The Necronomicon

[TheVeryFirstDinosaur]

Well, could they? Ancient books that dive deeps into the depths of strong beliefs of witchcraft, dark magic, and summoning beings? I know The Necronomicon was a fictional book created in the mind of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, but.. come on. The idea of such books existing in our really isn't that easy to disregard.

[TheVeryFirstDinosaur]

GODDAMMIT. Would a mod please move this to the correct location? I don't beleive that it belongs in Cryptozoology. Thank you.

Edited November 1, 2010 by Shrine Builder

[Mr.United_Nations]

Ah but it is a myth lol

[Bracket]

The only book that comes to my mind is the codex gigas.

Edited November 1, 2010 by Bracket

[TwilightSilver]

I would suggest as well that a mod move this from the crypto forum.

Good post though Shrine. There is the "Goetia" as well as the "Key of Solomon" among many other books that seem to be where you're going with this. Although Lovecraft's "Necronomicon" is a work of fiction, there are many works of what most people consider "fiction". In the end, it's all up to a person's interpretation of the text. I'm sure there are many more ancient texts yet undiscovered.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Well there are texts people consider fiction, and then there are works where the person we know wrote the work considers it fiction.

Guess which camp the Necronomicon falls into?

But of course, I hear you say, he'd say that so noone believes the truth or the terrible unnamable things don't hunt him down and have their eldricht and squarmious ways with him.

[j b]

GODDAMMIT. Would a mod please move this to the correct location? I don't beleive that it belongs in Cryptozoology. Thank you.

ROFL i about feel outta my seat when i read this one... appreciate the laugh

[E. L. Wisty]

TwilightSilver is correct - the Key of Solomon is the nearest equivalent to the Necronomicon that actually exists. The Goetia, or Lesser Key of Solomon, is the same book, or rather, the part of it that deals specifically with demon-summoning. The Greater Key of Solomon is the rest of the book minus the really controversial bit, and is "Greater" in the sense of being morally on a higher plane, and also considerably thicker. Incidentally, Lovecraft was fairly well versed in traditional occult beliefs - his standard reference text was "The Encyclopedia of the Occult" by Lewis Spence (I believe it's still in print). Therefore he presumably knew of the Key, and based his fictional book on it to some extent, though I have no idea whether he ever actually saw a copy - they were still quite hard to come by in those days. I've read quite extensively in this field, and I think it's safe to say that Lovecraft probably hadn't actually read most of the "abominable" works he places on the bookshelves of fictitious evil sorcerers (obviously I'm only referring to real books here) - he probably just went by the brief and often biased summaries in Spence's work (though I'm puzzled that none of his baddies ever owned a copy of "The Queen of the Hairy Flies"; I've never read that one, but Spence mentions it, and it sounds fairly shunned and abhorrent to me). I was once told that according to the rules of the game "The Call of Cthulhu", my own bookshelf instantly gained me 6 insanity points - and that was just the ones that were in the rulebook because HPL mentioned them!

Anyway, the Key of Solomon is generally reckoned to be a corrupted version of a book which probably predated Christ by several centuries (making it about 1000 years older than Abdul al Hazred's masterpiece). Almost all other medieval grimoires of proven antiquity also seem to be traceable to this original work, with varying degrees of distortion having crept in. Basically, the point is that the long-lost original Key was in Hebrew. Pre-Christian magic of this type seems to have been fairly popular among the Jews, though very heavily frowned upon in orthodox religious terms, and in some cases punishable by death. Still, spending a bit of gold on something, legal or otherwise, which will allegedly give you everything you've ever wanted is always a tempting offer (otherwise 90% of the internet wouldn't exist). The custom was for the authors, who probably didn't believe a word of it but knew a thing or two about human nature, to attribute the authorship to somebody incredibly wise, awesome and Jewish who had been safely dead for a very long time - one of the earliest known examples of hype. Therefore almost all of these books were allegedly written by either Solomon or Moses.

Problems arose after the Diaspora. Basically, by the time the Middle Ages kicked in, if you were Jewish, you had enough problems already, and you'd have to be raving mad to run any risk of additionally being suspected of witchcraft, so at a very early stage the Jews disassociated themselves from this kind of magic so successfully that in the end it became an exclusively Christian preoccupation. Of course, by that time plenty of gullible gentiles had obtained no doubt ludicrously expensive copies of this wondrous book. Since it was never officially printed until quite recently, and clandestine copyists are not the most reliable, especially if they're transcribing a poorly-understood Hebrew text into Latin on behalf of somebody a bit mad who can't read Hebrew either, the texts became seriously corrupted very quickly, and later copies confused matters further by adding all manner of extraneous material, including herbalism, random scientific curiosities, European superstitions and folklore, and stuff the author just made up to pad it out.

