacred Science, Quinta Essentia, Cam, bridge, 1995). This number is of utmost importance and is referred to later in this book because it designates the Thrice-Great-One.
The determination of the Pole Constellation is connected with the precession of the equinoxes in astronomy, already known in ancient mysticism. The precession is the result of the spheroid shape of the Earth. The Earth is not a perfect sphere. Due to the gravitational forces exerted on the Earth by the solar luminary and the moon, the axis of the Earth describes a gradual circle in relation to the stars. Therefore, seen from this planet, during a period of approximately 26,000 years, the astronomical coordinates of the celestial poles move around a central, interstellar axis. The axis of the Earth currently points toward Polaris. For that reason, Polaria is the Pole Star for the time being. But the axial stars have been changing through the epochs, and Alpha Draconis, for example, was the Pole Star around 3000 B.C. Another axial star was Arcturus, said to have been the keeper of the heavenly climes before civilization. This name “Arcturus” itself is, again, derived from the lndo-European Sanscrit root word arc. Wherever this word appears in mysticism or mythology, it is originally meant to imply the Tradition of the Mystic Pole. As we shall see later, this word can be considered as an esoteric-linguistic “map” by whose means we can trace back the Tradition through the ages and across the globe. And in Lovecraft’s The Whisperer in Darkness (in Lovecraft Omnibus 3, Harper Collins, London, 1994), we are told that the Winged Ones, or Outer Things, “came from the Great Bear in the sky.”
Let us return to Lovecraft’s Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath. Kaman-Thah is the name of the second priest Carter encounters in the mystical cavern of flame. The name “Kaman-Thah” is a genuine Sanscrit word, consisting of “kamana” and “-ta.” Kamana is a word referring to Brahma, in Tibetan Tshangs pa or the White One, while “-ta” otherwise “tatha-ta” or “tatha,” means translated “the state of being so.” In Vedic mysticism, it relates to the sheer “suchness” beyond any illusionary qualifications or the quantitative space of characteristics. “Tatha-ta” represents the essence. In Indian esoteric lore, it is the eternal state of being indicating the Seed Indestructible. “Tatha-ta” can also be translated as “adamantine,” for neither physically nor intellectually can the Seed be disintegrated (H. Zimmer, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, Motilal Banarsidass, Delhi, 1990).
While Nasht depicts the Way to the Pole, Kaman-Thah stands for the state of illuminating the Bowels of Earth, after having reached beyond the Barrier of Light. Both priests thus symbolize the two faced-ness of the doorkeeper.
It is through the Forest of Illusions toward the reconciliation of opposites that the Sacred Journey leads the Pilgrim. After having undergone various modes of being and attained degrees of esoteric insight, Carter-Lovecraft has to pass the Plateau of Leng, the place inhabited by a corpse-eating cult as we can read in The Hound, written in 1922. The very mention of this cult clearly implies Death-in-life. It is the experience that there is no beginning and end, but eternal Being.
From the Plateau of Leng, the venturer can at last reach out for the Onyx-Castle of the Old Ones, crowned with a pshent [The pschent was the double crown worn by rulers in ancient Egypt. The ancient Egyptians generally referred to it as sekhemty, the Two Powerful Ones. It combined the White Hedjet Crown of Upper Egypt and the Red Deshret Crown of Lower Egypt. The Pschent represented the pharaoh’s power over all of unified Egypt.] of unimagined stars that are not like the stars known in space-time. Again in the symbolism of Leng, we find the Saturnian character of Lovecraft’s epic tale. Apart from this unmistakable quality, his “Dream, quest” is also a depiction of his personal struggles during the Ascent. Obviously, it took him a long time before the illusory vicissitudes of the Quest could be dealt with properly and adequately. Oftentimes, the autobiographical protagonist is overcome by fears and thrown in a wavering mood whether or not to dare to make the final leap across the Threshold. It is therefore at such times that Lovecraft conceptually centered around the stage of transformative Death, in, Life. In those cases, the characteristics of his prose are attraction and repulsion.
