Path: Supernews70!Supernews73!supernews.com!newsfeed.wli.net!pingflood.geo.net!news.onlynews.com!not-for-mail Message-ID: <3586D173.1979@columbia-center.org> From: Dan Clore Organization: The Nation of the Third Eye X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.0 (Win95; I) MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.magick.tyagi,alt.magick,alt.horror.cthulhu,alt.necronomicon,alt.pagan.magick,alt.evil Subject: Re: On _The Necronomicon_ (LONG) References: <6m6hhn$1ir$1@shell.accesscom.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Lines: 100 Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 20:06:54 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.36.168.75 NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 13:06:54 PDT Xref: Supernews70 alt.magick.tyagi:15984 alt.magick:149982 alt.horror.cthulhu:39874 alt.necronomicon:6280 alt.pagan.magick:10598 alt.evil:169252 ny'rl'thot'p wrote: > > This article has been reprinted without permission from: > > "Encyclopedia of Occultism and Parapsychology, 2nd Ed." > > Necronomicon, The Well, let's see: > A fabled grimoire or textbook of black magic for evoking demons, > supposedly compiled by the "mad Arab Abdul Alhazred"-in fact, an > invention of H.P. Lovecraft, writer of supernatural and fantasy fiction. > The name "Abdul Alhazred" was adopted playfully by Lovecraft around the > age of five, after reading an edition of The Arabian Nigths, and was used > in later life in Lovecraft's fiction. It may also contain a reference to > the name "Hazard," an old Rhode Island family. HPL was related to some Hazards (maternal uncle?). > In 1936, Actually, in 1926. > Lovecraft wrote a pseudo-scholarly essay titled A > History of the Necronomicon, which claimed that its original title was Al > Azif, deriving from the word used by Arabs to designate nocturnal sound > of insects resembling the howling of demons. A bit of misinformation deriving from the notes to Beckford's Vathek. > There followed an account > of various editions of the Necronomicon from A.D. 730 onwards. Lovecraft > had claimed that there was a copy of the work in the library of > Miskatonic University, in Arkham (a city invented by him in his fiction). > Lovecraft's essay was published in leaflet form by Wilson H. Shephard, > Alabama, 1938, and has since been reprinted. The Necronomicon was cited > in various stories by Lovecraft, and gradually acquired a spurious life > of its own. Someone inserted an index card for the book in the files of > Yale Library. A New York bookseller could not resist inserting an entry > for a Latin edition in one of his sale catalogs. > > Eventually a group of writers and researchers headed by occult > scholar Colin Wilson solemnly presented The Necronomicon : The Book of > Dead Names as a newly discovered lost masterpiece of occult literature. > In an introduction to this publication, Wilson suggested that Lovecraft's > invention may have had some substance in fact, perhaps revealed through > Lovecraft's subconsious mind. Wilson told a story as fabulous as that > of the origin of Golden Dawn cipher manuscript, concerning a Dr. > Stanislaus Hinterstoisser, president of the Salzburg Institute for the > Study of Magic and Occult Phenomena, who claimed that Lovecraft's father > was an Egyptian Freemason, Fictional, but his grandfather had founded a Masonic lodge -- Yes, it was kind old benevolent Whipple Phillips who introduced little Howard to the Book of Hell! > that he had seen a copy of The Necronomicon in > Boston, U.S. (where Lovecraft senior had worked), which was a section of > a book by Alkindi (died A.D. 850) known as The Book of the Essence of the > Soul. > > Science-fiction writer L. Sprague de Camp (who published an > excellent biography of Lovecraft in 1975) Now superseded by Joshi's biography. > is said to have acquired an > Arabic manuscript from Baghdad titled Al Azif. This was just a bit of fun, as DeCamp himself admitted. > The British occultist > Robert Turner, after researching in the British Museum Library, claimed > that the Alkindi work was known to the famous magician John Dee > (1527-1608) who had a copy in cipher manuscript. This book, known as > Liber Logaeth, was recently examined by computer analysis, and so The > Necronomicon : The Book of Dead Names has now been published, edited by > George Hay, introduced by Colin Wilson, researched by Robert Turner and > David Langford (Neville Spearman, U.K., 1978; Corgi paperback, 1980). > > No doubt other recensions of The Necronomicon will be discovered > in the course of time. Meanwhile, librarians need no longer be > embarressed by requests for this elusive work. Not too bad, all in all. -- --------------------------------------------------- Dan Clore The Website of Lord We˙rdgliffe: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/index.html Welcome to the Waughters.... The Dan Clore Necronomicon Page: http://www.geocities.com/SoHo/9879/necpage.htm Because the true mysteries cannot be profaned.... "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn!"