As a rule of thumb, look at the illustrations. In a fairly non-corrupt grimoire, the magic circles will feature no representational drawings at all (this being directly contrary to orthodox Judaism), and the text in the circle will be in recognisable Hebrew letters, even if they've gone a bit tadpoley because the copyist can't read them. In later editions, every bit of text will be Latin, usually quoting the Bible or listing random holy names in an attempt to make the whole business seem a bit less dubious. Also, anything with "Solomon" or "Moses" in the title tends to be older and less corrupt than second-generation grimoires that drop the Jewish connection entirely (of which The Sworn Book of Honorius is probably the least childish; also, it's fun that it was supposedly written by a very naughty Pope).

And that, basically, is the nearest you will ever get to reading a real-life Necronomicon. Unless of course you believe those New Age claims of books channelled from Atlantis by some fat lady in California who wants us to love each other so much that we don't need money any more and we can send it all to her. There are of course older Egyptian books of magic, but they were at the time religiously orthodox, so they don't have that air of surreptitious wickedness about them that a truly Lovecraftean text requires.

Not that I'm suggesting for one moment that any of this nonsense actually works, or ever did. But if you're interested, most of the classic grimoires can be read online here.

Oriel Seraphim Io Potesta! Zati Zata! Galatim Galata! (If you know what I'm quoting, promote yourself from Sorcerer"s Apprentice to One Who Knows Too Much.)

PS - For a more modern but equally logical view of the world, click the red words below...

[TheVeryFirstDinosaur]

But of course, I hear you say, he'd say that so noone believes the truth or the terrible unnamable things don't hunt him down and have their eldricht and squarmious ways with him.

Hot.

But, thanks for info everyone. I'm defiantly going to dive deep into some research on the "Key of Solomon"

[E. L. Wisty]

Since this whole topic is being taken a little bit more seriously by some people than it is by me, I think a couple of guidelines might be useful here (I myself don't consider this necessary because I don't think this stuff works; but if you do, they may be very useful indeed). The thing you have to remember is that you are dealing with a text originally written in Ancient Hebrew. That's important, because that particular language had no vowels. Obviously if you haven't invented printing yet but are already desirous of mass-producing fairly long books such as the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament), writing everything in shorthand is a useful way of minimising the considerable labour involved. The only problem is that if you aren't familiar with a word, it's impossible to guess how to pronounce it, especially if it's a name (which is why a Greek translator transformed the perfectly feasible Jewish name of Yeshua into the downright alien Jesus).

On the other hand, consider this. The old-time Jewish magicians took it for granted that every single letter of the Torah was divinely inspired - you will find similar beliefs among hard-line Muslims and even harder-line Christians today. The big difference is that, because Ancient Hebrew, being entirely devoid of vowels, made anagrams ridiculously easy, these fellows got the idea that every conceivable facet of attainable wisdom is contained in the Torah, if you only know the formula to rearrange those divinely appointed characters in various levels of new meaning. Given the number of mathematical variables involved, technically they're right - I refer you to a South American writer called Borges for further reflections on this and similar subjects.

But anyway, here we have the basis of the Kabbala. For historical reasons, this became an entirely esoteric spiritual discipline. Indeed, there are Jewish legends of Kabbalistic Rabbis who studied the subject with such dedication that they achieved godlike power, the catch being that in order to attain this level of understanding of the mind of God, they had to be so enlightened that to use this power for any base purpose - even to save their own lives - would be inconceivable to them. Essentially we are talking about Jewish Zen.

And then of course we have the inevitable malcontents - the half-smart guys who just wanted to get rich or laid or what have you. Remember that unless you've heard an Ancient Hebrew name spoken, you have no idea how to pronounce it. This particularly applies to the name of God, the so-called Tetragrammaton. represented in Ancient Hebrew by JHVH (I could have done that properly, but finding the Hebrew keyboard I haven't invoked since my last debate about Transfinity over a year ago is too much hassle, so if you seriously want to dwell on it, evoke your own typeface!). This has been variously supposed to be pronounced "Yod He Va He", "Jehovah", or "Yahweh", but all of these miss the point. If you're seriously Jewish, you don't attempt to pronounce it at all. That's the whole point - God's Holy Name is an integral part of God (in the beginning was the Word), therefore if you can pronounce it exactly right, you are temporarily God. You can imagine why orthodox Jews frowned upon this. And why unorthodox Jews (and everybody else) found the concept intriguing...

Which brings us back to Solomon. Essentially the wisest, most intelligent, and all round awesome Jew who ever lived, he was obliged to surrender his crown to upstart challenger Moses on account of certain irregularities in the final round (raising the dead - that sort of thing). But the fact remains that, however holy Moses was, Solomon created the original One Ring To Rule Them All, and proved its usefulness by binding 72 demons to his will. And that's what the Lesser Key will tell you - precisely how to summon those very same 72 demons and control them once they get here.

The astute observer will have noticed by now that I have stressed the mathematical precision of the Jewish method of summoning such entities, and the corrupt nature of every non-Jewish translation, which is every single translation for about 1500 years. If the occultists are right, you take your life in your hands every time you invoke one of these entities, and ultimately rather more than your life. However, it should be noted that the original Jewish magical guidelines render any blood sacrifice, including self-mutilation, not only pointless but spiritually abhorrent and self-defeating.