In Lovecraft the Plateau of Leng is barren and bleak; the stone, monastery Carter visits is inhabited by a companionless highpriest whose origins we are told are not human at all.
Leng is a genuine Chinese word, probably incorporated into the Lovecraftian Quest by Clark-Ashton Smith, one of his closest friends and member of the esoteric-alchemical “Lovecraft-Circle.”
In Chinese, the word relates to shapes “pyramidal” or “conical.” Used adjectivally, it has the meaning of “cold” or “icy,” and can be found in such constructions as “lenggong,” that is, “cold pyramid,” or “lengguang,” that is, “cold light.”
In Tibetan esoteric teaching the cone, alternatively pyramid, is the symbol of fire, only topped by the cup of the Spirit. The mythopoetic-alchemical name “Leng” serves in Lovecraft as an allegory of the frozen waters or the Polar Ice in which the Seed is caught asleep. It is thus the Fire in Ice, symbolized by the cone above the circle of water. Out of the Deeps, the Fire Divine arises effulgent; out of the Ocean of Night revelation rises luminous.
Leng symbolizes the state of gradually increasing awareness, while the eventual entry into the Throne, Room of Kadath itself means traversing the Threshold, going through the Tomb of the Individual. In The Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath, Lovecraft provides us with a detailed description of his vision of the World, Mountain. Describing his Winging Flight beyond the climes of Boreas and incorporating Polar symbolism we are told:
Higher and higher rose the light and the blackness beneath it, till half the northern sky was obscured by the rugged conical mass. Lofty as the army was, that pale and sinister beacon rose above it, towering monstrous over all the peaks and concernments of earth, and tasting atom.less aether where the cryptical moon and mad planets reel. No mountain known of man was that which loomed before them… Scornful and spectral climbed that bridge betwixt earth and heaven, black in eternal night, and crowned with a pshent of unknown stars whose awful and significant outline grew every moment clearer. Ghouls meeped in wonder as they saw it, and Carter shivered in fear lest all the hurtling army be dashed to pieces on the unyielding onyx of that cyclopean cliff…
Though subtly chosen, there is much Polar symbolism in this portion basically describing the transformative stage of crossing the Bridge of Fog. Fog is the alchemical symbol of the Fire Divine, explained in the course of these studies.
Then we further read that the venturer on his Quest of the Stone reaches beyond the Wind of the North:
All the north beneath it was blackness now; dread, stony blackness from infinite depths to infinite heights, with only that pale winking beacon, perched unreachably at the top of all vision… Then Randolph Carter knew that his quest was done and that he saw above him the goal of all forbidden steps and audacious visions; the fabulous, the incredible home of the Great Ones atop unknown Kadath.
Lovecraft goes on to describe the Castle itself and we are told of “myriad domed turrets,” the “pallid beacon” becoming “a single shining window high up in one of the loftiest towers,” its “giant foundations,” sightless labyrinths of onyx,” and “cyclopean stairs and corridors.”
There in the depths of the mighty Castle, “the earth’s loftiest fortress” with “tenebrous towers” whose “stones have been quarried by nameless workmen,” eventually, we read that “swept and herded by nightmare tempests from the stars and dogged by unseen horrors of the northern waste,” Carter arrives in the throne room.
It is a “personal meeting” between the venturer beyond the Threshold and the Messenger of the Old Ones. His name is Nyarlathotep, and though sounding Egyptian, it is a conglomerate code of utmost importance that will be decoded later in this book.
Lovecraft describes the Messenger as the Crawling Chaos. His appearance, accompanied by “raucous blasts” from “silver trumpets” is described in floridly awesome prose:
Then down the wide lane betwixt the two columns, a lone figure strode; a tall, slim figure with the young face of an antique Pharaoh, gay with prismatic robes and crowned with a golden pshent that glowed with inherent light. Close up to Carter strode that regal figure; whose proud carriage and smart features had in them the fascination of a dark god or fallen archangel, and around whose eyes there lurked the languid sparkle of capricious humor. It spoke, and in its mellow tones there rippled the wild music of Lethean streams.
