Who is Shub Niggurath?

'One squat, black temple of Tsathoggua was encountered, but it had been turned into a shrine of Shub-Niggurath, the All-Mother and wife of the Not-to-Be-Named-One. This deity was a kind of sophisticated Astarte, and her worship struck the pious Catholic as supremely obnoxious'. —H.P. Lovecraft and Zealia Bishop, "The Mound"


A Reconstructed Mi-Go Evocation

'Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

Great is the Lord of the Wood, even to the Old Ones, giver of seed and the gifts of the men of Leng. All praise and abundance to him, and let it be so from the wells of night to the gulfs of space, and from the gulfs of space to the wells of night, ever the praises of Great Cthulhu, of Tsathoggua, and of Him Who is not to be Named. Ever Their praises, and abundance to the Black Goat of the Woods. Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Goat with a Thousand Young!

Ia! Shub-Niggurath! The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young!

And it has come to pass that the Lord of the Woods, being cast out descended the seven and nine, down the onyx steps into the Dream. Making tributes to Him in the Gulf, Azathoth, He of Whom Thou has taught us marvels. Then on the wings of night out beyond space, out beyond the old world to that where of Yuggoth is the youngest child, rolling alone in black Aether at the rim of the domain.

And to Nyarlathotep he who taught the ways of the Black Goat.

He shall go out among men and find the ways thereof, that He in the Gulf may know. To Nyarlathotep, Mighty Messenger, must all things be told. And He shall put on the semblance of men, the waxen mask and the robe that hides, and come down from the world of Seven Suns (Fomalhaut) to mock the Gods.

Nyarlathotep, Great Messenger, bringer of strange joy to Yuggoth through the void, Father of the Million Favoured Ones, Stalker among the Stars' - H.P. Lovecraft, "The Whisperer in the Dark"


Shub Niggurath is obviously a shapeshifter, and quite an androgenous one at that . (S)he is probably the most widely revered deity in the mythos but hardly ever appears in the stories. Hir devotees include pagan tribes, sorcerers, various barbaric cults, ancient civilisations such as Sarnath, lost races of Mu and Lemuria and alien beings like the the Mi-Go.


Shub-Niggurath is an Outer God and a Great Old One in the HPL pantheon. (S)he is often described in Lovecraftian works in terms of a 'perverse fertility deity', said to appear as an enormous cloudy mass which extrudes black tentacles, slime-dripping mouths, and short, writhing goat legs. From this form are spat out small creatures, which are either reconsumed into the miasmatic form or escape to some monstrous life elsewhere. There is some indication that Shub Niggurath can also shapeshift into less monsterous forms.

In some stories Shub-Niggurath is female and is associated with a terrible form of Astarte, bringing to mind images of Kali. A chaotic Venus archetype. In this form she is variously regarded as the consort of Yog-Sothoth, the Not-to-Be-Named-One and Hastur. All the Great Old Ones except Azathoth in other words. Shub-Niggurath could thus be regarded as the 'Slut of the Old Ones' and to be more closely associated with sex for sex sake, and probably with 'perverse' forms of sexuality, rather than with fertility and procreation per say, which are most likely a mere secondary effect. This would match what we see in Nature, where animals mate for pleasure rather than progeny.

In other stories Shub-Niggurath appears to be exclusively male and goat-like, in which aspect he is associated with a dark aspect of the Great God Pan, as are many of Lovecraft's pantheon. Pan was regarded in the god of fecundity and male lust, as well as the Arcadian countryside. He was also closely related to the satyr god Silvanus who represented the wild woods outside of cultivated land. Pan was also the companion of Dionysos in many Greek myths. And Shub Niggurath also has much in common with the God-Beast Dionysos, in goat form usually called Dionysos Melanaigis ('Dionysos of the black goat-skin') in Argolis, sometimes refered to simply as the 'Black Goat'. He thus seems to be a synthesis of these three. As all three have a strong sexual element again the theme above is repeated.

As we have seen though Pan is also associated with Hastur, a consort of Shub-Niggurath in HPL's writings, who also has Dionysos associations. We are thus led to conjecture if Hastur is not in fact closely related the male form of Shub Niggurath or perhaps even is the male form of Shub Niggurath. And we have seen elsewhere on this site the possibility that Hastur is a hybrid midpoint between the arch enemies Nodens and Shub Niggurath. A key to the Mysteries.

