The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon

by Donald Tyson

  (The Thing on the Doorstep)

  An invocation that opens the dimensional gate of Yog-Sothoth to admit the Old ones to our earthly reality, or at least permits them to extend their power into our world. It is found on page 751 of the complete English edition of the Necronomicon. Old Whateley the wizard on his death bed instructed his unnatural grandson, Wilbur, to make use of it, but since Wilbur's copy of the English edition was incomplete, he was forced to go to Miskatonic University at Arkham in an attempt to consult the Latin edition in the library in an effort to learn the content of the missing text.

  (The Dunwich Horror)

  A ritual recorded on the eighth of the Pnakotic Fragments, used to restore life to RhanTegoth, a mummified amphibious creature from "lead-gray Yuggoth, where the cities are under the warm deep sea" who was worshipped on our planet in the dim past as a god.

  (The Horror in the Museum)

  Another name for this festival is Walpurgis Night, April 30, when it is reputed that witches gather on high places for their greatest sabbat of the year. Tremors were felt in the ground on this date in 1915 by the people of Dunwich and Aylesbury. It seems probably that Wilbur Whateley and his invisible brother were engendered on May-Eve, 1912, since Wilbur was born nine months later, February 2, 1913.

  (The Dunwich Horror; The Diary of Alonzo Typer)

  In Out of the Aeons, a protective occult formula was composed in the hieratic Naacal language by T'yog, high priest of Shub-Niggurath and guardian of the Copper Temple in K'naa, at the inspired direction of the Mother Goddess he served. It was designed to protect him from the petrifying effects of looking upon the god Ghatanothoa in his crypt atop Mount Yaddith-Gho. T'yog intended to use it to banish Ghatanothoa from the kingdom of K'naa in the land of Mu. The formula was written on a scroll of pthagon membrane, which according to the Nameless Cults of von Junzt is the inner skin of the extinct yakith-lizard, and was rolled inside an engraved cylinder of the lagh metal that had been carried across space by the Elder Ones from Yuggoth. Lagh metal cannot be mined on our planet. Von Junzt asserted that the creation of this magic charm took place in 173,148 BC.

  The Naacal language is mentioned in Through the Gates of the Silver Key in connection with Harley Warren, friend of Randolph Carter who vanished beneath the earth into an open crypt, never to emerge. It is called the "primal Naacal language of the Himalayan priests." It was the study of works in this language that led Warren to enter the crypt.

  It should be noted that although the Naacal formula was invented by Lovecraft, the Naacal language is spoken about in the books of James Churchward (1852-1936). According to Churchward, writing in his 1926 book The Lost Continent of Mu, an Indian priest taught him to read the lost Naacal language from several ancient tablets in the priest's possession.

  (Out of the Aeons; Through the Gates of the Silver Key)

  The secret coven name of the Salem Village witch, Keziah Mason, spoken at sabbat gatherings.

  (The Dreams in the Witch House)

  A parchment bearing a spell that was enclosed with the silver key left as a legacy to Randolph Carter. The spell was written in the R'lyehian tongue, the hieroglyphic language carried to the Earth by the spawn of Cthulhu, which settled on the Pacific island of R'lyeh. It was only a translation of a more ancient Hyperborean language of Tsath-yo, which was millions of years older than the R'lyehian translation. The spell was sought by Carter to enable him to travel back to the Earth with his own body, from which his mind had been displaced.

  (Through the Gates of the Silver Key)

  The following necromantic invocation was spoken by Charles Dexter Ward for the purpose of raising his long dead ancestor back to life.

  This was probably copied by Lovecraft from Arthur Edward Waite's compendium of Levi's occult writings, The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi, where it appears in Latin on p. 162. It derives from the second volume of Levi's Dogme et Rituel de la Haute Magic (the second volume was first published in French in 1856). Waite eventually got around to translating this whole work by Levi into English under the title Transcendental Magic (1896). He rendered Levi's original Latin of the invocation into English (Levi, p. 320):

  By Adonai Eloim, Adonai Jehova, Adonai Sabaoth, Metraton On Agla Adonai Mathon, the Pythonic word, the Mystery of the Salamander, the Assembly of Sylphs, the Grotto of Gnomes, the demons of the heaven of Gad, Almousin, Gibor, Jehosua, Evam, Zariatbatmik: Come, Come, Come!

