Being a Voodou Bokor (Sorcerer) my work also includes quite a number of the practical facets of Western Magick.
While many Voodouisants think this combination is crazy - even disrespectful to the Spirits - I have no difficulty integrating the two in my daily life.
Most of Vodouisants are sincerely practicing Catholics or Protestants. There's no problem in integrating that religious paradigm, don't ya know ...
And really, what anyone thinks of me and how I practice my magicko-religion is none of my business anyway.
Entitled The Most Powerful Sigils of Magick on my Merlin's Hallow Blog, this thesis is the result of a little recent casual research in my desire to come to a deeper understanding of one Grimoire (Sorcerer's Handbook) - the Necronomicon
And because I have found a rather thin, strange but remarkable cross-over between Voodou and the Necronomicon - I am including it here...
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The ARRA AGGA and BANDAR Sigils
A couple things to keep in mind as you read this thesis:
- The name "Necronomicon" refers to both a book and a Sigil. If the designation is not explicit, I will add "book" or "sigil" for clarity.
- All references to the Necronomicon book in this thesis are to the edition attributed to the person known as "Simon".
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Sigils and Magick
One of the fundamental Laws of Magick is ...
On this earthly plane, Things are Symbols.
(Our cars, clothes, (trophy) wives, even dogs are often Symbols of our experience of ourselves and our place/status in the world.)
In the Magickal dimension, Symbols are Things.
Thus, when casting a Spell, we use material Things (including the subtle but physical electro-magnetic brain-impulses associated with imagination and visualization) to demonstrate our Intent.
In the dimension of Magick, the enactment of Intent by our manipulation of Things, recognized as Symbols, results in a response that manifests in our Thing-world as Things, including mental/emotional manifestations as well as physical materialities.
A Sigil is a Symbol, often of some geometric appearance - usually made up of the letters of a phrase, or angles signifying letters assigned to specific angles of a circle (ie. the Rose Crucis).
The essential nature of a Sigil is that it is the actual substantial suchness of the Thing, Being and/or Power represented by the Sigil. Thus, Sigils are somewhat akin to - yet different in action from - the Veves of Voodoo, as well as the Symbols of Reiki.
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According to the Necronomicon book, the ARRA AGGA and BANDAR Sigils combined - which becomes the Sigil known as "Necromicon" - together constitute the most powerful Sigil of Power and Protection ever given to, and known in the history of mankind.
The Necronomicon Sigil
Protection from whom?
There are beings, the oldest of the oldest, primeval forces personified - the Ancient Ones - one race of which, the malevolent creatures of nightmares and psychotic terrors, had diabolic rulership over the Earth in the unimaginable beginning of Time itself. They came, possibly lured by the naturally cataclysmic environment of Earth's birth: volcanic eruptions, raging seas, upheavals of gigantic teutonic plates, excessive floods, and so on.
They battled with their virtuous counterparts - also Ancient Ones (in Sumarian, the ANUNNAKI = "Those Who From Heaven Came To Earth") - 49 of whom were lead by one named Marduk and, after unimaginable millenniums of wars, they were overcome and locked inside Other-Dimensional Prisons, where they lay in a kind of death-sleep, dreaming of a new day.
They dream of a day when they can break free of their sluggish confinement and, forcing the Gateway open somehow - retake the Earth, ridding themselves of us - the pesky human race.
It is the benevolent Ancient Ones, the Annunaki, who endeavor to help us keep that Gate closed, protecting us - even though we don't know it (or are too afraid to even begin to imagine it ... for, you see, even the kindly Ancient Ones often appear monstrous to our limited vision).
One period in which that Gateway was just - barely - opened happened over a half-century ago in Germany - as I'll describe, just a few paragraphs from now ...
Regarding the Sigils pictured at the beginning of this Thesis, the Necronomicon states: "Of the three individual Sigils, the first is the 'Sign of Our Race from beyond the Stars' and is called ARRA in the tongue of the Scribe who taught it to me, an emissary of the Elder Ones. In the tongue of the eldest city of Babylon, it was UR. It is the Sigil of the Covenant of the Elder Gods, and when they see it, they who gave it to us, they will not forget us. They have sworn! Spirit of the Skies, Remember!"
The above passage describes the first of the Three Seals of Masshu, the ARRA, said to be the "Sign of our Race from beyond the Stars" ... the Elders - the benign Ancient Ones.
In Voodou, such personages are known
as the "Root (original) Lwa".
H.P. Lovecraft - the Father of Gothic Horror - was the author of a number of loosely connected stories which have evolved into a kind of cannon known as the Cthulhu Mythos ... the name actually penned by Lovecraft in his short story, The Call of Cthulhu.
Lovecraft's pronunciation of the word
Cthulhu was "kuh-lull' hloo"
(See Addendum at the end of this page)
Several of these tales allude to a secret Grimoire called the Necronomicon.
The Cthulhu Mythos is Lovecraft’s greatest contribution to supernatural literature of the 20th Century: it is made up of a series of stories that evoke cosmic awe and terror through their accounts of the incomprehensibly alien monsters - the Ancients - and their horrifying incursions into our world.
As talented the writer he was - being a product of his time - he was also a raging (yet socially acceptable in many sectors of society) racist.
And it's his racism that got in his own way ...
His writing include statements that a modern-day "cult" still worshiping the well-intentioned Ancient Ones is New Orleans Voodoo.
At that time, Voodoo was even more maligned as a diabolic "cult" than it is today.
