Many of you, who have been following the Page are aware of the ongoing discussions between writer Dan Harms and myself. Dan Harms is the co-author of the magnificent work entitled The Necronomicon Files, which can be purchased here:
http://www.necfiles.org/
Within the pages of the Necronomicon Files, Dan Harms and John Gonce offer some very good information regarding the history of the Necronomicon and insights into understanding many of its terms and origins. Harms also spends quite a bit of time bashing the Simon Necronomicon, yet within his critique of the book, he also gives some good information for the Priest or Priestess of the Simon Necronomicon.. I have spent quite a lot of time researching and working with the Simon Necronomicon over the years, and I find it to be an excellent tool for the work of the Sumerian Reconstruction. There are some errors within the tome, and some of these errors are deliberate coded-references that can open the door to deeper information. Make no mistake about it, the Simon Necronomicon is not for the beginner and to keep the novice from hurting himself, it is put in a certain language, and there are some apparent traps in the book so that the ill-intended are not able to access the book’s power. I strongly suggest that before the initiate begins working with the Simon Necronomicon as a grimoire, that they spend a quite some time researching and studying the culture, history, religion, of Ancient Mesopotamia.
I would like to make it clear that I do not have any personal issues with those who oppose the Simon Necronomicon, and that my discussions with Mister Dan Harms are not intended to attack his character personally, although at times we do poke fun at each other. I enjoy my dialogue with Mister Dan Harms. I feel that it brings out information that may not be accessed if one were to just read a posted commentary about the works of Lovecraft or Simon. Harms is an adept in his tradition and work, just as Warlock Asylum is in his own rite. (speaking in third person) There are times when I learn a few things from my debates with Mister Harms, and I am sure Mister Harms has learned a few thing as well. I will continue to present discussions with Mister Dan Harms throughout the existence of this Blog. However, I am also extending my hand to Mister Dan Harms as a jester of peace, if he or any in his Coven have taken offense to some of my statements. I will also be putting more emphasis in the area of Sumerian Reconstruction in areas that may exist outside of the Necronomicon studies, but are areas of study in the arena of Ancient Mesopotamia. It has been a pleasure to have such an intense dialogue with Mister Dan Harms. I must admit that he is a hard worker and a great writer! This is not to say that I am changing my perspective. I still find it necessary to maintain the tradition of the Gate-Walker and aid in providing information for those who are on the path of the Sha‘etemmu. (Gate-Walker)
I was inspired in part by a recent comment that was posted in one of my blogs by David Stolowitz, he writes:
“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…”
While I have written much in favor of the workings in the Simon Necronomicon, I am not here to defend the author-Simon. I agree in part that the Book of the Black Earth written by Simon didn’t have to be entitled the Necronomicon in order to be taken seriously by the magical community. The energies in the book speaks for itself and I am sure that practicing Magicians who have used the book without it being entitled the Necronomicon would have reported its effects and it would have gained the same ground in sells without the controversy. However, this was not the case, but before the bashers of the Simon Necronomicon, walk away thinking I am trying to score brownie points on the ‘other side of the field’ we should look at some other facts and principles.
