Greetings! Initiates of the Necronomicon Tradition, as well as, individuals who are avid readers of the Simon Necronomicon are more than familiar with the term Iak Sakkak. The Mad Arab mentions Iak Sakkak in several passages of the Simon Necronomicon:
“They must be reminded. If they are not watchful, if the gatekeepers do not watch the gates, if the gates are not kept always locked, bolted and barred, then the One who is always ready, the Guardian of the Other side, IAK SAKKAK, will enter and bring with him the hordes of the armies of the Ancient Ones, IAK KINGU, IAK AZAG, IAK AZABUA, IAK HUWAWA, ISHNIGGARAB, IAK XASTUR, and IAK KUTULU, the Dog Gods and the Dragon Gods, and the Sea Monsters, and the Gods of the Deep.”
We also find use of the term in the Magan Text:
“That they may watch the Gate of ABSU..The Gate of TIAMAT they watch..The Gate of KINGU they oversee..The Gate whose Guardian is IAK SAKKAK they bind.”Iak Sakkak is mentioned in another passage of the Magan Text:
“At the Foundations of CHAOS…In the ARALIYA of MUMMU-TIAMAT..And at the Gates..Of IAK SAKKAK!”
Another important passage also cites Iak Sakkak:
“From the Blood of the Ancient Ones..Man is the Key by which..The Gate if IAK SAKKAK may be flung wide..By which the Ancient Ones..Seek their Vengeance..Upon the face of the Earth..Against the Offspring of MARDUK.”
From the information cited above we can see that Iak Sakkak is a gatekeeper of sorts. Interestingly, Lovecraftian scholar Dan Harms makes the following observation in the Necronomicon Files, page 194:
“Simon claims that his “IAK SAKKAKH” represents Lovecraft’s Yog-Sothoth.”
Yog-Sothoth is a deity in Lovecraftian fiction, an Outer God that is coterminous with all time and space. H. P. Lovecraft wrote the following about Yog-Sothoth in his classic The Dunwich Horror:
“Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again.”
This compares greatly with what we read concerning Iak Sakkak in the Magan Text:
“That they may watch the Gate of ABSU..The Gate of TIAMAT they watch..The Gate of KINGU they oversee..The Gate whose Guardian is IAK SAKKAK they bind.”
Although Iak Sakkak may compare greatly with Yog-Sothoth, does Iak Sakkak have any historical value?
According to adepts in the Necronomicon Tradition, Iak Sakkak guards the gate between this reality and Universe B. Notice what is cited in the Book of Fifty Names:
“They must be reminded. If they are not watchful, if the gatekeepers do not watch the gates, if the gates are not kept always locked, bolted and barred, then the One who is always ready, the Guardian of the Other side, IAK SAKKAK, will enter and bring with him the hordes of the armies of the Ancient Ones, IAK KINGU, IAK AZAG, IAK AZABUA, IAK HUWAWA, ISHNIGGARAB, IAK XASTUR, and IAK KUTULU, the Dog Gods and the Dragon Gods, and the Sea Monsters, and the Gods of the Deep.”
In order for the Initiate of the Necronomicon Tradition to understand the value of Iak Sakkak, it is important for us to review one of our previous articles. The Ancient Art of Gate-Walking, which can be accessed at the following link http://warlockasyluminternationalnews.com/the-ancient-art-of-gatewalking/ discusses the authenticity of the initiation process that appears in the Simon Necronomicon is consistent with the Greater Mysteries. The article states:
“The initiated had to walk, to a lesser or greater extent, into the world of the dead in order to be reborn. Some have foolishly stated that the Gate-Walking process was not part of any ancient system from Mesopotamia, but a Western Ceremonial Magickal working. The first mistake in critiques such as this one is that the Simon Necronomicon is Qliphothic in nature, and that in itself keeps it far from Western Magical practices, as they are not Qliphothic. Secondly, in Chaldean (ie Babylonian) astronomical lore, Cancer was called the ‘Gate of Men,’ the entrance point for souls seeking incarnation in human bodies. Capricorn was called ‘the Gate of the Gods’ by which souls passed into Heaven. The entrance point (initiate) was the Gate of Men, which was another name for the constellation of Cancer, is ruled by Nanna (the Moon). This is the first Sphere in the Gate-Walking Process as mentioned in the Simon Necronomicon. The constellation of Capricorn is called the Gate of the Gods. The ruler of Capricorn is Ninib, which is the final Gate mentioned in the initiation rites of the Simon Necronomicon. This shows us that the initiatory rites of the Necronomicon Tradition are perfectly aligned with the initiatory rites of the ancient world. Albert Pike explains this astrological hogwash in Morals & Dogma:
“The Galaxy, Macrobius says, crosses the Zodiac in two opposite points, Cancer and Capricorn, the tropical points in the sun’s course, ordinarily called the Gates of the Sun. These two tropics, before his time [Aries], corresponded with those constellations, but in his day [Pisces] with Gemini and Sagittarius, in consequence of the precession of the equinoxes; but the signs of the Zodiac remained unchanged; and the Milky Way crossed at the signs Cancer and Capricorn, though not at those constellations.