Another mythic figure closely associated with Shub Niggurath is Baphomet. The Knights Templar idol associated by later occultists with a hermaphroditic winged goat god. Anthropomorphic androgeny is a rare feature in myth, the common examples are limited to the Egyptian Atum, Shiva Ardhanarisvara, Dionysos Arsenothelys, variants of the Meso-American Xochiquetzal, and of course Hermaphroditus himself (son of Hermes and Aphrodite). Baphomet is only the sixth 'god' to be regarded as a Hermaphrodite but by far the most well known. But it is the perfect archetype to explain the gender confusion exhibited by Shub Niggurath. Thus Shub Niggurath is truely an archetype of polymorphous sexuality. It is often hinted in HPL that the worship of Shub Niggurath involves perverse orgies and other impious rites that 'shock Catholics'. This would reinforce the idea of the chaotic archetype as representing unchecked libido, a kind of monsterous Eros.

As outlined earlier a spectrum of libidinous manifestation running from the chaotic to the controlled, might run as Shub Niggurath - Eros (not the cherub but rather the bestial Orphic Titan, with the heads of a bull, a lion, a ram and a serpent facing in four directions) - Zeus and Hera - Aphrodite and Pan.

It has been suggested in one version of the Necronomicon that the name Shub-Niggurath was of Sumerian origin. It contends that "there is a seeming reference to SHUB NIGGURATH in the Necronomicon, in the name of a Sumerian deity, the "Answerer of Prayers", called Ish-Niggarab - a being associated with a divine goat. The word "Shub" is to be found in the Sumerian language in reference to the Rite of Exorcism, one of which is called 'Nam Shub' and means "the throwing off". The implication being that this entity is that which leaves a possessed being (presumably by an incubus-succubus). But Shub also means 'to fall, drop or send out' and is often associated with childbirth, and Nig Gur Ath literally means 'the thing that is bloated'. A more obscure form of Shub Niggurath in the literature is Shupnikkurat, who is often described as a giant insect with the head of a goat. It seems that in Antipodean domains Shup-nikkurat takes the form of a goat headed spider (see appendix), and perhaps in this form gave birth to Atlach-Nacha (see below).

Shub Niggurath thus has many forms, but in general is related to sex magic and the use of the libido in both sorcery and tantric transformation. More generally (s)he is also a gateway to the deepest aspects of the human and non-human unconscious. (S)he is also closely connected with the interconnectedness of things, strange hybrids and synchronicities.

With the proper occult method, Shub-Niggurath can be summoned to any woodlands or wildrness at the time of the new moon, or Walpurgis Eve. However, the place from whence (s)he comes is not known. One possibility is that (s)he dwells at the court of Azathoth at the 'center of the universe'. (S)he may also live beneath the planet Yaddith, where SHe is served by the dholes. It is also possible that (s)he lives in another dimension altogether.



The Manifestation of Shub Niggurath (in the literature)

Shub Niggurath manifests in four phases, and can stabilize at any stage.

1) A dark fog with a luminous core

2) Black tentacles, with slime dripping mouths, emerging from a body of thick fog

3) Shapeshifting phase, goats legs appear amidst many tentacles or horns on a vague 'head' emerging from the fog.

4) Various manifestions of Shub Niggurath (a to d)

4a) The Great Old One Abhoth, the most alien form, a writhing mass of tentacles with a central 'head'.

4b) Shupnikkurat, a goat headed deity with an insectoid or arachnoid body.

4c) Ishnigarrab, a Baphomet-like entity. The Black Goat of Babalon. 'The Answerer of Prayers'.

4d) The Black Goat of the Woods, Melenusia, an ecstatic Dionysian form. The wild origin of the Arcadian Pan.

5) The Mysterious Weaver, the deepest aspect, a formless entity beyond time and space, responsible for bizarre synchronicities.

The Offspring of Shub Niggurath


The Dark Young of Shub-Niggurath are horrifying monstrosities, pitch-black in color and seemingly made of ropy tentacles. They stand as tall as a tree (perhaps between twelve and twenty feet tall) on a pair of stumpy, hooved legs. A mass of tentacles protudes from their trunks where a head would normally be, and puckered maws, dripping green goo, cover their flanks. The monsters roughly resemble trees in silhouette – the trunks being the short legs, and the tops of the trees represented by the ropy, branching bodies. The whole mass of these things smells like an open grave. They usually dwell in woodlands where Shub-Niggurath's cult is active.

The Dark Young are usually called upon to preside over cult ceremonies. One such means for summoning them is found in the Book of Eibon and requires a blood offering. The ritual may only be performed in the deep of the woodlands at the darkest of the moon, and the victim must be sacrificed over a stone altar! Dark young act as proxies for Shub-Niggurath in the accepting of sacrifices and the worship of cultists, in the devouring of non-cultists, and in the spreading of their mother's faith across the world. The Arcane Temple of Shub Niggurath abandoned human sacrifice in 1923.

