The Necronomicon: History and Authenticity in Question

The Necronomicon has been revered by many spiritual folks, magical folks, and occult extremists as a literal writing. The the validity of this text should be questioned, as well as other grimoires: The Key of Solomon, The Picatrix, Red Dragon, and other grimoires. I would like to make clear there is no proof Solomon existed or that the Journey of Solomon was a real event which on this conquest he summoned the demons that inspired the Goetia (Lesser Key of Solomon); therefore the Necronomicon should be considered fiction from H.P. Lovecraft. There is no proof of any existence of the Necronomicon before H.P. Lovecraft, like (most) grimoires, a mythology needs to be implemented into the text solidifies a magical system. Belief has been a powerful tool for magick and always will be. I will go through the history by comparing the various versions we have now and the authors behind the books on the Necronomicon.

It is comments like this one below, found in forums that spread a lie in regards to the falsified history of the Necronomicon. I am goning to touch on the majority of this commentary that I read in a thread of the Necronomicon.


"Curse • 9 days ago:

"In fact, the book does seem to exist.. im talking about history here not fiction. Through the years it seems to have appeared in different places but it does not exist any longer.

I can not exactly recall but some bishop in what would be today's Rome ordered all prints of the book burnt around 1826, This is history not fiction and it was never mentioned by Lovecraft because it would prove that the book did exist and it was not his bright mind that came up with it .. not entirely at the very least.


Moreover, Dee and Crowley strongly believed that the book existed.. and Dee actually had "pieces" of it which were confiscated and the whole thing was pulled under a massive cover up so the word does not spread that we in the world of liberty still fall under the claw of myth and hide anything that could prove that other entities beyond us humans exist or existed.


Crowley as well believed the book was real but of course the part where he proceeds to say he had a copy of it is a total joke, Dee came in possession of a little part of it (that too might be not very true either) but what we know for a fact is that this book DID in fact exist.


And fyi Abdul Alhazrad is wrong as well the name is supposed to be in arabic but such a name could not be true because the name was born after Islam and under islam u can only have a name that means servant if its followed by God.. could be something along the lines of Abdullah.. meaning servant of God.. But no Abdul as in servant of and Alhazrad so in total its servant of Alhazrad which makes zero sense can not be true, this and many other things were added By Lovecraft to cover up where he got his info about the book, But really think about it... Lovercraft's wife was.. Sonia Green, Who was Sonia married to before she married him? Crowley."

The link for this comment can be found at: http://mysteriousuniverse.org/2010/06/the-grimest-of-grimiores-did-a-necronomicon-ever-exist/

"In fact, the book does seem to exist....im talking about history here (,) not fiction".

By this first sentence alone this person's first statement had awful grammar and (by no means) throughout this entire comment does this person exhibit any research skills, and has no citations to mark a sourced opinion. At the minimum, sources could have been provided by a link or two for some validation, but I will further refrain expanding on this statement because it was only the first sentence set to introduce the text.

"Through the years it seems to have appeared in different places but it does not any longer exist.(sic) "

First of all, if someone is saying the Necronomicon had appeared in different places then it should obviously exist in the culture and belief structure from multiple sources, but if that was the case then people like me would not be sitting here debating the validation of the text. A good example of my explanation is comparable to Christianity! Christianity and it's influence have been seen in the structure of authors written works since the dark ages and Renaissance grimoires. For example, The Book of Abramelin is a Jewish Grimoire, but an avid reader can still identify this book with Christian influence that personified the Devil as Lucifer and Satan as the bad guy. The Christian influence was seen and obvious, even in non-Christian texts. If the Necronomicon existed in different places around the world then it would not be as debatable in the magick world.

"...Bishop in what would be today's Rome ordered all prints of the book burnt around 1826."

There was a phrase in the John Dee Necronomicon this person meant to say, "The Book was banned by the church and included in the Index Epurgatorius by Pope Gregory the IX. Last known copy of this book was known to have been burned in Salem in 1692." I hate to inform the reader, but I have searched through recorded records and found no proof of this statement, I encourage others to see if the Vatican made this order. If someone can prove it with first hand resources I would be glad to accept there was a book called the  Necronomicon that was burned and banned.

