I have elsewhere (in the now-dead Necronomicon Files website) stated my opinion
that, regardless of their use and form in earlier sources, Abdul Alhazred may
have intended the three formulae called Dho, Dho-Nha and Dho-Hna as progressive
ritual steps. This is partly confirmed by various sources, including such
diverse authors as Charles Stross and Edward Pickman Derby. However, although
said formulae have been published –never together- in various versions of the Necronomicon, I have always felt that
something was missing from the Dho Formula, which appears as a meditative
visionary rite in the Delomelanicon
and other older sources, but I always held that in the complete version of
Alhazred’s Kitab Al-Azif he had
provided a Chant to go along with the procedure. My contention was mainly based
in the following quote as published by Lin Carter:
“Some there be the which employ the Dho formula which doth, with a full many repetitions thereof, permit the Inner Eye to penetrate to realms remote and far away, contiguous to ultra-mundane spheres and to abysmal gulfs profound.”
- The Necronomicon: The Dee Translation, Book 3, Chapter II
Now, was this merely an indication
of constantly performing the Dho meditation, or as I suspected, did this refer
to a spoken formula to be used as a sort of mantra? Further research finally led
me to a very straightforward confirmation of my suspicions, in the scribblings
of a late practitioner which Donald A. Wollheim quoted in a text first published
in an old issue of Magazine of Horror
and later reprinted in Robert M. Price’s Tales of the Lovecraft Mythos:
"Tuesday must say the Dho chant
and widdershin six times. Hastur is ascendant. Dagon recumbent? Must
investigate. See Lovecraft on the proper incantation for Yog-Sototl."
-Donald A. Wollheim, "The
Horror out of Lovecraft" (1969)
This set me on the track of this Dho
Chant, and the following clue which I found would turn out to be far more
important than I suspected at the time. It was the following post by the
blogger PsychedelicLobster, “Dho-Na Curve of the Sleeper” where he follows
mathematically the various clues given by Charles Stross in his Laundry /
Atrocity Archives series of stories:
“A Dho-Na curve is a modern
elaboration on several ideas of magical geometry, and while its clear that
there are several subsets of the Curve, some of them discovered in the far past
(Alhazred,738), but most of them computationally discovered. If they are
iteratively or formulaicly derived is an exercise left to the readers
imagination, but we can make some inferences.
“In Stross's 1940's, German
necromancers were calculating subsets of the Curve using Konrad Zuse's stolen
Z-1 mechanical computer. This was a rather sophisticated machine, capable of
22-bit operations on a 64 -bit register.”
“To a mathematician, a curve is not
necessary smooth and curvy, the Koch Snowflake being my favorite holotype.
“In the spirit of the old 'ABRACADBRA'
magic squares, or the Sator Square, I started tinkering with this rule:
“10 Write the letter of the seed.
“20 Write up to three copies of the next
letter of the seed, in any of the four cardinal directions EXCEPT when it would
touch an already written letter( diagonal contacts are permitted).
“30 GOTO 20”
Using the phrase “Cthulhu fhtagn,”
he actually produced a diagram which contained different R’lyehian words! Now, PsychedelicLobster
never does say just why he chose “the Phrase of the Sleeper” to work the
experiment; eventually, I would realize that he, like Stross, was giving away
clues that would prove essential. Cthulhu, you might say, is in this instance a
keyword, since the purpose of the Dho formula is to bring visions, much as
those which are caused by his dream-sendings; in fact, the connection of the
Dho procedures to the Sleeper might prove a fruitful, if dangerous, direction
for reckless researchers.
But I am getting ahead of myself. At
that point, I thought the article merely an intriguing side note, as I
continued my search. But I soon found a tantalizing clue of the nature of the
Chant in a brief but fascinating piece which analyzed the evidence in
Shakespeare’s works of his having been acquainted with the Necronomicon, which I had fortunately printed out over fifteen
years ago and and forgotten all about, which I found serepinditously among my papers… as if the Fates
had led me to it! Which just might be the case, if we consider what the quote
reveals:
“In Macbeth a formula (too long to
quote here) is chanted to buy the three witches. This formula is merely a
re-statement of the central portion of Dho.”
