The term Bandar, its historical usage, and origin we will cover in this section. In the Simon Necronomicon it appears that the term, Bandar is interchangeable with Watcher:
“The third sign is the Sigil of the Watcher. It is called BANDAR. The Watcher is a Race sent by the Elder Ones. It keeps vigil while one sleeps, provided the appropriate ritual and sacrifice has been performed,: else, if called, it will turn upon you.
These seals, to be effective, must be graven on stone and set in the ground. Or, set upon the altar of offerings. Or, carried to the Rock of Invocations. Or, engraved on the metal of one’s God or Goddess, and hung about the neck, but hidden from the view of the profane. Of the three, the ARRA and the AGGA may be used separately, that is to say, singly and alone. The BANDAR, however, must never be used alone, but with one or both of the others, for the Watcher must needs be reminded of the Covenant it has sworn with the Elder Gods and our Race, else it will turn upon thee and slay thee and ravage thy town until succour is to be had from the Elder Gods by the tears of thy people and the wailing of thy women.”
Indications that the Simon Necronomicon’s use of the term Bandar to describe a race of Watchers might be a trap can be gleamed from the fact that the word Bandar appears nowhere in the section assigned to the Watcher, namely, The Conjuration of the Watcher. This was something that escaped my notice for years. I too, was one of those Gate-Walkers that had been calling the Watcher a Bandar without knowing the true meaning of the term. Since I couldn’t find any information about the Bandar, I wrongly assumed that it was a composite term made up of the words ban and dar.
Ironically, since my initiation into the Art of Ninzuwu, I have a clearer understanding of the Simon tome. The reason for this I will explain in an upcoming chapter. However, it is due to this process that I was able to discover and find the only historical reference that vividly describes the true meaning of the term Bandar.
Published in 1908, under the direction of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland was a series entitled, Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science. In Volume VIII of this work, under the subtopic, Note on the “Bandar” Cult of the Kandyan Sinhalese by C. G. Seligmann, M. D., we read:
“In a paper on the “Vedda Cult of the Dead,” published in the Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, I alluded to the practice prevalent among the Kandyan Sinhalese, that is of the Sinhalese of the central portion of the island, of canonizing important men soon after their death and making offerings to their spirits, who are invoked to protect from evil and send good fortune. Such canonized spirits are known as Bandar, and Mr. H. Parker, late of the Irrigation Department, who has devoted special attention to this subject, writes that he has the names of considerably more than 100. “Some are included in the list as important ancestors; others, the majority, because of their power; others because of their cruelty or their sudden violent death. They are all classed as Yakas by the Sinhalese and are generally hurtful; but some have certain protective functions, and protect cattle and cocoanut trees and crops.”
Based on this information, we can see that the call of the Watcher, as set forth in the Simon Necronomicon is an adaption of a Sinhalese Indian ritual draped in ancient Mesopotamian aesthetics. A Bandar is a spirit of the deceased whether an ancestor or someone who died violently. This process of Bandar-ship is explained as Seligmann continues:
“Before the dead can manifest their power in this manner or in any way interfere with human affairs they must obtain permission of one or more high gods of whom the most important is Skanda, one of the four guardian deities of Ceylon, “the Kataragam God” as he is called by the jungle-dwelling Sinhalese, on the account of his position of his famous temple. How the spirit obtains this permission is not clear, but I was told that the early signs of the power of the deceased are always in some way connected with the Kataragam God,……
Having one obtained permission from Kataragam God to accept offerings and to help or injure men, the spirit indicates his desire to be reverenced as a Bandar at a shamanistic ceremony which is held when the doings of the “sending,” or other mysterious events, suggest that one of the dead is trying to communicate with the living. A spirit-dancer then invokes the new Bandar and becomes possessed by him, and the Bandar, speaking through the dancer, explains who he is, how he should be invoked, what offering should be made to him, and the benefits that he will confer in return.”
