Previously I wrote an entry about Tezcatlipoca in the
context of the “dark pagan” element of my practice, i.e. while I still think
LaVeyan is a better descriptor of my ethos than other labels, my particular
styling of greater magic is outwardly pagan-like as far as positing a
relationship with particular entities predicated upon interest in the mythology
that surrounds that entity.
The current entry, as well as those that will follow, are
about another such entity – one whom I might well go so far as to term the
“ultimate reality” in my own idiosyncratic-belief-system-pertaining-to-acausal-matters.
This entity I have not found to be captured adequately in
any single tradition, but a survey of several of the most infamously “dark”
streams of occultism enables one to build up a threefold-picture it via the
following beings:
- Azathoth, of the Lovecraft mythos
- Az, of Zoroastrian mythology
- Azerate, of anti-cosmic Satanism, via Dissection’s album “Reinkaos”
Each entry in this series will start off by describing the
“primary” entity as I have come to understand it from various sources, and then
provide some tie-ins re: why, beyond the “A” and the “z,” I interpret these as
all being essentially one being, albeit with three distinguishable facets. This latter, comparative portion is scarcely
a footnote in the current entry, as you’ll see, but will become more
substantial in later ones since the greater groundwork laid by then will make
the endeavor easier at that point.
All of this will finally be followed by a fourth installment
to tie up a few loose ends I foresee, namely:
Stick around and keep reading to find out… ;)
* * *
Azathoth
Azathoth is the most ancient/primal/fundamental entity in
the Lovecraft mythos: the ultimate parent of all the other horrible
Lovecraftian things, and the origin of everything else that exists as well,
though I get the impression that the latter claim is more implied in the mythos
than overtly stated (?).
Given such descriptors as “nethermost confusion,”
“blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity,” “gnaws hungrily” and so
forth, together with either inconsistent or absent description of Azathoth’s
appearance across various works, a grotesque, alien form and the “it” pronoun
seem to be indicated. Nonetheless, the
entity is gendered as masculine on a number of occasions, usually in connection
with his ruling over the universe from his throne at the center of chaos.
Despite being in this powerful creator/ruler type of
position, Azathoth nonetheless is consistently presented as somehow restricted
in its current capacities. Depending on
which mythos author this is in the hands of, this may mean any or all of the
following:
- He is said to be a “blind idiot god,” either in terms of his inherent nature, or as a result of some past cataclysm he was involved in.
- He is said to be asleep, such that the world is his dream, implying that something very bad would happen if he were to wake up.
- His mind works so differently from anything we would understand as a mind that, to us, he represents total insanity – this then being not so much a limitation to him per se, but something that would make him seem limited in comparison to how a creator/ruler deity is more commonly envisioned.
Regardless of which of these it is, Azathoth is very
frequently portrayed as being preoccupied/lulled/amused by some sort of ongoing
entertainment, typically involving flute-like instruments wielded by musicians
of an extremely alien form. Sometimes
there is also drumming, dancing and other weird-and-probably-indescribable
spectacles taking place. Whatever the
details though, one is left with the impression that the universe-as-is could not endure were Azathoth not kept thus entertained – i.e. you
really, really do not want him waking
from sleep, or getting bored of this little party being put on for him, or otherwise being roused in whatever way makes sense vs. the varying scenarios of torpor listed above.
In tandem with this, while one gets the impression that Azathoth’s
devotees (as portrayed in fiction by Lovecraft and other authors – e.g. the
character Keziah Mason in “Dreams In The Witch House”) are clearly up-to-no-good in some sense,
the exact nature of this is frequently variable and/or left unclear. Are
they forced into their evil-cultist-type activities because they have to keep
him asleep in order to ward off a worse evil than themselves? Or are they using
his power for their own worldly advancement without regard for the danger they
are thus courting? Or are they nihilists
striving to wake him up for the express purpose of putting an end to the
existing universe? Or…?
Obviously a fair
portion of what I have described above will not strike many readers as an
attractive entity to be directing one’s occult attention toward.
My own take, however, is that Azathoth is
basically what you get when you take
seriously the Old Testament’s “I form the light and create darkness / I
make prosperity and bring disaster” –type sentiments, and then apply them to
something like Brahman, the primal force that Hinduism posits as being the
source of all the other gods and of everything else that exists. I.e. sure, it sounds scary and awful, but what if it’s just a more honest
portrayal of the fact that the ultimate entity/force behind the world, if sincerely reckoned with, does appear to be either amoral or downright
evil when measured against the limited ethical categories of human beings?
I assume that anyone who
has read, say, the Book of Job from start to end, will probably understand what I am getting at here.
The appeal of Azathoth thus lies in what I’ve said in previous entries re: some of us are not-at-all convinced that the underlying
reality of the universe is love-and-light.
One may instead find it more plausible – given what can be observed re:
a rather significant amount of uselessness and suffering in the world – to believe
that whatever is behind the universe is at
best neutral between good and evil… and also not nearly as competent in the
area of constructive behavior as terms such as “omnipotence” might suggest.
If a solid majority of human beings strongly
prefer the more rose-colored belief, one finds oneself then emphasizing the
darkness in order to highlight the difference of one’s own vision, resulting in
the formulation of a concept that may seem
wholly evil. Really though, it is just
the cast shadow whose darkness is proportional to the excessive brightness of the more-majority-type religious conceptions of God, Brahman, etc.
A quotation from LaVey, to demonstrate – just for the sake
of interest – that this is a less-unorthodox position than folks who assume “LaVeyan
= atheist” might suppose:
“It is a popular misconception that the Satanist does not believe in God… To the Satanist, ‘God’ – by whatever name he is called, or no name at all – is seen as the balancing force in nature, and not as being concerned with suffering. This powerful force which permeates and balances the universe is far too impersonal to care about the happiness or misery of flesh-and-blood creatures on this ball of dirt upon which we live.”
In light of what I mentioned above, it occurs to me that
perhaps the “balancing” force in what I am describing is more the flutists
keeping the abomination quiescent than the abomination itself. The attitude of hostile indifference seems
like a good fit otherwise, though.
In short: What if the
universe just is terrible? And if it that really is how it appears to someone, might it not be refreshing to
find oneself presented with a creator/ruler-of-the-universe who does not
pretend to be otherwise? Such is what I
see in an entity like Azathoth. Not that I personally am fixated on the need to take action to keep him
asleep, nor interested in asking him for favors (either self-evidently futile or the
worst idea ever, LOL), nor particularly eager to wake him up – at least not
now that I am over that depressive episode I was having last year. But my point, rather, is that if it even makes sense to talk
about “the true face of the universe,” Azathoth is essentially what I picture
that as being.
The other two entities I’ll be discussing subsequently – Az and
Azerate – could perhaps be thought of as two masks that this underlying face
alternates between wearing. But beyond
that, I’ll leave for the future entries on the beings in question…