  Lovecraft made several mistakes, such as omitting the fourth `Adonai," writing "God" in place of "Gad," and misspelling `Almousin" as `Almonsin" and " Zariatbat- mik" as "Zariathnatmik." But then, in his novel The Case of Charles Dexter Ward he did indicate that the invocation used by Ward is only a "very close analogue" of that given by Levi, so perhaps these minor differences were deliberate.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  A major convocation of witches, or in Lovecraft's fiction, of devil worshippers. The most important sabbats named by Lovecraft are Halloween (October 31) and Walpurgis Night (April 30).

  In The Dreams in the Witch House, the old witch Keziah Mason takes the university student to a sabbat presides over by Nyarlathotep, who wears the form of the fabled Black Man of the sabbat. In Medusa's Coil, the portrait of Marceline de Russy, who is the reincarnation of some ancient evil, shows in the background a witches' sabbat.

  (The Diary of Alonzo Typer; The Dreams in the Witch House; Medusa's Coil)

  Symbols discovered by the occultist Alonzo Typer by studying the two handwritten diaries of Claes van der Heyl, which he found in the old van der Heyl farmhouse, in the New England village of Chorazin. They are used to coerce into obedience any dweller in the cosmos "or in the unknown darkened spaces." Their use appears to be similar to that of the curses used by goetic magicians to compel the obedience of demons.

  (The Diary of Alonzo Typer)

  Joseph Curwen demanded of a fourteenth-century Frenchman that he had raised from his essential salts whether the order for a massacre executed by Edward, the Black Prince, at the town of Limoges in 1370 "was given because of the Sign of the Goat found on the altar in the ancient Roman crypt beneath the Cathedral, or whether the Dark Man of the Haute Vienne had spoken the Three Words." The sign of the goat was probably the inverted pentagram, the points of which mark the two ears, two horns, and beard of a goat's head. The Dark Man, otherwise known as the Black Man, was a mysterious figure in European witchcraft who presided over the great gatherings of witches known as sabbats. Lovecraft identified him with Nyarlathotep. The Three Words must be the words of some incantation, but Lovecraft left no hint as to which three words he intended.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  The term "voor" was borrowed by Lovecraft from the story The White People by Arthur Machen. In Machen's story, "voor" is a word in an occult language, and seems to means a twilight or gloaming-something that obscures. The story concerns the diary of a young girl. In this diary, the girl writes of "the kingdom of Voor, where the light goes when it is put out, and the water goes when the sun takes it away." She uses the term in a more general sense when she writes of a winter countryside, "it all looked black, and everything had a voor over it." She describes the winter sky as "like a wicked voorish dome." Elsewhere, she writes, "I saw the terrible voor again on everything."

  Lovecraft adopted the term to refer specifically to the Voorish sign, a magic hand gesture used by Wilbur Whateley to see his hybrid brother, who is invisible to ordinary human sight. Wilbur wrote in his diary, "I can see it a little when I make the Voorish sign or blow the powder of Ibn Ghazi at it."

  (The Dunwich Horror)

  Described as "hideous and unutterable," they were discovered in 1935 by Alonzo Typer in the diaries of Claes van der Heyl, at the old van der Heyl farmhouse, in the village of Chorazin, New York. They are to be used in conjunction with the Seven Lost Signs of Terror to compel the creatures of the "unknown darkened spaces" to obedience.

  (The Diary of Alonzo Typer) />
  It is linked with Hastur, and with a cult of men in league with "monstrous powers from other dimensions" who are dedicated to tracking down and doing injury to the Mi-Go. Precisely what the Yellow Sign may be Lovecraft does not reveal.