Lovecraft was almost correct. But, as they say in Horseshoes, almost doesn't count. So his analysis was off by a hair's-width or a mile ... either way he was wrong.
The believers who live the religion of New Orleans Voodoo do worship and serve Ancient Beings, called Lwa (l'wah). But they are not akin to Lovecraft's "Monstrous Ancients" but to the benign Ancients, the ANUNNAKI - whose greatest joy is in helping us to be safe, sane, happy and productive.
The difference in names, appearances and behaviors between the Lwa of Voodoo and the Ancient Ones in the Necronomicon aren't necessarily lines of division - they can be interpreted as indications of the creative nature of the Spirits.
Yet it was one of these "almost right" references of Lovecraft's that gave me the thin, yet substantial thread connecting my abiding interest in the Magicks of the Necronomicon with those of Voodou.
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The ARRA Sigil is more popularly (and not so popularly in some circles) known throughout history as the Pentagram. The word Pentagram derives its origin in the Greek term pentagrammon, a noun-form of the word pentagrammos, meaning "five lines."
The Pentagram is one of the most recognized occult symbols in the world.
The first known recorded uses of the Pentagram are in Mesopotamian writings dating to about 3000 BC. The Sumerian pentagram served as a pictogram for the word UB or AR, which meant ‘corner’ or ‘angle.’ It was also known to the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia as the Plough Sign.
The Chart of Comparisons, found in the Necronomicon introduction, defines the ARRA symbol as the ‘Plough Sign, the original pentagram, and the sign of the Aryan Race.’
The ‘Plough’ is usually referred to as the "Big Dipper".
Yet the Necronomicon makes reference to the “Plough Sign. “ This possibly indicates that the Big Dipper itself makes a certain Sign (Symbol) during its movements throughout the year.
(Now hang in, and be patient - it's going be a proverbial "bumpy ride" for a little while, here.)
Viewing the Big Dipper and its rotation around the North Star (Polaris), it appears to form the Sign known as the Swastika.
Now, "Swastika" is Sanskrit, the original language of India, and means "auspiciousness." Depending on the direction in which the Swastika faces, it represents either the Sun or the Moon. In this case, it would be the "Sun" Swastika.
Along with the Om symbol, it is a most revered symbol in Vedic religious culture.
The Auspicious Divya Mantra comprised of
Siva's Trident Om and the Swastika
Unfortunately, Adolph Hitler co-opted the Swastika. And by turning it 1/4 turn Clockwise, it became a Sigil of Chaos, perverting the true spiritual nature of the correct Vedic Sigil, which is freedom, goodness, joy and enlightement.
It's a well-known fact that Hitler was heavily into occultism and, finding the Vedic literatures referring to the Swastika as a "Sign of the Sun" and therefore a symbol of the "Aryan" race, he also co-opted and perverted that (actually benign and positive) Sanskrit word in the same literatures - Aryan - as referring to what he believed is the "superior race" - "pure blood" white folks.
This was his excuse for the real horror ...
the insane horror of the Holocaust.
Spirit of the Earth, never forget!
Spirit of the Sky, never forget!
But "Aryan" is actually also a Sanskrit word that simply means "Good" and "Spiritual."
It describes ALL people who are moral and spiritual - without regard to one's racial heratige. It also includes people of any social status "caste"), gender, orientation and religion. Vedic spirituality holds the belief that we - all people - are of Divine Origin.
Calling the Pentagram ARRA, the Chart of Comparisons in the Necronomicon refers to the five pointed star as being the sign of the Covenant of "Aryan" Race" - the term being applied in the true Vedic sense.
The Necronomicon says the ARRA Sigil is a "sign (Covenant) of our race from beyond the stars." This passage indicates that those who are represented by the next Sigil, the ARRA, the Annunaki, are of Divine Origin. The Covenant was made with us, the human beings (also - in our natural state - Aryan) at the beginning of our Earthly career.
AGGA is the designation of those Elder Ones themselves: as they stand in protection of humankind from the sleeping, monstrous Ancient Ones.
The AGGA are independently powerful on their own, but exponentially more powerful when conjoined with ARRA, the essential living nature of the Covenant.
Similarly we, also Covenors, are joined by that Covenant with the Elders - and we can access this enormous volume of power by joining their two Sigils together.
The BANDAR - known as the Watchers - are the Observers of That which is Watched.
According to the Necromicon, the BANDAR were sent to Earth by the AGGA, the Elder Ones acting in their capacity as protectors between the monstrous Ancient Ones and humankind.
Other than watching over us as we sleep, the Bandar power are only usefully available in relation to ARRA, and AGGA, individually or together.
The Necromicon warns that - due to their not fully independent nature - the BALDAR must now be invoked alone. Doing so can result in the most chaotic of consequences.
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Thus it has been said: When combined as one, the Sigils of ARRA, AGGA and BANDAR become that single most energetically powerful force known on Earth ... the Sigil called Necronomicon.
Bondye Ou!
Dieudonne Bokor
Addendum: Duane W. Rime, an American Science fiction and fantasy author, once asked his mentor, H.P. Lovecraft how to pronounce "Cthulhu."
Lovecraft replied that the pronunciation is Khlul'-hloo, and said "the first syllable pronouned gutturally and very thickly. The u is about like that in the word "full"; and the first syllable is not unlike klul in sound, hence the h represents the guttural thickness.
Copyright 2020, Dieudonne Bokor (aka W.A. Ryan)