“Through these gates souls were supposed to descend to earth and re-ascend to Heaven. One, Macrobius says, in his dream of Scipio, was styled the Gate of Men; and the other, the Gate of the Gods. Cancer was the former, because souls descended by it to the earth; and Capricorn the latter, because by it they re-ascended to their seats of immortality, and became Gods.” (155:437-8)”
While the above cited information proves the validity of the Gate-Walking initiation, what lies beyond the 7th Gate, Ninib, is not discussed. However, it seems that this is where the Initiate’s astral abilities begin to dawn intensely. The Mad Arab makes note of this in the Book of Entrance:
“Only when thou hast shown thy power over the Maskim and the Rabishu, mayest thou venture forth to the Land of the IGIGI, and for that reason was this Covenant made, that none shall safely Walk through the sunken valleys of the Dead before having ascended to MARDUK, nor shall they breach the Gates that lie beyond ADAR until they have seen the Signs of the Mad God and felt the fury of the hellish Queen.”
The Mad Arab here points out that beyond the 7th Gate are the Igigi. The chart listed in the Simon Necronomicon illustrates further Gates beyond this:
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Table VII [A.C.] |
Table XXV [S.] |
| 0. | . . . | ANU (TIAMAT) |
| 1. | Sphere of the Primum Mobile | ENLIL (ABSU) |
| 2. | Sphere of the Zodiac or Fixed Stars | ENKI; LUMASHI (IGIGI) |
“I have traveled among the stars, and trembled before the Gods. I have, at last, found the formulae by which I passed the Gate ARZIR, and passed into the forbidden realms of the foul IGIGI.”
The regions past Adar (7th Gate) are guarded by Iak Sakkak and work in conjunction with the formulae given in the Urilia Text. It is here that the Initiate becomes an Ancient One, as he/she enters the Gate of the Gods. Iak Sakkak does have some historical value and is written in the Simon Necronomicon as Iak Sakkak for pronunciation purposes, but appears in ancient texts as Iss’Iak. Amelie Kuhrt makes the following observation in The Ancient Near East, c. 3000-300 BC, on page 84:
“They use the Old Assyrian dialect of Akkadian (quite distinct from Old Babylonian) and they only give the king a very simple title: ‘iss’iak (dingir) Assur = ‘vicegerent (or governor) of the god Ashur’.”
We can see from Kuhrt’s observation that the term iss’iak meant governor, but when followed a specific name of a deity, in this case Assur, would then mean governor of Assur. We also find that this rendering of iss’sak is Akkadian. The reader should also note that Assur was the Assyrian equivalent of DinGir Enlil. Interestingly, we covered how DinGir Enlil, also known as Mul-ge is ruler of the Abyss, in a recent article entitled The Meaning of the Sumerian Tablets of Destiny, which can be accessed at the following link: http://warlockasyluminternationalnews.com/category/tablets-of-destiny/ where it states:
“J.G.R Forlong makes the following observation in his classic work Faiths of Man, Volume 2, page 577 we read:
“Mulge. Akkadian: “lord below” otherwise Mul-lil, or Enlil, “ghost lord”…The Akkadian name of Ba’al, lord of earth and of hell. His son was Namtar, “fate” or “plague.” His wife was Nin-ki-gal (“lady of dead-land).”
The post also cites other information about DinGir Enlil taken from the Unitarian Review and Religious Magazine, Volume 13, page 417:
“The remaining god of the triad of superior deities is Mulge. He and his consort, Ninge or Ningelal, are the lord and lady of the gloomy pit or the subterranean world. This is called “the home whence none return”; that is, the abode of the dead….The picture of the underworld given by the Akkadian tablets is painted in mostly gloomy colors. There were believed to be seven doors to this world; but the principal entrance was located at the great mountain of the west, where the sun sets,…In the lower world, together with Mulge and his consort, there lived seven other gods, his sons, who lived, as one of the incantations says, “ in the flames.”