Emphasis must be placed on the fact that the Messenger appears striding through “two columns.” We will see that these two columns are one in meaning with the Mountain of Two Summits, a key to Polar Wisdom. Lovecraft can manage well to communicate the “beauty of horror,” being an intermediary emotional pattern experienced when approaching and traversing the Threshold. While things are considered to be either “good” or “evil” before the Way to the Pole is embarked upon, the esoteric vicinity of the seventh plane brings about a blend of emotion. The venturer is simultaneously moved by attraction and repulsion; the ego is still not transcended and is creating an illusionary wavering, a feeling of being dissonant, of “beauty” and “horror” in their extremes. It can be experienced as the love of death when the process of transcendence is being idealized “to either side.” This state is but fleeting and of no standing whatsoever beyond the Barrier.
Having crossed the Threshold, the Way of the Seven has come to an end. For the Pilgrim, it does not exist anymore. Accordingly, Love, craft writes in “The Other Gods” that the Old Ones suffer no man to behold their likeness. Man’s way is the Way of the Seven, while the Way of Eight, the Octopodium, is the Way of the Old Ones. It is the Sacred Octade. The Ways of Old mean the mystical rebirth into the light of the New Cycle of Old.
Atop Kadath there is the Onyx-Castle. In esoteric teaching, onyx is the mineral corresponding to Saturn. Accordingly, in Albrecht von Scharffenberg’s grail romance, entitled “The Younger Titurel,” the castle is described as erected on a rock of onyx, implying the Tomb of Time. In Genesis 2:12 we find a cryptic mention of a stone of onyx laid in the Land of Gold or Havilah encompassed by one of the Four Rivers of Paradise named Pison.
Kadath itself is located in the Cold Waste. Indeed, the Seed Indestructible must be freed from the Ice. Out of the Cold, the untransformed state of existence, the Entity can eventually arise. Without Jndergoing transformation, the individual is like the King enslaved in his own land lying barren and bleak.
Kadath is therefore approached through a desolate landscape. Only by transformation can the King reclaim his land that is the Realm Spiritual. Then, formerly waste, it can blossom again in the Light of the Black Sun.
The word Kadath is a phonetic code. When decoded we obtain a genuine word Babylonian by origin and Polar in meaning:
Kadath is a code consisting of two proper words, being uruk and adadu. Kadath is “Uru(k) Adadu” meaning translated “City or Foundation of Adad.” Lovecraft encoded the words making use of the Interchangeability of uru and uruk or from “(Uru)Kadadu” to “(uru)Kadath.”
The word adad can be used either as noun or verb. As a noun is it preserved in the name of the Ugaritic name Addu, being the god of storm whose abode is the mountain. In a verbal construction such as kadadu or hadadu, it means “to thunder.” Thus “Uru Kadadu” can be translated as “Mountain-City of Thunder” similar to the Hebrew concept of Mount Tsafon or the Mountain of Assembly whose location is in the “north.”
In Ugaritic theology Adad is identical with Baal-Hadad otherwise Baal or Bel, being the superior god of the tribe of the Canaanites. Adad respectively Baal; Hadad is also called the Son of Dagon (H. Schmoekel, Der Gott Dagan, Leipzig, 1928; F. J. Montalbani, “Canaanite Dagon: Origin, Nature,” Catholic Biblical Quarterly, 13, 1951; J. Menant, Le Mythe de Dagon, Revue de l’histoire des religions, XI, Paris, 1885).
