It's almost that time of year again, my favorite time October 31. Know round the world and in many different cultures and religions depending on who and where you are you might know it as Halloween, Samhain, All Hallowstide, Hallowmas, Feast of the Dead, All Saints Eve. It is the official beginning of the pegan year, a spirit night often expressed as "the veil between the worlds being its thinnest"

This is a night generally thought to be both magick and dangerious, to be approached with the reverence that a time of supernatural wonders deserves. Jack-o-lanterns, originally gourds and turnips rather than pumpkins, were used as a tool to allow travel on this night without mischievous interfearence from spirits of faeries along with their present use as spells for protection at enterences to homes from the dead said to walk on this night. All the traditional Halloween customs - bobbing for apples, dressing in costume, trick or treat, ghost stories, etc. have roots in the old ways.

Observances on this night and the next day Nov 1st, All Saints Day, focus on homage to those loved or influential who have passed to the other side along with protection from unwanted attention from the recently dead, evil spirits and demons. Experenced witches may also pratice necromantic rites. What do you pratice on Oct 31st or Nov 1st? Please leave your comments on what it means to you and any holiday folklore you might know.

I have added a Halloween greeting, pic and poem for everyone on my profile page. I am on dial up in the haunted forests of Tennessee and unable to send you guys comments as I would like to. Only those pages with minimal graphics will open on my computer so I hope this finds all you guys who have been so kind and thoughtfull always leaving me comments, and taking the time to send well wishes during my struggle. You know who you are, so know you are thought of and check out the Halloween poem in my images, its for you!

Sincerely~Rowan

Tags: Halloween Dead Religion Tradition Samhain

0 comments View Entry

I am posting this blog to hopefully clear up the assumptions that the Necronomicon is a real book full of spells leading you to the gates of Hell and with the ability to summon deamons and causing death to all who dare open its pages. Also I hope to clear up the mistaken thought that the Necronomicon is, or it is part of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. I will speak most here on the Necronomicon and post a article later on the Egyptian Book of the Dead and its similarities to concepts in the christian Bible. Please dont bother to respond with hate comments or telling me I am bound for hell this article is for educational purposes only, and while I do believe in Heaven and Hell and sundry demons this article is to dispell myth from fact.

I was once one of those people who was scared to pull the Necronomicon from the shelf of my local book store for fear of what was inside. The only object of this blog is to spread the truth and information. Below you will find clickable links to all information and I would like to say a special thanks to Wikipedia and Dan Clore. I Highly recomend checking out his website at and this essay on the Necronomicon fact and fiction surrounding it.

I have both books and while there are similar aspects they are deffinately not the same book one is fiction while the other is nonfiction. The Egyptian Book of the Dead { heiroglyphic transcript and translation into english of the Ancient Egyptian Papyrus of Ani } by E. A. Wallis Budge, who was the keeper of Egyptian and Assyrian Antiquities at the British Museum, is over 700 pages while the Necronomicon is less than pages. The Book of the Dead is full of funeral rites and spells to safely conduct the spirit into the next life while the Necronomicon is a story of the fictional character Abdul Alhazazred created by American horror writer H. P. Lovecraft.

Abdul Alhazazred is the so-called "Mad Arab " credited with authoring the imaginary book Kitab al-Azif (the Necronomicon), and as such an integral part of Cthulhu Mythos lore.

The name Necronomicon was coined by H.P. Lovecraft. He stated in
a letter that the name occurred to him in the course of a dream, and
there is no reason to doubt this. As no occurrence of the term has been
found that predates Lovecraft's usage of it, and as all later uses can
be traced back to his, he was certainly the sole source of the title.

Lovecraft was often asked about the veracity of the Necronomicon, and always answered that it was completely his invention. In a letter to Willis Conover, Lovecraft elaborated upon his typical answer:

Now about the “terrible and forbidden books” — I am forced to say that most of them are purely imaginary. There never was any Abdul Alhazred or Necronomicon, for I invented these names myself. Robert Bloch devised the idea of Ludvig Prinn and his De Vermis Mysteriis, while the Book of Eibon is an invention of Clark Ashton Smith's. Robert E. Howard is responsible for Friedrich von Junzt and his Unaussprechlichen Kulten....
As for seriously-written books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes
— in all truth they don’t amount to much. That is why it’s more fun to
invent mythical works like the Necronomicon and Book of Eibon.

Reinforcing the book's fictionality, the name of the book's supposed
author, Abdul Alhazred, is not even a grammatically correct Arabic name.
The name "Abdul" simply means "the worshiper/slave of...". Standing
alone, it would make no sense, as Alhazred is not a last name in the
Western sense, but a reference to a person's place of birth.

Other authors such as August Derleth and Clark Ashton Smith
also cited it in their works; Lovecraft approved, believing such common
allusions built up "a background of evil verisimilitude." Many readers
have believed it to be a real work, with booksellers and librarians
receiving many requests for it; pranksters have listed it in rare book
catalogues, and a student smuggled a card for it into the Yale University Library's card catalog.

Capitalizing on the notoriety of the fictional volume, real-life publishers have printed many books entitled Necronomicon since Lovecraft's death.

