Nythra

Etymology: Nithra/Netra – Sanskrit for “Eye”
Archetype: The Gate of No Return
Path: II (Luna-Venus)
Star: Arcturus
Motivation: Destruction of Form and Liberation
Gender: Neither, Either
Sphere: Third of Qamar
Tarot: Atu XIII Death
Dark Light: Recognition of Sinister Self
Dark Motivation: Die and Become
Plant: All Poisons, Especially Deadly, and Datura in Particular
Attributes: Works of Terror and Sinister Destruction, Psychic Vampyrism, Necromancy, Ego Dissolution, Nocturnality, Pain, Sadness, Regeneration, Working with the Death Essence, Attunement to Khaos, Change, Dark Insight, Wisdom, Death, Poison, Disease

“The Abyss or Underworld starts also with me, as a state of mind and way of living. My dark world starts within myself.” -Hagur

Above: Channeled Sigil of Nythra

Disclaimer

I do not support the Order of the Nine Angles or associate with persons affiliated with it. Nonetheless, I do have beneficial relationships with many of the entities venerated by the O9A, and introducing these entities to the broader black magickal community has been something of a side-project of mine for some time.

I am writing this article because I believe that Nythra and other spiritual intelligences venerated by the O9A deserve a better pool of magickians to work with than that which the O9A has to offer. I believe that many members of my audience are or will become better equipped to work with and venerate Nythra than any “Niner” ever will be.

This article will exclusively feature original methods (chants & sigil) for conjuring Nythra. My experience is that the magickal current of the O9A causes the spirits they venerate to manifest in ways that are unusual, often undesirable, and generally unpleasant to both the magickian and the spirit.

Ergo, I have channeled a unique sigil for Nythra and channeled original chants which may be used to summon Nythra. The chants and sigil which the O9A present for the conjuration of Nythra do not appear anywhere in this article.

Regarding Nythra

In the same way that one can be out of alignment with a given planetary force, one can be out of alignment with the primal vortex, and before my communion with Nythra, such was my condition. When feeling the auras of some vampyric Niners as well as G.A. Rosenberg, I sensed a “coldness” to their energies which I couldn’t understand. Now, I suspect this element of their physis derives from a strong alignment with the primal plane—Tehom or the Ogdoad.

Nythra is life in a very primal form. It is best to call upon her in the wilderness. She can help one connect to the primordial plane in a way that is healthy, bringing about the nourishment of the physical and subtle bodies alike.

I called her “life in a very primal form.” I think an accurate articulation of her essence, in regards to the triangle of life-death-rebirth, is “deathly birth.” As a spark of undying growth which withers moribund shells as a product and means of her unfolding.

She was patient with me, and she was extroverted too. She appeared to me unprompted and rejuvenated my soul in a new way. In my clairsentient perceiverances of her physis, I could sense a slight mischief about her, with a slightly flirtatious (or perhaps it was just affectionate) feel to it. Her energy pouring through me was nourishing and rejuvenating. I feel like I could turn people to dust with her energy. She manifests both with terrible and beneficent conduct. Yorky has recounted “fighting against the inexorable pull of Nythra which has clung since invoking Her/It,” whereas one of Drakon Covenant’s operatives has posited that “She/It is a loving mother.” In The Dark Gods in the Spheres and Pathworkings, Hagur writes “Let us be friends with Nythra, the beauty of whose manly limbs make us tremble with pleasure, and let us caress him as it were through our ritual dances (Dark Pathways II). May our heartfelt feelings come forth, the se-cret of our passionate and sudden spasmodic affinity for Nythra in the greatest secret!”

Nythra is the Void Mother, the Lady of Terror in love, and the Hierophant of the Great Escape. She’s a deeply powerful psychopomp, imparting soul flight in a serene way, in opposition to the chaotic and traumatizing terrors of forced astral bilocation which I’m told Budsturga can impose upon a witch. I can sense that Nythra has great ability to cause terror and chaos should she be desire it. I can see visions of the abyssal holocaust she could manifest from her ambiguous form, which form has an orange, luminescent sphere within the center of it all like a nucleus.

Nythra is described as being an “energy vortex in the void.” In my vision of her, I can see impressive, black, grey-spotted serpents emerging from a thick fog. The quickness of their movements, their body language, seems imposing, but the cold and peaceful rationality of her eyes is somewhat more calming and respectable. She can empower your psychic perception and impart wisdom.

