A Brief Overview of the Simon Necromonicon
The Necromonicon or Book of the Black Earth was made famous by the Grandfather of American weird literature, H.P. Lovecraft. But, despite the insistence of Lovecraft and the overwhelming evidence gleaned posthumously from his papers after his death, that the dread grimoire recorded in blood by the mad Arab Abd-al-Hazred was literary invention, there exist many who insist that the book itself is far from just a work of Lovecraft’s imagination.
No shortage of bogus Necromonicon texts have made it into publication all claiming to be authentic reprints of the text that inspired Lovecraft’s infernal dark imagination. The most famous of these texts is referred to as the Simon Necromonicon. It’s named derived by the nom de plum of it’s originator a supposed priest who refers to himself as Simon. Exactly what religion or manner of priest Simon is supposed to be is not revealed and in introductory remarks he thanks a demon familiar for his help in aiding the liberation of the human soul.
Some occult theorists suggest that the anonymous Simon is a cover for Peter Levenda, an occult historian who specializes in so called Esoteric Hitlerism and Nazi Occultism. He is most well known for his text on the subject - Unholy Alliance.
While the subject of the Simon Necromonicon’s authorship is debatable, Levenda is a good choice. The text is a mixture of Crowlyian Enochian Magick and borrows some of it’s sigils from the Key of King Solomon. While there are references to the mythologies of the Sumerians, Assyrians and Babylonians the book is clearly steeped in European occultism. Many of the supposed ancient incantations and spells are not actual words that appear in any known language of the ancient world and appear to be made up gibberish.
Yet, many still claim otherwise. Simon himself claims that his translation is derived from the Greek Necromonicon that was presented to him by a mysterious monk. What this monk’s intentions were is not explained satisfactorily. The original text was bound in human skin and written in blood. This sounds like something out of Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead movies, but true believers insist that this is true.
The author of this study has, himself, interviewed many who claim to have experimented with the formulas from Simon’s text with terrifying results. It is interesting to note that many interviewees have committed suicide or been committed to psychiatric hospitals. This at least begs the question that if the text is bogus, what is that drives typically normal individuals, albeit normal except their interest in dark esoterica, to self destruction and/or madness? The most interesting case involves a strange disappearance of a young antiquities dealer - Graham Larsen - whose family reports his disappearance after allegedly receiving an original proof of Simon’s manuscript. The case is still open
~Excerpted from Necromonicon - HP Lovecraft and the Birth of a Modern Mythology, Sam Hogan, PhD.