The Necronomicon is mentioned in a number of Lovecraft's short stories and in his novellas At the Mountains of Madness and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward.
However, despite frequent references to the book, Lovecraft was very
sparing of details about its appearance and contents. He once wrote
that "if anyone were to try to write the Necronomicon, it would disappoint all those who have shuddered at cryptic references to it."

Historical "Books of the Dead", such as the ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead or the Tibetan Bardo Thodol, are sometimes described as "real Necronomicons." They should not be confused with the Lovecraft Necronomicon,
since their contents are meant to be read to and remembered by the
dead, rather than to be used by the living to summon the dead.
Lovecraft may have been inspired by these books.

So while there are many individul theorys about these books one should to do proper reserch to before believing the Neconomicon is a nonfictional book able to summon demons. There are also other Neconomicons

In 1973, Owlswick Press issued an edition of the Necronomicon
written in an indecipherable, apparently fictional language known as
"Duriac." This was a limited edition of 348. The book contains a brief introduction by L. Sprague de Camp.

The line between fact and fiction was further blurred in the late
1970s when a book purporting to be a translation of the "real
Necronomicon" was published. This book, by the pseudonymic "Simon," had
little connection to the fictional Lovecraft Mythos but instead was based on Sumerian mythology. It was later dubbed the "Simon Necronomicon."
Going into trade paperback in 1980 it has never been out of print and
has sold 800,000 copies by 2006 making it the most popular Necronomicon to date. Despite its contents the book's marketing focused heavily on the
Lovecraft connection and made sensational claims made for the book's
magical power. The blurb states it was "potentially, the most dangerous
Black Book known to the Western World". Three additional volumes have
since been published — The Necronomicon Spellbook, a book of pathworkings with the 50 names of Marduk, Dead Names: The Dark History of the Necronomicon, a history of the book itself and of the late 1970s New York occult scene, and The Gates Of The Necronomicon, instructions on pathworking with the Simon Necronomicon.

A hoax version of the Necronomicon, edited by George Hay, appeared in 1978 and included an introduction by the paranormal researcher and writer Colin Wilson. David Langford described how the book was prepared from a computer analysis of a discovered "cipher text" by Dr. John Dee. The resulting "translation" was in fact written by occultist Robert Turner,
but it was far truer to the Lovecraftian version than the Simon text
and even incorporated quotations from Lovecraft's stories in its
passages.

With the success of the Simon Necronomicon the controversy
surrounding the actual existence of the Necronomicon was such that a
detailed book The Necronomicon Files
was published in 1998 attempting to prove once and for all the book was
pure fiction. It covered the well-known Necronomicons in depth,
especially the Simon one, along with a number of more obscure ones. It
was reprinted and expanded in 2003.

In 2004, Necronomicon: The Wanderings of Alhazred, by occultist Donald Tyson, was published by Llewellyn Worldwide.
The Tyson Necronomicon is generally thought to be closer to Lovecraft's
vision than other published versions. Donald Tyson has clearly stated
that the Necronomicon is fictional, but that has not prevented his book
from being the center of some controversy So go to Wikipedia and check the rest for yourself below are some additional fictional necromonicons.

The DeCamp-Scithers Necronomicon.

The Wilson-Hay-Turner-Langford Necronomicon.

The Simon Necronomicon.

The Gregorius Necronomicon.

The Quine Necronomicon.

The Ripel Necronomicon.

The Perez-Vigo Necronomicon.

The Lin Carter Necronomicon.

The H.R. Giger Necronomicon.

The Necronomicon Project.

The Charles Pace Necronominon.

Primary sources along with Widipedia

• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1985). in S. T. Joshi (ed.): At the Mountains of Madness and Other Novels, 7th corrected printing, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-038-6. Definitive version.
  
  • The Case of Charles Dexter Ward
  • "The Statement of Randolph Carter"
  
  
• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1986). in S. T. Joshi (ed.): Dagon and Other Macabre Tales, 9th corrected printing, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-039-4. Definitive version.
  
  • "The Festival"
  • "The Hound"
  • "The Nameless City"
  
  
• Lovecraft, Howard P. (1984). in S. T. Joshi (ed.): The Dunwich Horror and Others, 9th corrected printing, Sauk City, WI: Arkham House. ISBN 0-87054-037-8. Definitive version.
  
  • "The Dunwich Horror"
  
  
• Lovecraft, Howard P. A History of The Necronomicon. West Warwick, RI: Necronomicon Press. ISBN 0-318-04715-2.

Secondary sources

• Joshi, S. T.; David E. Schultz (2001). An H. P. Lovecraft Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-31578-7.
• "Wildside/Owlswick Necronomicon" (2006-12-19). Retrieved on March 3, 2007.
• Hill, Gary (2006). The Strange Sound of Cthulhu: Music Inspired by the Writings of H. P. Lovecraft. Music Street Journal. ISBN 978-1-84728-776-2.
• Petersen, Sandy; Lynn Willis, Keith Herber, William Workman, William Hamblin, Mark Morrison, Lee Gibbons (1994). Call of Cthulhu. Chaosium Inc.. ISBN 0-933635-86-9.

External links

• "History of the Necronomicon", by H. P. Lovecraft
• "The Wikinomicon", an online Necronomicon that anyone can edit.

Tags: Demonology Demons Books Hell Fiction Lovecraft Necronomicon Devil Satan Abd

6 comments View Entry