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The Necronomicon

16:06 / 28.05.04

This should possibly be in the books section, I'm not sure - if so, feel free to move.

Ok, I've an old copy ( New York 1975 ) of what claims to be " the most famous, the most potent, and potentially the most dangerous Black Book known to the Western world, " the testimony of the " Mad Arab " Abdul Alhazred, apparently written in Damascus, 8AD. Purely considered as a work of art, I really rate it, it's a genuinely bizarre piece of material, but I also gather it's rumoured to be a hoax. So can anyone shed any light on this ? I appreciate that from the point of view of actually using it, it doesn't really matter if it's fictional or not, but I was just wondering if anyone knew anything about it's history etc. Ideally aside from the Lovecraft connection, although that's fine too.

Ta.

18:05 / 28.05.04

Well, from what I remember reading in high school, it had lots of stuff about Enochian in it, yeah?

Which is John Dee's occult thang. If they got it right, that is.

20:17 / 28.05.04

It looks like some people took Lovecraft's meme and gave it more gusto. I've seen one that was so silly bumbling on about Jesus crap or sommat. There are several websites you can goto to research more about it. I've never seen a copy of the Pseudonomicon but I'd love to, keltart have a good website as do many others. For alot of people they cant relate to alot of the other musty ceremonial old medieval stuff, the Necronomicon seems more "there" it exudes a total glamour, and the Barbarous Language kicks ass. At the end of the day its upto you to decide whether you will traffic with ancient spirits or dissociated parts of yer mind. There are lotsa different models and paradigms. At the end of the day who cares if it's a fictional system as alot of energy has supported it, I'm sure someone will try and elevate Lovecraft to Godform status soon, if not already! But then how legit are the other books by the old beardy wierdies from bygone era's? I'm sorry this reply on hindsight looks a bit Beavis and Butthead!!!! Huh, Cthullu kicks ass, hahhaha, where's my MTV gone to?

Henningjohnathan

21:27 / 28.05.04

Yeah, the "Necronomicon" I read back in HS was basically a fictional conceptualization of what would be found in "The Mad Arab's" Book of the Dead (or damned)in Lovecraft's mythos. However, after reading a good portion of Robert Wilson's Cosmic Trigger, I'm not exactly ready to completely write it off as bogus. He seemed to see Lovecraft's horrors as that writer's interpretation of his own journey through the Chapel Perilous, so it's possible that if you believe it, the invocation of Cthulu would have much the same results as devotion to Shiva or communing with Satan.

flufeemunk effluvia

00:43 / 29.05.04

Al-Azif

The sounds of the Great Old Ones

BLIND IDiOT GOD FOREVAH

01:59 / 29.05.04

Yeah, sorry, I should have mentioned this earlier, but I've gone through a couple of websites on this subject, and as far as I can make out, the copy I've got is of a very different book.

The original's supposed to be 900 pages, for example, whereas this is roughly 200.

Anyway quotes seem the best way forward, so, from the introduction:

The present manuscript was delivered into the hands of the editor by a priest who had managed to get ordained through uncanonical methods... Suffice it to say we were rather doubtful as to the authenticity of the work before us... A great deal of misfortune accompanied the publication of this book... An alternative possibility exists: that by landing on the moon, we have come to reinstate the ancient covenant, and thereby insure or protection against the Outside. Since " the... "

End

So it's your basic Chaldean mythology, I suppose, plus various poetic/surrrealist turns, but, while I've got no real opinion here, one way or the other, it still seems like something that's, er, worth discussing ?

04:05 / 29.05.04

Ia! Ia! Shub-Microsoft! The Black Goat of the Woods with a thousand bug patches!

05:37 / 29.05.04

Well yes, Lord Morgue, this is all very " funny, " and to a certain extent I've been " laughing my ass off " for the last few minutes, but that sort of thinking isn't going to be any use to anyone when " The Old Ones " return.

'Ph'nglui mglw 'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. ' Etc.

14:34 / 29.05.04

Does your book have the business with copper plates in it? I only remember Enochian chants and copper plates from the one I read.

15:46 / 29.05.04

Lord Morgue, that's brilliant. I was just thinking that i haven't laughed in a good while whilst lurking around here and that's just what i needed.

So that's Cthulhu if i'm right.......just to try and add something of worth to this post, how would that name be pronounced?

I'm doing it like this : Ka-tul-hu.

Is this right?

