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Underground > Temple >

We did it for the Lovecraft

Hieronymus

20:24 / 05.06.03

Herman had vigorously encouraged and supported the creation of the Schlangekraft Necronomicon, edited by "Simon."

No doubt he'd grown weary of explaining to customers that H.P. Lovecraft's fabled forbidden tome was a fiction, a plot device for great horror stories and nothing more. He was savvy enough to sell leftover chicken bones as human finger bones to wannabe necromancers, so he surely knew that the market for a "genuine" Necronomicon could be huge with the right packaging.

In 1977, the book made its debut in the window of Herman's little shop of horrors in Chelsea. It generated a scene of its own, a scene bursting with mad, unfocused creativity and slapstick mayhem.

Bill Posters

12:47 / 07.06.03

Thanx to you too* for this, 'tis eenteresting stuff.

* There's another thread about it in Da Convasation.

Bill Posters

12:48 / 07.06.03

oh and ta for the abstract too, had me in hysterics for some reason!

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:29 / 07.06.03

This (supposedly) is the Simon Necronomicon.

Bill Posters

13:32 / 07.06.03

am i the only one here who bought the Simon Nec thinking it to be genuine, or just the only person prepared to admit it? (I was at school at the time, I feel the need to say.)

Less searchable M0rd4nt

15:49 / 07.06.03

I think you're just the only one prepared to admit it, Bill. Fortunately I spent my formative years dabbling around in various types of fluff, so I just have some Aquarian Press paperbacks with lame covers to be embarassed about.

Anyway, as the article points out, there's a school of thought which says that internal consistency is more important in a magickal system than historical validity.

8===>Q: alyn

16:08 / 07.06.03

I've got it, but no, while I didn't know its backstory, I didn't think it was "real." History is just another spurious magickal construct anyway.

As per the other thread, I'm doing a little research into family history to see if my mother knew any of these blokes. I hazily recall that the man with the cat named Cat was a weirdo hairface who wore lots of black... I think his name was George.

Grey Cell

23:23 / 07.06.03

I bought it too. I knew it wasn't authentic at the time, but I found it rather amusing. And, indeed, historical validity isn't necessarily an issue.

Besides, my darker side often derives a certain amount of perverse pleasure from the rections of some of my more "innocent" visitors when they see a copy of the Necronomicon sitting on my bookshelf.

Pirate Ven Will Teach You To Lambada (The Forbidden Dance)

00:18 / 08.06.03

Glad to know I wasn't the only one who bought the bastard thinking it was the genuine article.
I think I found out about its hoaxfulness before it arrived (had to order it), though I'm not too sure. Being a Lovecraft fan, I frankly didn't care that it wasn't "real".

Bill Posters

11:10 / 10.06.03

Just in case anyone's missed the thread on this in the Conversation, Which Great Old One Are You?

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