The Truth About H.P. Lovecraft's Necronomicon
His Creation Ranks With Bigfoot, Atlantis and Elvis Sightings
Jul 21, 2009
Even during his lifetime, Lovecraft had to disabuse occultists who insisted on the reality of his creations, especially his famous forbidden book, the Necronomicon. In a letter to Margaret Sylvester, dated January 13, 1934, he wrote:
"Regarding the Necronomicon—I must confess that this monstrous & abhorred volume is merely a figment of my own imagination! Inventing horrible books is quite a pastime among devotees of the weird,"
Today, the cause has been taken up by, among others, S. T. Joshi, noted Lovecraft scholar and biographer, and Dan Clore, whose Necronomicon web page offers "everything you ever wanted to know about the Necronomicon..but weren't afraid enough to know better than to ask."
Hoax and Spoof Necronomicons
Clore relates that in addition to its popularity among writers and filmmakers, the Necronomicon has inspired numerous hoaxes over the years: booksellers advertising it in the back pages of their lists, entries in the library card catalogue at Yale and Berkley, casual inclusion in bibliographies, and so on.
There have also been numerous 'translations' of the original, some admitted spoofs, others claiming authenticity even when they contradict Lovecraft's own quotes and descriptions. The so-called Simon Necronomicon, a mixture of various Sumerian texts and elements from August Derleth's extension of Lovecraft's concepts, has been in print for over thirty years; in 2007, The Necronomicon Ritual by Kuriakos claimed to have edited down the 'original' text to present the simple rituals for summoning the Elder Gods (who are another Derelth creation) and in 2008, Donald Tyson's Grimoire of the Necronomicon appeared as an original system of ritual magic 'based' on Lovecraft's fiction.
That the argument continues is a tribute to Lovecraft's creative gifts, and his insistence on the semblance of verisimilitude in horror fiction; ironically, these are also the foundation of the controversy.
But what exactly is the Necronomicon, or, more correctly, what is it supposed to be?
The Origin of the Necronomicon
In his 1921 story, "The Nameless City," Lovecraft introduced the 'mad Arab,' Abdul Alhazred and quotes a couplet, "That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons even death may die."
Abdul Alhazred, which is not even a correct Arabic name, was the name Lovecraft used as a child when acting out fantasies inspired by his reading of the Arabian Nights.
It isn't until "The Hound" (1922) that we find out Alhazred is the supposed author of the Necronomicon, as the narrator spies something that "we recognised... as the thing hinted of in the forbidden Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred; the ghastly soul-symbol of the corpse-eating cult of inaccessible Leng, in Central Asia." The Greek title came to Lovecraft in a dream; Joshi translates it as "Book Concerning the Dead," and believes the name was derived from a Latin astronomy book, Astronomicon, which Lovecraft had read.
The couplet, today the most famous quotation from the dread, forbidden book, wasn't attributed to the Necronomicon until "The Call of Cthulhu" in 1926.
Less well-known is that Lovecraft created other forbidden and frightening texts such as the Pnakotic manuscripts, Cultes des Goules, and The Seven Cryptical Books of Hsan, and many more were added by members of the Lovecraft Circle. The Necronomicon, however, remained the favorite.
As Lovecraft developed his notion of realistic touches to augment his fiction, he began to include the Necronomicon in other stories, sometimes in a list of occult books that actually existed. In one of the stories he revised for a client, "The Last Test" (1927) by Adolphe de Castro, Lovecraft created an Arabic name for the book, Al Azif. The title refers to the sounds of insects at night, thought to be the howling of demons.
Lovecraft's crowning detail was his "History of the Necronomicon,"(1927), in which he detailed the various translations and suppressions of the book after Alhazred wrote it in the early 8th century. The history was only written for use by himself and his friends, and wasn't published until after his death in 1937. However, it has given some credence to the idea that the 'fiend-inspired book' is real.
As friends and fellow weird fiction writers like Clark Ashton Smith and Robert E, Howard began to include the book in their own stories, the idea that the Necronomicon was an actual book, referenced separately by different authors in the way they might mention the Bhagavad Gita or the Greater Key of Solomon, began to take hold.
The Necronomicon Lives On
L. Sprague de Camp, a noted genre author in his own right. wrote a spoof Necronomicon in 1973; five years later, Colin Wilson contributed to another version, edited by George Hay. Both are admittedly fictional.
In 1972, a disciple of Aleister Crowly 'revealed' that the infamous magician shared Lovecraft's knowledge of the Necronomicon , that the book resided on the astral plane, in the Akashic records. One might access the information via the correct rituals or dreams.
The Simon Necronomicon has been the most popular "real" version of the book to date, first appearing in the late 1970s. Claiming to be the "most dangerous Black Book in the world," it relies less on Lovecraft than on Derleth's conception of Lovecraft's pseudo-mythology. It does include quotes and names Lovecraft attributed to the book, though they are often misspelled or garbled.
In 1998, seeking to set the record straight regarding 'translations' of the Necronomicon, Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce III wrote The Necronomicon Files, collecting all the evidence against the idea of its being a real book; the authors updated it in 2003.
Unfortunately, as with other iconic fringe staples like Bigfoot, conspiracy theories, and sightings of dead rock and roll stars, refutation of spurious facts and denial of questionable evidence is often seen as proof of the object they are directed against.
In the end, Lovecraft achieved one of his greatest and lasting creations in the hellish, despised yet forever tempting Necronomicon ....whether he knew it or not.
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