Here we encounter the mystical name Dagon, used by Lovecraft for his “Esoteric Order of Dagon,” a name given by him to a secret new England-based society whose members delved deeply into the mysteries of Creation. The name “Dagon” is Hebrew, derived from Akkadian by making use of the interchangeability of the letters “a” and “o.” In the latter language, the word can in cuneiform texts be read as “da-ga-na,” originally derived from ancient Sumerian where we find a “da-gana.” The Sumerians whose esoteric language has an Indo-European nucleus had it in turn derived from Sanscrit where we find the Vedic, theological term “ghana” or “da-ghana” with the meaning of “fog” or “cloud.” In Arabic, a Semitic language such as Akkadian that assimilated much of the sacred Sumerian language, the root word dgn means “foggy” as well. “Dagana” is the “Fog,” being the “Divine Fire” in alchemical teaching.
The Fog is like the Cloud, called “Arna” in Sufism where it is of foremost importance. In Ibn Arabi’s celebrated “Futuhat al, Makkiyya” (Futuhat, II, 313, cited in H. Corbin, Creative Imagination in the Sufism of Ibn Arabi, Bollingen Series XCI, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1981), it is said:
“For the Cloud is the ‘Creator,’ since it is the Sigh He exhales and since it is ‘hidden’ in him; as such the Cloud is the invisible, the ‘esoteric.’ And it is the manifested creature. Creator-Creature: this means that the Divine Being is the Hidden and the Revealed, or also that He is the First and the Last.”
Al-Tarjumana says about the Divine Cloud and the process of Creation (cited in S. Hirtenstein, M. Tiernan, ed., Muhyiddin Ibn Arabi: A Commemorative Volume, Element Books, Shaftesbury, Eng, land, 1993):
“In the picture which we have of creation first there was the ‘Ama,’ the Great Mist or Cloud … Then the light of His essence flowed over it and the Mist became ‘dyed,’ that is, permeated with light, this pure source of energy. Then the forms of the angels who wan, der in love appeared in it (in the Mist). These angels are in constant movement, unceasing motion.”
The state of unceasing, creative motion is what is sometimes referred to as the “praying angels.” The angels “pray,” speak the pure Language of the One, in that they constitute the formative, energetic force of Creation. They are the executive force of becoming, while the Angels of Black Light, or the Midnight Angels, are the force of reunification, guiding on toward the annihilation of opposites and the restoration of spiritual order. Yet becoming is necessary for the one to realize its being, so all the energetic forces of Creation, formative and deformative, evolutionary and involutionary, are but aspects of the Eternal One’s desire of fathoming Itself.
The symbolism of Fog and Cloud is crucial to Polar spirituality, indicating the state of actual transformation, and it is for that very reason that Lovecraft makes mention of “Dagon” and its “Order.” Another reference to this profound esoteric symbolism can be found in his concept of the “Fire Mist” and the “Children of the Fire Mist” that we are told of in Through the Gates of the Silver Key, written in 1932. Lovecraft writes that these Children of the Spiritual Order came to this planet in times of old. Their Wisdom is the Wisdom of the Axis.
Returning to “Kadath” or the “Uru Kadadu,” we can say that this name designates the Polar Mountain that the individual is destined to ascend in spirals of tests and trials.
It should be noted here that in mentioned Ugaritic mythology, the Polar Mountain is also called “Mount Sapan,” terrestrially identified with the “Djebbel el-Aqra.” The word aqra is but an anagram of arqa, derived from Sanscrit arka, as mentioned before. It is indeed the ancient root word relating to the secrets of the Tradition and can therefore be found in mythonomina like Arcadia, Arctos, or Lovecraft’s mysterious New England town of Arkham.
The Arcana of Creation is the precious treasure to be recovered in the Forest or Wood of Iron. That concept is basically synonymous with the human body itself in that the Seed Indestructible lies asleep waiting to rise. In the individual, it is where the treasure can be found. There is the Gateway. It is man’s destiny to be like the Old Ones whose high priest in Lovecraft is mighty Cthulhu. He is dreaming and guarding the City of Stone, given the name R’lyeh by Lovecraft. After having transcended the bleakness of intellectual knowledge, it is only there where the Wisdom can be recovered.
In Lovecraft’s Primordial Pantheon, Cthulhu holds a prominent position; indeed, he is one with the venturer himself.