Boys and girls, if you must attempt this, hurting anybody at all proves nothing except a childish desire for personal recognition which the entities you are trying to invoke are profoundly indifferent to. Of course, once you've got their attention...

Well, I gave you the link in my previous post on this thread. The surviving occult wisdom I've been talking about is right there. Seriously! That's yer lot!

[+DieChecker]

Well, could they? Ancient books that dive deeps into the depths of strong beliefs of witchcraft, dark magic, and summoning beings? I know The Necronomicon was a fictional book created in the mind of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, but.. come on. The idea of such books existing in our really isn't that easy to disregard.

Don't read those books if you value your Sanity Points.

Seriously, such books definately exist, as long as Man has been writing things down, there have been people who wanted to write down their ceremonys and their belief systems. Supposedly the Egyptian Books of the Dead were the basis of Lovecrafts idea about the Necronomicon.

[Ozner]

It's not an entire evil book or anything, but I have heard of people claiming to have the Devil's signature. There was a specific case of a monk or something in the middle ages who claimed to have seen the Devil, and that the Devil wrote something down for him in an unknown language.

[Eric Kiln]

Well I suppose if you were to believe in it enough it could become "real" to you and results may follow.

There may in fact be a real one yet undiscovered by the masses but I feel it is more likely that such things may not be in a book but handed down verbally.

[Paranormalcy]

Other books mentioned by Lovecraft exist, such as the Golden Bough, and various Books of the Dead for different cultures, end there's even a King in Yellow (friend tried to buy it from Arcturus Books but they never sent it) but that is likely also a post-Lovecraftian fictional cash-in like the Necronomicon. I owned a $4.00 paperback Necronomicon with a stylized pentagram on the front and a forward by Alestair Crowley, and I thought it was neat, and definitely a great addition to anyone's collection, but I tried to read the Golden Bough and it was pretty "thick" and not very interesting to me, but maybe I wasn't in the right frame of mind. I don't think any of these things do anything to one's sanity.

[TheVeryFirstDinosaur]

While I highly doubt reading any such books would lead to even a mild case of insanity..

There's something about the idea of "challenging your sanity" that sounds fun.

[Pauly Dangerously]

I'm just gonna go ahead and file a formal "No" here. There are no magical texts that bestow a reader with magic abilities and hidden universal knowledge. As the old saying goes, "The power has always been with the oracle/priest, not the gods." All the mystic knowledge and powers were just a way for people who wanted (and I would venture still do) power over people. The old "Do as I say because otherwise you will be punised! So says the great book!" The keeper of the old knowledge has always been a powerful figure. And all those supposed ancient texts were just a way for an otherwise ordinary man/woman to become like a king/queen. It's all crap, IMHO.

[Sir Wearer of Hats]

Dunno about "challenging sanity", but there's a few stories Lovecraft wrote that kept me up at night (Rats in the Walls + possums in the roof = sleepless night).

[SolarPlexus]

Well, could they? Ancient books that dive deeps into the depths of strong beliefs of witchcraft, dark magic, and summoning beings? I know The Necronomicon was a fictional book created in the mind of Howard Phillips Lovecraft, but.. come on. The idea of such books existing in our really isn't that easy to disregard.

Could the Necronomicon exist? Could similar books exist?

Well grimoires exist and the Necronomicon is basicaly a Sumerian grimoire.

[svenshoegazer]

My girlfriend and her bestfriend are practicing Wiccans. I have been to two rituals gatherings, one at the beginning of fall and then Samhain. They didn't use any grimores as I could see, but they did speak chants that I didn't understand. I know my girlfriend has tons of spell books but I don't believe they are anything like idea of "The Necronmicon". But I haven't asked her, I let her believe what she believes and I keep being agnostic. From the stuff I have witnessed though it is all very positive and all that we are the children of Mother Earth kind of ideaism. Not that New Age kind ideaism I guess, but more the way of old before the big religions became mistranslated, distorted by the greedy and well pretty unkind to people that believed in Magic.

Edited November 3, 2010 by svenshoegazer

[BaronHunt]

The only thing I can think of is Key of Solomon, that's been mentioned. It's pretty famous.

[xYlvax]

I've already a troubled sanity, and even if H.P. Lovecraft were to make it worse, they're still on my long list of books to read before I die.

[Agent X]

The Kabbala comes to mind..

[Cybele]

I own a copy of a rather useless book called the "Necronomicon". It basically contains a bunch of spells to summon Sumerian gods and goddesses (and demons) through various "gates". It very closely resembles the medieval and renaissance grimoires, such as the Keys of Solomon.

[Black Hound]

As H.P.L. wrote them, I seriously doubt such a work of art has ever existed, outside the fabeled "tales of Solomon", as cited in the O.T. Aside from H.P. admitting to such, in several of his collections,they do make interesting "yarns" never-the-less but I'd not put not put much stock in them.

Edited November 21, 2010 by Graveyard Hound

[SolarPlexus]

I wouldnt **** around with sumerian gods