The Gof'nn Hupadgh Shub-Niggurath is the name given to the favored, once-human worshippers of Shub-Niggurath. When the deity deems a worshipper to be most worthy, a special ceremony is held in which the Black Goat of the Woods swallows the initiate and then regurgitates the cultist as a transformed satyr-like being. A changed worshipper is also endowed with immortal life. This is believe to be the origin of the Men of Leng. Naturally this has to be understood metaphorically.

Shub-Niggurath is believed to have mated with Hastur to produce Zhar and Lloigor, and an unnamed triplet from the latter. (S)he mated with Yog-Sothoth to produce Nug and Yeb, the Great Not-to-be-Named-One to produce Ithaqua, and even her own son Yigg, through Coatlicue, to produce Byatis.

Hir son Zhar is an Old One who appears as a colossal mass of tentacles. This being was first evoked on the star Arcturus, but now dwells beneath the buried city of Alaozar on the Plateau of Leng. It is served by the horrid Tcho-Tcho people. When called upon by the proper incantations, Zhar can project itself astrally in the form of the Tulku. It can also telepathically transmit its urges to its worshippers. Zhar is believed to be physically connected to its "twin", Lloigor, perhaps by a long extension of tentacles. Lloigor is another gargantuan monster born of Shub Niggurath that dwells beneath Alaozar with Zhar. Together, they are known as the Twin Obscenities. Lloigor appears as a titanic, winged mound of writhing tentacles and is served by a cult known as the Tcho-Tcho's 'Brotherhood of the Star Treader'. It has the power to control great winds, which it can use to snare and capture any unfortunates who chance upon it. Like Zhar, Lloigor can project its image whenever Arcturus is in the sky. The city of Alaoar is said to be located on the "Isle of Stars" within the "Lake of Dread". It is here where legends claim that beings from the stars arrived several millenia ago. Though the actual site has never been discovered, it is nonetheless venerated as a holy place by the Tcho-Tcho people because it is home to Zhar and Lloigor.

Nug (more properly Naggoob) and Yeb, the Twin Blasphemies, are the spawn of Shub-Niggurath and Yog-Sothoth. Nug is the parent of Cthulhu through Yog-Sothoth. Nug is a god the ghouls, while Yeb is associated Abhoth's cult. Both Nug and Yeb closely resemble Shub-Niggurath.


Hir son Ithaqua is one of the Old Ones who appears in Lovecraft's fiction as a horrifying giant with a roughly human shape and glowing red eyes, an Ice Giant or a skeletal Wendigo from Amerind lore. In such form he has the power to control snow storms and ice.


Hir son Yigg, the father of serpents, is a minor deity and appears as a humanoid lizard. Although Yig is easy to anger, he is easily to placate as well. Yig often sends his serpent minions, the Children of Yig, to destroy or transform his enemies.To Native Americans, Yig is regarded as "bad medicine". Mappo no Ryujin Coatlicue is the Mother of All Serpents, a gigantic, monstrosity covered in small white snakes. She is also claimed as the mother of Yig. If so Shub Niggurath must have been the father in this instance, later morphing into a female to seduce Yig.

Byatis is a Old One spawned from Shub Niggurath, which appears as a spidery, crab-like entity with many legs and clawed forelimbs. It has a mouth wreathed in tentacles, a long elephantine proboscis, and a single, large, supposedly hypnotic eye. It is known to be incredibly large—one of its face tentacles is as thick as a man—which makes it about the size of the castle that it lies beneath to this day. Byatis can be summoned by a living being touching its image and can be repelled by the 'Elder Sign'. The creature is mentioned in De Vermis Mysteriis.

Atlach-Nacha first appeared in the short story "The Seven Geases" (1934). In the story, Atlach-Nacha is the reluctant recipient of a human sacrifice given to it by the toad-god Tsathoggua. Atlach-Nacha resembles a huge spider with an almost-human face. It dwells in a huge cavern deep beneath Mount Voormithadreth, a mountain in the now vanished kingdom of Hyperborea in the Arctic. There it spins a gigantic web, bridging a massive chasm between the Dreamlands and the Waking World. Some believe that when the web is complete, the end of the world will come, because it will create a permanent junction with the Dreamlands allowing monsters to move freely into the waking world.

Atlach-Nacha probably came to Earth with Tsathoggua. Because of its appearance, Atlach-Nacha is often referred to as the Spider-God(dess) and is believed to be the regent of all spiders. Furthermore, the giant, bloated purple spiders of Leng are thought to be its children and servitors. There is some disagreement about its gender. In the original story, Atlach-Nacha is referred to as a male, but in later stories by other authors, it is implied to be a female. It is thus regarded by some as the offspring of Shub Niggurath.

orryelle's baphometic goat

Appendix One :: Orryelle Defenestrate on Shub Niggurath

The ‘23 current’ concerns beings from ‘outside’ or ‘beyond’ our usual three dimensions, Who enter our perceptual parameters via strange dreams and other cracks betwixt the worlds.