The name Cthulhu is the grecized form of the Mesopotamian word Kutullu. Kutullu can be retranslated into its original form, having the segments Ku (a)-tu-lu (m). Ku(a) has the meaning of “fish” or “water-being.” Furthermore, in Sumerian astrology/astronomy, as can be ascertained today, there is the constellation of Kua, Latin
“Pisces.” The Latin word is derived from the Mesopotamian pish, that is, fish (A. Deimel, Planetarum Babylonicum, Scripta Pontificis Ins ti tu ti Biblici, Rome, 19 50), in turn, related to the Vedic word Vish-nu. In ancient astronomy, the Fishes are called the Leaders of the Celestial Host.
- Tu- is the ancient root word designating “two summits,” referring to the mystical Mountain of Two Summits that will attain momentous significance in the course of this book.
- Lu has the meaning of “being” in the sense of “man,” representing a short form of “lullu” or “lilu,” as for example, evidenced in “girtab-lullu,” that is “Scorpion-Man,” one of the Allies of Tiamat in the Enuma Elish; the postfixed “m,” as in the “-lu(m)”-construction, adds the meaning of “mighty stature” to the word, stressing the titanic aspect of “Kutullu.”
Kutullu is Lovecraft’s Cthulhu. It is the Fish that is caught in the Net of space-time or the Weave of Isis. Between the Two Summits of the World-Mountain the Third-One will rise. Kutullu is the Third One, the one rising from dreaming. His Awakening is coupled with the mystical number 1-1-1, fully explained later on.
Connected with the water-being in Pole Tradition there are so-called Kutullu-Names, evidenced in the Assyrian language (A. T. C. Clay, Personal Names from Cuneiform Inscriptions of the Cassite Period, New Haven, 1912; Th. Friedrich, Altbabylonische Urkunden aus Sippara, Beitrage zur Assyrologie, Leipzig, 1906; K. L. Tallquist, Neubabylonisches Namenbuch, Acta Societatis Scientiarum Fennicae, Helsingfors, Finland, 1905; E. H. Huber, Die Personennamen in den Keilschrifturkunden aus der Zeit der Konige van Ur und Nisin, Assyrologische Bibliothek, Leipzig, 1907). In these esoteric desiginations, each of which centers around the secrets of the Lore, the letters “k” and “q” are grammatically interchangeable. So the word Kutullu can be alternatively read qutullu.
Besides ukullu and hurrurum with the shared and all too obvious meaning of “buried deep” or “dark,” there is the Name “kuzu-u,” etymologically related to “kas-u,” that is “to bind” or “to ban.” In the Akkadian-Babylonian Epic of Creation, the Eleven Allies ofTiamat were banned into the Underworld. As we shall see later, the Eleven Allies were the eleven planets of the primordial solar system. They were the Eleven Precious Stones set in the Crown of Luzifer, prior to his Fall.
The Allies were caught in a Net which Ea-Marduk, the representative of Solar Order, had created before. This episode in the Epic essentially refers to the imprisonment of the Seed in the Web of the Matrix. If man can find the way back into the Underworld, to the Gateway-out-of-Space-Time, to the Eighth Chakra located in the lower abdomen of the human body, he can find the way back to God.
Other Names for “to bind” are “busullu” and “kubbulu.” “Kubbuttu” has the same meaning, however, and is also connected with “abbattu,” that is, “slave sign.” The Sign of Slavery is man himself. And he remains in slavery until he can free himself from the illusonry bonds of material appearance.
Both ubbuqu and burruqu mean translated “exiled one.” Lovecraft’s Cthulhu is the one in Exile, the City of Stone. In The Call of Cthulhu, written in 1926, we find a long passage on the Old Ones. The great priest is described dreaming in his dark house, referred to by “ukullu” as explained above. This dark house is the mighty City of R’lyeh under the waters. No man has ever seen the Old Ones; those that have seen them are no longer man in the known sense of the word. According to Lovecraft, a cult was formed around craven idols the Old Ones once brought with them from the stars. The members of the cult are those awakening into octopodic being; their Way is the Way of the Sacred Octade. But more: Lovecraft alludes to a secret connected with the very origins of humanity we will come to in a later context.
