Greetings Ladies and Gentlemen, it looks like Mister Dan Harms is back once again with his watered-down observations. It’s always a pleasure to hear from Mister Harms, as he brings up some new drama for fans of Gotham City.
“I still stand by my statements. First, it’s not whether people today who buy the Simon Necronomicon know Lovecraft; it’s whether the science fiction-reading NYC occult community at that time knew about it, which would seem to be the case. If it hadn’t sold well among them, it likely would never have been picked up by Avon and reached its broader audience.”
The Simon Necronomicon is probably one of the best-selling grimoires to date. This is mainly due to how people have defined the term necronomicon. Individuals who bought the Simon Necronomicon were not looking for some fabled book Lovecraft wrote about in his fictional stories. Anyone who bought the Simon Necronomicon thinking that it was the book Lovecraft wrote about would surely be disappointed. The Simon Necronomicon states in its introduction, under the topic Mythos and the Magick:
“Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos was meant for entertainment..”
I guess that’s one line that Mister Dan Harms will never speak about since it might affect his book sales. This quote also shows us that Simon was not trying to cash in on what Lovecraft said. Simon also writes that the “Book of the Law” was Crowley’s own Necronomicon, in the sense that ‘it contains a formula necessary to summon the invisible into the visible, and secrets of transformation are hidden within its pages. This is another point that Mister Dan Harms fails to address, that in the introduction of the Simon Necronomicon, Simon uses the word Necronomicon within a context that falls outside the description of what Lovecraft gave to the term and without apology. Mister Dan Harms shows us his state of disillusionment in his next comments:
“Second, composing a text as the Necronomicon brought with it different qualities than you’d see in a work on reviving Mesopotamian religion. For the people of that region, the great cataclysms and wars in heaven happened in the mythic past, not in the time to come. Demons, exceptions like Lamashtu and Pazuzu aside, were faceless and barely differentiated entities who did the bidding of the gods. Turning to Lovecraft brought in his own demonology of beings that would some day bring about the destruction of all human life, putting the book more in line with 20th-century Western society’s notions about the End Times and the presence of evil. Even if this is a misinterpretation of Lovecraft, it moved the book toward modern sensibilities more than a book based on the interpretation of Mesopotamian material would have. And to answer his other question regarding rituals requiring multiple murders – just re-read the Necronomicon, pages 160-61.”
The Simon Necronomicon deals with an inner war, not this Doomsday analogy that is so vital to the Judaic-Christian religion. On page 160, it speaks of using ‘a sword that has slain eleven men.’ This is not suggesting murder as Mister Dan Harms would like us to believe. It is a reference to part of an alchemical process. On page 156 it describes the creation of eleven monsters that were created by Tiamat to fight with Kingu. Therefore, the sword that has slain eleven men is the sword that has been used by the master to conquer his own demons. maybe you should use this same sword, Mister Dan Harms.
Warlock Asylum
We Get (More) Necronomicon Questions
“I still stand by my statements. First, it’s not whether people today who buy the Simon Necronomicon know Lovecraft; it’s whether the science fiction-reading NYC occult community at that time knew about it, which would seem to be the case. If it hadn’t sold well among them, it likely would never have been picked up by Avon and reached its broader audience.”
The Simon Necronomicon is probably one of the best-selling grimoires to date. This is mainly due to how people have defined the term necronomicon. Individuals who bought the Simon Necronomicon were not looking for some fabled book Lovecraft wrote about in his fictional stories. Anyone who bought the Simon Necronomicon thinking that it was the book Lovecraft wrote about would surely be disappointed. The Simon Necronomicon states in its introduction, under the topic Mythos and the Magick:
“Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos was meant for entertainment..”
I guess that’s one line that Mister Dan Harms will never speak about since it might affect his book sales. This quote also shows us that Simon was not trying to cash in on what Lovecraft said. Simon also writes that the “Book of the Law” was Crowley’s own Necronomicon, in the sense that ‘it contains a formula necessary to summon the invisible into the visible, and secrets of transformation are hidden within its pages. This is another point that Mister Dan Harms fails to address, that in the introduction of the Simon Necronomicon, Simon uses the word Necronomicon within a context that falls outside the description of what Lovecraft gave to the term and without apology. Mister Dan Harms shows us his state of disillusionment in his next comments:
“Second, composing a text as the Necronomicon brought with it different qualities than you’d see in a work on reviving Mesopotamian religion. For the people of that region, the great cataclysms and wars in heaven happened in the mythic past, not in the time to come. Demons, exceptions like Lamashtu and Pazuzu aside, were faceless and barely differentiated entities who did the bidding of the gods. Turning to Lovecraft brought in his own demonology of beings that would some day bring about the destruction of all human life, putting the book more in line with 20th-century Western society’s notions about the End Times and the presence of evil. Even if this is a misinterpretation of Lovecraft, it moved the book toward modern sensibilities more than a book based on the interpretation of Mesopotamian material would have. And to answer his other question regarding rituals requiring multiple murders – just re-read the Necronomicon, pages 160-61.”
The Simon Necronomicon deals with an inner war, not this Doomsday analogy that is so vital to the Judaic-Christian religion. On page 160, it speaks of using ‘a sword that has slain eleven men.’ This is not suggesting murder as Mister Dan Harms would like us to believe. It is a reference to part of an alchemical process. On page 156 it describes the creation of eleven monsters that were created by Tiamat to fight with Kingu. Therefore, the sword that has slain eleven men is the sword that has been used by the master to conquer his own demons. maybe you should use this same sword, Mister Dan Harms.
Warlock Asylum
I think this debate has gotten ugly. If you guys can’t be respectful of each other, you shouldn’t continue this. Pot shots and character assassination and nit-picking between the lines doesn’t help anybody. The posts get awfully infantile at times.
One of the things that I don’t think gets acknowledged enough by the Nec supporters is that Simon and/or his publishers distorted the nature of the book in the process of trying to market and sell it. WE can see that the book has a lot to offer in terms of personal growth, initiation, and such, but they took full advantage of the book’s dark reputation to sell more copies. I mean, just look at the back cover. Simon markets the book as this horribly dangerous volume full of dark secrets and evil monsters – and even says it was written by “Abdul Alhazred”, which was Lovecraft’s invented name and never featured once in the book. Then he gets pissy when people can’t look past the reputation he helped create to appreciate the book on its own terms and for its own merits.
In fact, irrespective of whether he’s right or wrong, Simon’s writing style is downright arrogant, haughty, and pretentious. I really don’t understand what he expects taking the attitude and stances he always does.