  The Yellow Sign was created by the writer Robert W. Chambers for his series of short stories collected under the anthology title The King In Yellow. In Chambers' short story The Yellow Sign, the lover of the narrator finds an onyx clasp that is inlaid with the Yellow Sign-a kind of seal or sigil that the narrator of the story characterizes as "a curious symbol or letter in gold. It was neither Arabic nor Chinese, nor as I found afterwards did it belong to any human script" (Chambers, p. 98). The Yellow Sign is described in the second part of the infamous two-act play, The King In Yellow, the reading of which drives men insane. After reading the second act of the play, the narrator and his lover discuss the onyx clasp "inlaid with what we now knew to be the Yellow Sign" (Chambers, p. 101).

  (The Whisperer in Darkness)

  The Key to the Thirteenth Gate

  Sun passes through Ophiuchus: November 29-December 18

  Constellation is represented by a man holding in his hands a great serpent, the body of which is sometimes shown wrapped around his waist or between his legs.

  Right Pillar: Ras Alhague (Arabic: Ras al Hawwa-Head of the Serpent-charmer). Astronomical designation: Alpha Ophiuchi. Astrological nature: Saturn-Venus. Influence: mental discipline, healing through knowledge. Magnitude: 2.1. Color: sapphire-blue. Sun crosses: December 16. Location: forehead of the Serpent-charmer. Comments: The wisdom of the serpent is potent when harnessed, but dangerous-medicines easily become poisons.

  Left Pillar: Sinistra (Latin: Left). Astronomical designation: Nu Ophiuchi. Astrological nature: Saturn-Venus. Influence: sinister actions, malice, depravity. Magnitude: 3.3. Color: white. Sun crosses: December 21. Location: left hand of the Serpent-charmer. Comments: The left hand is the hand of darkness.

  The astral gate of Ophiuchus lies between the star of its right pillar, located on the forehead of the Serpent-bearer, and the star of its left pillar, on the left hand of the figure. The Sun enters the gate by crossing the longitude of Ras Alhague, the star of the right pillar, around December 16. The solar transition of this gate narrow takes five days. The Sun exits the gate around December 21, the winter solstice, when it crosses the longitude of the star of the left pillar, Sinistra.

  The key to the Thirteenth Gate opens the constellation Ophiuchus, allowing entry into that part of the walled city of the Necronomicon that concerns the practical techniques of ceremonial magic described by Lovecraft. Use it for divining information or receiving dreams about these methods of ritual working.

  Seal of the Thirteenth Key on the Thirteenth Gate

  Face the direction of the compass ruled by the Thirteenth Gate, which is due north. This is the only gate in the northern wall of the city. Visualize it closed before you so that it is of a dimension that you may easily walk through it without awkwardness.

  With the visualized image of the gate clear in your mind and projected upon the astral plane in the direction due north, speak this invocation to Yog-Sothoth, which has the same general form for all the gates:

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

  By the authority of the dreaded name, Azathoth, that few dare speak, I charge thee, open to me the gateway of Ophiuchus, the Serpent-bearer, that lies between the blazing pillar Ras Alhague on the right hand and the blazing pillar Sinistra on the left hand. As the solar chariot [or, lunar chariot] crosses between these pillars, I enter the city of the Necronomicon through its Thirteenth Gate. Selah!

  Visualize the key of the Thirteenth Gate in your right hand some six inches long and made of cast electrum-an untarnishing, silvery alloy of the seven planetary metals. Feel its weight, texture, and shape as you hold it. Extend your right arm and use the key to draw upon the surface of the gate the seal of the key, which should be visualized to burn on the gate in a line of white spiritual fire. Point with the astral key at the center of the gate and speak the words:

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

  Visualize the gate unlocking and opening inward of its own accord upon a shadowed space. On the astral level, walk through the gateway and stand in the darkness beyond. Open your mind to receive impressions of whatever magical method or procedure caused you to work the ritual, and pay attention to any intuitions or mental images that arise. More information may come to you later in oracular dreams. In a more general sense, this ritual and this gate may be used to investigate any technical procedure of practical magic, such as the composition of rituals, the making of charms, the wording of invocations, and so on.

