Lovecraft, H P - The Necronomicon (Simon Version)

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The Complete Simon
Necronomicon
INTRODUCTION
IN THE MID - 1920's, roughly two blocks from where the Warlock Shop once stood, in
Brooklyn Heights, lived a quiet, reclusive man, an author of short stories, who eventually
divorced his wife of two years and returned to his boyhood home in Rhode Island, where
he lived with his two aunts. Born on August 20, 1890, Howard Phillips Lovecraft would
come to exert an impact on the literary world that dwarfs his initial successes with Weird
Tales magazine in 1923. He died, tragically, at the age of 46 on March 15, 1937, a victim
of cancer of the intestine and Bright's Disease. Though persons of such renown as
Dashiell Hammett were to become involved in his work, anthologising it for publication
both here an abroad, the reputation of a man generally conceded to be the "Father of
Gothic Horror" did not really come into its own until the past few years, with the massive
re-publication of his works by various houses, a volume of his selected letters, and his
biography. In the July, 1975, issue The Atlantic Monthly, there appeared a story entitled
"There Are More Things", written by Jorge Luis Borges, "To the memory of H.P.
Lovecraft". This gesture by a man of the literary stature of Borges is certainly an
indication that Lovecraft has finally ascended to his rightful place in the history of
American literature, nearly forty years after his death.
In the same year that Lovecraft found print in the pages of Weird Takes, another
gentleman was seeing his name in print; but in the British tabloid press.
NEW SINISTER REVELATIONS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY read the front page of
the Sunday Express. It concerned testimony by one of the notorious magician's former
followers (or, actually, the wife of one of his followers) that Crowley had been
responsible for the death of her husband, at the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalu, Sicily. The
bad press, plus the imagined threat of secret societies, finally forced Mussolini to deport
the Great Beast from Italy. Tales of horrors filled the pages of the newspapers in England
for weeks and months to come: satanic rituals, black masses, animal sacrifice, and even
human sacrifice, were reported - or blatantly lied about. For although many of the stories
were simply not true or fanciful exaggeration, one thing was certain: Aleister Crowley
was a Magician, and one of the First Order.
Born on October 12, 1875, in England - in the same country as Shakespeare - Edward
Alexander Crowley grew up in a strict Fundamentalist religious family, members of a
sect called the "Plymouth Brethren". The first person to call him by that Name and
Number by which he would become famous (after the reference in the Book of
Revelation), "The Beast 666", was his mother, and he eventually took this appellation to
heart. He changed his name to Aleister Crowley while still at Cambridge, and by that
name , plus "666", he would never be long out of print, or out of newspapers. For he
believed himself to be the incarnation of a god, an Ancient One, the vehicle of a New
Age of Man's history, the Aeon of Horus, displacing the old Age of Osiris. In 1904, he
had received a message, from what Lovecraft might have called "out of space", that
contained the formula for a New World Order, a new system of philosophy, science, art
and religion, but this New Order had to begin with the fundamental part, and common
denominator, of all four: Magick.
In 1937, the year Lovecraft dies, the Nazis banned the occult lodges of Germany, notable
among them two organisations which Crowley had supervised: the A\ A\ and the O.T.O.,
the latter of which he was elected head in England, and the former which he founded
himself. There are those who believe that Crowley was somehow, magickally,
responsible for the Third Reich, for two reasons: one, that the emergence of New World
Orders generally seems to instigate holocausts and, two, that he is said to have influenced
the mind of Adolf Hitler. While it is almost certain that Crowley and Hitler never met, it
is known that Hitler belonged to several occult lodges in the early days after the First
War; the symbol of one of these, the Thule Gesellschaft which preached a doctrine of
Aryan racial superiority, was the infamous Swastika which Hitler was later to adopt as
the Symbol of the forms, however, is evident in many of his writings, notably the essays
written in the late 'Thirties. Crowley seemed to regard the Nazi phenomenon as a
Creature of Christianity, in it's anti-Semitism and sever moral restrictions concerning its
adherents, which lead to various types of lunacies and "hangups" that characterised many
of the Reich's leadership. Yet, there can be perhaps little doubt that the chaos which
engulfed the world in those years was prefigured, and predicted, in Crowley's Liber AL
vel Legis; the Book of the Law.