Another Kutullu-Name is burruqu and has the meaning of “to be burnt,” being evidently connected with the so-called New Year’s Festival when the Babylonians annually celebrated and enacted the episodes, as they were set forth in the Epic of Creation. According to traceable sources, the whole people of Babylon were involved in the religious ceremonies. And at a certain time during the festival, which took 7 days in correspondence with the number of the cycles of Creation and the number of the clay tablets the Enuma Elish had been compiled on, wooden icons representing the Allies of Tiamat were burnt in a ceremonial fire. This was to signify Marduk’s victory over Tiamat.
The Name quddudu means “conical” and constitutes a distinct linkage with Polar tradition. We have already encountered “conical shapes” in the context of the Plateau of Leng.
“Zariqu” or “Zariku,” also counted among the Kutullu-Names, and prefixed by an “ilu” indicating the divine status, is a proper name, dating from New-Babylonian times. “Zariku,” in which we find the all-important word zar otherwise s(h)ar, applies to a deity belonging to the Nergal-Circle or the Gods of the Underworld.
“Hungulu” is to be translated as “abundance” and is therefore relating to Shub-Niggurath. In mythology, the Creatrix is always referred to as “abundant,” in that being the Bestoweress of Plenty.
Ussulu has the esoteric meaning of “inactive bodily powers” and clearly refers to Cthulhu’s state of being caught in space-time such as also Puhurru having the meaning of “limping.” His titanic powers, divine capacities, in other words, are inactive. He is dreaming, but, as Lovecraft wrote, will be taken from his Tomb when the time has come.
As noted before, the Arabic word for “Pole” is qutb, a word that can be written kutb and is to be considered as originally derived from the root word ku. The Arabic language has many words and names adopted from Akkadian-Babylonian and, through these Semitic languages, is related to Sumerian and other languages originally belonging to the Indo-European and Proto-Indo-European family. One example is a mountain area in the western part of the Arabian Peninsula that bears the name “Tihama,” that is, Tiamat.
Lovecraft received the name Kutullu-Cthulhu; it was given to him because he had a mission. Cthulhu first appears in his so-called Commonplace Book (in The Notes & Commonplace Book, edited and published by A. Derleth, D. Wandrei, The Futile Press, Lakeport, U.S. A. 1943), in which he wrote down concepts and storygerms. There we find an entry mentioning Cthulhu dated 1919.
Lovecraft was a prophet, and like all prophets, he was intuitive early in life. Later, the Tradition was more and more dawning upon him and he became a mystic and alchemist. But he was unlike any other alchemist in modern times, because he had a specific mission in the twentieth century that will become clear in the coming years.
Lovecraft was transforming all his lifetime. He had to undergo certain states, and from what we can learn in his works, letters, and the surviving biographical data, he was indeed struggling to climb out of the Labyrinth. His breakdown in 1908 and his subsequent disappearance from almost all social life until about 1914 (in L. Sprague de Camp, Lovecraft: A Biography, Doubleday, New York, 1975), unexplained by his biographers, is directly connected with transformative impulses. Manifestations of these spiritual states are his allergy to fish; he could not abide cold weather, and he suffered from “poikilothermy,” meaning he could not maintain constant body heat. Like a reptile, the temperature of his body adapted to that of his environment. (W H. Muller, Lovecraft, Treasurer of the Forbidden, P. Schulze Verlag, Bergen, Dumme, 1992).
Lovecraft delved deeply into the Arcana of Creation. There is a secret not to be communicated that is connected with the cult of the Old Ones on Earth. We can say that Lovecraft was prepared for a mission during his life. Proceeding from his biography, it has taken him more than one lifetime to undergo the necessary changes.
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