Of all the beings of the Lovecraft mythos, Shub Niggurath in particular appeals to me greatly (and S/He seems rather fond of me also), as the archetype within that mythoscape most aligned with other mythologies I have engaged with deeply. Those I know who have read more of Lovecraft’s works tell me S/He is only mentioned obliquely in his stories, as a being of omniferous and undifferentiating voracious sexual appetite on the shadowy fringes of his worlds, mentioned only in hushed and frightened whispers.

Who else could this ‘Great Black Goat of the Woods’ be but a new ultra-mutational form of ancient Pan Pangenitor, the Melenusia (black goat) of the debaucherous Dionysian Rites, and the Goat of Mendes so prevalent in the Sabbatic Tradition of European folklore and witchcraft.

Shub Niggurath, though polysexual and often imaged as replete with multiple and diverse genitalia, seems to be primarily feminine in that S/He births and feeds these Thousand Young. So this Great Black Goat when combined with the more overtly masculine Goat-man Pan, be-Comes that veritable archetype of dark majesty so revered amidst the acolytes of Chaos Magick as Baphomet, hermaproditic Horned God/dess whose name seems to originate from the Knights Templar and form from the tarotic imagery of Eliphas Levi. This (post)modern image is undoubtedly of a composite nature drawing on previous (and future?) Godforms. The Zos Kia famulus Black Eagle (AOS’s ‘spirit guide’ as a native American shaman, but known in this relatively-new ‘tradition’ in animal or shadow form also) can be added in to the cauldron of mutating myths and ‘Solve et Coagula!’, we have Baphomet resplendent with human torso, goat head and hooves, and great black wings.

Parallel to my longstanding (no pun imp-ended) obsession with/possession with Pan, I have long been obsessed with spiders and Spider-Goddesses, and it is a common form for my anima when externally evoked and deified to assume. So when I heard about the spider-goat experiments naturally I was intrigued. The subsequent realization that Shub Niggurath is actually a SpiderGoat allied Hir even more with Baphomet and with my personal mythology, for as a developing hermaphrodite myself, S/He seems a natural synthesis of my goatish male self and arachnean anima.

Just tonight I have been invoking Baphomet-Shub Niggurath, and many realizations have immediately resulted. Thus this rather indulgent ramble, but to give it more purpose I now offer forth a potent tantric rite I have spontaneously developed from these results in application. As it is a tantric rite I acknowledge the Hindu names of the archetypes involved also: Ardhanarishvara-An as the Horned Hermaphrodite of that pantheon, a conjunction of Kali-Arachne as Shakti and Shiva-An, ancient primal Horned form of Shiva.

While the Cthulhoid octopoedal lower phallus of Octinomos jettisons Black Ink as creato-sexual elixir of the Artist-Priest via the Dreaming Mind to the manifest page, the upper phallus and central horn ejaculates the White Light of Sahasrara back into the star-webbed void of supraconsciousness. For Shub Niggurath is the 'Black Goat of A Thousand Young', and the Sahasrara the Thousand-Petalled Lotus. The Thousannd Young are the cosmic starspawn (New Formations of the Old Ones) thereof... http://www.crossroads.wild.net.au/23shub.htm

Appendix Two :: A Rectified Evocation of Shub Niggurath from a version of the Necronomicon

To Summon Shub-Niggurath the Black
Where the stones have been set up thou shalt call out to Shub- Niggurath, and unto he that knoweth the signs and uttereth the words all earthly pleasures shall be granted.

* * *

On the Darkest Moon turn thy face to the North wind and read the verse aloud:

Ia ! SHUB-NIGGURATH !
Great Black Goat of the.Woods,
I Call Thee forth !

Answer the cry of thy children
who knoweth the words of power!
(make the Voorish sign - horned hand)
Rise up I say from thy slumbers
and come forth with a thousand more!
(make the sign of Kish - finger with thumb)
I make the signs, I speak the words
that openeth the door!
Come forth I say, I turn the Key,
Now ! walk the Earth once more !

Cast the perfumes upon the coals, trace the sigil of Shub Niggurath and pronounce the words of power:

ZARIATNATMIX, JANNA, ETITNAMUS,

HAYRAS, FABELLERON, FUBENTRONTY,

BRAZO, TABRASOL, NISA,

VARF-SHUB-NIGGURATH ! GABOTS MEMBROT !

And then the Black one shall come forth unto thee and the thousand Horned Ones who howl shall rise up from the Earth. And thou shalt hold before them the talisman of Yhe upon which they shall bow to thy power and answer thy demands.