The Mythos and the Magick
We can profitably compare the essence of most of Lovecraft's short stories with the basic
themes of Crowley's unique system of ceremonial Magick. While the latter was a
sophisticated psychological structure, intended to bring the initiate into contact with his
higher Self, via a process of individuation that is active and dynamic (being brought
about by the "patient" himself) as opposed to the passive depth analysis of the Jungian
adepts, Lovecraft's Cthulhu Mythos was meant for entertainment. Scholars, of course, are
able to find higher, ulterior motives in Lovecraft's writings, as can be done with any
manifestation of Art.
Lovecraft depicted a kind of Christian Myth of the struggle between opposing forces of
Light and Darkness, between God and Satan, in the Cthulhu Mythos. Some critics may
complain that this smacks more of the Manichaen heresy than it does of genuine
Christian dogma; yet, as a priest and former monk, I believe it is fair to say that this
dogma is unfortunately very far removed from the majority of the Faithful to be of much
consequence. The idea of a War against Satan, and of the entities of Good and Evil
having roughly equivalent Powers, is perhaps best illustrated by the belief, common
among the Orthodox churches of the East, in a personal devil as well as a personal angel.
This concept has been amplified by the Roman Catholic Church to such an extent -
perhaps subconsciously - that a missal in the Editor's possession contains an engraving
for the Feast of St. Andrew, Apostle, for November 30, that bears the legend "Ecce Qui
Tollis Peccata Mundi" - Behold Him Who Taketh Away The Sins of the World - and the
picture above it is of the atomic bomb!
Basically, there are two "sets" of gods in the mythos : the Elder Gods, about whom not
much is revealed, save that they are a stellar Race that occasionally comes to the rescue
of man, and which corresponds to the Christian "Light"; and the Ancient Ones, about
which much is told, sometimes in great detail, who correspond to "Darkness". These
latter are the Evil Gods who wish nothing but ill for the Race of Man, and who constantly
strive to break into our world through a Gate or Door that leads from the Outside, In.
There are certain people, among us, who are devotees of the Ancient Ones, and who try
to open the Gate, so that this evidently repulsive organisation may once again rule the
Earth. Chief among these is Cthulhu, typified as a Sea Monster, dwelling in the Great
Deep, a sort of primeval Ocean; a Being that Lovecraft collaborator August Derleth
wrongly calls a "water elemental". There is also Azazoth, the blind idiot god of Chaos,
Yog Sothot, Azathoth's partner in Chaos, Shub Niggurath, the "goat with a thousand
young", and others. They appear at various times throughout the stories of the Cthulhu
Mythos in frightening forms, which test the strength and resourcefulness of the
protagonists in their attempts to put the hellish Things back to whence they came. There
is an overriding sense of primitive dear and cosmic terror in those pages, as though man
is dealing with something that threatens other than his physical safety: his very spiritual
nature. This horror-cosmology is extended by the frequent appearance of the Book,
NECRONOMICON.
The NECRONOMICON, is according to Lovecraft's tales, a volume written in Damascus
in the Eighth Century, A.D., by a person called the "Mad Arab", Abdhul Alhazred. It
must run roughly 800 pages in length, as there is a reference in one of the stories
concerning some lacunae on a page in the 700's It had been copied and reprinted in
various languages - the story goes - among them Latin, Greek and English. Doctor Dee,
the Magus of Elizabethan fame, was supposed to have possessed a copy and translated it.
This book, according to the mythos, contains the formulae for evoking incredible things
into visible appearance, beings and monsters which dwell in the Abyss, and Outer Space,
of the human psyche.