Dingir Enlil was the ruler of the Abyss, or the Absu, which was sometimes considered to be the outer heavens. The ancient people of Mesopotamia considered the Underworld to be both below the Earth and also representative of the outer regions of the universe. However, I find it interesting what Simon writes in Gates of the Necronomicon, page 107:
“The seven gates of the Underworld and of Heaven are thus dramatically illustrated: gates in space and time..”
Simon’s words seem to correspond to what is said of Iak Sakkak and Yog-Sothoth:
“Yog-Sothoth knows the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the gate. Yog-Sothoth is the key and guardian of the gate. Past, present, future, all are one in Yog-Sothoth. He knows where the Old Ones broke through of old, and where They shall break through again.”
“That they may watch the Gate of ABSU..The Gate of TIAMAT they watch..The Gate of KINGU they oversee..The Gate whose Guardian is IAK SAKKAK they bind.”
It seems that after the Initiate leaves the realm of fixed stars, or zodiac, they enter into another Abyss, specifically, the Absu to take another purging before entering the gate of Anu.
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Table VII [A.C.] |
Table XXV [S.] |
| 0. | . . . | ANU (TIAMAT) |
| 1. | Sphere of the Primum Mobile | ENLIL (ABSU) |
| 2. | Sphere of the Zodiac or Fixed Stars | ENKI; LUMASHI (IGIGI) |
“The term used for ‘triangle’ was invariably the Sumerian word sag.kak, possibly with the literal meaning ‘peg-head’.”
Other resources give us a deeper insight into the term SAG.KAK. Jens Heyrup mentions that the term SAG means head while KAK can be defined as triangle. However, James Hastings in the classic work, A Dictionary of the Bible, written in 1901, states the following on page 216:
“The most common expressions for priest are kalu and Sangii (Sumerian sag), the high priest being hence called iangu-mahjiu (from sag ‘priest’ and mah ‘high ‘), for seer and prophet malpiu, from which the word magician is derived, …”
From our observations it seems that the term Iak Sakkak derives ultimately from the term SAG.KAK, which the two terms combined, means Priest of the Triangle. Triangle could denote the crowns that were worn by Sumerian royalty. These crowns were cone-shaped. However, it seems to represent the Sirius constellation. The entrance into Universe B in the Necronomicon Mysteries is charted as the gate of Anu/Tiamat, which is interesting since Anu and Ishtar both correspond to Sirius constellation. Ishtar is a later form of the goddess Tiamat, whose name means maiden of life. Therefore, Iak Sakkak represents the magician who has been taught the mysteries of the “other side” and one who has obtained “Anuship” from Tiamat herself, the only one who could bestow such. The term “SAG” appears as “AZAG’ in the Sumer Aryan dictionary written by L. A. Waddell and is defined as “enchanter.” Simon presents this in the Introductory section of the Simon Necronomicon:
“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”.”
Interestingly, Waddell also likens “Azag” to Iacchus of the Mysteries of Eleusis, which venerated an honored Persephone, who corresponds to Ereshkigal. The Mysteries of Eleusis correspond heavily to the rites mentioned in the Simon Necronomicon, the rites of the Ancient Ones, as they deal primarily with immortality. Iak Sakkak is another name for Anu. But what happens when the Initiate reaches this level of development? We will discuss this in our next article:
“According to Massey, “Aten was a very early name of Horus as god of the dual Horizons”. The reference is to the journey from West to East of the Mother-Star. The Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.) is the Order of the Temple of the East, the place of resurrection, of magical revival; it is the place of the re-awakening of the Ophidian Current celebrated in AL as Ra-Hoor-Khuit. As such, its function is to prepare the way of return of the Outer Ones. In the Necronomicon Gnosis the process is typified as the awakening of Cthulhu. Thus we have the “Woman and her dog, the Mother and her Son, the Goddess of the Seven Stars, Set-Typhon, and the Sirius system represented by Yog-Sothoth. The two Orders — O.T.O. and A.˙.A.˙. — are thus interrelated.” (Taken from Outer Gateways, written by Kenneth Grant)
A most interesting subject.
I want to follow this topic up with some of my own findings. Specifically with the gate system of the underworld and the access portal to the outside. Stay tuned !
Great! I look forward to reading some of your insights
i have recently been following your work, and am quit interested in the necronomicon… im not sure how or where to get into deeper research on the subject. if you could direct me in a good direction or maybe make an article for people who are new initiates that would be grand, thanks, and blessed be.
Glad to hear about your interest in the Path. Just send me an email, maybe with small bio to start….usually new initiates are mentored by those who have spent more time engaging in practices on the Path. Initiation of course would be the gate-walking initiation as described in the Simon Necronomicon, very transforming experience.
Thank you for your wise suggestion, I will work an article for those newly interested.