"Moreover, Dee and Crowley strongly believed the book existed......and Dee actually had 'pieces' of it which were confiscated and the whole thing was pull [sic] under a massive cover up so the word does not spread that we are in a world of liberty still fall under the claw of myth and hide anything that could prove that other entities beyond us humans exist or existed."

It would seem this is one of the longest run on sentences I have ever read in my life, but I will do my best to break down this "paragraph". So let begin with the phrase, "Moreover, Dee and Crowley strongly believed the book existed..." There is not sufficient evidence of this information. The best information I could find on this topic is in the falsified version of John Dee's "Necronomicon" at http://www.scribd.com/doc/33100600/John-Dee-Necronomicon which is a totally plagiarized version of Simon's Necronomicon at http://www.scribd.com/doc/67692641/necronomicon. If you go through the preface of the John Dee version (and in the Simon Necronomicon) you will see where Crowley's system is compared to the Necronomicon System. In the preface of the Dee version it states: "The John Dee translation of the Necronomicon reprinted in this work comes form [sic] the collection of the Widener Library at Harvard University." The sentence sourced is actually was an addition of the "John Dee Necronomicon," and if this really was a real version translated by college professors then "from" would not be misspelled as "form."

Where is the proof that Crowley thought this existed? I could not find any, as I went through the internet resources looking and looking for key words in his diaries to find this fact, but I could not. If Crowley knew of the Necronomicon I am sure he would have gotten his hands on it, but there is no sufficient evidence of this fact. So the question is: Where are the resources for Crowley's knowledge of the Necronomicon?

"But really think about it... Lovercraft's wife was.. Sonia Green, Who was Sonia married to before she married him? Crowley."

According to everything I read there was not mention of Sonia Green mentioned in Crowley's life. If Sonia was married to Sonia then it would have been documented but it is not documented: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sonia_Greene. Crowley's documented wives were Rose Edith Kelley and Maria Theresa Ferrari de Miramar. All the women Crowley was associated with can be found at this link: http://foreverandaday.biz/Pages_info/AleisterWomen.html.

The person who posted up the comment in response had seemingly did one of two things when writing about the subject. The Crowley, John Dee, and Abdul Alhazrad were mentioned in the preface of the John Dee Necronomicon. I would like to say this person seems to be very biased and polytheistic, although I could be wrong. They did not say anything conclusive to prove their point and tried to look semi-intelligent with an opinion. It seemed this person was harvesting an anger toward Christianity to persuade others with misinformation.

The last rebuttal for the author of this comment I have is the tone of voice in, "In fact, the book does seem to exist." It was a few sentences later Curse declared Crowley and Dee had the book by stating, "Moreover, Dee and Crowley strongly believed that the book existed.. and Dee actually had "pieces" of it which were confiscated," as a fact, then the author seems to be afraid his facts are non-existent a few sentences later by the statement, "  Dee came in possession of a little part of it (that too might be not very true either) but what we know for a fact is that this book DID in fact exist."

Where does this author (Curse) stand on John Dee? One minute Curse mentions John Dee had it as a fact then seems to back off on that stance. I am not sure where he stands on that issue.

One of the groups (which had blindly promoted the "John Dee's Necronomion") holds such a high regard for this document had not taken the time to study this text, to look at the alumni records as Harvard, or  to falsely spread Lovecraft history as fact is the Joy of Satan (JoS). 

The Joy of Satan website talks about the Necronomicon: http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/Necronomicon.html. I will be quoting parts of the article to show why much of the words written are contributing to these misinformed comments.

High Priestess Maxine says, "The Necronomicon is not a work of fiction, nor was it invented by by 'Howard Phillip Lovecraft."

The very opening to the preface of the John Dee Necronomicon says that Dr. Joseph Talbet was one of the professors who wrote the preface of the Dee Version of the Necronomicon, but who is Dr. Joseph Talbet?

A while back I was contacted Harvard through an email provided at http://alumni.harvard.edu/help/contacts-links and they provide the email and phone number for the "professor" who translated John Dee's Version of the Necronomicon. When I called the desk for results Harvard said, "Dr. Joseph Talbet does not exist or never existed at Harvard."