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

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

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

  isted here are works by Lovecraft containing elements that may be considered in the broadest terms part of the Necronomicon mythos. It may be argued that some of the stories are not part of the mythos, lacking as they do any obvious ties to the Necronomicon or the Old Ones, or other central mythos devices. However, in my opinion they are linked to the mythos, even if tenuously, by such things as theme and atmosphere. This is not a complete list of Lovecraft's writings, but concerns only stories dealing with the weird, with cosmic horror, and with things strange and unnatural. Lovecraft also wrote poems, most of them while he was quite young. Only the poems that pertain to the mythos are included in this list.

  The indicated year of writing is the year in which a work was completed; the year of publication is the year in which it first saw print. The composition of a few works straddles two or more years, such as The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath, begun in October of 1926 but completed in January of 1927. The individual poems of Fungi from Yuggoth were written between December of 1929 and January of 1930, and groups of the poems were published in various years-I have supplied the year of publication for the sonnet cycle as a whole.

  Some of the stories are collaborations with other writers, but in most of these cases, the major portion of the text was produced by Lovecraft, and almost always the mythos elements have been inserted by Lovecraft. The collaborations are an important part of the Necronomicon mythos and cannot be overlooked. It may be useful here to go through these stories indicating how much of each should be credited to Lovecraft.

  The Green Meadow and The Crawling Chaos were both based on the dreams of Winifred V. Jackson (penname: Elizabeth Berkeley), which she described to Lovecraft, who then wrote them up in final story form. The dream that gave rise to The Green Meadow was very similar to a dream that Lovecraft himself had experienced. Lovecraft wrote all of the introduction to the Green Meadow, which was not part of Jackson's dream. Of The Green Meadow, Lovecraft wrote in a letter, "it is practically my own work all throughout." These two stories are the only collaborations to which Lovecraft affixed his name (the pseudonym Lewis Theobald Jun.) as co-author.

  The Horror At Martin's Beach, written with his future wife Sonia Greene, was predominantly Lovecraft's work.

  The stories Ashes, The Ghost-Eater, The Loved Dead, and Deaf, Dumb, and Blin
d were revisions by Lovecraft of first drafts written by C. M. Eddy. Lovecraft's influence shows most strongly in The Ghost-Eater, although The Loved Dead is a remarkable work that expresses Lovecraft's characteristic alienation from the norms of humanity.

  Imprisoned with the Pharaohs (later given in various anthologies its original title, Under the Pyramids) is almost entirely Lovecraft's story, both in conception and execution, even though it was published with only Harry Houdini's name on it. The owner of Weird Tales, J. C. Henneberger, asked Lovecraft early in 1924 to make a story out of Houdini's ridiculous claim that while visiting Egypt he had been tied up by thieves and cast into a tomb as a test of his abilities, and had used his talents to escape. Lovecraft never believed the story, but used it as the jumping-off place for his own curious tale.

  Lovecraft based Two Black Bottles on a detailed synopsis by Wilfred Blanch Talman, but he added dialogue and changed the story around, putting his own stamp on it.

  The stories co-authored with Zealia Bishop, The Curse of Yig, The Mound, and Medusa's Coil, are among Lovecraft's best and are almost wholly Lovecraft's work, although there is more of Bishop in Medusa's Coil, the weakest of the three stories. In the case of The Mound, Bishop expressed to Lovecraft her story idea in only two brief sentencesLovecraft wrote the whole thing.

  The Last Test and The Electric Executioner were extensive revisions that Lovecraft made to existing stories that had already been published by Adolphe de Castro. Both revisions were published in Weird Tales.

  The Trap, written with Henry S. Whitehead, is believed to be three-quarters Lovecraft's work.

  Hazel Heald is another collaborator who did little more than supply Lovecraft with plot concepts, which he transformed into complete stories. The Man of Stone was based on an outline by Heald. Lovecraft claimed that he had written almost all of The Horror in the Museum because Heald's synopsis was so poor, he could not use it. The same was the case with Winged Death, Out of the Aeons, and The Horror in the Burying-Ground-Heald supplied no more than a vague idea or two. Of these stories with Heald, The Horror in the Museum and Out of the Aeons are pure Lovecraft in concept as well as execution.