I just have to know. I have been told many different theories, but little proof. If you disprove it, give me evidence to go beyond reasonable doubt. And if you say other wise could you site some books or other proof, but not a web page please.
If you’re asking for proof beyond reasonable doubt that the Necronomicon doesn’t exist outside fiction, I think you’re going to be disappointed.
The Necronomicon was invented by H P Lovecraft and made up out of the whole cloth. Check any of the Lovecraft biographies (or annotated editions of his stories), especially the ones by S T Joshi. Lord of a Visible World, Lovecraft’s collected letters edited by Joshi, contains a few letters in which HPL writes about inventing the Necronomicon.
Of course:
[ul]
[li]I might by lying;[/li][li]Joshi (and numerous other writers on Lovecraft) might be lying, I haven’t gone back and checked their original sources;[/li][li]Lovecraft might have been lying;[/li][li]Lovecraft might have though he was inventing the Neronomicon whereas he was in fact channelling it from Hastur the Unspeakable;[/li][li]The “real” Necronomicon might exist independently of whatever it was that Lovecraft made up.[/li][/ul]
So I’m afraid I can’t provide the proof you seek.
There is an Ancient Egyptian text called “The Book of the Dead”, a title which is sometimes applied to the Necronomicon of the Cthulhu Mythos, but it’s a religious text about death, enbalming and the afterlife and bears little resemblance to Lovecraft’s Necronomicon.
I have a copy of the Egyptian Book of the Dead and had a copy of the Necronomicon in high school (a friend and I bought it from an add in an issue of Omni magazine…)
The two have NOTHING on common… upon further investigation, we realized that our Necronomicon was a fictional book loosely based, as TomH says, on H.P. Lovecraft’s writings!
We were pretty cheesed that we wasted $50 on a bogus copy of an occult book… couldn’t raise even the ghost of a demon with our Necronomicon… and we had such plans!!!
That was when I was young and stupid… now (20 years later), I am older and stupid! 
I saw a copy of what was probably the Necronomicon that Astroboy had. It was at the local Border’s, in paperback. I mean, the least they could do is put it in hardcover, even if not bound in leather from human skin.
http://www.digital-brilliance.com/necron/necron.htm
This should have most of the answers you’re looking for. I was pretty disappointed to find out it was a contemporary myth, but you shouldn’t stop looking for secrets (especially when you’re only looking through Barnes and Noble)! Get out there, into the real world. There are millions of things, even evil things, that man does not yet know about. The necronomicon is just a myth; find something real!
Crap, that was the wrong place. The one I posted is one that supports its existence. Nevermind. Keep looking on the Necronomicon…
You mean you don’t have a copy bound with human skin? Doesn’t everybody? I keep mine next to my Grail.
The site you linked to has a very clever essay on the Necronomicon that weaves some genuine in-depth history of Varangians, Shabbethai Tsevi and Kabbalah with the fictional Alhazred and the semi-fictional elaborations on John Dee and Aleister Crowley, to form a dense texture of verisimilitude. The “link” between Crowley and Lovecraft is really clever, and could almost convince the unsuspecting reader who didn’t know better that this is all hooey.
A most entertaining read. Thank you.
I have seen two different books purporting to be the Necronomicon. One was published by an outfit called Schlangekraft,Inc. in 1977, then reprinted in 1980 by Avon Books (ISBN#0-380-75192-5). It tries to tie in Lovecraft’s writings with Sumerian mythology. Somehow it worked Alistair Crowley into the mix, as well. I have never finished reading it. It is not exactly a ripping yarn.
The other one was a big coffee-table size book by H.R. Giger. (Geiger? Gieger? Can’t remember how he spells it. The guy who did the designs for the Alien movies.) As I recall, it had a lot of cool pictures; I don’t remember if it had any text or not.
Ok, a I have been to the fictional site. And yes some of the crap they issue as full truth is no where near it. It is more like a fiction “inspired by the original” fiction paperback available at any barnes and noble. But Some of it has some worth and the is the fact that the myth was invented before lovecraft makes me wonder.
Sorry. If you read the Chaosium series of the Chtulhu mythos, you’ll find in “Mysteries of the Worm” Robert Jordan’s book (I think that’s the author, I don’t have my copy handy) He quotes a letter to HPL the author wrote when he was 15 asking HPL if the necromicon was real. Sadly, HPL just made it up as he went along.
You understand, the REAL Necromicon would have to be over 1000 pages, don’t you?
What is that supposed to mean? Ok so its a thousand pages. Please I like to understand the comments you make.
You may want to read this thread:
H.P. Lovecraft and the Necronomicon
I will copy verbatim my post in that thread:
I think it’s generally accepted that H.P. Lovecraft had fabricated from whole cloth the book he referred to as the Necronomicon.
You can find some information here:
The Truth About the Necronomicon
A quote from one of his letters:
At the site there is also a list of H.P. Lovecraft stories that refer to the Necronomicon.
Robert Anton Wilson’s Illuminatus! trilogy is a phantasmagorical sex-drugs-rock-‘n’-roll trip of literary excess, with a huge number of diverse themes thrown in. One of which is Lovecraft. There is a scene where a rich WASP, Robert Putney Drake, driven by the urge to power, is trying to contact the Illuminati. He travels to Providence, Rhode Island, to get the straight dope from H. P. Lovecraft himself. Lovecraft answers that, sorry, his tales are merely the product of his imagination and are not real. (I don’t have the Illuminatus! text handy; could anyone post this quote?) Drake is unconvinced by Lovecraft’s disclaimer and wonders how he could have openly published such esoteric secrets.
Then (inspired by this thread) I picked up Joyce Carol Oates’s new anthology Tales of H. P. Lovecraft. In her Introduction, she observes:
I had a copy bound in human skin, but it got exema & I had to dump it.
Anybody got the CD ROM version of *Tobin’s Spirit Guid/i]?
“Since you have been so good as to give me a warning, I will
return the favor. I do not think your interest in these people is based on a wish to oppose them, but to serve them. I beg you to remember their attitude towards servants.”
–H. P. Lovecraft, in Illuminatus!
ishmintingas said
I didn’t realise DonJuanDeMarco3 was looking for a position in the Bush Administration 