Just curious how many people know the truth.

Depends, really. If you're using the "Necronomicon" as tool to summon up Cthulhu, you've bought into the H.P. Lovecraft story a little to hard. Abdul Alhazred never even existed, and in fact his name means absolutely nothing if you try to translate the Arabic..That's because Lovecraft made it up..
The Necronomicon you see in bookstores however seems to be a loosely translated version of Sumerian/Babylonian religious ceremonys' and exorcisms.
Sort of like a Bible for a dead religion. I couldn't possibly begin to say how accurate of a portrayal of thier religious rites it is though..

No not really. The trash paper back is a badly written hoax based on a series of practical jokes. It porclaims its Sumerian in origins(yet Marduk is considered the cheif deity according to the book which came during Babylon no Sumeria) yet the text is largely in contradiction with ANY traditional magick system let alone one from either culture(ie neither babylonians or Sumerians conjured or directly dealt with those spirits they considered demons, and both groups included a circle of warding in many rituals some almost never mentioned in this hoax). There are also specific aspects of the rituals deliberately designed to be contradictory(ie using herbs that exorcise demons to conjure them). I'd suggest reading the excelent book "The Necronomicon Files" for a detailed discrediting of the Simon hoax.

okay-this one is too silly not to respond-if you read up on lovecraft-he came up with the name based on a list of kings and pharoahs in the egyptian book of the dead. abdul alhazred is a name he used for himself in a childhood fantasy. there are at least two biographies which feature all of this info.the current "hoax" version admits it is a phoney in the beginning, although the authors claim that the spells are "real", and they warn that what can be conjured with them might not be returnable.hahaha.

Yes that would be the truth. Just curious how many people buy into the hoax.

I remember one thread about this.. and one guy was *ADAMENT* that the book was real and that all this spooky stuff started to happen to him after he read it...

And I mean the one Lovecraft made up...

And well.. I banged my head pleanty of times on my desk during that whole thing..


PS Hello all I hath missed you! ;P

If a real Necronomicon(as the one Lovecraft wrote of he never actually wrote a Necronomicon in fact he emphaticly stated he would never do that in several letters) existed it probably would make a persons life miserable if they choose to get it. IF nothing else they'd have religious zealots, historians and occultists desperate to get there hands on it.

I've always found it entertaining how silly the idea Lovecraft would hide the true existence of the book from the world is. In many private letters he makes it painfully obvious he was a materialist. He held the belief in the supernatural in contempt and it seems unlikely he would have cared enough to lie about the Necronomicon being a fictional creation. Its also funny that while no evidence exists he met the far more infamous Aleister Crowley he was aware of him and commented on the fact he considered him a degenerate fool(kinda puts down the idea the two were in cahoots).

There really should be another option: "I don't know/unsure".

I'm not really knowledgeable in this area, so here's my vote..... "I don't know".