Basically, the Bandar represents a spirit of the deceased that acts as a guardian. It seems that this ritual was constructed through a comparative analysis of the Hindu pantheon and that of ancient Mesopotamia. We can determine this as we are told in the account above that in order for the deceased to become a Bandar they must get permission from the high gods, of which we are told that “the most important is Skanda, one of the four guardian deities of Ceylon.”
Skanda, also known as Kartikeya, is the god of war in a manner similar to that of Nergal. In Tamil literature, he is known as Murugan. It is said in one account, dated between the third century BCE and the fifth century CE, “the glorified Murugan, “the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent,” as “the favored god of the Tamils.” Kartikeya was also associated with the fire god Agni, much like Nergal is fond of Girra.
Among the Sinhalese Buddhists, Skanda is known as Kataradam deviyo and entered western knowledge through Buddhist factions of the Theosophical Society. Interestingly, when we uncover the origin of the Bandar and its roots among the Tamil-speaking Vedda people, we are able to confirm an aspect of Ninzuwu philosophy that is discussed in much of its literature, namely, that the shamanic systems of the world were one, which is why they all possess the same aesthetics despite their languages differences. This would explain how the writer of the Necronomicon by Simon was able to adopt a ritual from East India and model it for use in a “Chaldean” grimoire. On the unity of the shamanic world, The Marie Laveau Corpus Text, admits:
“It was so that when the Ninzuwu began to descend from Nyarzir into the realm of our being, they perceived life as the balance of Heaven and Earth. Is not man a descendant of Heaven and Earth? Certainly, all who are born of Earth see the same stars. The stars are the same, but the light they shine is received by man differently, depending on the angle that this very same light from the stars is received. Yet, they are still the same stars. It was these angles of light that created different languages among the children of mankind. It was these angles of light that created the families of plants and trees spread across different lands. It was these very same angles of light that created different physical characteristics in mankind. Yet in still, the stars are the same. The difference is not in the light, but how it is received.”
In a later passage from the text, we read:
“Often times, people have asked, how can elements of the Simon Necronomicon, Shinto, Sumerian Culture, Taoism, and Voodoo, work in the same system? The answer is very simple. If we approach a question of this nature religiously, assumptions of confusion are sure to follow. However, the occult scientist sees all of these systems as mere branches of the whole.”
Thus, we find that in the Calling of the Watcher, the potential Initiate of the Simon tome would only use the information in the Conjuration of the Watcher as a template in constructing their own ritual. This is where knowledge of why “traps” were placed in the Simon Necronomicon is essential.
The traps that appear in the Simon tome are put in place as tests to ensure that the worthy achieve the grimoire’s intended purpose. Those seeking power care nothing for patience or research. Sure, they may ask someone if there is a ritual for this or that, and in these cases they reveal a quest for power.
The power hungry know no common sense. No matter how much you tell them to their faces that the dead can’t save you, they will return over and over again asking about rituals. The Simon Necronomicon’s true purpose is revealed by its editor:
“Man’s power to alter the nature of his environment must develop simultaneously with his ability to master his inner environment, his own mind his psyche, soul, spirit. Perhaps, then, the lunar landing was the first collective initiation for humanity, which will bring it one step closer to a beneficial Force that resides beyond the race of the “cruel celestial spirits”, past the Abyss of Knowledge. Yet, he must remember that the occult powers that accompany magickal attainment are ornamental only, indications of obstacles overcome on the Path to Perfection, and are not to be sought after in themselves, for therein lies the truth Death.”
In other notes written by Simon, the editor, we are told that this “Path to Perfection,” as mentioned above is the revelation of true self:
“Yet, there are many terrors on the Way to the Self, and an Abyss to cross before victory can be declared.”
Based on the information we have discussed thus far, the Watcher of Necronomicon lore is not an apkallu and serves a different purpose than the use of the term Watcher in Ninzuwu Science. However, the philosophy surrounding the Conjuration of the Watcher is achieved in Ninzuwu by means of the Path of the Ancient One. A close examination of the Simon Necronomicon’s Conjuration of the Watcher reveals this fact:
“Wherefore it is wise to conjure It in the Names of the Three Great Watchers Who existed before the Confrontation from whose borne the Watcher and His Race ultimately derive, and those Three are ANU, ENLIL, and Master ENKI of the Magick Waters. And for this reason They are sometimes called the Three Watchers, MASS SSARATI and the Watcher MASS SSARATU, or KIA MASS SSARATU.”
