The Mad Arab, Abd al-Azrad. *nods*
'Original manuscript version (Katib Al-Azif) written in Arabic, c. 730 AD, four subsequent versions: Greek, c. 950 AD by Theodoras Philetas; Latin, 1228 AD by Olaus Wormius; English, 1586 by Dr. John Dee; The Sussex Manuscripts, English, 1597 by Baron Frederic.'
But the thing is, people, that no matter how you look at all the stories and rumors, the Necronomicon isn't real. The Necronomicon was the creation of H. P. Lovecraft. No copy, or any mention of the book whatsoever, existed before Lovecraft began writing about them. Lovecraft was an extraordinary man, but was not a practicing wizard or a member of a secret society. All of the Necronomicons currently on the market are fakes created after Lovecraft's death. The fact that no one has found a pre-Lovecraft Necronomicon reflects the fact that there isn't one, and there is no vast government/occult conspiracy dedicated to hiding all copies of the book.
No one asks you to believe the same things others do, but if you want to challenge it, you should have evidence to back you up. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR PROVING YOUR CLAIMS. I've looked into many different rumors of a pre-Lovecraft Necronomicon, and have found little or no new information through them. Being the discoverer of an authentic Necronomicon would quickly become famous, so surely you can put a few hours' work into backing up your case.
This is a a dialogue about the Necronomicon:
Is the Necronomicon real?
It depends. What do you mean by real?
Well, I've got this Necronomicon I picked up at the local bookstore, and I wanted to know if it was real.
You can see it, smell it, and touch it, can't you? There you are, then. It's real.
Come on. You know what I mean. Is it an authentic book of black magic that's centuries old?
Probably not. The first person to mention the Necronomicon was the horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.
Who's this Lovecraft guy?
He was one of the twentieth century's greatest authors of horror and science fiction. He lived from 1890 and 1937, and though he wrote only a small number of stories, just about every author in those fields has read him. Lovecraft started writing about the Necronomicon in 1922 in his short story "The Hound", and he went on to include it in several other stories.
How do you know that the Necronomicon was Lovecraft's invention?
Lovecraft himself admitted it was, in numerous letters to his fans and friends.
But what if he were lying?
He probably wasn't; his letters show him to have been a conscientious individual. Even if you won't take his word for it, the fact remains that there are no mentions of the Necronomicon before Lovecraft wrote about it.
I heard that there were some references before then.
I've heard that, too. When you try to get people to tell you where those references are, they usually can't tell you where they heard them. No one's been able to provide a source for any of them, or they refer to a published Necronomicon or Internet hoax. From what I can tell, there's no basis for any of them.
Isn't it possible that Lovecraft denied the book's existence because it frightened him, or that a secretive cult has taken action over the centuries to suppress all references to the book?
It may be possible, but it's unlikely in the extreme. We might be able to say that if we had evidence that Lovecraft was lying or that such a group existed - but none has turned up. I'd rather believe that the Necronomicon didn't exist than that the Necronomicon and a secret cult - neither of which we have any evidence for - existed.
Besides, it brings up more questions. If Lovecraft denied the book's existence, why did he write stories about it? If Lovecraft thought it had power, why did he express such skepticism toward all non-materialistic beliefs? If there really was a secret cult dedicated to keeping the Necronomicon secret, why did the cult let Lovecraft write his stories at all? It's possible to come up with answers for these, but most of these are based on speculation rather than history. Thanks to his extensive letter-writing (several a day for most of his life), Lovecraft is one of the best-documented individuals of this century. It is telling that no one has been able to find any signs of this within the material about his life.
Couldn't the Necronomicon be another book, hidden behind a false title?
It could, but it's unlikely. Lovecraft talked freely about his sources of inspiration in his letters, and he never cited any real work which served as the direct inspiration for the Necronomicon. Every so often I hear that the Necronomicon is actually A. E. Waite's The Book of Black Magic and of Pacts, or The Epic of Gilgamesh, or something of the sort. Most of the time, it's based on the perceived similarity between that book and the Necronomicon, rather than reference to Lovecraft's works. Even if they are similar, however, that does not necessarily mean that Lovecraft based the Necronomicon on that book. Maybe he used a similar book, or a number of different books (the best argument, in my opinion).
Yet there are some other Books of the Dead out there. There's an Egyptian one, and a Tibetan one... Could these be Necronomicons?
First of all, Lovecraft read "Necronomicon" as "An Image of the Law of the Dead", not "Book of the Dead". (He was wrong, but if we want to consider Lovecraft's inspirations, this is where to start). Second, while these books may contain incantations, they are designed to aid the soul's journey through the Underworld. Lovecraft's Necronomicon contains spells and lore about alien beings which are trapped between life and death, and that will return to earth someday. The basic concept is different, and Lovecraft never stated that the Egyptian and Tibetan works were his inspiration, though he did become familiar with the former.
If the Necronomicon appeared in fiction, why does everyone think it's real?
