The Necronomicon

“That is not dead which can eternal lie; and with strange aeons, even death may die.”
– the Necronomicon

A tome of the very darkest wisdom, invented for the Cthulhu mythos cycle by HP Lovecraft, the Necronomicon first appeared in “The Hound” (1922). The Necronomicon is a detailed treasury of information on the true nature of the universe, and mankind’s horribly precarious and brief place within it. The book goes into significant detail about the Great Old Ones – particularly Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth – and their minions, and the black arts required to summon and control these beings. It also has unpleasant spells for a variety of other purposes. The Necronomicon is extremely disturbing to read, and has driven lesser men stark raving mad. The wisdom it contains reveals things that mankind really wasn’t meant to know. Only the most evil can gain anything other than shattered peace of mind from perusing its horrible contents.

One of the more prominent passages reproduced from the book reads, in part:

“Nor is it to be thought that man is either the oldest or the last of earth’s masters, or that the common bulk of life and substance walks alone. The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be. Not in the spaces we know, but between them, They walk serene and primal, undimensioned and to us unseen … As a foulness shall ye know Them. Their hand is at your throats, yet ye see Them not; and Their habitation is even one with your guarded threshold. Yog-Sothoth is the key to the gate, whereby the spheres meet. Man rules now where They ruled once; They shall soon rule where man rules now. After summer is winter, and after winter summer. They wait patient and potent, for here shall They rule again.” (From “The Dunwich Horror” by HP Lovecraft, 1928)

The Necronomicon was written early in the 8th century AD by a crazed, decadent Arabic cultist, Abdual Alhazred. He titled the book “Al Azif” (with a supposed literal meaning close to ‘the nocturnal howling of the demons of the desert’). He died a short time later, ripped apart in a crowded Damascus bazaar by invisible demons, but the book was quietly copied and studied by Arab scholars. It was translated into Greek as the Necronomicon (possibly ‘The Book of Dead Names’) by the scholar Theodorus Philetas in 950AD. It was suppressed in 1050AD, but survived to be translated into Latin in 1228 by Olaus Wormius, and then into English around 1590AD by Queen Elizabeth’s magus, Dr. John Dee. Only five copies are known to remain for certain, in libraries and universities in Harvard, Buenos Airies, London, Paris and Arkham. Others crop up in private collections of the most horrible, decadent sort.

In the real world, there remain persistent rumours that Lovecraft did not actually invent the book, but instead was inspired by some real tome of horrors. He always flatly rejected those claims as flattering credulity and nonsense. Several hoaxers have worked the Necronomicon into library catalogues over the years, and librarians world-wide still get queries about it, although it’s difficult to imagine why anyone would actually want to risk read the thing.

There have been several real books produced that attempted to cash in on this interest, but none of them even begin to come close to capturing the spirit of the work.

The Necronomicake, also baked and (c) Milliput Mog