According to the instructions given by the Mad Arab, it is wise, though not necessary, to conjure the Watcher in the names of the Three Great Watchers. Therefore, the equation of the Aga Mass Ssaratu is equivalent to Ninzuwu in gematric terms. In other words, Anu + Enlil + Enki +Watcher equal Ninzuwu:
“Anu certainly preserves some features belonging to the Accadian Ana, …. In those parts of the collection which have been handed down to us, there is no special hymn addressed to Ana, but he is invoked in the sacramental formulae of all the incantations under the name Spirit of the heavens (Zi-ana). As his name indicates he was the same as the material heavens, he was heaven itself, whilst also the soul of it; and he was more completely one with the object to which he was attached than any other of the supernatural deities ….
The name of Hea means “dwelling;” this name then was manifestly connected with the time when the god was first imagined to be the same as the zone over which he presided, the zone which served as a home for men and animated beings; but he was afterwards regarded as much more separate from the material object than Anna. He was the lord of the earth’s surface (mul-ki), and this title is applied to him quite frequently as Hea. In the sacramental formulae of the incantations he was invoked as Spirit of the earth, or more exactly still, of the terraqueous surface (zi-ki-a).”
When we add up the Simple Gematric values of Anu (36) and Enki (39) we get the sum of 75 and in English Gematira, which is based on the Babylonian numerical system of 60, we get 450. What is interesting about these values is that they are the same for Ishtar (75, 450). This means that it is very well possible that the combination of Anu and Enki, which appears at the end of many incantations in the Simon Necronomicon, may be the power of Din.Gir Ishtar, whom Simon identifies as the Goddess of the Witches in its introductory notes. Yet, it must also be pointed out that Johuta of the Ninzuwu Tradition also possesses the same gematrical value of 75, 450.
Historically, the calling of the Three Great Watchers derives from ancient Mesopotamian rituals of protection. Under the topic, Traditions of the Apkallus, in the previously cited work by Helge S. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic, we read:
“The stars keep watch over both those awake and those sleeping in the night. In the following prayer to the stars there is play on the connotations of “watching,” masṣạrtu/nasạ̄ ru, and êru, “be awake”:
3 masṣ ạ̄ rāti ša mušīti ērāti nasṛ āte dalpāte la sạ̄ litāti kīma attīna ērātena nasṛ ātina dalpātina la sạ̄ lilātina ana êri u sạ lli purussâ tanandinna
(you) three watches of the night you the wakeful, watchful, sleepless, never sleeping ones— as you are awake, watchful, sleepless, never sleeping, you decide the fate of those awake and sleeping (alike). (Prayer to the Stars, KAR 58 rev. 12f.)”
Excerpt from – BuddhaNomicon: The Simon Necronomicon Unveiled Through The Art of Ninzuwu
“The third sign is the Sigil of the Watcher. It is called BANDAR. The Watcher is a Race sent by the Elder Ones. It keeps vigil while one sleeps, provided the appropriate ritual and sacrifice has been performed,: else, if called, it will turn upon you.
These seals, to be effective, must be graven on stone and set in the ground. Or, set upon the altar of offerings. Or, carried to the Rock of Invocations. Or, engraved on the metal of one’s God or Goddess, and hung about the neck, but hidden from the view of the profane. Of the three, the ARRA and the AGGA may be used separately, that is to say, singly and alone. The BANDAR, however, must never be used alone, but with one or both of the others, for the Watcher must needs be reminded of the Covenant it has sworn with the Elder Gods and our Race, else it will turn upon thee and slay thee and ravage thy town until succour is to be had from the Elder Gods by the tears of thy people and the wailing of thy women.”
