September 05, 2004

Necronomicon - Fact or Fiction The Straigt Dope calls it a fiction of HP Lovecraft.

This treatment of Lovecraft's sources claims it was referred to by John Dee (1527-1608), scientific advisor to Elizabeth I, in his unpublished writings (claimed also by Lovecraft). The State Library in Berlin has a manuscript of this elusive work in its stacks. Could the Straight Dope be wrong? Could Lovecraft have double-bluffed us? What's a bloke to think?

posted by Skrik 20 years ago
  • It was certainly made up by Lovecraft based vaguely upon the many medieval grimoires and mystical books which abounded at one time or another. I believe the manuscript you link to is a fictional one, from what I have read (might have been the one publ. 1973 - the other dates are fictional - much in the tradition of Lovecraft). All searches for an historical 'mad arab' Abdul Alhazred have sadly not born fruit. Lovecraft would presumably have been influenced by Victorian Occult writer Bulwer-Lytton who wrote of such ancient tomes of power, who was in turn influenced by knowledge of Qabalistic lore & pre-Golden Dawn material; the Zohar, The Book of the Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage, the Greater and Lesser Keys of Solomon, etc, all of which are Necronomicon-like in one way or another. 'Necronomicon' - as far as I can ascertain - probably is supposed to mean 'book of the names of the dead' or some-such. In which case it definitely owes influence to John Dee & Edward Kelley's 'discovery' of the language of the angels - the Enochian keys, which they 'transcribed'. (Recent research has indicated that Edward Kelley - a bit of a fraudulent character, it seems, may have been responsible for another similar 'grimoire' type book - the famous Voynich Manuscript, which could be just gobbledigook he put together in order to get a large amount of money out of Rudolph II, who was into that sort of thing). I can't remember when the Voynich manuscript appeared back on the scene in the 19th C - maybe it had a hand in influencing Lovecraft? Very interesting subject.
  • My Arabic is next to non-existent, but "Abdul Alhazred" is not well-formed I think. The "-ul" is a genitive ending, cf. "Abdul Rahman" = "Servant of Merciful One" or "Abdullah" = "Servant of Allah", so it cannot be followed by "al". IOW, "Abdul Hazred" is more likely.
  • Hmm, after some searching on the intarweb, the more accurate statement seems to be that "-u" is the genitive case-ending, and the article "al" is assimilated into "-u" by sandhi; i.e., "Abdul Rahman" = "Abdu al Rahman". (I am totally out of my water here, should of cep my mouf shut.)
  • Your details may have been shaky, but your point is unimpeachable. "Abdul Alhazred" is not an Arabic name; the Necronomicon is not a real book.
  • However, John Dee was real, and there is a John Dee society, crackpots and loopty-loops all.
  • Lovecraft's great, and his books have a sense of darkness about them that I've never found anywhere else, but I think you really have to have a pretty low credibility threshold to believe that the Necronomicon is real. There seems to be something inspirational about the idea, though. I remember a friend of mine reading some Lovecraft when we were thirteen or so, and every short story he wrote for months after was connectd with that dread book in some way. I think I may even have paid youthful tribute to it myself.
  • Apparently, the Voynich manuscript has been confirmed as a very clever forgery.
  • An essay written for the Call of Cthulhu roleplaying game tries to explain "Abdul Alhazred" as a corruption of "Abd Al-Azrad" (which according to the essay means "servant of the great devourer or strangler). Cecil's treatment is dead on... the Necronomicon is a figment of Lovecraft's imagination, as is "Abdul Alhazred." There was a great MeFi thread on the Voynich MS a while back, but I don't feel like hunting it down right now.
  • The book is real! Ia! Ia!
  • *summons Shub-Niggurath to eat surlyboi*
  • I'm totally bummed that no conlang enthusiast has tried to make a language out the gutteral utterals of Lovecraft's stories.
  • *summons Shub-Niggurath to eat surlyboi* I'm not going anywhere near that one.
  • I cannot wait to feast upon your worthless souls. posted by Cthulhu at 12:57AM UTC on September 06 Fascinating stuff by Nostril, tensor and languagehat. I'm not a fan of Lovecraft, but the histories of false histories always get me hot under the collar. On Preview: Cthul, first comment and all, so I'll let you off, but try reading the FAQs before posting, maybe? We're generally a lot nicer in tone here than on MeFi, and your comments seem a bit out of tone. If you want to feast on worthless souls, try Fark... (kidding!! ;-)
  • I purchased my first copy of the Necronomicon yesterday, for 50 cents, at the local Salvation Army thrift store. mwaah haaa haaa!
  • tensor: I believe it is just 'abd al rahman'. The 'al' changes to 'ul', 'il', etc. in some cases. Incidentally, this is also why 'Abdul' cannot be a name by itself; it's always 'Abdul <something>'.
  • I cannot wait to feast upon your worthless souls. Hey Cthulhie, you're supposed to be asleep.
  • Man, that'd be so awesome if Cthulu spent his time waiting to devour us all by sitting on internet chatrooms. "PUNY MORTALS, IT IS SIMPLE TO SEE WHY SUCH KNOWLESS ONES AS YOURSELF WOULD ARGUE THAT PATRICK STEWART WAS SUPERIOR TO WILLIAM SHATNER AS A STARSHIP CAPTAIN. HOWEVER, YOUR PUNY OPINIONS ARE OF NO CONSEQUENCE AND SHALL DIE WITH YOU, SLOWLY AND PAINFULLY OVER A THOUSAND YEARS!"
  • PS - PICARD WAS BETTER, BTW.
  • Picard here, too. But I think this can be somewhat accounted for by the writers and producers using the time between the generations to think through the ramifications of running and working in a starfleet.
  • Picard? WTF? Where's the raw animal sexuality? Where's the dynamic physicality? Where's the tribbles? You fucking ponce. I demand you stab yourself in the left nut with a 2B pencil and develop gangrene and die a lonely loser NOW.
  • I find bald men sexier, so it has to be Shatner for me
  • WHAT? What about Spock? Have you no fucking taste? Please take a scalding hot bath in a strong acidic solution and melt into a pile of foul-smelling goo ASAP.
  • Hey, can you quidnunc kids take this juvenile Trek stuff outside? I am trying to summon Lloigor here.
  • I have a copy of the L. Sprague DeCamp Necronomicon... it consists of a foreward by deCamp and over a hundred pages of pseudo-Arabic calligraphy. There is an excellent collection of short stories from Chaosium's fiction press called The Necronomicon which includes tales about the tome in question as well as some exceprts from Lin Carter's version.
  • (holy shit, I've outed myself as a total geek. feh.)
  • A geek? On Monkeyfilter? How the hell did this happen?
  • BURN THE GEEK-WITCH! BURN HER!!
  • I've got some colours that are out of space here...
  • ...the gutteral utterals... Heh. Picard rulz. But now it turns out bone's a geek, it all just seems so meaningless...
  • I summon Picard from the starry depths Nig-la-hrum-wa to feast upon your geek-juice.
  • ...to feast upon your geek-juice. the_bone is gonna score... with Picard. *starts writting Picard-Cthulhu-Monkeyfilter slash*
  • No good can come of this. The stars are certainly not right...
  • The stars are never wrong, son.
  • the_bone is gonna score... with Picard. Yeah, I want to rub that bald head. wait a second, that didn't sound good...
  • Damn good thing Hasselhoff wasn't on the Enterprise. Would've been the gayest captain ever.
  • YOU &!$?ING DIE NOW!1!!
  • Heh, Quid is Hasselhoff.