Such books have existed in fact, and do exist. Idries Shah tells us of a search he
conducted for a copy of the Book of Power by the Arab magician Abdul-Kadir (see: The
Secret Lore of Magic by Shah), of which only one copy was ever found. The Keys of
Solomon had a similar reputation, as did The Magus by Barret, until all of these works
were eventually reprinted in the last fifteen years or so. The Golden Dawn, a famous
British and American Occult lodge of the turn of the Century, was said to have possessed
a manuscript called "the Veils of Negative Existence" by another Arab.
These were the sorcerer's handbooks, and generally not meant as textbooks or
encyclopedias of ceremonial magick. In other words, the sorcerer or magician is
supposed to be in possession of the requisite knowledge and training with which to carry
out a complex magickal ritual, just as a cook is expected to be able to master the
scrambling of eggs before he conjures an "eggs Benedict"; the grimoires, or Black Books,
were simply variations on a theme, like cookbooks, different records of what previous
magicians had done, the spirits they had contacted, and the successes they had. The
magicians who now read these works are expected to be able to select the wheat from the
chaff, in much the same fashion as an alchemist discerning the deliberate errors in a
treatise on his subject.
Therefore it was (and is) insanity for the tyro to pick up a work on ceremonial Magick
like the Lesser Key of Solomon to practise conjurations. It would also be folly to pick up
Crowley's Magick in Theory and Practise with the same intention. Both books are
definitely not for beginners, a point which cannot be made too often. Unfortunately,
perhaps, the dread NECRONOMICON falls into this category.
Crowley's Magick was a testimony of what he has found in his researches into the
forbidden, and forgotten, lore of past civilisations and ancient times. His Book of the Law
was written in Cairo in the Spring of 1904, when he believed himself to be in contact
with a praeter-human intelligence called Aiwass who dictated to him the Three Chapters
that make up the Book. It had influenced him more than any other, and the remainder of
his life was spent trying to understand it fully, and to make its message known to the
world. It, too, contains the formulae necessary to summon the invisible into visibility, and
the secrets of transformations are hidden within its pages, but this is Crowley's own
NECRONOMICON, received in the Middle East in the shadow of the Great Pyramid of
Gizeh, and therein is writ not only the beauty, but the Beast that yet awaits mankind.
It would be vain to attempt to deliver a synopsis of Crowley's philosophy, save that its
'leitmotif' is the Rabelaisian
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law.
The actual meaning of this phrase has taken volumes to explain, but roughly it concerns
the uniting of the conscious Self, a process of individuation which culminates in a rite
called "Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel"; the Angel signifying
the pure, evolved Self.
Yet, there are many terrors on the Way to the Self, and an Abyss to cross before victory
can be declared. Demons, vampires, psychic leeches, ghastly forms accost the aspiring
magician from every angle, from every quarter around the circumference of the magick
circle, and they must be destroyed lest they devour the magician himself. When Crowley
professed to have passed the obstacles, and crossed the Abyss of Knowledge, and found
his true Self, he found it was identical with the Beast of the Book of Revelation, 666,
whom Christianity considers to represent the Devil. Indeed, Crowley had nothing but
admiration for the Shaitan (Satan) of the so-called "devil-worshipping" cult of the
Yezidis of Mesopotamia, knowledge of which led him to declare the lines that open this
Introduction. For he saw that the Yezidis possess a Great Secret and a Great Tradition
that extends far back into time, beyond the origin of the Sun cults of Osiris, Mithra and
Christ; even before the formation of the Judaic religion, and the Hebrew tongue. Crowley
harkened back to a time before the Moon was worshipped, to the "Shadow Out of Time";
and in this, whether he realised it as such or not, he had heard the "Call of Cthulhu".
Sumeria
That a reclusive author of short stories who lived in a quiet neighbourhood in New
England, and the manic, infamous Master Magician who called the world his home,
should have somehow met in the sandy wastes of some forgotten civilisation seems
incredible. That they should both have become Prophets and Forerunners of a New Aeon
of Man's history is equally, if not more, unbelievable. Yet, with H.P. Lovecraft and
Aleister Crowley, the unbelievable was a commonplace of life. These two men, both
acclaimed as geniuses by their followers and admirers, and who never actually met,
stretched their legs across the world, and in the Seven League Boots of the mind they did
meet, and on common soil . . . . Sumeria.
