Greetings!
I would liek to welcome everyone to the Simon Necronomicon GateWalker’s Info Page. If this is your first time here, please review many of our fine articles listed in the menu section to help better understand the findings of our curretn discussion.
I am sure that many of you who frequent this page are well aware of the debates that have taken place over the years between Mister Dan Harms and myself. The histories of these debates can be observed on both Papers in the Attic and Papers Falling From an Attic Window, the latter being hosted by Dan Harms himself. Most of what is mentioned here was from a perspective of a Priest of the Elder Gods. now that we have moved into the workings of the Ancient Ones and a study of the URILLA Text, it would be nice to listen to a perspective of an Ancient One on the subject. To begin, I would like to extend my hand in friendship to Mister Dan Harms for engaging in some good conversation. It is a privledge to speak with Harms, though we may be of conflicting views, I do admire his the fact that he is studious. Harms recently advised that I look to more recent sources for information about Ancient Mesopotamian beliefs, so I will include these in the work presented herein. I must also state that the reason that we use a lot of older references is based upon the fact that anthropologists considered Ancient Mesopotamia an ethnic society at first. It wasn’t until the discovery of the great wisdom and the advanced technology that Ancient Mesopotamian possessed, do we find that this same society was considered an origin of European Nations. Therefore, many of the modern writers present their works in support of the latter view, while excluding information that supports its conception as an ethnic society, even the Chrsitian bible regards the founder of Babylon as being an Ethiopian-Nimrod. However, for our discussion at hand we will explore the legitimacy of the Necronomicon origins. I found an interesting passage which proves the impressions that Lovecraft received were indeed from a source connected wih the Greater Mysteries. The Cat in Magic and Myth written by Oldfield Howey states the following on page 50:
“The Magic Magism of the ancient Medes was largely based on Chaldaio-Assyrian religion, and helps us still further to understand the foundation on which mediaeval witchcraft was built. For the Medians not only postulated two deities, representing the good and evil principles, as emanating from a common parent, Zarvana-akarana -but paid equal homage to them at the altars.”
From the above quote, we can see that the Ancient Median Magic was based on older Chaldean Rites. It should be noted that the Medians worked both with “good and evil principles.” This is what we find in the workings of the Simon Necronomicon, in the Book of Calling and the Urilla Text. Howley continues:
“A book attributed to the Magus Osthanes was circulated in Greece aboutthe time of the Median Wars, which, from what we know of it, seems to have taught , as the supreme secret of the caste of Magi, invocation of the dead and infernal spirts. The Magian priests spread over the whole of Persia, and it is because they were regarded as enchanters and magicians that the word magic acquired its present meaning.”
Here we see a book of Arabic origin that delt with invoking the dead and infernal spirits that was later circulated among the Greeks. It is interesting to note what was contained in this book was a system of invoking the dead based on the Rites of the Magi, which were based on older rites found among the Chaldeans. This is a strikingly similiar description of what Loveceraft calls the Necronomicon. There was evidently a book that was very powerful work of magic. This book was used to invoke the dead gods and demons of Ancient Mesopotamia. It later fell into the hands of the Greeks, but it was popular enough that the term for occult practices came to be known as magic from the Magian Priests. I am sure that Dan Harms would have us all believe that things of such nature are just a coincidence, in that there actually was a book embraced by the Greeks that was of Arab origin and dealt with invoking powerful spirits and those of the dead. It is interesting to see that a fiction writer was able to catch a glimpse of factual history and that Simon’s fiction is history.
Be Well
The Ancient One
I would liek to welcome everyone to the Simon Necronomicon GateWalker’s Info Page. If this is your first time here, please review many of our fine articles listed in the menu section to help better understand the findings of our curretn discussion.
I am sure that many of you who frequent this page are well aware of the debates that have taken place over the years between Mister Dan Harms and myself. The histories of these debates can be observed on both Papers in the Attic and Papers Falling From an Attic Window, the latter being hosted by Dan Harms himself. Most of what is mentioned here was from a perspective of a Priest of the Elder Gods. now that we have moved into the workings of the Ancient Ones and a study of the URILLA Text, it would be nice to listen to a perspective of an Ancient One on the subject. To begin, I would like to extend my hand in friendship to Mister Dan Harms for engaging in some good conversation. It is a privledge to speak with Harms, though we may be of conflicting views, I do admire his the fact that he is studious. Harms recently advised that I look to more recent sources for information about Ancient Mesopotamian beliefs, so I will include these in the work presented herein. I must also state that the reason that we use a lot of older references is based upon the fact that anthropologists considered Ancient Mesopotamia an ethnic society at first. It wasn’t until the discovery of the great wisdom and the advanced technology that Ancient Mesopotamian possessed, do we find that this same society was considered an origin of European Nations. Therefore, many of the modern writers present their works in support of the latter view, while excluding information that supports its conception as an ethnic society, even the Chrsitian bible regards the founder of Babylon as being an Ethiopian-Nimrod. However, for our discussion at hand we will explore the legitimacy of the Necronomicon origins. I found an interesting passage which proves the impressions that Lovecraft received were indeed from a source connected wih the Greater Mysteries. The Cat in Magic and Myth written by Oldfield Howey states the following on page 50:
“The Magic Magism of the ancient Medes was largely based on Chaldaio-Assyrian religion, and helps us still further to understand the foundation on which mediaeval witchcraft was built. For the Medians not only postulated two deities, representing the good and evil principles, as emanating from a common parent, Zarvana-akarana -but paid equal homage to them at the altars.”
