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“This brings us to a consideration of the Cthulhu Mythos, which reflects vastly ancient pre-human lore. Like other accounts of un-classifiable phases of earth’s history the Cthulhu Cult epitomises the subconsciousness and the forces outside terrestrial awareness. It may be said in passing that true creativity can occur only when these forces are invoked to flood with their light the magical network of the mind. For purposes of explanation the mind may be envisaged as divided into three rooms, the edifice which contains them being the only real or permanent principle. These rooms are:
1 ) Subconsciousness, the dream state;
2) Mundane consciousness, the waking state;
3) Transcendental consciousness, veiled in the non-initiate by the state of sleep.
The compartments are further conceived as being connected with the house that contains them, by a series of conduits or tunnels. The house represents trans-terrestrial consciousness. The invoked forces— Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Azathoth, etc., — are then understood, not as malignant or destructive entities but as the dynamic energies of consciousness the functions of which are to blast away the delusion of separate existence (the rooms of our illustration). Such is the rationale of the ‘demonic’ forces known in the Cthulhu Mythos as the Outer Ones, the Deep Ones, the Great Old Ones; in traditional Qabalistic lore, the Qliphoth, Elementals, Larvae, etc., none of which should be confused with disembodied human, or animal, spirits.
The Great Old Ones appear under various guises in myths of all ages. Danger lies, not in the entities themselves but in the attitude adopted towards them. This has not, in recent times, been better understood than by the Surrealists, André Breton, Salvador Dali, Yves Tanguy, etc., and by Austin Osman Spare, whose method of obsessional sorcery adumbrated the Dalinian system of delirious paranoiaccritical activity.32 But it was Howard Phillips Lovecraft who traced in his tales of the Cthulhu Myth Cycle the most significant map of the pre-human Gnosis. Lovecraft makes it clear that the Old Ones communicate via dreams with members of the human race peculiarly fitted to respond to Their vibrations. That the response is not always conscious is demonstrated by the fact that many dreamers (occultists included) who deliberately invite communication fail to do so, whereas others, who do not, occasionally succeed beyond measure. A very special kind of sensitivity is required, and although this can sometimes be induced, there is no guarantee that it will ensure one’s being ‘chosen’ as a channel of transmission. That appears to depend upon factors outside the range of human calculation.
In recent times. Blavatsky was numbered among the “chosen” (Book of Dzyan); so also were Crowley (Liber AL), and Lovecraft (Necronomicon). The two former sought direct contact with the Old Ones, ‘Masters’, ‘Mahatmas’, or ‘Secret Chiefs’; the latter denied that They had any but a conceptual existence. Nonetheless, Lovecraft’s writings suggest that he was appointed to a very special purpose. Did he not set upon the trail of the elusive Necronomicon an host of prospective contactees? Today, nearly fifty years after his death the answer to that question is demonstrably positive.
The Deep Ones of Inner space {dream state), the Outer Ones of Outer Space (sleep) are represented by Depth and Height. They must be invoked in the waking state. When this occurs, and when the ‘stars are right’, the Great Old Ones will manifest again upon earth; that is, in the waking state. This must be a conscious invocation, i.e. a deliberate act of will. Then the Eye will open. The significance of this formula is implicit in the initials, O.T.O.. In this context, the two Os denote the Old or Outer Ones. О is the ayin or ‘eye’, and the Τ typifies the headless or faceless god, Nyarlathotep, who is the messenger or mercury of the Old Ones. He is described as a black god. The initials ОТО spelt in full, i.e. ayin-tau-ayin, = 666, the number of the Beast. The headless cross, or Tau (Τ) is the symbol of Set, the dark god of antique Khem. The addition of a third O, placed on the Τ as its ‘head’, would formulate the loop-handled cross which is used in the secret rites of banishment to Outer Space. The Phallus of Set, the headless Tau, is emblematic of the Blind or Black Horus, for the phallus has an eye that sees in the night of the womb (Inner Space) which it floods with light. The Phallus is the Great Seer of the Unseen. The womb is the Graal that encloses the emblems symbolic of the O.T.O., i.e. phallus (Tau) and testes.33 The phallus is symbolic of the snakelike tentacle characteristic of Cthulhu, of Rhantegoth;34 and of the ophidian current generally.”
Simon Magus