t is clear that the most ancient gods, the prototypes of all the gods of man, were known and worshipped before men existed; and it is further clear that the most ancient gods all proceed from the one source. That source is sometimes called Mlandoth, and all gods are but varied manifestations and extensions of the One. But whether Mlandoth is a place, or a conscious entity, or an inconceivable maelstrom of unknown forces and properties outside the perceptible cosmos is not known surely.

Certainly Ngyr-Khorath, the mad and monstrous thing which haunted this region of space before the solar system was formed and haunts it still, is but a local eddy of the vastness that is Mlandoth. And is not fabled "Ymnar, the dark stalker and seducer of all Earthly intelligence," merely the arm of Ngyr-Khorath, an organ created in the image of Earthly life and consciousness to corrupt that life and lead it to its own destruction?

And does not even great Yidhra, who was born of and with the life of Earth and who through the aeons intertwines endlessly with all Earthly life-forms, teach reverence for Mlandoth?

Before death was born, She was born; and for untold ages there was life without death, life without birth, life unchanging. But at last death came; birth came; life became mortal and mutable, and thereafter fathers died, sons were born, and never was the son exactly as the father; and the slime became the worm and the worm the serpent, the serpent became the yeti of the mountain forests and the yeti became man. Of all living things only She escaped death, escaped birth. But She could not escape change, for all living things must change as the trees of the north must shed their leaves to live in winter and put them on to live in spring. And therefore She learned to devour the mortal and mutable creatures, and from their seed to change Herself , and to be as all mortal things as She willed, and to live forever without birth, without death.

Yidhra devoured the octopus and learned to put forth a tentacle; she devoured the bear and learned to cloth herself in fur against the creeping ice of the north; indeed can Yidhra take any shape known to living things. yet no shape can she take which is truly fair, for she partakes of all foul creatures as well as fair. To her followers she appears in many fair and comely forms, but this is because they see not her true form, but only such visions as she wills them to see. For as the adepts can send their thoughts and visions to one another over great distances so can Yidhra send her thoughts to men and cause them to see only what she wills. Indeed it is by sending her thoughts that Yidhra remains in one soul, for in body she is many, hidden in the jungles of the south, the icy wastes of the north, and the deserts beyoun the western sea. Thus it is that though her temples are many, she waits by all, combining bodily with her diverse followers, yet her consciousness is a vast unity.

The Mad Lama of Prithom-Yang has written: