Tiamat — Primordial goddess of the salt sea and chaos; often depicted as a dragon or serpent. Symbol of the untamed, reptilian mind, primal instincts, and the raw, formless potential of existence.
Apsu — God of fresh water; represents pure, undifferentiated consciousness directed outward, the first movement toward engagement with the world.
Lahamu & Lamu — Early cosmic beings, often associated with silt or the mingling of waters; here, symbolic of the first emerging perceptions, the early structures of mind and awareness.
An/Anu — Sky father, supreme authority; ruler of the heavens, cosmic order, and kingship.
Ki/Ninhursag — Earth mother, fertility, mountains, and the generative matrix of life.
Enlil — God of wind, storms, and authority; lawgiver; the force of command and decree. Often seen as a kingly figure whose will shapes the world.
Enki/Ea — God of fresh waters, wisdom, crafts, magic, and creation. Trickster-intellectual archetype; associated with cleverness, invention, and also scheming.
Ninhursag — Mother goddess of fertility, creation of humans, nurturing life.
Nanna/Sin — Moon god; cycles of time, measurement, dreams, intuition.
Utu/Shamash — Sun god; justice, truth, moral order, illumination.
Inanna/Ishtar — Goddess of love, sex, fertility, political power, and war. Dual ruler of desire and ambition; linked to both creative vitality and destructive conquest. Associated with Venus as the morning/evening star.
Nergal — God of war, plague, destruction, and the harsh summer sun. Symbol of unbridled aggression and the force of entropy.
Ninurta — Warrior god, agriculture, hunting; the controlled, disciplined side of martial power.
Ereshkigal — Queen of the Underworld; inescapable death, decay, and the deep mysteries. She defeats all other gods who descend to her realm.
Namtar — Herald and minister of Ereshkigal; bringer of fate, disease, and death.
Dumuzi/Tammuz — Shepherd god, consort of Inanna; fertility, seasonal cycles, sacrifice.
Geshtinanna — Sister of Dumuzi; goddess of agriculture, dreams, and interpretation.
“In ceremonial magick, the tree of life represents our nervous system. Our spine is it’s trunk. Our brain is it’s upper triad of Binah, Kether, and Chokmah, or the branches of the tree which reach into heaven. Our deepest, darkest subconscious aspects and the part of our nervous system where they reside is where the roots of the tree penetrate the underworld. I see all of these areas within me, illuminated in the form of the Sumerian pantheon of deities. I see the primal, reptilian part of consciousness as the goddess Tiamat, which is why she was portrayed as a dragon. Her counterpart, Apsu, is the ability to direct that consciousness in an outer focused direction. This is our beginnings of interaction with the outside world. Next among the gods came Lahamu and Lamu. They are the areas of our consciousness that gradually began to perceive the outside world in a more focused, less abstract way. They are within the neurons and grey matter of later forming parts of the brain. I ask why Enki was a correspondence so high upon the tree - the third sphere we call Binah - and I see that it is because he taught us to be clever....which is a useful attribute in this world. But the less attractive side of being clever is scheming. And it is scheming that lead to the “fall.” So why do we call these things gods? Because they live forever, are inside all of us, and exert control on us. We are playthings to the gods. Anger, which can so easily sweep aside reason and logic, leading to war on massive scale - this was called Mars. Aries. Or in Sumeria, as it appears to me - Nergal. Lust and love appear to me as Inanna, as she was known in Sumeria. Or Ishtar to the Babylonians and Akkadians. And it is no wonder she is also ruler of political power, because mankind always lusts for power. Sex and power is so snarled within the human psyche that they both take the same form - Inanna. All of these gods and goddesses take on the underworld, and all fail. Inanna fails and is killed. Persephone and Demeter fail. Even Enlil fails. Erishkigal defeated all of them. This remained so until Christ. The stories tell us that Christ was the first of the gods to go into the underworld and return without having to make deals or get help.” - Damien Echols
“This is Apsu and Tiamat. The first gods. Yin and Yang. The primordial forces from which all would eventually spring. Tiamat is Chaos. Apsu is Order. Next came the elder gods.....Lahamu, Lahmu, Anshar, Kinshar, Enki...... The forces which would eventually bring into being the universe as we know it. An explosion of activity. So much so that Apsu and Tiamat were greatly disturbed. When they alone existed, All was still. All was quiet. The processes of creation put an end to the infinite silence. This frenetic activity put an end to the perfectly structured primordial nothingness. This is what is meant by the stories of these elder gods slaying Apsu. Apsu represented order. And when order is destroyed, only chaos is left in the form of Tiamat. Chaos unrestrained, threatening to devour fledgling creation. So who destroys the unchecked, rampant Chaos? Marduk. Marduk is Mesopotamia. The first empire. Marduk is the embodiment of the light of Mesopotamia, bringing order to a world of uncivilized chaos. You can even split it down farther..... Originally it was Enlil who held the role later adopted by Marduk. So Enlil =Sumer. Marduk = Babylonia. The king is the embodiment of that light. That order. That civilization. This is why Babylonia was once very, very close to becoming monotheistic. Marduk very nearly became the only god praised or remembered in worship services. By praising Marduk, bringing him offerings and energy, they were strengthening the egregore responsible for maintaining their existence. By making him invincible, they were making themselves all powerful.” - Damien Echols