Conception of a Supreme Deity: AZATHOTH

Readers familiar with the weird tales of H.P. Lovecraft know that his fictional representation of the universe is not a godless one. At first, one might think the author’s fiction is contrary to his personal belief in atheism, as expressed in his letters. But it is not. Rather, he conveys his representation of an impersonal and indifferent universe of mindless and blind forces through his fictional deities.

Lovecraft’s universe contains a whole pantheon of alien gods with strange names and agendas foreign and sometimes malevolent towards the insignificant humans of the planet Earth. And at the center of this pantheon is AZATHOTH, the blind idiot god who mindlessly sloughs off creation. This is Lovecraft’s caricature of an ultimate deity, his own conception of God.

“[O]utside the ordered universe [is] that amorphous blight of nethermost confusion which blasphemes and bubbles at the center of all infinity—the boundless daemon sultan Azathoth, whose name no lips dare speak aloud, and who gnaws hungrily in inconceivable, unlighted chambers beyond time and space amidst the muffled, maddening beating of vile drums and the thin monotonous whine of accursed flutes.” – Dreamquest of Unknown Kadath

“… ancient legends of Ultimate Chaos, at whose center sprawls the blind idiot god Azathoth, Lord of All Things, encircled by his flopping horde of mindless and amorphous dancers, and lulled by the thin monotonous piping of a demoniac flute held in nameless paws.” – The Haunter of the Dark

But why give any serious treatment at all on this subject to Lovecraft, a mere author of weird tales? This goes back to what Gurdjieff had to say about literature: that fantasy literature ought not merely entertain its readers but convey truth; that literature ought to be for the purpose of developing one’s mind; and that literature ought to have some substance to it and not waste our already short lives.

In this, I do believe Lovecraft was flawed as most contemporary authors, who disproportionately focus on style over substance. Yet there was definitely some substance that Lovecraft was trying to convey; that is, his own representation of the universe, one which has resonated with his readers to the point where Lovecraft has become a household name.

Conceptions of a Supreme Deity: HIS ENDLESSNESS

Gurdjieff’s representation of the universe is also not a godless one. In this, his whim was to give to man: “a new conception of God in the world, a change in the very meaning of the word” (A.R. Orage: A Memoir, p. 105). Those only familiar with In Seach of the Miraculous, Ouspensky’s memoir of Gurdjieff’s early teaching period, might be surprised that Gurdjieff’s representation of the universe is one that is not created and maintained merely by impersonal forces but by a supreme deity and a hierarchy of lesser powers. In this, Gurdjieff could be regarded as a monotheist.

Over the course of its 1238 pages, through Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, Gurdjieff conveys this new conception, called “HIS ENDLESSNESS“, the attributes for whom are given in brief towards the end of this article. And in parallel to his new concept of God, Gurdjieff also addresses pre-conceptions of an ultimate deity.

Gurdjieff draws a distinction between HIS ENDLESSNESS and the caricature of a supreme deity that both the religious and the atheists often fight over:

“This same expression of theirs—‘We are the images of God’—can here serve us as a very good additional illustration in explanation of how far what is called ‘perceptible logic’ … is already distorted in them…. their inner representation and essential understanding of this expression of theirs—[is] something as follows:

“‘Good… if we are “images of God”… that means… means…“God” is like us and has an appearance also like us… and that means, our “God” has the same moustache, beard, nose, as we have, and he dresses also as we do. He dresses as we do, doubtless because like us he is also very fond of modesty; it was not for nothing that he expelled Adam and Eve from Paradise, only because they lost their modesty and began to cover themselves with clothes.’

“In certain of the beings there, particularly of recent times, their … perceptible logic has already become such that they can very clearly see this same ‘God’ of theirs in their picturings, almost with a comb sticking out of his left vest pocket, with which he sometimes combs his famous beard…

“And the reason that they picture their ‘God’ to themselves just with a long beard was due to the fact that then, among the maleficent inventions of the Babylonian ‘learned,’ it was said among other things that that famous ‘God’ of theirs had, as it were, the appearance of a very old man, just with a heavy beard.

“But concerning the appearance of their ‘God,’ your favorites have gone still further. Namely, they picture this famous ‘God’ of theirs exactly as an ‘Old Jew,’ since in their bobtailed notions, all sacred personages originated from that race.” (Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson, p. 776-777)

This fits the contemporary caricature that atheists so often refer, with contempt for religious adherents, as “sky daddy”.

Besides this caricature, Gurdjieff also draws a distinction between HIS ENDLESSNESS and “Mister God”, that is the useful fiction of a deity, in this case invented by a king in order to assist his people, for whom he was responsible, to overcome their opium addiction (ibid p. 207-226). This is a phenomenon generally dismissed or overlooked by atheists and secularists in their blame of religion for the many ills in the world—that without religion, fictitious or not, humanity would have been in a far worse state over the last twenty centuries. The last century or two has seen the struts all but kicked out from under society’s religious underpinnings, the results of which have been an increase in suffering and death far beyond previous generations where those underpinnings remained intact (compare, for example, secular wars like WWI and WWII to any medieval crusade or jihad).

Because this new conception of God, HIS ENDLESSNESS, is presented over the course of 1238 pages, I can only at best give a brief summary here of this concept, which I present side-by-side with Lovecraft’s concept.

Comparisons of Supreme Deities

What follows is a non-exhaustive comparison of the concepts of Lovecraft’s and Gurdjieff’s whim, AZATHOTH and HIS ENDLESSNESS.

A Personal Note

I spent many years as a theist and as an atheist before reading about Gurdjieff’s new conception of God, and to me, his concept is an entirely reasonable one. This brief article only scratches the surface of this new concept, and requires a deeper study of Beelzebub’s Tales to His Grandson for a fuller understanding.