The path of the Mystery Tradition has, up until now, led the seeker along a vast array of “lights” and “images” – a “Ladder of Lights” (as it were) – tracing the phantasmal images of the material world back to their Source. But it is not the glamorous procurement of further persona and personality upgrades that the seeker is after, rather it is the absolution of the same, those which have already been acquired and are but weights to keep you bound to the material world.

So the seeker passes the Gates of Life seeking to bring the parts of the whole together – if they be so lucky. Too often it is the separation of the whole into more esoteric parts that merely ends with further separating the person from the Source. The emphasis should not be on the bedazzlement attainable to the psyche of this world to delight in making some gematric or symbolic link – when all is actually connected in equality and oneness – not just to be found in one or two “sacred” relationships between attributes and forces.

This is never fully realized in the World of Light that we become accustomed to because it exists already in a state of separation from the World of Darkness. Polarity. The point is not necessarily the glorification of the Darkness either. Just as many people succumb to the trappings of the Darkness as they do the Light and both are existing in a duality that is contrary to the Oneness that is the Source. Duality is not Oneness.

So, what does one do? You can climb the Ladder of Lights and thereby unify the manifold natures of the existences found in the Light – but is this the end? Working back up the Tree of Life, the seeker has uncovered a very dangerous glitch in the system… that this is not all there is. But where is it? And how is it that we can confront this hidden aspect for wholeness. How do we get to the other side?

After having moved forth through the Gates of this Universe, the seeker inevitably moves passed the final doorway and is able to glean a look behind the curtain… and there is nothing more horrifying than what one will find. All we have done and worked towards, all we have quested for in our endeavors into the Light and into the System and when the curtain is peeled back it is only to reveal – Nothingness… the Primordial Abyss.

All of the systems in the mind that have given form their meaning has washed away and the realization of the illusion is paralyzing. For when we had our “Wizard of Oz” to toy with in our minds, we could at the very least laugh in our own folly at being fooled in the game of some supernatural crazed madman behind the curtains. At the very least things could be made to make sense – systematically. But now at the cusp of reality and sanity, we know better. Before you is the Other Side of the Tree… Crossing the Abyss… Into the Beyond… You have reached the edge. You are have reached – the Shadows.

After the rise of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in the late 1800′s (and perhaps also such groups as the Theosophical Society) the metaphysical world of the mystics would seem to have begin appearing in the public spotlight, or at the very least carry an illusion of being maintained in public view. With this followed the widespread use of medieval grimoires – many of them somehow involved with figures like MacGregor Mathers and Aleister Crowley. Organizations relating to these individuals, such as the GD, OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) and the lesser known AA (Argentium Astrum) begin to influence mystical practices and underground traditions among the multitudes on the surface world.

While we are naturally concerned with the subject of the Mardukite (Egypto-Babylonian and Sumerian) Necronomicon and its relation-ship to the Great Mysteries, the association of modern pseudoepigrapha (literally artifical writings) is not limited to even a book called the “Necronomicon” – for such is just a name, as is “Al Azif” – or anything else we want to definitively give a solid form too – that which cannot be solidified – that which has not meant to be solidified.

“El Club Dumas” was released in Spain in 1993. The American English-speaking audience would have to wait three years to find “The Club Dumas” on their shelves. Arturo Perez-Reverte’s masterpiece doomed to be lost amidst the mysteries of Agatha Christie and Sue Grafton. The main character of the novel, set in a dusty environment of Antiquarian book-selling, is on a quest to uncover the truth of a lost fragment or chapter of the serial by Alexander Dumas, the famous “Three Musketeers”. While doing so, Corso is culled into a different kind of quest… and there are surprisingly more people aware of this influence of this modern tale then you might originally suspect – as it is also known by another name. The name:

Nine Gates of the Kingdom of Shadows.



Curiously, the work has thus far escaped the inevitability of occult pseudoepigrapha – from its Spanish edition we deduce “Nine Doors to the Kingdom of Darkness,” though the American audience prefers the semantics of “Gates” to “portals” and thus too, the “Shadows” to the “Darkness”. The American audiences are also more receptive to video media then literary and thus was probably the inclination Roman Polanski carried with him in filming “The Ninth Gate” with Johnny Depp [Relesed via Lions-Gate in 1999 and now Artisan DVD and Blu-ray]. Depp’s performance is astounding as always – and the woodcarved engravings shown so often in the film are actually taken from those found in Reverte’s novel.

It would surprise many occultists to note that the vein of pseudoepigrapha runs deep within the mystic stream – reaching all too familiar works as the “Keys of Solomon” or even the “Book of Abramelin” – it comes by no surprise that we should see the rise within this age of more tales of such “books within books” – “fantasies about fantasies” – for we have undoubtedly reached our ends in the world of Light and must by necessity reach out to the Shadows.

