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.