I did more research into who Dr. Joseph Talbet, because obviously he did not exist for the record at Harvard. So it can be assumed whoever proposed the existence of Dr. Talbet as the professor in the preface of the John Dee version, is an authenticated liar. High Priestess Maxine states, "If anyone would take the time to read the Preface of this book, authored by Joseph Talbet, Ph. D., D. Litt, Harvard University, the TRUE history of this powerful GRIMOIRE is revealed." Well I think if people would take the time to read critically and question everything then we would not have an epidemic of uneducated people misinforming others.

Now, I would like to take material from wikipedia in regards to the psuedo-history (aka fictional history) of the Necronomicon.

"In 1927, Lovecraft wrote a brief pseudo-history of the Necronomicon that was published in 1938, after his death, as the "History of the Necronomicon". According to this account, the book was originally called "Al Azif", an Arabic word that Lovecraft defined as "that nocturnal sound (made by insects) supposed to be the howling of demons" (one Arabic/English dictionary translates `Azīf as "whistling (of the wind); weird sound or noise").[11]

In the "History of The Necronomicon", Alhazred is said to have been a "half-crazed Arab" who worshipped the Lovecraftian entities Yog-Sothoth and Cthulhu. He is described as being from Sanaa in Yemen, and as visiting the ruins of Babylon, the "subterranean secrets" of Memphis and the Empty Quarter of Arabia (wherein he discovered the "nameless city" below Irem). In his last years, he lived in Damascus, where he wrote "Al Azif" before his sudden and mysterious death in 738.

In subsequent years, Lovecraft wrote, the Azif "gained considerable, though surreptitious circulation amongst the philosophers of the age." In 950, it was translated into Greek and given the titleNecronomicon by Theodorus Philetas, a fictional scholar from Constantinople. This version "impelled certain experimenters to terrible attempts" before being "suppressed and burnt" in 1050 by Patriarch Michael (an historical figure who died in 1059).

After this attempted suppression, the work was "only heard of furtively" until it was translated from Greek into Latin by Olaus Wormius. (Lovecraft gives the date of this edition as 1228, though the real-life Danish scholar Olaus Wormius lived from 1588 to 1624.) Both the Latin and Greek text, the History relates, were banned by Pope Gregory IX in 1232, though Latin editions were apparently published in 15th century Germany and 17th century Spain. A Greek edition was printed in Italy in the first half of the 16th century.

The Elizabethan magician John Dee (1527-c. 1609) allegedly translated the book — presumably into English — but Lovecraft wrote that this version was never printed and only fragments survive. (The connection between Dee and the Necronomicon was suggested by Lovecraft's friend Frank Belknap Long.)

According to Lovecraft, the Arabic version of Al Azif had already disappeared by the time the Greek version was banned in 1050, though he cites "a vague account of a secret copy appearing in San Francisco during the current [20th] century" that "later perished in fire". The Greek version, he writes, has not been reported "since the burning of a certain Salem man's library in 1692" (an apparent reference to the Salem witch trials). (In the story "The Diary of Alonzo Typer", the character Alonzo Typer finds a Greek copy.)

According to History of the Necronomicon the very act of studying the text is inherently dangerous, as those who attempt to master its arcane knowledge generally meet terrible ends."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon

In comparison to the fictional history by HP Lovecraft, all of the John Dee "Necronomicon" history behind this book is identical. If anyone wrote the history of this book or understood it then give it to Howard Philip Lovecraft. May I remind you the Joy of Satan wrote about this "fake" professor" and so called "history word for word. The truth be known, it would seem the JoS fell inlove with the romanticism of John Dee translating the Necronomicon.

Screen shot of Dee's Necronomicon Chart by Joseph Talbet

Screen Shot of Simon's Necromonicon

I would like to say that if you compare two screenshots you will see there are literally no differences among them. I guess you can say that Dr, Joseph Talbet is Simon (Peter Lavenda), which is what I will dive into later!