First, as has been stated by one of my readers of the Necronomicon Page, that although the nature of the book has a lot to offer it may have been distorted by using the term Necronomicon as a selling gimmick. Yet the same holds true for Lovecraft supporters. Since Lovecraft was the first to put the word Necronomicon out in public view he is considered the authority and creator of this term, but sometimes what’s spelled out on paper is not always the whole story, maybe it’s just the story of the writer. I have a couple of theories about the origin of the book myself, as well as the term Necronomicon, and this is where some of my opposing views in regards to some of Dan Harms essays have come into play. If Harms had took a neutral stand first and proceeded to objectively investigate the history of Lovecraft before simply accrediting him as the sole source on anything Necronomicon related, I could be a little more in agreement with some of his perspectives. Yet sometimes history is not always consistent with the facts of what’s going on at the time and other obvious factors themselves. For example, children are still taught that Columbus discovered America, when in fact there were millions of people living here, so sometimes history and perspective have to be investigated beyond what is written, especially when that perspective is laid in the hands of a few individuals. I find that the history of the Necronomicon is a little fishy whether it is the Lovecraft Tradition or the Simon Tradition. The differences in both traditions may have occurred long before Lovecraft ever mentioned the word.. The funny thing is that although Lovecraft supporters often criticize people working with the Simon Necronomicon as being easily misled, these same supporters of Lovecraft are not objective in their own right. Let us look at a few examples:
In the History of the Necronomicon, as written by Lovecraft, he reveals that Al Azif was written circa 730 A. D. at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred. I find this very interesting since many believe that the name “Damascus’ is originally a derivative of Damkina who was the wife of Enki and also the mother of Marduk. It is also interesting to note that the ancient Babylonians assigned the planet Marduk (Jupiter) the number ten. Al Azif written in 730 A.D. sums up to ten. (7 + 3 + 0 = 10).
Another interesting note in Lovecraft’s History of the Necronomicon, is that the author, Abdul Alhazred, is described as a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen. San‘a’ is one of the ancient Yemeni cities dating back to the Sabaean dynasty of the 6th Century BC. The oldest written reference to its existence is found in inscriptions which date back to the 1st Century AD.
Notice the following link as we discover more about the people of Sanaa’ the Sabeans”
“Sabeanism was unquestionably the main religious belief of the ancient Chaldeans and Assyrians, but likewise the very foundation stone of practically all the great religions of all the great peoples of the past. Upon the authority of the Jewish scholar Maimonides, scholars have considered the Sabeans as an ancient race whose principal religion was that of star-worship and closely affiliated with the Babylonians and Syrians. But the Sabeans were not a race, but those who followed and practiced the divine astrological astrolatry of the hoariest antiquity. Mohammed in the Koran mentions a sect between the Jews and Christians called Sabi una — to whom certain privileges were granted; older Moslem theologians were agreed that the Sabeans possessed manuscripts which they regarded in the light of a revelation, and the Mandeans came under the same protection granted to the Sabeans; hence the Mandeans also came to be regarded as Sabeans. Another sect of polytheists, the Harranians (830 AD), also affiliated with the Sabeans and shielded themselves under the same privileges; they were a remnant of a Mesopotamian cult, and star-worship had a prominent place in their system.”
The previous information can be found at this link: http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Sabean_Sabaean_Sabian_Sabianism/id/137496
What is also interesting to note is that if the Mad Arab war really of Sabean descent, it is a strong possibility that he may have been of African descent as the Sabeans are said to have originated in Ethiopia. The Sabeans in Yemen and Arabia were the extensions of the Sabeans in Ethiopia. South of Arabia was part of the kingdom of Axum. Ancient Ethiopia was wider as to incorporate many different people than under the Sabean hegemony. What I find fascinating about all of this is that Lovecraft was anti-Semitic., Notice some of the information Wikipedia has to say concerning his views:
A common dramatic device in Lovecraft’s work is to associate virtue, intellect, elevated class position, civilization, and rationality with white Anglo-Saxons, often posing it in contrast to the corrupt, intellectually inferior, uncivilized and irrational, which he associated with people he characterized as being of lower class, impure racial “stock” and/or non European ethnicity and dark skin complexion who were often the villains in his writings.
In “The Call of Cthulhu” he writes of a captured group of mixed race worshipers of Cthulhu:
In a letter of January 23, 1920, Lovecraft wrote:
Fans of Lovecraft could constantly yell that the Simon Necronomicon is a hoax, and never turn the criticism towards Lovecraft’s invention of the Necronomicon. How could someone who held anti-Semitic views be able to capture an accurate description of the ancient world according to the Mad Arab. Did Lovecraft really invent the idea of the Necronomicon? Some have even reported that his anti-Semitic views, is what eventually lead to the divorce from his Jewish wife Sonia Greene.