Indications that the Simon Necronomicon’s use of the term Bandar to describe a race of Watchers might be a trap can be gleamed from the fact that the word Bandar appears nowhere in the section assigned to the Watcher, namely, The Conjuration of the Watcher. This was something that escaped my notice for years. I too, was one of those Gate-Walkers that had been calling the Watcher a Bandar without knowing the true meaning of the term. Since I couldn’t find any information about the Bandar, I wrongly assumed that it was a composite term made up of the words ban and dar.
Ironically, since my initiation into the Art of Ninzuwu, I have a clearer understanding of the Simon tome. The reason for this I will explain in an upcoming chapter. However, it is due to this process that I was able to discover and find the only historical reference that vividly describes the true meaning of the term Bandar.
Published in 1908, under the direction of the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland was a series entitled, Man: A Monthly Record of Anthropological Science. In Volume VIII of this work, under the subtopic, Note on the “Bandar” Cult of the Kandyan Sinhalese by C. G. Seligmann, M. D., we read:
“In a paper on the “Vedda Cult of the Dead,” published in the Transactions of the Third International Congress for the History of Religions, I alluded to the practice prevalent among the Kandyan Sinhalese, that is of the Sinhalese of the central portion of the island, of canonizing important men soon after their death and making offerings to their spirits, who are invoked to protect from evil and send good fortune. Such canonized spirits are known as Bandar, and Mr. H. Parker, late of the Irrigation Department, who has devoted special attention to this subject, writes that he has the names of considerably more than 100. “Some are included in the list as important ancestors; others, the majority, because of their power; others because of their cruelty or their sudden violent death. They are all classed as Yakas by the Sinhalese and are generally hurtful; but some have certain protective functions, and protect cattle and cocoanut trees and crops.”
Based on this information, we can see that the call of the Watcher, as set forth in the Simon Necronomicon is an adaption of a Sinhalese Indian ritual draped in ancient Mesopotamian aesthetics. A Bandar is a spirit of the deceased whether an ancestor or someone who died violently. This process of Bandar-ship is explained as Seligmann continues:
“Before the dead can manifest their power in this manner or in any way interfere with human affairs they must obtain permission of one or more high gods of whom the most important is Skanda, one of the four guardian deities of Ceylon, “the Kataragam God” as he is called by the jungle-dwelling Sinhalese, on the account of his position of his famous temple. How the spirit obtains this permission is not clear, but I was told that the early signs of the power of the deceased are always in some way connected with the Kataragam God,……
Having one obtained permission from Kataragam God to accept offerings and to help or injure men, the spirit indicates his desire to be reverenced as a Bandar at a shamanistic ceremony which is held when the doings of the “sending,” or other mysterious events, suggest that one of the dead is trying to communicate with the living. A spirit-dancer then invokes the new Bandar and becomes possessed by him, and the Bandar, speaking through the dancer, explains who he is, how he should be invoked, what offering should be made to him, and the benefits that he will confer in return.”
Basically, the Bandar represents a spirit of the deceased that acts as a guardian. It seems that this ritual was constructed through a comparative analysis of the Hindu pantheon and that of ancient Mesopotamia. We can determine this as we are told in the account above that in order for the deceased to become a Bandar they must get permission from the high gods, of which we are told that “the most important is Skanda, one of the four guardian deities of Ceylon.”
Skanda, also known as Kartikeya, is the god of war in a manner similar to that of Nergal. In Tamil literature, he is known as Murugan. It is said in one account, dated between the third century BCE and the fifth century CE, “the glorified Murugan, “the red god seated on the blue peacock, who is ever young and resplendent,” as “the favored god of the Tamils.” Kartikeya was also associated with the fire god Agni, much like Nergal is fond of Girra.