Now I want to dive into the actual story being told in the Necronomicon. The last time I made my video (when I was on youtube in 2011) on this subject, the Joy of Satan tried to discredit Simon's work, but now it it not present. However, I want to show the plagiarism the from the author of the John Dee Necronomicon in contrast to Simon's Necronomicon.

John Dee's Necronomicon

Simon's Necronomicon

Wow! John Dee was a great translator for the modern era, not bad for a guy from the 16th Century! In all reality, this was the Simon version of the Necronomicon we are observing. It was a cunning writer who implemented works of Simon (Peter Lavenda) and H. P. Lovecraft that compiled this entire book. I find it disturbing how there are many people have fallen for their gullibility over the John Dee version of the Necronomicon. I am glad I could present this information to help debunk the "John Dee Necronomicon."

I want to move forward into the Simon Necronomicon. I took the time to read the "Dead Names of the Necronomicon", which was an interesting book from Simon's personal perspective. However, most of the book actually had little to do with the Necronomicon. I was disappointed by the fact, there was not much substance to Simon's defense of the Necronomicon to authenticate the piece when he said the book was burned at the end. That sums it up in a quick synopsis, there is not much more to read out of the book (if you are looking for a good reason to validate Simon version.)


I would like to question the man behind Simon's version of the Necronomicon. I did some research on Peter Lavenda and he is the top suspect. It was 2011 when I did some research to find out who Peter Lavenda was after reading the "Dead Names". The 31st Anniversary of the "Necrononomicon" originally had Peter Lavenda as the author, listed on Amazon (kindle version). But, in 2012 it was changed to Simon. Peter Lavenda is a conspiracy theorist who conveys a lot of paranoia in his books; Nazi-occult conspiracies, political occult conspiracies, and so on; he seems to be the most suspect to write such a book about the mad arab. Let's say this claim was unsubstantiated? There is copyright in Peter Lavenda's name to the Gates of the Necrnomicon.

Copyright to the Gates of the Necronomicon

I have a source who knew Peter Lavenda when he was on RIME in the Magick Conference, where Peter Lavenda claimed he believed in the Necronomicon openly. He was also the host of the party when the innovative book was published in the late 70's. So he is very suspect by his published works, copyrighted work, and the fact he changed his name of the authorship on the kindle version of the Necronomicon. Peter Lavenda is Simon.

In conclusion, the Necronomion is not an ancient book. It was created by Howard Phillip Lovecraft, no more or no less. However, there seems to be an epidemic in the occult when people want to make their practice more valid by making it ancient. It feels good to know you have a book that covers your beliefs; neo-pagans, Wiccans, and occultists have always made their ways older then what they really are to seem more sacred. The very reason why Satanists cling to the Aljilwah or the Satanic Bible or the same reason why Christians hold the Bible dear to their hearts, it gives people a reason to live or believe. That is fine, but make sure your spirituality does not make you ignorant to the facts.

Web Sources:

"Amazon.com: Peter Lavenda." http://www.amazon.com/Peter-Levenda/e/B000APV41O/ref=sr_tc_2_0?qid=1351966424&sr=1-2-ent

"John Dee Necronomicon." http://www.scribd.com/doc/33100600/John-Dee-Necronomicon

Lovecraft, H.P. Necronomicon: The Best weird tales of H.P. Lovecraft (Commemorative Edition. 2008. http://www.amazon.com/Necronomicon-Weird-Lovecraft-Commemorative-Edition/dp/0575081570/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1351965308&sr=8-2&keywords=necronomicon

"Necronomicon" http://www.scribd.com/doc/67692641/necronomicon

"Necronomicon." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necronomicon.


"Rime." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RelayNet

Simon. The Gates of the Necronomicon. 2006. http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Necronomicon-Simon/dp/0060890061/ref=sr_1_9?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1351965644&sr=1-9&keywords=necronomicon

"The Necronomicon." http://www.angelfire.com/empire/serpentis666/Necronomicon.html. 2008


"WebVoyage Record View 1." http://cocatalog.loc.gov/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?Search_Arg=gates+of+the+necronomicon&Search_Code=TALL&PID=q1PmA3JMgEYeSlq_PCGMrpy&SEQ=20121103181156&CNT=25&HIST=1