Sumeria is the name given to a once flourishing civilisation that existed in what is now
known as Iraq, in the area called by the Greeks "Mesopotamia" and by the Arabs as,
simply, "The Island" for it existed between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates,
which run down from the mountains to the Persian Gulf. This is the site of the fabled city
of Babylon, as well as of Ur of the Chaldees and Kish, with Nineveh far to the north.
Each of the seven principal cities of Sumeria was ruled by a different deity, who was
worshipped in the strange, non-Semitic language of the Sumerians; and language which
has been closely allied to that of the Aryan race, having in fact many words identical to
that of Sanskrit (and, it is said, to Chinese!).
For no one knows where the Sumerians came from, and they vanished just as
mysteriously as they appeared, after the Assyrian invasions which decimated their
culture, yet providing the Assyrians with much of their mythology and religion; so much
so that Sumerian became the official language of the state church, much as Latin is today
of the Roman Catholic Church. They had a list of their kings before the Flood, which
even they carefully chronicled, as did many another ancient civilisation around the world.
It is believed that they had a sophisticated system of astronomy (and astrology) as well as
an equally religious rituale. Magick, as well in history, begins at Sumer for the Western
World, for it his here, in the sand-buried cuneiform tablets that recorded an Age, that the
first Creation Epic is found, the first exorcism, the first ritual invocations of planetary
deities, the first dark summonings of evil Powers, and ironically, the first "burnings" of
people the anthropologists call "Witches".
Lovecraft's mythos deals with what are known chthonic deities, that is, underworld gods
and goddesses, much like the Leviathan of the Old Testament. The pronunciation of
chthonic is 'katonic', which explains Lovecraft's famous Miskatonic River and
Miskatonic University, not to mention the chief deity of his pantheon, Cthulhu, a sea
monster who lies, "not dead, but dreaming" below the world; an Ancient One and
supposed enemy of Mankind and the intelligent Race. Cthulhu is accompanied by an
assortment of other grotesqueries, such as Azathot and Shub Niggurath. It is of extreme
importance to occult scholars that many of these deities had actual counterparts, at least
in name, to deities of the Sumerian Tradition, that same Tradition that the Magus Aleister
Crowley deemed it so necessary to "rediscover".
The Underworld in ancient Sumer was known by many names, among them ABSU or
"Abyss", sometimes as Nar Mattaru, the great Underworld Ocean, and also as Cutha or
KUTU as it is called in the Enuma Elish (the Creation Epic of the Sumerians). The
phonetic similarity between Cutha and KUTU and Chthonic, as well as Cthulhu, is
striking. Judging by a Sumerian grammar at hand, the word KUTULU or Cuthalu
(Lovecraft's's Cthulhu Sumerianised) would mean "The Man of KUTU (Cutha); the Man
of the Underworld; Satan or Shaitan, as he is known to the Yezidis (whom Crowley
considered to be the remnants of the Sumerian Tradition). The list of similarities, both
between Lovecraft's creations and the Sumerian gods, as well as between Lovecraft's
mythos and Crowley's magick, can go on nearly indefinitely, and in depth, for which
there is no space here at present. An exhaustive examination of Crowley's occultism in
light of recent findings concerning Sumeria, and exegesis on Lovecraft's stories, is
presently in preparation and is hoped to be available shortly. Until that time, a few
examples should suffice.