In Corpus Secuntra, Eques Sinemus recounts a pathworking with a partner to Nythra: “I see a black Sun setting, surrounded by a reddish incandescence. I have the physical sensation to be lying on the top of a hill, observing the night sky. I don’t see stars, it seems that the sky is starless. Suddenly, appears to me a little bright point in the sky, it’s a star. This disappears right after. I see an arched portal, at the entrance there are two bright shapes, similar to men with faded, misty profiles. A man at the entrance of a cave appears before me. Indistinct figures, like mist, twirling in the dark. Cosmic winds whirl in the darkness. On top left, a dark matter forms a black hole. From the bottom right a white blurred mist rise up, entering into the black hole. Now my stomach burns.  The black hole continues to swallow indistinct and white figures, like fog. One last star appears and then disappears.”

According to Hagur, “Nythra’s shadow world in which we place ourselves in both mind and body, includes all that is sinister, positively and potentially corresponding to the underground, richly associated to the Abyssal Dark Mind, entering the Chamber of the Sphinx, our own Hell.

“Nythra’s energy is part of the natural order of the Tree of Wyrd represent-ing the true and complete cosmology, embracing in one united system a physical, amoral and sinister cosmos, hierarchical at the same time. Ny-thra, enormously powerful, bursting forth, assisting us brooding in the Darkness, he stands for mass phenomena, ‘Canal route lined by white Griffins, a vortex of grey starless space.’ The more one isolates himself to Nythra, the more sinister he will arrive to dehumanise the enemy, pro-jecting destruction all around.”

The speculative etymology of Nythra is the Sanskrit word for “eye,” comparable to the Hebrew word “Ayin” meaning eye and connoting the void in Qabbalah. I think Budsturga and Nythra are diametrically opposite pathways of abyssic manifestation: Nythra is deathly life, and Budsturga is vital death. Where tradition implies a connection between Nythra and Gaubi, I have seen Gaubi manifest upon evocation of Budsturga. Attaghot or Azagthoth is the heart of the both of them, a prime mover. Hagur posits that Nythra is the lunar parallel of the solar Vindex.

In Dark Forces Words, Hagur wrote “Nythra is the path between the Moon and Venus in the Tree of Wyrd, as part of the underworld, the triangle Moon, Mercury and Venus. The Abyss, although located at the bottom of the tree, governs the whole tree, as all paths in one way or another lead to the underworld as well as to the Saturn triangle. They are both very influencing, spreading their energies all around the tree. In fact, Moon and Saturn (or vice versa) are the two extreme poles directing the whole tree, humanity as a whole. The Abyss is certainly not a place of death or burial, but a dwelling place for those treading the ‘Sinister Path’, and from there rule the rest of the world. It is only our way of life, which brings us in that area. We, indeed, belong to the Abyss, as a palace forever. We cannot possible return to what we were before ‘self-initiation’, that is impossible. In fact, the Abyss energy between the Moon and Venus along the ‘death path’ stands for ‘sinister emotion and passion’ endowed with great reactive capacity, unbound and free, making the dark manifest in the outer world. There is certainly no room for ‘pity’, nor emotional expression, and tones of love and charity.”

Nythra is related to the tarot card Death, which card is presented with the following poem: “A canal route lined/ By white Griffins./ A vortex of grey starless space./ The chalice spills its/ White blood/ And the Herdsman’s light shines/ In the Chamber of the Sphinx.” That which follows hubris; the consequence of attempting to escape that which is ill-fated by Destiny. Personal destruction from self-delusion and the cessation of self-evolution. Energy  vortex in the Abyss. The stripping away of the self-image that, if successful, will produce a genuine Master/Mistress; confronting the Chaos within and without.”

Death means the return of the form to the basic reservoir of substance, and is a service to the rest of humanity, and the world of daily physical living, when one has become useless through terminal sickness, old age, or even uselessness as a whole. Death results in the dissolution of the body whether it is buried or cremated and the return in one way or another to the originating source, “the Earth”.

The all-purposed summoning chant I have channeled for Nythra is Lenzatta Ensakahra.

Above: Artistic Depiction of Nythra by GAR
GAR’s Left Hand Path-themed artwork is magickally charged. Any competent magickian who calls out to the divinity depicted in the picture while meditating on that picture will be very surprised how quickly she enters the meditation journey. Again, GAR’s artwork is extremely powerful. Except this one. This one’s not so great.

-V.K. Jehannum
Agios Octinomos-Drakosophia

Sources
Sanskrit Roots in the Names of the Dark Gods (Fenrir 121-I), Thorn Apple by Aethelius Zardex (Fenrir 121-II), Dark Forces Words by Hagur, Corpus Secuntra, Abyssal by the Temple of Them
https://drakoncovenantblog.wordpress.com/2017/01/15/void-mother/
https://yorkshirerounwytha.wordpress.com/2017/02/04/dark-pathways-aosoth/