The hit counter on this website is going up by leaps and bounds, so we can tell it's getting close to Halloween. But what does the holiday mean, when we get past the pumpkins, the costumes, the start of the Christmas shopping season, and the plastic skeleton at the supermarket who sings "Soul Man"? What lies beyond?
Some believe that Halloween is a time when the dead walk the land (though some differ on whether that's a good or bad thing). Some celebrate it as the last gasp of autumn before winter falls, others fear that secretive cults - or juvenile delinquents - will be out causing trouble. To a social scientist, Halloween may be thought of as a "liminal period". We usually encounter such a period during coming-of-age ceremonies and the like - times in which we are freed from society's constraints for a moment to explore new identities and new possibilities.
In that spirit, I will present some of our findings with regard to the Simon Necronomicon. We will include this and more in the next edition of the Necronomicon Files, but in the spirit of the holiday, we'll give you a sneak peek at some of our findings. This is an account assembled from a number of different sources, including books, articles, recordings, and interviews. It is likely that some mistakes appear within, and if you are in a position to correct them, let us know.
The Simon Necronomicon appeared in the heady days of the Seventies. This time saw two phenomena rising into the national consciousness. First, fantastic literature had been re-discovered, thanks to such works as Lin Carter's Adult Fantasy series, and caught the attention of thousands of readers of all ages. Among the authors who gained considerable fame at the time was science fiction writer H. P. Lovecraft, dead for almost four decades yet now acclaimed by critics and fans alike. Second, occultists, who had previously kept their beliefs and practices secret, made their presence known. Occult bookstores and discussion groups appeared rapidly, while movies such as The Exorcist (starring the Assyrian demon and protector of infants, Pazuzu) fed the public's interest. It was a turbulent time indeed for those interested in exploring alternate realities, whether philosophical or literary.
One of the crucial points of convergence in this time was a small occult store in Brooklyn - the Warlock Shoppe. (This store later moved to Manhattan, was re-named Magickal Childe, and closed for good early in 1999.) The proprietor was Herman Slater, who was part wizard extraordinaire and part showman, who was once thrown off the set of a major network when he gave them an award for inaccurate depiction of occultism. When I visited the place a few years ago, it was a cramped one-room shop with a few skulls placed here and there and herbs hanging from the ceiling, but in the Seventies it was perhaps one of the major occult hangouts of the New York scene.
Into this atmosphere walked a supposed Eastern Orthodox bishop known as "Simon". He carried a manuscript that, he claimed, two monks of his denomination had taken from a library or private collection as a part of the biggest book heist in recent history. This heist really did take place (see the Necronomicon Files for the details), yet it seems unlikely that these monks would have borne away a manuscript that they weren't sure was worth anything at all (as Simon himself states in the introduction to the Necronomicon Spellbook). This manuscript was a 9th century Greek text which apparently no one has seen, and that vanished immediately after being published. The translators (?) were surprised to find that the work was the Necronomicon written about in the stories of H. P. Lovecraft. And to have his work appear at a time when Lovecraft and the occult were becoming popular again! It was almost too good to be true.
Herman Slater called in a number of people to help him to bring the Necronomicon to the public. L. K. Barnes, owner of Barnes Graphics, formed a publishing company called "Schlangekraft" (Serpent Power or Strength). James Wasserman seems to have been responsible for the book's layout, and brought in Khem Set Rising, who re-worked the magical seals from the "original". A large number of translators were also involved, with the most important of these being Peter Levenda, who served as a researcher and the book's general editor. (Despite the fact that he is only mentioned in passing in the acknowledgements, Mr. Levenda apparently played an important enough role that he was awarded half of the book's royalties.) This group worked hard on the book, and the first printing of the Necronomicon, in a limited edition of 666 hardcover copies, appeared in December of 1977. The book was so popular that a second printing of 3,333 copies appeared within the year, and a third soon followed.
Clearly the Necronomicon was a huge success. Copies were being snapped up, and the book was becoming the talk of the occult community. Avon Books snapped up the paperback rights and the paperback was released nationwide in 1980. Simon gave numerous talks at Magickal Childe, some of which were taped, and may have even appeared on local television (though this is unconfirmed). Still, people clamored for more.
In 1981, the first companion work, the Report on the Necronomicon, appeared from Schlangekraft. This was a 24-page pamphlet which discussed the book's history at some depth, then proceeded to describe how to employ the fifty seals of Marduk without any deep knowledge or mystical preparation. (However, in the same year, Simon said in a recorded lecture that no one could use spells of this level without undergoing most of the Necronomicon's lengthy seven-month initiation.) This work was re-printed as the Necronomicon Spellbook in 1987, and then re-issued from Avon Books in October of 1998. I am still not sure as to why there was such a large gap between the different printings. If you think your copy is rather slim and has large type, it's because it's a word-for-word reprint of the original pamphlet.
The Spellbook's re-issue in 1987 was to accompany another book, The Gates of the Necronomicon. As best we can tell, the death of Herman Slater in the following year put an end to the possibilities of that work's publication, and according to one source, the work was lost in the confusion. You may see entries for Gates here and there in different catalogs and such, but in our years of research and speaking with occultists we have yet to turn up any sign of this work.
As for the Simon Necronomicon - it is real or a hoax? Well, we've made up our minds. When the introduction states up front that no one will be allowed to view the book's manuscript, it already indicates that something fishy is up. The book is not truly Sumerian, but a mishmash of gods from different Mesopotamian societies and periods mixed with a few beings that bear more than a passing resemblance to Lovecraft's creations (yet which show up in no other text from Mesopotamia). There are also a few odd deviations with regard to the region's mythology. The Necronomicon's Humwawa, a demon with entrail-like face, is actually a forest-protecting giant in the Epic of Gilgamesh, and the Absu, which is portrayed as hell in the Simon book, was actually an underground freshwater sea invoked in purification rituals.
Finally, there is the matter of the translation. If the Simon Necronomicon was indeed an authentic document, it would probably be translated from its original language into Greek into English. In such a process, done under questionable circumstances, one might expect that there would be all manner of confusing and obviously-mangled passages. In fact, what we end up with include passages that are quite clear - and many of these sound almost identical to sections of books from Simon's own bibliography. For example, compare the "Hymn to the Ancient Ones" on page 199 to this piece from Pritchard's Ancient Near Eastern Texts Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton University Press, 1955):
This particular piece is not really a hymn to any god, but an appeal to gods of the night (who are not necessarily evil) to aid the magician in a divination. Elsewhere, the Arab often ends his translation of a line at the point where an archeologist is missing part of the excavated text.
Of course, to those who want the Necronomicon to be the work that will allow them to open the gates of Hell and call the dead to do their bidding will probably find all of this unconvincing. To each his own, I suppose.
Note: Recently, we've received a number of letters from practicing magicians who state that what's important about the Necronomicon is its magical usefulness, rather than its authenticity. To this, we only have two responses. First, we live in a culture in which authenticity is largely wedded to an object's beauty and worth. Because of this, my guess is that 90% of those who buy the Simon book do so thinking that it is an authentic work. Second, one of us is a practicing magician, and you can read his comments on the Simon book's magical worth in the Files.
This page is 1999 © Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce. All rights reserved. Mr. Harms and Mr. Gonce will not tell you where to find the real Necronomicon, and will ignore threats by high school students who want to know what olieribos is.