Although a list is appended hereto containing various entities and concepts of Lovecraft,
Crowley, and Sumeria cross-referenced, it will do to show how the Editor found
relationships to be valid and even startling. AZATOT is frequently mentioned in the grim
pages of the Cthulhu Mythos, and appears in the NECRONOMICON as AZAG-THOTH,
a combination of two words, the first Sumerian and the second Coptic, which gives us a
clue as to Its identity. AZAG in Sumerian means "Enchanter" or "Magician"; THOTH in
Coptic is the name given to the Egyptian God of Magick and Wisdom, TAHUTI, who
was evoked by both the Golden Dawn and by Crowley himself (and known to the Greeks
as Hermes, from whence we get "Hermetic"). AZAG-THOTH is, therefore, a Lord of
Magicians, but of the "Black" magicians, or the sorcerers of the "Other Side".
There is a seeming reference to SHUB NIGGURATH in the NECRONOMICON, in the
name of a Sumerian deity, the "Answerer of Prayers", called ISHNIGARRAB. The word
"Shub" is to be found in the Sumerian language in reference to the Rite of Exorcism, one
of which is called Nam Shub and means "the Throwing". It is, however, as yet unclear as
to what the combination SHUB ISHNIGARRAB (SHUB NIGGURATH) might actually
mean.
There was a battle between the forces of "light" and "darkness" (so-called) that took place
long before man was created, before even the cosmos as we know it existed. It is
described fully in the Enuma Elish and in the bastardised version found in the
NECRONOMICON, and involved the Ancient Ones, led by the Serpent MUMMU-
TIAMAT and her male counterpart ABSU, against the ELDER GODS (called such in the
N.) led by the Warrior MARDUK, son of the Sea God ENKI, Lord of Magicians of this
Side, or what could be called "White Magicians" - although close examination of the
myths of ancient times makes one pause before attempting to judge which of the two
warring factions was "good" or "evil". MARDUK won this battle - in much the same way
that later St. George and St. Michael would defeat the Serpent again - the cosmos was
created from the body of the slain Serpent, and man was created from the blood of the
slain commander of the Ancient Army, KINGU, thereby making man a descendent of the
Blood of the Enemy, as well as the "breath" of the Elder Gods; a close parallel to the
"sons of God and daughters of men" reference in the Old Testament. Yet, though the
identity of the Victor is clear, there were - and are - certain persons and organisations that
dared side with the vanquished, believing the Ancient Ones to be a source of tremendous,
and most unbelievable, power.
Worship of the Ancient Ones in History
"Let them curse it that curse the day, who are skilful to rouse Leviathan." - JOB
3:8
S.H. Hooke, in his excellent Middle Eastern Mythology, tells us that the Leviathan
mentioned in JOB, and elsewhere in the Old Testament, is the Hebrew name given to the
Serpent TIAMAT, and reveals that there was in existence either a cult, or scattered
individuals, who worshipped or called up the Serpent of the Sea, or Abyss. Indeed, the
Hebrew word for Abyss that is found in GENESIS 1:2 is, Hooke tells us, tehom, which
the majority of scholars take to be a survival of the name of the chaos-dragon TIAMAT
or Leviathan that is identified closely with KUTULU or Cthulhu within the pages are
mentioned independently of each other, indicating that somehow KUTULU is the male
counterpart of TIAMAT, similar to ABSU.
This monster is well known to cult worship all over the world. In China, however, there
is an interesting twist. Far from being considered a completely hostile creature, dedicated
to the erasure of mankind from the page of existence, the Dragon is given a place of pre-
eminence and one does not hear of a Chinese angel or saint striving to slay the dragon,
but rather to cultivate it. The Chinese system of geomancy, feng shui (pronounced fung
shway) is the science of understanding the "dragon currents" which exist beneath the
earth, these same telluric energies that are distilled in such places as Chartres Cathedral in
France, Glastonbury Tor in England, and the Ziggurats of Mesopotamia. In both the
European and Chinese cultures, the Dragon or Serpent is said to reside somewhere
"below the earth"; it is a powerful force, a magickal force, which is identified with
mastery over the created world; it is also a power that can be summoned by the few and
not the many. However, in China, there did not seem to be a backlash of fear or
resentment against this force as was known in Europe and Palestine, and the symbol of
might and kingship in China is still the Dragon. In the West, the conjuration, cultivation,
or worship of this Power was strenuously opposes with the advent of the Solar,
Monotheistic religions and those who clung to the Old Ways were effectively
extinguished. The wholesale slaughter of those called "Witches" during the Inquisition is
an example of this, as well as the solemn and twisted - that is to say, purposeless and
unenlightened - celibacy that the Church espoused. For the orgone of Wilhelm Reich is
just as much Leviathan as the Kundalini of Tantrick adepts, and the Power raised by the
Witches. It has always, at least in the past two thousand years, been associated with
occultism and essentially with Rites of Evil Magick, or the Forbidden Magick, of the
Enemy, and of Satan . . .