Assuming the lore of the Nine Gates, let us say that the work is based on yet too another book – furthering our psyche down the literary rabbit hole. The “Delomelanicon” (which is unarguably another vision of the Necronomicon Cycle) is a book reported to have been written by the “Devil himself” as a guide to “his followers.” The work, said to have once been in the possession of King Solomon, reaches the realm of Medieval Sorcery in 1666 by Aristide Torchia, who publishes his “version” of the “Devil’s Notebook” as “De Umbrarum Regni Novem Portis.” Both Torchia and all but three copies of this work are burned by the Church. The title, “Delomelanicon,” the current editor translates to mean “Book of Summoning the Darkness” (very similar to the coveted but equally fantasy-based witches Book of Shadows) although some Chamberlains have preferred the translation “Invocation of Darkness” [as given in the Soto translation].

If we lend a thought to this for a moment, leaving the trappings of semantic vocabulary and verification of medieval sorcerer’s grimoires aside – consider a book then that has been given to a class of followers of an entity contrary to the accepted “God On Duty” – considered a devil to one side and a savior to the other. Immediately, when thinking of the politics that arose in ancient Mesopotamia, beings like Marduk and Enki are immediately conjured to mind – or some specific alien intelligence that might have reason for leading folks back through the Gates. And if they would indeed be hidden in the folds “between” the Realm or Reality of Light we see everyday, then they would most certainly belong to the Shadows – and the spaces between spaces.

The archetype conjured to mind by the “Nine Gates” is very similar to the Necronomicon. There is, at the very least, an obvious emphasis on the symbolism of “portals”, “thresholds” and “gateways” – such as is inseparably paramount to this lore. Following the esoteric and occult traditions, the “Gates” are introduced to the Seeker under the guise of “Darkness,” because such was (and remains to be) the perception of what is “forbidden” and “hidden” knowledge – at least from the perspective of the Realm of Light. For, even as Peter Levenda has said so concisely of the “Simonian” Necronomicon: “It is a book about Darkness.” Levenda reiterates that it is NOT a book about “pacts with devils” or anything so trivial and trite as you might see with the Grand Grimoire (Red Dragon), etc. – but more importantly it is an ancient, nearly prehistoric methodology for understanding the Darkness.

Roman Polanski, as we can see by his choice of directing the “Ninth Gate” movie, is interested in the esoteric enigma of the Necronomicon – and what is interesting is that as a result, both Kenneth Grant and “Simon” have acknowledged (in their works) the contribution as some-thing of a personal nature. Not even knowing this, one can easily compare the “Ninth Gate” movie to “El Club Dumas” and instantly recognize where the emphasis lies. Simon, in his book “Dead Names” explains that:

“anyone who met me in those days
in the 1970′s would recognize the
Johnny Depp character: glasses,
beard, black clothes, black raincoat,
bag over one shoulder. The intrigue
that follows some of the events in
the real story [of the publication of
the Simonian Necronomicon] includ-
ing the references to wealthy
individuals who sought the power of
the book for themselves.”

Those familiar with the “other side” of the Mystery Tradition are probably aware of the O.T.O. series of trilogies produced by Kenneth Grant. The final volume of this sequence of literature is called “The Ninth Arch” and it was released in 2002 – three years after the “Ninth Gate” movie was released (and almost a decade after the birth of “El Club Dumas”). The current editor’s opinion is only that the title bore some synchronicity with the other. In this case however, the designation of “Arch” has a dual meaning, both to the idea of a “Gateway” but also the semantic parallels (something Grant is essentially obsessed with) between “Arch” and “Arachnid” [note: ARaCHnid].

All of this suggests that beneath the surface of the light, and in the “betweens,” there is as yet another part to the mystery of the seeker – the “Darkness” – “The Shadows.” In most casts, the Seeker will just rush to throw light against the screen again, impressing images from their own experiences in the light – not allowing the self-honest experience to unfold. We need not materialize demonic images or cast fears before us only to allow them to become manifest by our own will – as such is not the true nature of the Shadows. Such falseness has only been created within the fragmented and fractured minds of men who further the necessity for the Shadows as they cling to the Light.

For what greater horror could man behold in the Realm of Light, then to reach the unspeakable realization that is most capable of shattering their delicate human psyche (and perhaps the dissolution of the Ego) – that it is no demon or gruesome vision to behold – but the full experience that the material world is a mere veil to something else. It is not the ends in itself, only but a means.



But how can reality come apart at the seams? For, we are a nation of civilized and enlightened men are we not? Surely even humans have come to take the gear-grinding world for gran-ted and the systems and boundaries that keep things in “check” are also in fear of dissolution – including monetary and political – as even George Hay notes, in his Preface to the R’lyeh Text, concerning the world changes that have appeared on the planet since the Necronomicon cycle revival in the 1970′s noticing:

“… the dissolution of ‘fixed’ and
‘given’ groupings of Nation-States,
and, far more important, of the
belief systems that had until recent-
ly been holding them together.”

Considering that the Lightworkers have further taken their fragmented human psyche and placed greater limits and sanctions of “good” and “evil” on all existence, the perpetuation of the duality continues unresolved in the universe. By casual interpretation of Mardukite Necronomicon lore – on might say that mankind was in actuality separated from the Source to exist in a polarized world. But humans also further this separation from the Source over the course of their lives by lengthening the distance between perceived opposites instead of seeking harmony – a return to the Source. So long as the separation is maintained in the mind, manifestations of fear, jealousy, discord and the like will continue to be given existence in “reality” and confirmed by the psyche.