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Necronomicon(excuse spelling)

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10:47 / 21.05.02

so who's had experience working with the book(s) anything interesting happen?

11:46 / 21.05.02

Is it real?

12:58 / 21.05.02

No. But there are fake versions making profit on the fame of Lovecraft's fictitious tome. You can find them on Amazon.com

Less searchable M0rd4nt

13:44 / 21.05.02

I think there's a couple of online versions as well.

14:51 / 21.05.02

Its an entertainig read, I'll give it that. Of course to tha chaos magickian, it doesn't matter if a work is invented or derived. That a system is present means it can be used.

17:36 / 21.05.02

I remember I had once a version co-authored/compiled by Colin Wilson. It was good, but I did not test it magickally.

There is also the notion of these magick grimoires being revealed and dictated in dreams only.

01:27 / 22.05.02

If memory serves, this page is a very good resource.

http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm

Gotta love a good fake. Then again, since there really WAS no Necronomicon before the fakes, are they really fake? They're the only Necronomicons we have, after all...

Cthulhu Fthagn,
Yagg-Sothoth

02:04 / 22.05.02

I heard/read somewhere about chutulhian invocators, probably derivated from chaos magicks. Do not remember the source, but it sounded serious.

02:26 / 22.05.02

I can't really imagine a positive use for the book. Why would you want to summon up the big squid anyway? In the CoC game the only practical use for summoning the big nasties was to destroy something else. Summon, then run away!

16:01 / 22.05.02

There was a bunch of interesting stuff in it about opening gates to outer realms. The sort of thing a Mad Arab would do to learn occult sekrets. Kind of like West Gate necromantic work, if you're familiar with any of that. The obvious peril being that old ones from these realms might notice and devour your soul. Hey, it does come with a genre prepackaged, afterall...

23:38 / 23.05.02

cusm wrote:

Kind of like West Gate necromantic work, if you're familiar with any of that

I'm not familiar. sounds interesting. care to elaborate?

01:15 / 24.05.02

Um, lets see... There are various invocations to Azrial (the angel of death, archangel of the western quarter) focused around opening the west gate. Stuff like finding the right spot in a cemetary, chalking it out, lighting candles, invoking, and then seeing the gate appear as a shimmering door. There's another one you do with a mirror and candles, I don't recall the exact formula (or just make it up, if you're a CM

). The idea is that once the gate is opened, you astrally travel through it to other realms, and explore. An easier way is to lay flat on your back and stare at the sky until your perspective goes all wonky and you feel like you're looking down instead of up. Then, when you feel like you're falling, find a star gate (you'll home in on one if you're actively looking for it) and pass through. Continue astrally traveling from there. The star gate trick is kids stuff, but still fun

The rituals in the Necronomicon are like that, they involve opening gates by chalking the sigel on the floor and making the proper invocation. I see no reason why you couldn't use them the same way to explore the outer darkness with. Say hi to Azazzoth for me.

02:51 / 24.05.02

Said cusm:
"An easier way is to lay flat on your back and stare at the sky until your perspective goes all wonky and you feel like you're looking down instead of up. Then, when you feel like you're falling, find a star gate (you'll home in on one if you're actively looking for it) and pass through. Continue astrally traveling from there. The star gate trick is kids stuff, but still fun."

Tell me more! Ever since I was a kid, looking up at the stars has frequently given me this odd sense of vertigo, as though I was about to "fall" UP into them! I can only do it for so long before I have to either look away or grab hold of something. Just the other night I went for a walk and stopped in a nearby park to look at the stars, and then got all freaked out and had to keep walking.

I had a dream once that involved a lot of Lovecraftian imagery and...SOMETHING...trying to reach down out of the stars and grab me. The really strange thing was the look of the buildings in the dream. Years later, I moved to a town where there were a series of mausoleums that looked just like them...

Anyway, it may be "kid's stuff" to you, but there's something creepy there for me!

Or it could just be some odd inner-ear problem and a funny dream.

Y

03:09 / 24.05.02

Tell me more!

Heh. That's really about it. When you get that feeling of falling, go with it. Say "wheee!" and see where it takes you to. You might find yourself seeing some strange things before you pull out of it

I've seen the star gate thing associated with the west gate, which does make some sense. But to do any dealings with Azrael or his realms you need to conquer all fear. That's really the key of it all. If you can get past the spookies, you'll be fine.

Nietzsch E. Coyote

03:33 / 24.05.02

The Necronomicon Project

Originally hosted by Chaosmatrix now on the Wayback machine. Very interesting version of the texts.