21:59 / 29.05.04

Some people pronounce it like what you said or Ktullu (see Metallica), look at "Futurama" fer an obvoius Cthulloid clone, via postmodernisation. There exists a Hello Cthullu website which as you guess is a pisstake of Hello Kitty. All my copies of the said dread book exist on soft copy, pdf or html doc's, on disc. I bought a copy of it (the Simon version) from Sorcerer's Apprentice years and years ago for someone. You have to immerse yourself in Lovecraftian mythos completely to get the feel, but the there's Blackwood et all. Which take us to Arthur Machen -"The Great God Pan." How about "The Satanic Rituals" by the Church of Satan, that includes modernised Lovecraft stuff. Goto other occult forums and you'll witness people chewing the fat about what Banishing Rites to use with its work, whether they have more power than other spirits from other demonogist's grimoires, etc.

09:55 / 30.05.04

Unfortunately, as any student of Lovecraft knows, (and I've got two versions of the Book of Dead Names, to state my credentials) there are NO BANISHING RITUALS for the forces invoked by the dread tome. What do you think happened to Abdul Alhazred, eh? Eh? When the Old Ones return, all we can do is shake our asses with the REAL golden oldies!
DANCE, CTHULHU, DANCE!

11:59 / 30.05.04

Just like my Gran used to say, the Old Ones are always the best.

Skeleton Camera

18:52 / 30.05.04

My interpretation of the Mythos is much like Wilson's. It seems obvious that Lovecraft had several distinct psychological problems. His self-professed "outsider" status began with his precocious childhood. His mother created some sort of sexual trauma in his life, by all accounts not physical but "psycho-sexual." He was dressed as a girl when a child, but as far as I know that was relatively common at the time (if, perhaps, in wane.) His precociousness led to a fascination with science, a rejection of any specific belief system, and a recognition if not an embracing of the universal void and its negation of meaning.

This cocktail formed a psychological menace that he continually attempted to exorcise through writing. Much of his work is unintentionally, and devastatingly, autobiographical. "The Dunwich Horror," for example, is continually dismissed as one of his weakest works (which it is). But the 'family dynamic' (hehehe!) involved is a mirror of Lovecraft's own. He presents a grotesque and monstrous child born of an insane mother and a wizardly father who dies early in his life. The child also has a brother, in the story a multi-dimensional terror; it is continually kept UPSTAIRS, in the attic, until it breaks loose and wreaks havoc.

Phil Hine interprets Lovecraft's mythos as a portrayal of demonic nature. I'd agree with this: Lovecraft was dealing with nature more internally than externally, but he found the "swollen" and "overgrown" forests of New England a mirror of his own psychic darkness.

I have to run but I'll tie this into Necronomicon-magic later.

18:55 / 30.05.04

There was a good thread on Lovecraftian magic not so long agp actually, do a search, I seem to remember some interesting posts.

19:21 / 30.05.04

Red Wheel/Weiser came out with The Necronomicon Files last year. I haven't read it, but it's on my list.The book takes a scholarly approach to the Necronomicon, its various incarnations, origins (ie Lovecraft--may his memory never die), occult significance, etc.

On a lighter note, there is an extremely amusing parody of the ultra-right wing christian literature distributed by Chick Publications. It's titled "Who Will Be Eaten First?" and can be enjoyed at www.howardhallis.com/bis/cthulhuchick

cthulhu fhtagn

21:09 / 30.05.04

To Lord Morgue I think quite alot of people are promoting that thrill-seekers should use Banishing Rites with the work with the Elder Gods and the Old Ones. It's upto you, I use the GPR, I suppose some folk are happy to just take a hit of laughing gas. Rite now I think it's more important to categorise and symbolise every personal daemon of our selves in order to bind the buggers and send them forth to Servitor Protestant Work Ethics, once you've gave them names and glyphs. On a side note, Chick comics are the best - minutes of fun.

Skeleton Camera

21:38 / 30.05.04

Coming off of Microphage's comment - good place to start - Lovecraft was not able to bind his personal demons. My understanding is not 'reducing' them to simple Freudian terms. If there is indeed a Freudian element, which the mother-psychosis and fear of fecund nature would suggest, the element is not cliche. The work itself reveals that. These were not calm neuroses to be integrated but demonic forces that dominated Lovecraft's life.

And that connects with the 'magical realism' that Erik Davis highlights. His whole work was an attempt to bind or cope with these forces. And his later stories reveal that he had made much progress towards this binding. "The Shadow Out of Time" and "At The Mountains of Madness" both reveal a recognition of wholeness, or value, in the Other that seemed so horrifying and blasphemous. "The Shadow Over Innsmouth" also echoes this, with the protagonist accepting his fate. This, though, is a bit of a throwback - the acceptance is accepting the horrible, as in the early story "The Outsider."