From the above quote, we can see that the Ancient Median Magic was based on older Chaldean Rites. It should be noted that the Medians worked both with “good and evil principles.” This is what we find in the workings of the Simon Necronomicon, in the Book of Calling and the Urilla Text. Howley continues:
“A book attributed to the Magus Osthanes was circulated in Greece aboutthe time of the Median Wars, which, from what we know of it, seems to have taught , as the supreme secret of the caste of Magi, invocation of the dead and infernal spirts. The Magian priests spread over the whole of Persia, and it is because they were regarded as enchanters and magicians that the word magic acquired its present meaning.”
Here we see a book of Arabic origin that delt with invoking the dead and infernal spirits that was later circulated among the Greeks. It is interesting to note what was contained in this book was a system of invoking the dead based on the Rites of the Magi, which were based on older rites found among the Chaldeans. This is a strikingly similiar description of what Loveceraft calls the Necronomicon. There was evidently a book that was very powerful work of magic. This book was used to invoke the dead gods and demons of Ancient Mesopotamia. It later fell into the hands of the Greeks, but it was popular enough that the term for occult practices came to be known as magic from the Magian Priests. I am sure that Dan Harms would have us all believe that things of such nature are just a coincidence, in that there actually was a book embraced by the Greeks that was of Arab origin and dealt with invoking powerful spirits and those of the dead. It is interesting to see that a fiction writer was able to catch a glimpse of factual history and that Simon’s fiction is history.
Be Well
The Ancient One
I think the reason the tension and debates emerge is that there is more than one tradition that is linked to the name Necronomicon. Lovecraft’s Nec comes out of a more Arab background as opposed to Sumerian and I think Donald Tyson has done a fine job at recreating and revealing a lot of the neat things in that dark tradition – a kind of black “1001 Nights” if you will. The events and location of our Nec is Mesopotamia, Magan, and a bit of Iran and Azerbaijan, whereas Lovecraft’s was in Arabia, Palestine, and Egypt.
In our Nec, there are little recognized lines in which our author is praying that he doesn’t end up like “the priest Abdul Ben-Martu” who “worshipped the Ancient Ones” and was apparently ripped to pieces in the middle of a public square in Jerusalem. I tried for a while to try to locate some outside reference to this man or story, and couldn’t turn up anything other than Martu being another name for Amorite – literally “of the wagon”; a nomadic West Semitic culture. Because I wasn’t a Lovecraft buff, it wasn’t until recently that I read – via Robert Anton Wilson – the Lovecraft “bio” of Abdul Alhazred in which it was said that he worshipped Cthulhu and Yog Sothoth and was killed horribly by an invisible monster in a public market.
Now Lovecraft had said that he made up the name Alhazred and its been shown to be linguisticly cooky anyway. I think the figure of Abdul Ben-Martu is deliberately present in our book in order to say “this is not Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, but its linked to the same tradition.” In fact, seeing as the initiations are designed to take one from the Aphkallu to the Elders and eventually to the Ancients, its actually something of a training manual that PREPARES one to fully understand and comprehend what Lovecraft is getting at! Our author, in this sense, is something of a nephew in relation to Abdul Ben-Martu Al-hazred.
Once again I have to recommend “From the Ashes of Angels” to everyone because there is a LOT of information in there about the prevalance of “Black Books” in the traditions of the Middle East, and even references to a group that still shoves swords into the ground as part of their rituals! Good background on the Magi and the Medes as well – I have been doing more research on them myself and believe that they are the key to the transmission of the ancient priesthood and rites that began in Magan – the land “where the boats stopped”. A link seems possible: Magan – Magu – Magi? Media – Madai – Mad – Mad Arab? Even today’s witches write “books of shadows”, which the text says were one of the ways to identify ancients – “books of shadows and shells”, which are Necronomicons in themselves.
I think its time to stop arguing and spend our energy making the most of our respective trads.
I think you will enjoy this article:
http://warlockasylum.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/keys-of-the-ancient-ones-part-5-the-meaning-of-abdul-ben-martu-a-response-to-david-s/
I also enjoyed your points concerning the Magi. Simon mentions them is the Gates of the Necronomicon