Another interesting aspect of the History of the Necronomicon, is that the text is said to translated into Greek in 950 A.D. as Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas. The name Theodorus Philetus roughly translates as ‘God’s gift of brotherly love.’ The concept of man with a name that is a Greek aspect of love translating a tome of forbidden deadly lore is an inverted idea of a man who was named the ‘Wickedest Man on Earth receiving the Book of the Law, which states that Love is the Law. Theodorus Philetus translated Al Azif in 950 A. D. Let us look at the sum of this year 9 + 5+ 0 = 14, 1 + 4 = 5.
Now let us look at the year that Aleister Crowley received the Book of the Law. 1904 is 1 + 9 + 4 + 0 = 14. 1 + 4 = 5. It is amazing that these two characters possesses inverted aspects of each other and both of their revelations came about on the 5. What is interesting, is that the number five is a goddess number, and is particularly associated with the goddess as Venus, the love goddess. The Greek gematrical equivalent to the word Necronomicon, according to Simon.
I find that it is hard to believe that Lovecraft just invented all of this stuff from the depths of his mind without ever having any connection to the occult world. What is even more conflicting is that Lovecraft is attributed as writing with so much depth about the adventures of the Mad Arab, and yet he anti-Semitic. No one ever questions where his ideas came from, yet the origin of the Necronomicon remains a mystery in both the Lovecraft Tradition and the Simon Tradition. Most of the rumored information about Lovecraft cannot be validated to date anyway, and to some degree the same holds true for the Simon Necronomicon tradition. Yet both, the practitioners of the Lovecraft Tradition and the Simon Tradition can feel the power in the system.
All of this being said, I would like to extend my hand to Dan Harms and invite him to work on bringing these two traditions under an abode of peace, while we may have different opinions and views and we will continue to debate at one time or another, working towards reconstructing the Sumerian path can be of great benefit not only to ourselves but the world. The choice is yours Mister Harms 🙂
Warlock Asylum
http://www.necfiles.org/
Within the pages of the Necronomicon Files, Dan Harms and John Gonce offer some very good information regarding the history of the Necronomicon and insights into understanding many of its terms and origins. Harms also spends quite a bit of time bashing the Simon Necronomicon, yet within his critique of the book, he also gives some good information for the Priest or Priestess of the Simon Necronomicon.. I have spent quite a lot of time researching and working with the Simon Necronomicon over the years, and I find it to be an excellent tool for the work of the Sumerian Reconstruction. There are some errors within the tome, and some of these errors are deliberate coded-references that can open the door to deeper information. Make no mistake about it, the Simon Necronomicon is not for the beginner and to keep the novice from hurting himself, it is put in a certain language, and there are some apparent traps in the book so that the ill-intended are not able to access the book’s power. I strongly suggest that before the initiate begins working with the Simon Necronomicon as a grimoire, that they spend a quite some time researching and studying the culture, history, religion, of Ancient Mesopotamia.
I would like to make it clear that I do not have any personal issues with those who oppose the Simon Necronomicon, and that my discussions with Mister Dan Harms are not intended to attack his character personally, although at times we do poke fun at each other. I enjoy my dialogue with Mister Dan Harms. I feel that it brings out information that may not be accessed if one were to just read a posted commentary about the works of Lovecraft or Simon. Harms is an adept in his tradition and work, just as Warlock Asylum is in his own rite. (speaking in third person) There are times when I learn a few things from my debates with Mister Harms, and I am sure Mister Harms has learned a few thing as well. I will continue to present discussions with Mister Dan Harms throughout the existence of this Blog. However, I am also extending my hand to Mister Dan Harms as a jester of peace, if he or any in his Coven have taken offense to some of my statements. I will also be putting more emphasis in the area of Sumerian Reconstruction in areas that may exist outside of the Necronomicon studies, but are areas of study in the arena of Ancient Mesopotamia. It has been a pleasure to have such an intense dialogue with Mister Dan Harms. I must admit that he is a hard worker and a great writer! This is not to say that I am changing my perspective. I still find it necessary to maintain the tradition of the Gate-Walker and aid in providing information for those who are on the path of the Sha‘etemmu. (Gate-Walker)
I was inspired in part by a recent comment that was posted in one of my blogs by David Stolowitz, he writes:
“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…”
While I have written much in favor of the workings in the Simon Necronomicon, I am not here to defend the author-Simon. I agree in part that the Book of the Black Earth written by Simon didn’t have to be entitled the Necronomicon in order to be taken seriously by the magical community. The energies in the book speaks for itself and I am sure that practicing Magicians who have used the book without it being entitled the Necronomicon would have reported its effects and it would have gained the same ground in sells without the controversy. However, this was not the case, but before the bashers of the Simon Necronomicon, walk away thinking I am trying to score brownie points on the ‘other side of the field’ we should look at some other facts and principles.