- Lee and Torrie, Hector S. Hoffmann,
“Shakespeare and the Old Ones” in Quandry Fanzine, December, 1950
Now, this led my research in a very
different direction; I sought the Book of Eibon -particularly the sections undisclosed by Joseph S. Pulver, Sr.- and some obscure compilations dedicated to the Goddesses who had
inspired the Weird Sisters; the Fatae or Norns, within the Xothic and
Alhazredic mythos, are sometimes known as the Mothers of Sorrow, warders of the
Beyond, and Eibon was the first to reveal their names; readers will probably
remember them from Thomas de Quincey’s Suspiria.
In the end, it was again a fortuitous
(could it be otherwise?) and tragic occurrence which brought my search to
success. I cannot give names and details, for reasons which I expect will be
evident, but it was as I visited the family of an elderly poet from Montecruz,
Jalisco, whose passing in awful circumstances occurred only days ago, that I
was shown his journal, which detailed his inexorable descent into despair as
his poetic and visionary pursuits proved too much for his spirit. There,
transcribed in full, was what I sought, taken from one of the chapters missing
from the incomplete copy of the Latin Necronomicon
held in the Montecruz library. My late poet friend stated in his journal that
it had been him who, back in 1986, had stolen away several pages of the Book, including
the one which contained this formula! His sons allowed me to transcribe the
Chant but were adamant about burning the journal, wishing understandably to
erase all traces of the tragic final months of their father. However, I managed
to extract from them a promise of keeping an eye out for the stolen pages from
the Necronomicon, so that if they are
still among his belongings, they won’t be thrown away or burned. If fortune
ever strikes, and the pages survive, they will contact me and I will forward
them to the “Antonio Hernán” Library, so that their copy of the Book may be
restored –after copying them down for myself, of course!
At any rate, here is, at long last,
the Dho Chant, with the caveat that this is a translation made by the late poet
from the Latin text and there is no way to know –yet- how faithfully or loosely
did he translate the verses. Personally, I suspect that he too noticed the
similarity to Macbeth’s salute to the Weird Sisters and used it as a cue:
‘Umr at-Tawil f'thagn!
Ng’ag n’gat
htagn ‘hf!
Uf’hfuh lhuf ngn!
Hfh lu hu fufh gha gn’gath fuh’luht!
Iä! Thusa!
Iä! Okkokoku!
Iä! Aulaniis!
Thou Secret, Black, and Midnight Mothers!
Thy hands do weave a deed without a name.
I conjure Thine Arte which binds and smothers,
Heed my call along thy strands and answer me!
Thou that doth release Ithaqua’s winds that they
may rage
Against the spires of mosques; Thou that stir
the tides
that Dagon may lead a ship to harbor or sink it
on a wage;
Thou that bless the hills and burn down forests
at their sides;
Warders of Nitokris’ Pyramid and Koth’s great
tower;
Witnesses to the Shining Lady’s rise from
Shadows’ Kingdom,
And Who causeth the graves of Sk’tai and Astir
to bloom with flowers,
Mothers of the Web of Fate and the Tapestry of
Wisdom,
Mother of Tears, Thusa ever young, clear my
sight!
Mother of Sighs, pale Okkokoku, breathe in mine
eyes!
Mother of Darkness, pale Aulaniis, dispel Thy
shadows!
Three Mothers, send Thy blessing high and send
it low;
That visions of the worlds Between to my sight
be shown!
‘Umr at-Tawil f'thagn!
Ng’ag n’gat
htagn ‘hf!
Uf’hfuh lhuf ngn!
Hfh lu hu fufh gha gn’gath fuh’luht!
Iä! Thusa!
Iä! Okkokoku!
Iä! Aulaniis!
Again, use with care.