This acceptance, which corresponds with expansions in Lovecraft's personal life, philosophy, and political views, is largely overlooked. Cthulhu is cooler as a huge-ass slimy insanity-inducing horror from the sea. But you have to follow Lovecraft through if you want to fully deal with his Mythos as a magical system.

I would make comparisons to Tantra and Kali-worship (which, if you accept the Tantra-Satanism equation, makes sense given HPL's popularity with the Satanist crowd). To take Cthulhu seriously as a magical force allows you to enter Lovecraft's Chapel Perilous and encounter personifications of the Other. And just as you can recognize the beauty and creation of Kali - without whom Shiva cannot live - you can see the nature of the Old Ones.

*blink blink*

18:20 / 31.05.04

I think every imperfection that Lovecraft had has already manifested tons of articles and pop-analysis. Look at the analysis of Crowley for fook's sake! Still what would he think of it all now - the magickal current that it pushed. Probably blush I'd imagine. Choke on his baked beans. Has anyone played with the Cthullu Tarot Deck? I'd agree Seamus, the Necronomicon and its followers who wish to open its gates, they do share alot in common with the LHP tantrikas and Kali devotees - HR Giger completely hailed the dark mother with his aliens. Y'know matrist hive mind. I've seen one article on a TOPY website about "Kali-en" a sort of interstellar alien version of Kali, goddess of time, a more draconised version. Git ard godform!!!!

Nalyd Khezr Bey

20:05 / 01.06.04

I suggest looking into Kenneth Grant's Typhonian Trilogies and some of the stuff published in the Starfire journals for how much Lovecraft's Mythos holds up to "real" Magickal practice. Wilson's Cosmic Trigger was mentioned earlier in this thread. Be careful what you attribute to Pope Bob, remember, he doesn't believe in anything. That book is an account of his own journey through Chapel Perilous and most of those speculations in the book he seems to have brushed off since then. I am not saying you are wrong in suggesting that Lovecraft's tales are his own version of Chapel Perilous, just maybe read Wilson's books a little more carefully. Maybe I am wrong and we should look closer at Wilson's speculations. Hmmm. Let me get back with you on that.

Skeleton Camera

23:38 / 01.06.04

Oooh...the TOPY Kali-en sounds fun.
AMEN to Giger praising the dark mother. Leary - or someone similar - wrote an essay discussing Giger and the birth trauma. The author interpreted nearly all of his work as processing the birth trauma, which is a grand psychological correlation to experiencing the dark mother.

There has indeed been tons written on Lovecraft's pathologies. But they're still necessary to keep in mind when dealing with his Mythos. You can't dismiss the Mythos on psychological grounds no more than you can dismiss anything else, though that's often the impulse. Use the psychological angle to add another dimension to the entities, possibly as a bridge between the Self-Other divide that makes them so alien.
And I have found it consistently overlooked that Lovecraft found a measure of balance late in life. He never relented on the human mind's inability to process the alien entities but he did recognize them as sophisticated beings and not 'nameless blasphemies' etc. Could this lack of acceptance be a refusal to overcome one's own biases and programmings? And thus back to the purpose of using the Mythos as a system....shatter my mind, oh tentacled one!

09:33 / 02.06.04

HENTAI!

11:46 / 04.03.05

YOUR CAPACITY FOR TRUTH AND REALITY DEPENDS UPON YOUR PERSONAL CAPACITY FOR TERROR AND HORROR.

The Necronomicon is a guide to ritual invocation of of the assistance of the Ancient Old Ones.

The COSMIC FOOD CHAIN is an energy symbiosis from the plants which feed off the Sun to the devas and assuras that feed off the astral eminations of collective human thought. Just as we corral beasts to keep them in their place for our use so do the gods demons and Old Ones corral us in history. They stir up hatred and wars so that they may feed off our ire lust and passions.

Quote from THE COSMIC FOOD CHAIN a Yantra from
William Irwin Thompson.

Carlos Castaneda's book the Active Side of Infinity is his departing summary of wisdom from Don Juan. The second last chapter Mud Shadows is the revelation of the OLD ONES and how they eat the human auric energy down to the hight of your toes.
Don Juan suggests a discipline to practice the meditation of the activive side of infinity, the realization of your own nature's essence is the emptiness of the VOID, this makes you taste unpalatable for the OLD ONES TO EAT.