First, as has been stated by one of my readers of the Necronomicon Page, that although the nature of the book has a lot to offer it may have been distorted by using the term Necronomicon as a selling gimmick. Yet the same holds true for Lovecraft supporters. Since Lovecraft was the first to put the word Necronomicon out in public view he is considered the authority and creator of this term, but sometimes what’s spelled out on paper is not always the whole story, maybe it’s just the story of the writer. I have a couple of theories about the origin of the book myself, as well as the term Necronomicon, and this is where some of my opposing views in regards to some of Dan Harms essays have come into play. If Harms had took a neutral stand first and proceeded to objectively investigate the history of Lovecraft before simply accrediting him as the sole source on anything Necronomicon related, I could be a little more in agreement with some of his perspectives. Yet sometimes history is not always consistent with the facts of what’s going on at the time and other obvious factors themselves. For example, children are still taught that Columbus discovered America, when in fact there were millions of people living here, so sometimes history and perspective have to be investigated beyond what is written, especially when that perspective is laid in the hands of a few individuals. I find that the history of the Necronomicon is a little fishy whether it is the Lovecraft Tradition or the Simon Tradition. The differences in both traditions may have occurred long before Lovecraft ever mentioned the word.. The funny thing is that although Lovecraft supporters often criticize people working with the Simon Necronomicon as being easily misled, these same supporters of Lovecraft are not objective in their own right. Let us look at a few examples:
In the History of the Necronomicon, as written by Lovecraft, he reveals that Al Azif was written circa 730 A. D. at Damascus by Abdul Alhazred. I find this very interesting since many believe that the name “Damascus’ is originally a derivative of Damkina who was the wife of Enki and also the mother of Marduk. It is also interesting to note that the ancient Babylonians assigned the planet Marduk (Jupiter) the number ten. Al Azif written in 730 A.D. sums up to ten. (7 + 3 + 0 = 10).
Another interesting note in Lovecraft’s History of the Necronomicon, is that the author, Abdul Alhazred, is described as a mad poet of Sanaá, in Yemen. San‘a’ is one of the ancient Yemeni cities dating back to the Sabaean dynasty of the 6th Century BC. The oldest written reference to its existence is found in inscriptions which date back to the 1st Century AD.
Notice the following link as we discover more about the people of Sanaa’ the Sabeans”
“Sabeanism was unquestionably the main religious belief of the ancient Chaldeans and Assyrians, but likewise the very foundation stone of practically all the great religions of all the great peoples of the past. Upon the authority of the Jewish scholar Maimonides, scholars have considered the Sabeans as an ancient race whose principal religion was that of star-worship and closely affiliated with the Babylonians and Syrians. But the Sabeans were not a race, but those who followed and practiced the divine astrological astrolatry of the hoariest antiquity. Mohammed in the Koran mentions a sect between the Jews and Christians called Sabi una — to whom certain privileges were granted; older Moslem theologians were agreed that the Sabeans possessed manuscripts which they regarded in the light of a revelation, and the Mandeans came under the same protection granted to the Sabeans; hence the Mandeans also came to be regarded as Sabeans. Another sect of polytheists, the Harranians (830 AD), also affiliated with the Sabeans and shielded themselves under the same privileges; they were a remnant of a Mesopotamian cult, and star-worship had a prominent place in their system.”