Among the Sinhalese Buddhists, Skanda is known as Kataradam deviyo and entered western knowledge through Buddhist factions of the Theosophical Society. Interestingly, when we uncover the origin of the Bandar and its roots among the Tamil-speaking Vedda people, we are able to confirm an aspect of Ninzuwu philosophy that is discussed in much of its literature, namely, that the shamanic systems of the world were one, which is why they all possess the same aesthetics despite their languages differences. This would explain how the writer of the Necronomicon by Simon was able to adopt a ritual from East India and model it for use in a “Chaldean” grimoire. On the unity of the shamanic world, The Marie Laveau Corpus Text, admits:
“It was so that when the Ninzuwu began to descend from Nyarzir into the realm of our being, they perceived life as the balance of Heaven and Earth. Is not man a descendant of Heaven and Earth? Certainly, all who are born of Earth see the same stars. The stars are the same, but the light they shine is received by man differently, depending on the angle that this very same light from the stars is received. Yet, they are still the same stars. It was these angles of light that created different languages among the children of mankind. It was these angles of light that created the families of plants and trees spread across different lands. It was these very same angles of light that created different physical characteristics in mankind. Yet in still, the stars are the same. The difference is not in the light, but how it is received.”
In a later passage from the text, we read:
“Often times, people have asked, how can elements of the Simon Necronomicon, Shinto, Sumerian Culture, Taoism, and Voodoo, work in the same system? The answer is very simple. If we approach a question of this nature religiously, assumptions of confusion are sure to follow. However, the occult scientist sees all of these systems as mere branches of the whole.”
Thus, we find that in the Calling of the Watcher, the potential Initiate of the Simon tome would only use the information in the Conjuration of the Watcher as a template in constructing their own ritual. This is where knowledge of why “traps” were placed in the Simon Necronomicon is essential.
The traps that appear in the Simon tome are put in place as tests to ensure that the worthy achieve the grimoire’s intended purpose. Those seeking power care nothing for patience or research. Sure, they may ask someone if there is a ritual for this or that, and in these cases they reveal a quest for power.
The power hungry know no common sense. No matter how much you tell them to their faces that the dead can’t save you, they will return over and over again asking about rituals. The Simon Necronomicon’s true purpose is revealed by its editor:
“Man’s power to alter the nature of his environment must develop simultaneously with his ability to master his inner environment, his own mind his psyche, soul, spirit. Perhaps, then, the lunar landing was the first collective initiation for humanity, which will bring it one step closer to a beneficial Force that resides beyond the race of the “cruel celestial spirits”, past the Abyss of Knowledge. Yet, he must remember that the occult powers that accompany magickal attainment are ornamental only, indications of obstacles overcome on the Path to Perfection, and are not to be sought after in themselves, for therein lies the truth Death.”
In other notes written by Simon, the editor, we are told that this “Path to Perfection,” as mentioned above is the revelation of true self:
“Yet, there are many terrors on the Way to the Self, and an Abyss to cross before victory can be declared.”
Based on the information we have discussed thus far, the Watcher of Necronomicon lore is not an apkallu and serves a different purpose than the use of the term Watcher in Ninzuwu Science. However, the philosophy surrounding the Conjuration of the Watcher is achieved in Ninzuwu by means of the Path of the Ancient One. A close examination of the Simon Necronomicon’s Conjuration of the Watcher reveals this fact:
“Wherefore it is wise to conjure It in the Names of the Three Great Watchers Who existed before the Confrontation from whose borne the Watcher and His Race ultimately derive, and those Three are ANU, ENLIL, and Master ENKI of the Magick Waters. And for this reason They are sometimes called the Three Watchers, MASS SSARATI and the Watcher MASS SSARATU, or KIA MASS SSARATU.”