13:15 / 25.05.02

Here's another one

http://www.sacred-texts.com/nec/necro.htm

21:57 / 25.05.02

I read the fake version which involved Colin Wilson recently - there's little 'actual' (ie faked) Necronomicon in it, but the collection of essays about the discovery and decoding of the text and Lovecraft are a great read. Some of the seals are from Waite's Ceremonial Magic, and they have Lovecraft directly quoting it.

I have to say, I'd be very surprised if it ever really existed. It doesn't really matter, anyway. It's quite Borges, really.

STOATIE LIEKS CHOCOLATE MILK

06:14 / 26.05.02

There's also a book called "The Necronomicon Files" by some people whose names I will post when I can find my copy, which traces the history of Lovecraft's "virtual tome" in literature, as well as the "real" editions doing the rounds- the Colin Wilson/George Hay one, the "Simon" one, etc.

We're The Great Old Ones Now

09:59 / 26.05.02

The only Lovecraftian world any sane person would want to enter would be the one surrounding Randolph Carter, the dreamer in 'Through the Gates of the Silver Key'. Carter is seemingly protected by the strange magic of cats. And by being a fiction suit for Lovecraft to wear within his own hideous mythos.

Other than that, Squidtastic starborn sanity-destroying monsters abound. And who needs 'em?

14:52 / 26.05.02

I'd be lost without them.

None of the Necronomicon's refered to on the page linked to by Yagg seem to be the mad-as-fuck text file one I acquired years ago and accidentally deleted. (I'm going to turn that one into an urban / internet legend if it's the last thing I do). I seem to remember I just found it through a Yahoo search or something .. but obviously it's not there now .. never got round to reading the whole thing .. the warnings and preperations before the spells were scary enough. Most of it seemed to consist of completely impronouncable 'words of power' though..

18:07 / 26.05.02

rizla it sounds as if your text file could possibly be on disk i have at home. dates from around 1985 i think and it was obviously written by a christian who wanted to scare people off, lots of stuff about how powerful this shit is as he tested it before 'he saw the light'. Annoying thing is though he leaves out what he says are 'the most dangerous sections'. like a gun without bullets or something. Lots of stuff about 'jesus power' being superior to the dark ones as well. very droll.

13:03 / 27.05.02

In an intriguing Internet document devoted to the Necronomicon, Tyagi Nagasiva places Lovecraft's potent dreamtales within the terma tradition found in the Nyingma branch of Tibetan Buddhism. Termas were "pre-mature" writings hidden by Buddhist sages for centuries until the time was ripe, at which point religious visionaries would divine their physical hiding places through omens or dreams. But some termas were revealed entirely in dreams, often couched in otherworldly Dakini scripts. An old Indian revisionary tactic (the second-century Nagarjuna was said to have discovered his Mahayana masterpieces in the serpent realm of the nagas), the terma game resolves the religious problem of how to alter a tradition without disrupting traditional authority. The famous Tibetan Book of the Dead is a terma, and so, perhaps, is the Necronomicon.

Quoted from Calling Cthulhu: H.P. Lovecraft's Magick Realism by Erik Davis

Okay, the above said, how about a Barbelith Terma-Project??

05:58 / 28.05.02

A "terma project" sounds like an interesting idea, but I'm not really certain what it would mean. Terma are "discovered" by lamas who specialize in finding such; terma (which means "treasure" in Tibetan, by the way) were frequently "hidden in the sky"...

18:05 / 28.05.02

Long ago before the Barbelith board was switched to its current system, Tom was visited by a divine vision, a manifesto so dangerous it could not be released for fear it would fall into the wrong hands. Alas, it has since been deleted in the lost archives of the Magick forum of days gone by. Perhaps when its time is ready, an archived copy saved on some unknown 'lither's hard drive will be found, leading us to a new age of enlightenment.

pointless and uncalled for

18:40 / 28.05.02

Back when I was at University in Birmingham, I used the central library whilst working on assignments. On a particularly miserable day when I had no desire to return to the great outdoors I followed a whim and asked the librarians if they had a copy of the Necronomicon.

As it turns out they did. It was an old thick tome about 70 years old, possibly more, leather and board binding and kept in what was reffered to as The Stack. The Stack was a section of the library where you could request books but were not allowed to remove them from the designated reading area and the book must be signed in and signed out.

11:52 / 29.05.02

I suppose a Barbelith Terma-Project would require a minimum of two separate magi chaps here requesting an entity to show them or to dictate them "The Barbelith Book of Spells" or "The Barbelith Book of Magick" or whatever we/they agree on the title (the book itself may be invoked if animistic approaches are preferred), trascribe what they read or are dictated to a text file here in our world's PCs and then have them compared to see if they got anything with a minimum of resemblance beyond the title. The more people the more versions we'll have and the more interesting and crazy the whole thing. Others may support the whole project.