The previous information can be found at this link: http://www.experiencefestival.com/a/Sabean_Sabaean_Sabian_Sabianism/id/137496
What is also interesting to note is that if the Mad Arab war really of Sabean descent, it is a strong possibility that he may have been of African descent as the Sabeans are said to have originated in Ethiopia. The Sabeans in Yemen and Arabia were the extensions of the Sabeans in Ethiopia. South of Arabia was part of the kingdom of Axum. Ancient Ethiopia was wider as to incorporate many different people than under the Sabean hegemony. What I find fascinating about all of this is that Lovecraft was anti-Semitic., Notice some of the information Wikipedia has to say concerning his views:
A common dramatic device in Lovecraft’s work is to associate virtue, intellect, elevated class position, civilization, and rationality with white Anglo-Saxons, often posing it in contrast to the corrupt, intellectually inferior, uncivilized and irrational, which he associated with people he characterized as being of lower class, impure racial “stock” and/or non European ethnicity and dark skin complexion who were often the villains in his writings.
In “The Call of Cthulhu” he writes of a captured group of mixed race worshipers of Cthulhu:
| “ | the prisoners all proved to be men of a very low, mixed-blooded, and mentally aberrant type. Most were seamen, and a sprinkling of negroes and mulattos, largely West Indians or Brava Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands, gave a colouring of voodooism to the heterogeneous cult. But before many questions were asked it became manifest that something far deeper and older than negro fetishism was involved. Degraded and ignorant as they were, the creatures held with surprising consistency to the central idea of their loathsome faith. | ” |
| “ | For evolved man — the apex of organic progress on the Earth — what branch of reflection is more fitting than that which occupies only his higher and exclusively human faculties? The primal savage or ape merely looks about his native forest to find a mate; the exalted Aryan should lift his eyes to the worlds of space and consider his relation to infinity!!!! |
Another interesting aspect of the History of the Necronomicon, is that the text is said to translated into Greek in 950 A.D. as Necronomicon by Theodorus Philetas. The name Theodorus Philetus roughly translates as ‘God’s gift of brotherly love.’ The concept of man with a name that is a Greek aspect of love translating a tome of forbidden deadly lore is an inverted idea of a man who was named the ‘Wickedest Man on Earth receiving the Book of the Law, which states that Love is the Law. Theodorus Philetus translated Al Azif in 950 A. D. Let us look at the sum of this year 9 + 5+ 0 = 14, 1 + 4 = 5.
Now let us look at the year that Aleister Crowley received the Book of the Law. 1904 is 1 + 9 + 4 + 0 = 14. 1 + 4 = 5. It is amazing that these two characters possesses inverted aspects of each other and both of their revelations came about on the 5. What is interesting, is that the number five is a goddess number, and is particularly associated with the goddess as Venus, the love goddess. The Greek gematrical equivalent to the word Necronomicon, according to Simon.
I find that it is hard to believe that Lovecraft just invented all of this stuff from the depths of his mind without ever having any connection to the occult world. What is even more conflicting is that Lovecraft is attributed as writing with so much depth about the adventures of the Mad Arab, and yet he anti-Semitic. No one ever questions where his ideas came from, yet the origin of the Necronomicon remains a mystery in both the Lovecraft Tradition and the Simon Tradition. Most of the rumored information about Lovecraft cannot be validated to date anyway, and to some degree the same holds true for the Simon Necronomicon tradition. Yet both, the practitioners of the Lovecraft Tradition and the Simon Tradition can feel the power in the system.
All of this being said, I would like to extend my hand to Dan Harms and invite him to work on bringing these two traditions under an abode of peace, while we may have different opinions and views and we will continue to debate at one time or another, working towards reconstructing the Sumerian path can be of great benefit not only to ourselves but the world. The choice is yours Mister Harms 🙂
Warlock Asylum