People are funny that way. Actually, it had to do with Lovecraft's repeated use of it. If it were in just one story, it would be easier to consider it fictional, but Lovecraft liked his monsters and books and often put them in many tales. Later on, some of his friends noticed this and started using the book in their own stories. Readers of the pulp magazines where these stories were published were amazed by all this, and thought that the book had to be real. And a legend was born.
So what's the deal with this Necronomicon I've got here?
Is the Necronomicon you have a paperback with a black cover?
Yes.
That's the Simon Necronomicon, the most infamous of all the Necronomicon hoaxes.
How do you know that it's fake?
No one involved has openly admitted that it's a hoax, but the evidence is overwhelmingly against it. First, while the book claims to be a Sumerian manuscript, many of the gods and demons within don't come from Sumerian times, but from later periods. The ones whose names resemble those of Lovecraft's creatures don't turn up in any mythology. Don't take my word for it; most libraries have a large section on myth, and you can check it out for yourself.
Next, there's the differing stories about its origins. The story given in the Necronomicon about Simon being a spy was dropped in a later publication, the Necronomicon Spellbook. That book claimed that Simon was a poor Eastern Orthodox bishop who received the Greek manuscript from two fellow monks who were later jailed for stealing books from libraries. This case is a real one, but there are still some problems - for example, the monks were stealing old atlases, not Greek manuscripts.
Finally, I've talked with some people who claimed to have known those involved, and they all stated that it was a joke. Of course, one has to be careful about believing what someone tells you, but I can't think of why they would all state it was a fake instead of playing it up for the gullible.
Who is this Simon guy?
I wish I knew. Just about everyone in the occult community has been named as Simon at one time or another. It's something which a good private investigator could probably find out in an hour, but it seems no one cares enough yet.
Some people say the spells in this book work. Do they?
That's a matter which you have to decide as an individual. Some people don't believe in magic, and for them it doesn't work. I've talked with a number of people who are practicing magicians. Most of them believe that even a book created recently can be useful in magic. Most of them also told me that the spells in the book were more trouble than they were worth.
A friend of mine has a different Necronomicon, this thin brown paperback. It claims that Lovecraft's dad was a Freemason who owned the Necronomicon. The writers found an encoded text in the British Museum which they deciphered, and they found out it was the Necronomicon.
That's the George Hay Necronomicon. It's a fake.
How do you know?
Colin Wilson, the writer of the introduction, wrote an article about the book in issue 23 of Crypt of Cthulhu magazine, published back in 1984. He said that it was a hoax he concocted with a few friends.
Why didn't I hear about this?
Crypt of Cthulhu is a small-press fanzine with only a small circulation. That was all that was ever said about it, and when the book was re-printed recently, they didn't mention it.
So Lovecraft's father really wasn't a Freemason?
Well, that's not so sure. Lovecraft's maternal grandfather founded a Masonic lodge in Foster, Rhode Island, so there's a good chance Winfield Lovecraft was as well. Most American Masonic lodges are strictly business organizations with little or no mysticism, though, and Winfield's work as a salesman probably kept him from playing a major role in his lodge. There's little chance that the only Freemason in history to reveal such crucial secrets would be a minor member of a small-town lodge.
You said some people think the Simon Necronomicon can be used for magic. How about the Hay one?
It is used occasionally, but for some reason, it's not as popular as the Simon one. I think it's because it has less material and draws more from medieval traditions, which require long preparation and expensive materials.
Are there any other Necronomicons out there?
Quite a number, actually. Some of them are clearly magazines or art portfolios, while others are props people made for the fun of it. Once again, none of them pre-date Lovecraft.
If all this is true, why do people still believe in the Necronomicon?
There's a number of reasons. A great deal of it is a lack of good information on the topic. Most people learn about the Necronomicon through people they know, who usually are only repeating what little they've heard. Even if they decide to research the subject properly, much of the material is so rare that they may never encounter it.
Yet some people have been confronted by evidence and still believe. I think that this is largely due to what UFO research Jacques Vallee calls "the ratchet effect". The ratchet effect is when a person accepts an idea and refuses to disbelieve it, no matter any evidence to the contrary. Once a person believes that a pre-Lovecraft Necronomicon exists, they are often unwilling to accept any proof that it doesn't. Usually they're uninformed about Lovecraft, and they resort to speculation to fill in the gaps.
But couldn't you be accused of being a victim of the ratchet effect yourself?
I suppose I could. Yet I've tried to avoid this sort of narrow dogmatism. For years, I've followed up every clue to the best of my ability, sometimes even being fooled in the process. Each time, I've come up empty in the end. Some might say I need to be more open-minded, but I've noted that those people usually make little or no effort to do the same work I have.
You know, I'm still not entirely convinced that everything you say is true.
That's exactly the way I like it. At its heart, this is not so much about the Necronomicon as showing you how to think for yourself and evaluate the claims you hear. Even if you disagree with me on the specifics, I think my efforts were worthwhile if you set out to do that.
Look at more facts concerning the Necronomicon. A few good sites are
The H. P. Lovecraft Archive and
The Necronomicon Files.
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