. . . and the twisting, sacred Spiral formed by the Serpent of the Caduceus, and by the
spinning of the galaxies, is also the same Leviathan as the Spiral of the biologists' Code
of Life : DNA
The Goddess of the Witches
The current revival of the cult called WICCA is a manifestation of the ancient secret
societies that sought to tap this telluric, occult force and use it to their own advantage,
and to the advantage of humanity as was the original intent. The raising of the Cone of
Power through the circle dancing is probably the simplest method of attaining results in
"rousing Leviathan", and has been used by societies as diverse as the Dervishes in the
Middle East and the Python Dancers of Africa, not to mention the round dances that were
familiar to the Gnostic Christians, and the ones held every year in the past at Chartres.
The Witches of today, however, while acknowledging the importance of the Male
element of telluric Power, generally prefer to give the greater honour to the Female
Principle, personified as the Goddess. The Goddess has also been worshipped all over the
world, and under many names, but is still essentially the same Goddess. That TIAMAT
was undoubtedly female is to the point; and that the Chinese as well as the Sumerians
perceived of two dragon currents, male and female, gives the researchers a more complex
picture. The Green Dragon and the Red Dragon of the alchemists are thus identified, as
the positive and negative energies that compromise the cosmos of our perception, as
manifest in the famous Chinese yin-yang symbol.
But what of INANNA, the single planetary deity having a female manifestation among
the Sumerians? She is invoked in the NECRONOMICON and identified as the
vanquisher of Death, for she descended into the Underworld and defeated her sister, the
Goddess of the Abyss, Queen ERESHKIGAL (possibly another name for TIAMAT).
Interestingly enough, the myth has many parallels with the Christian concept of Christ's
death and resurrection, among which the Crucifixion (INANNA was impaled on a stake
as a corpse), the three days in the Sumerian Hades, and the eventual Resurrection are
outstanding examples of how Sumerian mythology previewed the Christian religion by
perhaps as many as three thousand years - a fact that beautifully illustrates the cosmic and
eternal nature of this myth.
Therefore, the Goddess of the Witches has two distinct forms: the Ancient One, Goddess
of the Dragon-like telluric Power which is raised in Magickal rituals, and the Elder
Goddess, Defeater of Death, who brings the promise of Resurrection and Rejuvenation to
her followers those who must reside for a time after death and between incarnations in
what is called the "Summerland".
Sumer-land?
Another hallmark of the Craft of the Wise is evident within the NECRONOMICON, as
well as in general Sumerian literature, and that is the arrangement of the cross-quarter
days, which make up half of the Craft's official pagan holidays. These occur on the eves
of February 2nd, May 1st, August 1st, and November 1st, and are called Candlemas,
Beltane, Lammas and Samhain (or Hallows), respectively.
The name Lammas has a curious origin in the dunes at Sumer. It is not less than the name
of one of the four mythological Beasts of the astrological fixed signs, Lamas being the
name of the half-lion, half-man Guardian of Leo (the sign governing most of August,
when the feast of Lammas takes place), and USTUR being that of Aquarius (February),
SED that of Taurus (May) and NATTIG that of Scorpio (November). I do not believe that
this is a fantastic assumption, the Sumerian origin of the Feast of Lammas. Indeed, it
seems just as valid as the ideas of Idries Shah concerning Craft etymology as presented in
his book, The Sufis. It is also not far-fetched to assume that these four beasts were known
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