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great old ones
The Great Old Ones
The Great Old Ones defy human intellect or capacity for understanding. They come from the outer darkness, beyond the reach of time and space. Existence impinges on the pure, mind-defying, chaotic nothingness of their home, so they seek not just the end of the world, but to obliterate the universe from all existence—past, present and future.
Deranged humans have formed cults to worship them throughout history. Some shamans have brushed up with them, an experience that generally shatters their mind and turns them into craven servitors. They claim to have created all life, and to have dominion over all existence, but they lie.
As the Necronomicon states,
That is not dead which can eternal lie,
And with strange aeons even death may die.
The experience of Michael Harner with ayahuasca in a Conibo ceremony, typifies such shamanic experiences with the great old ones, and displays typical shamanic lore about them.
As I tried to accept my fate, an even lower portion of my brain began to transmit more visions and information. I was “told” that this new material was being presented to me because I was dying and therefore “safe” to receive these revelations. These were the secrets reserved for the dying and the dead, I was informed.I could only very dimly perceive the givers of these thoughts: giant reptilian creatures reposing sluggishly at the lowermost depths of the back of my brain, where it met the top of the spinal column. I could only vaguely see them in what seemed to be gloomy, dark depths. Then they projected a visual scene in front of me.
First they showed me the planet Earth as it was eons ago, before there was any life on it. I saw an ocean, barren land, and a bright blue sky. Then black specks dropped from the sky by the hundreds and landed in front of me on the barren landscape. I could see that the “specks” were actually large, shiny, black creatures with stubby pterodactyl-like wings and huge whale-like bodies. Their heads were not visible to me. They flopped down, utterly exhausted from their trip, resting for eons.
They explained to me in a kind of thought language that they were fleeing from something out in space. They had come to the planet Earth to escape their enemy. The creatures then showed me how they had created life on the planet in order to hide within the multitudinous forms and thus disguise their presence. Before me, the magnificence of plant and animal creation and speciation—hundreds of millions of years of activity—took place on a scale and with a vividness impossible to describe. I learned that the dragon-like creatures were thus inside of all forms of life, including man. They were the true masters of humanity and the entire planet, they told me. We humans were but the receptacles and servants of these creatures. For this reason they could speak to me from within myself.
These revelations, welling up from the depths of my mind, alternated with visions of the floating galley, which had almost finished taking my soul on board. The boat with its blue-jay headed deck crew was gradually drawing away, pulling my life force along as it headed toward a large fjord flanked by barren, worn hills. I knew I had only a moment more to live. Strangely, I had no fear of the bird-headed people; they were welcome to have my soul if they could keep it. But I was afraid that somehow my soul might not remain on the horizontal plane of the fjord but might, through processes unknown but felt and dreaded, be acquired or re-acquired by the dragon-like denizens of the depths. I suddenly felt my distinctive humanness, the contrast between my species and the ancient reptilian ancestors. I began to struggle against returning to the ancient ones, who were beginning to feel increasingly alien and possibly evil. Each heart beat was a major undertaking. I turned to human help. With an unimaginable last effort, I barely managed to utter one word to the Indians:
“Medicine!”
...
I was now eager to solicit a professional opinion from the most supernaturally knowledgeable of the Indians, a blind shaman who had made many excursions into the spirit world with the aid of the ayahuasca drink. It seemed only proper that a blind man might be able to be my guide to the world of darkness.
I went to his hut, taking my notebook with me, and described my visions to him segment by segment. At first I told him only the highlights; thus, when I came to the dragon-like creatures, I skipped their arrival from space and only said, “There were these giant black animals, something like great bats, longer than the length of this house, who said they were the true masters of the world.” There is no word for dragon in Conibo, so “giant bat” was the closest I could come to describe what I had seen.
He stared up toward me with his sightless eyes, and said with a grin, “Oh, they’re always saying that. But they are only the Masters of Outer Darkness.”