I guess that at some point, if we get enough momentum sustained through time on the book, consistency will increase. I was involved with researching sort of an astral map in the past, which turned to be a curious geometric design a group of so called "sorcerers" had gotten as indicated by a sorcerer "at the other side". Apparently the "map" was a tool to bolt awareness to a precise "place" or configuration, whatever, linked to some furry gargoyle-like beings which thankfully I never got to see and was not in much apprehension to do so, but the map was found/revealed quite consistently and we were able to get a pretty consensual two dimensional design.

I take that termas "hidden in the sky" is a metaphor for the inaccesible, hinting to out of body experiences, but, as I said, thats only my take.

17:03 / 29.05.02

Phil Hine (author of Prime Chaos, Condensed Chaos and a bunch of other stuff, has done various workings drawn from Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos. Phil's site, Fifth Aeon Aegregore is at http://www.phhine.ndirect.co.uk/...

Check out particularly

http://www.phhine.ndirect.co.uk/archives/cthulhu.htm

Don't blame me if you come to some sort of tentacular and unspeakable end.

06:49 / 30.05.02

It's unclear (to me, anyway) how metaphorically one is to take the description of certain terma being "hidden in the sky" or "given to the dakinis" for safe-keeping. In at least one case, a scripture in the Nyingma dzogchen tradition was delivered, tiny casket and all, from above into the hands of the terten ("treasure-finder") who then propagated it...

For what it's worth, the sky is certainly used as a metaphor for the primordial state of mind in the dzogchen tradition. Dzogchen also incorporates "sky-gazing" as a meditational practice....

The Natural Way

11:00 / 30.05.02

Just as an aside: Stone Mirror, I love yr name.

14:48 / 30.05.02

Thats interesting Mirror Stone, what then is clear about the terma being "hidden in the sky" is that the paranormal must definitely intrude (as OBEs, deep meditational states, or in tiny caskets delivered in blatant synchronicity from above) for it to be revealed to normal awareness.

16:42 / 30.05.02

Back when I was at University in Birmingham, I used the central library whilst working on assignments. On a particularly miserable day when I had no desire to return to the great outdoors I followed a whim and asked the librarians if they had a copy of the Necronomicon.

As it turns out they did. It was an old thick tome about 70 years old, possibly more, leather and board binding and kept in what was reffered to as The Stack. The Stack was a section of the library where you could request books but were not allowed to remove them from the designated reading area and the book must be signed in and signed out.

May I be the first to say: yeah, right..

So what was in it then? eh? eh?

pointless and uncalled for

18:24 / 30.05.02

If you take a look at the paperback available in your average book shop then it's similar to that except it was more expansive and not geared towards the reading level if 11 year old.

As for your "yeah right" - you don't actually think for a moment that those idiots at the publishing house actually sat down and wrote the book for themselves do you? Really?

I won't claim 100% accuracy on the description, this was back in '94.

Bear in mind that soon after the writings of Lovecraft, someone could have chosen to compile an actual Necronomicon from real source material. Nobody was forced to wait for the present day. In addition to that, IIRC, some of the information contained therein corrolated with information found in The Secret Lore of Magic by Idries Shah who isn't one of these hokey Darkraven Silvermoon writers. On top of that it seems niave to discount the possibility of a real Necronomicon just because Lovecraft made up (and to what extent?) a book by the same name that was supposed to drive you insane. As I understand it, one of the primary tenets of magick is that to summon something you must know it's real name. Thus the relevance continues.

And finally, on a personal note, if I were inclined to make up a story of this kind, do you really think I would set it in the dire shithole of Brum? Seriously?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

20:47 / 30.05.02

I doubt very much that there's a "real" Necronimocon (let's face it, the fucker would be availiable from Amazon on interactive DVD with a foreword from Marilyn Manson), but that doesn't mean that Potus didn't read a Necronomicon just as he says.

I mean, Lovecraft isn't exactly a spring chicken, eh? If the book was (say) 50 or 60 yrs old it would still have come out around 20+ years after most of Lovecraft's output- plentymuch time to sling together a plausible book of forbidden lore. With strange eons, even Death may die, but cash-ins will probably be around forever.

22:59 / 30.05.02

Runs writes Just as an aside: Stone Mirror, I love yr name

Thanks! It's a translation of my Zen "dharma name". There's a story that goes with it, which I'll post someday, when I've been here long enough to start topics of my own....

23:44 / 30.05.02

The creepiest "Necronomicon" out there is a real book.

It's a portfolio by H. R. Giger and it can be found in the art section of your local bookstore.

As for what good a Necronomicon or Cthulhu magic is, it's good for creeping the shit out of yourself and those around you.

-Jesse

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