The Cthuhlu and the Nephilim are the Old Ones who have forsaken the sacred way. They are the first born of creation, they range from the vampire predators who lack cosmic ethics and morals and are not evolved enough to care about you, to the highly evolved Old Ones who are Spiritualy administering to entire continents the ancient sacred way, they initiate and purify humans such as the Rainbow Serpent of Australia which attends the Beaufort Rainbow Serpent Festival each Australia Day weekend.

Willian Burroughs original vision and works is an expose of the activities of the Old Ones, a necronomicon of sorts.

12:30 / 04.03.05

i've been meaning to pick up this book for a while - a soberish look at the various necronomica that have appeared since hpl made the whole thing up.

also, always worth a linky is this little treat from pre-atomic nu-exiztenzializt mike houllebecq. it's a good sympathetic essay, he delights a little too frenchly perhaps in the 'my favourite writer is a RACIST!' bits but sgood,

also the erik davis one in the disinfo book of lies is okay though he doesn't write so well.

Nalyd Khezr Bey

21:19 / 06.03.05

It's interesting that this old thread has come back up. Since the beginning of this past December until the beginning of February I involved myself in some dreamwork involving Kenneth Grant's idea of the Necronomicon as a "primal grimoire" and putting some of the Lovecraft Mythos things to Magickal use just to see what it would do. The most I really got out of it was some very lucid dreams full of texts and symbols. I took it no further but I plan on it in the future. You can see some of my speculating about the "Necronomicon Meme" in THIS THREAD on OccultForums if anyone is interested.

18:55 / 08.03.05

Haven't finished the essay yet, and the racism bit thus far seems a bit over-played - It's in there arguably, you could probably point to The Dunwich Horror I suppose, but having spent a fair amount of time ridiculing any kind of 'Freudian' interpretation of L's work, it seems a bit much for Mic H to then turn round and impose his own fave neurosis on the material in question - but excellent link, G, cheers.

They'd appear to have not much in common as 'riters,' I'd always thought Houllebecq lifted the creeping sense of existential dread thing from Sartre, but actually, thinking about it, it makes perfect sense that Lovecraft's a big influence.

--

02:47 / 22.10.05

I think the problem with most of the published Necronomicons is that they try too hard to appear to be "authentic". A lot of them begin with the old "This text was given to us by a nameless Greek monk" or they'll make references to "Olaus Wormius" or use words like "Ye" and things of that sort. Add in a dash of Great Old One name-dropping and you've got yourself a Necronomicon. Ho-hum. Most of the ones out there are enjoyable as reading material (the sigils in the Simon one are especially attractive, but there's little else to really recommend about that one), but so many of them seem the same... Supposed rantings from "The Mad Arab", a few rituals, and so forth. Kinda depressing really.

To me, the ideal Necronomicon would be a book that wouldn't try to explain itself to the reader. No long introductory preface from the editor about how they stumbled across the book and deciphered it, no "Mad Arab ranting" stuff, no text that tries to make itself sound like dodgy Latin from the 15th century. Maybe just page after page of total mindfucking madness. The sort of book where you'd have no idea what the hell was going on, where you'd really have to sit down and try to piece it together yourself and of course, your interpretation would be different from someone else's. Just present the material, don't try so hard to make it seem "authentic". A true Necronomicon should make you feel weird and creeped out, whereas most of what is published out there wouldn't scare anybody because its just what they expect to read.

Having said that, I'm not willing to rule out the idea that the book might exist on some sort of astral level and that maybe Lovecraft had some access to it, if even on an unconscious level. But I highly doubt that many of these official Necronomicons are tapping into such a source (IMO, the worst of the bunch is Donald Tyson's "Necronomicon". Avoid).

00:10 / 24.10.05

There are three main versions of the Necronomicon -

First: the famous "Simon" version that was put together by some Californian head-shop owner in the seventies. May have actually been used for ritual work, maybe even by OTO members, despite being cribbed together from several hundred words of Lovecraft quotes and a bunch of unrelated stuff. It is still available in a lot of bookshops and is generally the version available online. It's probably rubbish, though there are those who practice its rituals and swear by it to this day...

The second version is Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names, which seems to have been a literary hoax by Colin Wilson and a few pals. It is of zero magical use, but is highly entertaining, written like a scholarly work, and very reverent towards Lovecraft's vision (although the mercifully brief "grimoire" section is cringe-worthy).

Of the third version, I am not permitted to give details.

--

02:16 / 24.10.05

You forgot the Donald Tyson version that came out last year... That's probably for the best, though, its very uninspired.

Less searchable M0rd4nt

02:18 / 24.10.05

This would be the same Donald Tyson that wrote a book on how to screw demon chicks, right? Damn, you'd think one of his succubi friends-with-benefits could have furnished him with some decent material.