Necronmicon

THE NECRONOMICON SPELLBOOK

Edited by "Simon"

Companion of the Book of Fifty Names

INTRODUCTION

THE CHURCH where it all began no longer exists. Like so much else in

this bizarre case which has been quietly making history in the last

four years it has receded silently into the mists of memory. Simon had

been a monk, a priest, later an abbot and finally a consecrated bishop

of this Eastern Church, becoming ordained even before he graduated high

school. Coming from a Slavic background (his grandparents fled the

Austro-Hungarian Empire) he acquired a broad knowledge of several

foreign languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Slavonic, Greek,

Latin and even Mandarin Chinese. This ability enables him to

communicate with people from many races and nationalities as well as to

probe the mysteries of religion and magick in the ancient manuscripts

and worn leather books from many long-forgotten lands. As a young

priest, he found himself called upon to perform exorcisms among poor

ethnic families in the sometimes seedy and dangerous New York City

neighborhoods that were his parish. He had faced evil many times in his

life, and battled with the devil himself in his many disguises. Yet, he

was still not prepared for the sudden appearance of the NECRONOMICON

that overcast afternoon in the Spring of 1972.

They had not quite made history yet, those two renegade monks who had

unwittingly made it possible for Simon to be one of the first human

beings to actually hold the notorious spellbook in his hands. But they

would. Shortly thereafter, headlines in the New York Times, the

Christian Science Monitor and other papers across the country

proclaimed the awful truth. His two brother monks had been arrested for

committing the biggest rare book heist in the history of the United

States. Little did they know the true value of one of their ill-gotten

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possesions - the corroded box containing hundreds of pages of

manuscript written in a large, cursive hand in the Greek tongue. It was

only one of hundreds and hundreds more they had stolem from

universities and private collections across the United States and

Canada. The two monks would eventually serve time in a federal prison

for their offense. And Simon would be left with the task of deciphering

what appeared to be an ancient book of spells dating from the ninth

century, A.D.

L.K. Barnes had been a student at the university of Colorado when he

began painting the bizarre works of aliend landscapes that have become

his hallmark to all who know him now. Years ago, he had fantasized

about finding the dread NECRONOMICON in an old used book shop, and many

of his paintings and sculptures are of themes inspired by his voracious

reading of Lovecraft's opus. Somehow, he knew the book had to exist.

Somewhere. In some form. He knew it was not a mere fantasy of

Lovecraft's - for the very concept of such a book held a power all its

own. Then one day in 1977, a friend, whom we can identify only by his

initials B.A.K. led him to the Magickal Childe Bookstore in Manhattan.

It was just the type of strange and exotic place one would almost

expect to find a NECRONOMICON stashed on a forgotten shelf. Jokingly,

he asked the proprietor, Herman Slater, if such was the case.

'Certainly,' he replied, and pulled Simon's translated manuscript from

behind the counter. 'Here it is.'

The rest, as they say, is history.

Fighting against almost impossible odds, the first edition of the

NECRONOMICON was published in December, 1977. Friends and business

associates told both Simon and his new partner, L.K. Barnes, that the

project was doomed to failure. That it was too expensive. That it would

never sell. And that they would be stuck with a cursed book of evil

magick for the rest of their lives. They were proven wrong. In a year,

the first edition sold out even though it was retailing for fifty

dollars a copy. In less than a year, the equally expensive second

edition was sold out and a third edition was just printed in 1981. The

paperback rights were sold, and there has been talk of motion picture

rights for the story of the NECRONOMICON.

But the emergence of the NECRONOMICON has spawned a whole generation of

imitations since 1977. The brilliant artist and creator of the sets for

the movie Alien, H.R. Giger, has come out with his own Necronomicon; a

series of paintings based loosely on the subterranean concepts of H.P.

Lovecraft, who popularized the book in the 1920's and 1930's through

his short stories and novellas, depicting the NECRONOMICON as the most

blasphemous and sinister book of spells the world has ever known (an

attitude no doubt based on a serious misunderstanding of the book's

true origins and purpose). The British author, Colin Wilson,

collaborated in a thin volume published in 1978 containing speculation

concerning the existence of the NECRONOMICON. Stephen Skinner mentioned

it in his introduction to the Enochian Disctionary, and Francis King

has mentioned it in his introduction to the Armadel, a reprint of a

spell book of the Middle Ages.

A reviewer for Fate Magazine warned his readers against possible misuse

of the Book as it might involve serious hazards to one's health

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