The Cthulhu Mythos of HP Lovecraft is often referred to these days as ‘the 23 current’, especially by members of the Esoteric Order of Dagon. While 23 is only mentioned peripherally by Lovecraft, it makes sense in that the number 23 concerns spaces ‘outside’ the normal spectrum of experience. For years I have been exploring the concept of ‘Arcana 23’, the tarot trump ‘off the Wheel’ or cycle of 0 the Fool through to 0 the Fool. So I can relate to the Cthulhu Mythos being a part of (but certainly not the entirety of, if it could even be seen to have parameters!) the ‘23 current’ in that it concerns beings from ‘outside’ or ‘Beyond’ our usual 3 dimensions, Who enter our perceptual parameters via strange dreams and other cra cks betwixt the worlds. I am very interested in these cracks and what they divest, although in general I am not as big a fan of Lovecraft’s fiction as the IMPEDIMENT of this issue might have thus far led you to expect. I am certainly interested in his mythos -and also how it has mutated further in the hands and eyes of others- but apprehend it so differently from him myself that I have only read a small portion of his work, appreciative though I am of his extravagantly lurid ultra-violet beyond-purple prose. I am certainly no fan of the ‘Horror’ genre, and I guess it is this which deters from further engagement with his work. For in most of the strange realms, bizzarre amorphous creatures and irrational geometries he recoiled from in utmost terror and fear, I find utmost glee. I guess it comes down to a vastly different basic perspective on all things strange and unfamiliar - HPL was a xenophobic (one who is afraid of the alien or different -as consolidated by hints of misogyny and racism in his stories), whereas I (as most good mages should be- how else to steal the fire from heaven?) am a Xenophiliac.

As a genetic male having practised Tantra and Taoist techniques of non-ejaculatory orgasm for many years, I now sometimes find it verging on horrific when I do on occasion (once every few moonths usually) ejaculate. Though the after-state is usually still blissful, there is sometimes a pervading feeling of being drained, having the lifeforce sucked out of me, and an emptiness which is not always pleasurable.

So although this sensation is no doubt exaggerated by its rarity in my case, it occurs to me that men in middle age and beyond who continue to spurt and splatter their vital fluids and accompanying lifeforce away almost against their will, driven by a faltering libido straining to maintain its endurance, the natural association between death and sex is more marked. A sense of dread may accompany the act of joy, an underlying feeling of doom impending and prevailing. This would account for the fear and apprehension entwined with the primal sexual element prevalent in the works of Lovecraft and his like.

Whereas when one practises tantra, and allows sexuality to flow uninhibited yet focused, charging rather than draining one’s energy, with no fear of consumption or vampirism by one’s partner/s, there is only ecstasy inherent in tales of the strange pulpitations of deep marine creatures of the waters of the subconscious and their swollen purple pods and grasping succulent tentacles.

It is in this spirit that I present the ‘Tantric Invocation of Shub Niggurath’ rite following this essay.

Of all the beings of the Lovecraft mythos, Shub Niggurath in particular appeals to me greatly (and S/He seems rather fond of me also), as the archetype within that mythoscape most aligned with other mythologies I have engaged with deeply. Those I know who have read more of Lovecraft’s works tell me S/He is only mentioned obliquely in his stories, as a being of omniferous and undifferentiating voracious sexual appetite on the shadowy fringes of his worlds, mentioned only in hushed and frightened whispers.

Who else could this ‘Great Black Goat of the Woods’ be but a new ultra-mutational form of ancient Pan Pangenitor, the Melenusia (black goat) of the debaucherous Dionysian Rites, the Goat of Mendes so prevalent in the Sabbatic Tradition of European folklore and witchcraft.

Shub Niggurath, though polysexual and often imaged as replete with multiple and diverse genitalia, seems to be primarily feminine in that S/He births and feeds these Thousand Young. So this Great Black Goat when combined with the more overtly masculine Goat-man Pan, be-Comes that veritable archetype of dark majesty so revered amidst the acolytes of Chaos Magick as Baphomet, hermaproditic Horned God/dess whose name seems to originate from the Knights Templar and form from the tarotic imagery of Eliphas Levi. This (post-)modern image is undoubtedly of a composite nature drawing on previous (and future?) Godforms. The Zos Kia famulus Black Eagle (AOS’s ‘spirit guide’ as a native American shaman, but known in this relatively-new ‘tradition’ in animal or shadow form also) can be added in to the cauldron of mutating myths and ‘Solve et Coagula!’, we have Baphomet resplendent with human torso, goat head and hooves, and great black wings.

This realization came to me as a vision and a physical sensation, that of having my chest pryed open by the great black talons of a living silhouette, when I invoked Black Eagle during an intensive 4-day ritual operation involving fasting, self-tattooing, meditation, mudra and mantra (see the Commentary of my Liber Pennae-Ultim-Atum -http://www.horusmaat.com/LPUC.htm). I was wearing the skin of Mandrake the (black) Goat at the time and Black Eagle came as the final component in my ritual assumption of the hybrid form called Baphomet. So I was fascinated to find on subsequent reading of one of Grant’s more recent tomes that he too associates (tangentially as usual) Black Eagle with the ‘Great Old Ones’ of the Lovecraft mythos.

Parallel to my longstanding (no pun imp-ended) obsession with/possession with Pan, I have long been obsessed with spiders and Spider-Goddesses, and it is a common form for my anima when externally evoked and deified to assume. So when I heard about the spider-goat experiments (see this issue’s IMPEDIMENT) naturally I was intrigued. The subsequent realization that Shub Niggurath is actually a SpiderGoat allied Hir even more with Baphomet and with my personal mythology, for as a developing hermaphrodite myself, S/He seems a natural synthesis of my goatish male self and arachnean anima.

Just tonight I have been invoking Baphomet-Shub Niggurath, and many realizations have immediately resulted. Thus this rather indulgent ramble, but to give it more purpose I now offer forth a potent tantric rite I have spontaneously developed from these results in application. As it is a tantric rite I acknowledge the Hindu names of the archetypes involved also: Ardhanarishvara-An as the Horned Hermaphrodite of that pantheon, a conjunction of Kali-Arachne as Shakti and Shiva-An, ancient primal Horned form of Shiva. The relevance of Shiva and His association with the Sahasrara (crown) chakra will beCome apparent.

I hope you find this rite as effective as I did…

BAPHOMET, HermAphroditic Pan-ic God/dess of the Templars, cybermangamorphed and hybridized with

SHUB NIGGURATH, The omnisexual Great Black Goat of the Woods of The Chthulhu Mythos.

While the Cthulhoid octopoedal lower phallus of Octinomos jettisons Black Ink as creato-sexual elixir of the Artist-Priest via the Dreaming Mind to the manifest page, the upper phallus and central horn ejaculates the White Light of Sahasrara back into the star-webbed void of supraconsciousness. For Shub Niggurath is the 'Black Goat of A Thousand Young', and the Sahasrara the Thousand-Petalled Lotus. The Thousannd Young are the cosmic starspawn (New Formations of the Old Ones) thereof...

...And R'lyeh trembles beneath the seedy backstreets of Shinjuku.

Drawn in Tokyo, Japan for Frater Yog Sothoth of the Esoteric Order of Dagon