According to the instructions given by the Mad Arab, it is wise, though not necessary, to conjure the Watcher in the names of the Three Great Watchers. Therefore, the equation of the Aga Mass Ssaratu is equivalent to Ninzuwu in gematric terms. In other words, Anu + Enlil + Enki +Watcher equal Ninzuwu:
Anu = A(1) + N(14) + U(21) = 36
Enki = E(5) + N(14) + K(11) + i(9) = 39
Enlil = E(5) + N(14) + L(12) + i(9) + L(12) = 52
ANU(36) + Enki(39) + Enlil(52) = 127. Watcher(1) + 127 = 128
Ninzuwu = N(14) + i(9) + N(14) + Z(26) + U(21) + W(23) + U(21) = 128
The reason that the Watcher is said to correspond to the number one is due to its association with the Netherworld. In most cases, however, demons were not assigned whole numbers but fractions. While the novice will assume that such comparisons between the MASS SSARATI and the Ninzuwu’s gematric values as pure coincidence, the further we explore this path, the more we discover a harmony of vibrations between the Sumerian gnosis and Ninzuwu. Keep in mind that the science of gematria played a big role in the spirituality of Ancient Mesopotamia. For example, many of us are well aware that the terms, “Zi Kia Kanpa, Zi Anna Kanpa,” which appear at the end of many of the Simon Necronomicon’s incantations, are references to Anu and Enki. Francois Lenormant, in the classic work, entitled, Chaldean Magic: Its Origin and Development, states the following on pages 154, 155 of the said work:“Anu certainly preserves some features belonging to the Accadian Ana, …. In those parts of the collection which have been handed down to us, there is no special hymn addressed to Ana, but he is invoked in the sacramental formulae of all the incantations under the name Spirit of the heavens (Zi-ana). As his name indicates he was the same as the material heavens, he was heaven itself, whilst also the soul of it; and he was more completely one with the object to which he was attached than any other of the supernatural deities ….
The name of Hea means “dwelling;” this name then was manifestly connected with the time when the god was first imagined to be the same as the zone over which he presided, the zone which served as a home for men and animated beings; but he was afterwards regarded as much more separate from the material object than Anna. He was the lord of the earth’s surface (mul-ki), and this title is applied to him quite frequently as Hea. In the sacramental formulae of the incantations he was invoked as Spirit of the earth, or more exactly still, of the terraqueous surface (zi-ki-a).”
When we add up the Simple Gematric values of Anu (36) and Enki (39) we get the sum of 75 and in English Gematira, which is based on the Babylonian numerical system of 60, we get 450. What is interesting about these values is that they are the same for Ishtar (75, 450). This means that it is very well possible that the combination of Anu and Enki, which appears at the end of many incantations in the Simon Necronomicon, may be the power of Din.Gir Ishtar, whom Simon identifies as the Goddess of the Witches in its introductory notes. Yet, it must also be pointed out that Johuta of the Ninzuwu Tradition also possesses the same gematrical value of 75, 450.
Historically, the calling of the Three Great Watchers derives from ancient Mesopotamian rituals of protection. Under the topic, Traditions of the Apkallus, in the previously cited work by Helge S. Kvanvig, Primeval History: Babylonian, Biblical, and Enochic, we read:
“The stars keep watch over both those awake and those sleeping in the night. In the following prayer to the stars there is play on the connotations of “watching,” masṣạrtu/nasạ̄ ru, and êru, “be awake”:
3 masṣ ạ̄ rāti ša mušīti ērāti nasṛ āte dalpāte la sạ̄ litāti kīma attīna ērātena nasṛ ātina dalpātina la sạ̄ lilātina ana êri u sạ lli purussâ tanandinna
(you) three watches of the night you the wakeful, watchful, sleepless, never sleeping ones— as you are awake, watchful, sleepless, never sleeping, you decide the fate of those awake and sleeping (alike). (Prayer to the Stars, KAR 58 rev. 12f.)”
Excerpt from – BuddhaNomicon: The Simon Necronomicon Unveiled Through The Art of Ninzuwu
Very very Interesting brother! My own personal Watcher chose me over 20 years ago when i created a calling using the 3 in 1 formulae of conjuration. the reason i find this article so very very interesting is due to the fact that my watcher has always seemed to have a knowledge of the dead and how to summon, stir, and awaken the dead, this i took to understand the necromonancy which they are capable of teaching us. it was through my watchers knowledge that i learned how to create life using the waters of life or of Enki and by use create my own spiritors. He seems to be a vast well of knowledge concerning the underworld and at times have wondered secretly if they Serve Erishkighal or even Naamtar. At any rate thank you so much for this enlightening Post. Peace, Blessings, and Power!
Sincerely Ahrimanahsul
Peace and blessing …agreed Inanna takes her own. wishing you all the best and thanks for reading!