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I am sure that many of our regular readers are familiar with the name Dan Harms. 2008 was quite an interesting year as Dan Harms and myself got into a lengthy debate about the authenticity of the Simon Necronomicon. I found my talks with Harms very useful, as I learned quite a few things and I am sure he did as well. In some ways Harms has become a part of the Simon Necronomicon family. It’s like meeting a good opponent in sports that you respect even though he plays for the opposing team, but you still have to respect their skill.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the name Dan Harms, he is an Occult Researcher and co-author, along with John Wisdom Gonce III, of the Necronomicon Files. Basically Harms is a big supporter of the Lovecraft Necronomicon Tradition, and for some strange reason believes that the Simon Necronomicon Tradition is a hoax, despite the countless pages that appear on this website explaining many of the Simon Necronomicon’s inner meanings. Harms recently responded to my blog on the Simon Necronomicon and how it relates to ancient texts. The article is found here:
Dan Harms left the following comment in response:
“It seems that at this point Wind’s question is just being kicked down the road. If Simon’s main accomplishment is reconstructing Mesopotamian rituals, then why take his book as the central point of practice? Frankly, a great deal of material on Mesopotamian religion and magic has been published after Simon’s work, and some of what’s in Simon’s book is just inaccurate. It would seem that faithfulness to Simon’s vision would be to reconstitute his work by examination of later sources.
I will answer Mister Dan Harms comment a section at a time.
“It seems that at this point Wind’s question is just being kicked down the road.”
No Mister Dan Harms, I was not kicking Wind’s question down the road! I wrote the article that you commented on as an answer to Wind’s question. So I was not trying to ignore her question.
If Simon’s main accomplishment is reconstructing Mesopotamian rituals, then why take his book as the central point of practice?”
The answer to that question is in the question Mister Dan Harms. Since Simon’s main accomplishment is reconstructing Mesopotamian rituals, then it is a worthy resource for the Mesopotamian Priest/Priestess.
“Frankly, a great deal of material on Mesopotamian religion and magic has been published after Simon’s work, and some of what’s in Simon’s book is just inaccurate.”
What makes you think that the information in the Simon Necronomicon is inaccurate? I have written over 400 pages of material showing some of its inner meanings. Yes, there have been a series of books that have been published after Simon’s work, but I do not see where they conflict with the Simon Necronomicon, but then there is the obvious exception -The Necronomicon Files.
One thing that you should also keep in mind Mister Dan Harms is the influences, such as religion, prejudices, and the ill-intent that even some of the modern-day scholars and writers make. In some cases its quite blatant. I try to use a balance between modern sources, appearing after the Simon Necronomicon, and older sources that were written a century ago until the appearance of the Simon Necronomicon. Older scholars and writers had their own agenda too, but it was more of a personal prejudice at times. However, the modern scholars and writers have an agenda that actually distorts many of the ancient concepts of Ancient Mesopotamia. The first thing is what these scholars call Sumeria or Sumerian. It would seem logical to assume that Sumeria and Sumerian relates to an area of land, or the cultural rites that were held by the Sumerians. However, we find that in the study of Mesopotamia (a Greek term) many writers label something as being Sumerian that is actually Akkadian or Babylonian. We do know some things about the Sumerians that was passed on to the Akkadian, and etc, but there should still be more definition given to what is actually Sumerian and what came after it. Next we should also realize that racial pride and the awareness and importance of who the Sumerians were has grown over the past two decades. This is a good thing, but it has also led to some groups trying to tie themselves in with the Sumerians, as a low-key claim to racial superiority. For example, let us look at some ancient depictions of Inanna
Notice that these depictions, including the replication of one depiction that appears to be pre-historic, all look like very indigenous depictions of Inanna. What many writers will do is incorporate a image of Ishtar who was a Babylonian Goddess, though she represented the same principles as Inanna, she is not a Sumerian Goddess. Her depiction is very different from Inanna. Notice a replication of a statue dating back from 350 B.C.
This looks vastly different that the images of Inanna, but scholars will waist no time interchanging these images as a representation for a more ancient culture. The mistake in Mister Dan Harms viewpoint is that he speaks as if the task of completing the Sumerian reconstruction is done. Mister Harms speaks as if there is a solid illustration that exists showing us all the ends and outs of the Sumerian religion, when in fact that does not exist. You see before you start saying what is wrong about Simon’s work, you need a template of what is correct, and I have not seen a complete guide to any religion that existed in Mesopotamia Mister Harms.
I started off with the Sumerian Pantheon to illustrate some of the errors in how scholars sometimes present things. Just think about it Mister Harms. Simon accomplished a great thing for the occult community with the Necronomicon. He used Chaldean sources and based it on Chaldean practices. These practices of course, included some Sumerian, Akkadian, and even Babylonian influences, yet it may be also said that the Chaldeans were in some ways directly linked with the Sumerians as if they were the keepers of the Tradition that had to be preserved in secret. The next thing Simon did that was very effective is to base the workings on the rites of Inanna/Ishtar. See we know that Ancient Mesopotamia was governed by city-states, which makes it almost impossible to find a whole one umbrella of religion like the Catholic Church or Islam, and etc. Every city was governed by a particular deity, and that deity’s rites were sometimes vastly different than the rites of others. However, we should keep in mind that Ishtar was a mistress of the gods, which means she had intercourse with other deities. This meant that the clergy of Inanna/Ishtar also learned a great amount of knowledge about how the other deities worked..
“It would seem that faithfulness to Simon’s vision would be to reconstitute his work by examination of later sources.”.
Simon’s work is a template. It is an initiation, yet the Simon Necronomicon is only a part of the process. You are correct Mister Dan Harms, I will write some articles based on modern writings about Ancient Mesopotamia. Yet I still need to go through some of his bibliography and inform some workers of the book about some interesting finds. Later, I will get into some of the modern works, which I have not read anything conflicting. Maybe you have? Yet it still remains that the Simon Necronomicon Tradition keeps redefining itself as the Initiate Walks from one gate to another. It would be nice to see Mister Dan Harms Walk the first Seven Gates before he starts ranting on how ineffective it is . Don’t worry Mister Dan Harms I’ll help you with the Walkings! 🙂
Warlock Asylum (The Dark Knight)
P.S. I do appreciate your comment Mister Dan Harms, though I think it would be interesting if you would list some of the modern sources that you feel the Simon Necronomicon is is conflict with. Thank You
I’m sorry – I’d like to engage more, but this is just sloppy.
First, who are all these “scholars” and “groups” and “writers” who are making these horrible errors in Mesopotamian religion?
Second, what do you mean by “shamans of Inanna/Ishtar”? Using the term in that manner really would place just about every religious official under the term “shaman.”
Third, your assertion that I was implying that our knowledge of Sumer was now complete is completely off-base. I never said anything of the sort, and I certainly would know better than to say anything like it. The study of Mesopotamian religion is ongoing, and it is likely to have surprises for all of us – but we certainly know more about it than the people Simon used to write about it.