New Book By Simon Options

I just wanted everyone to know there is a new book coming out by our old friend Simon. Yes the same author of the Necronomicon.

The title of the new book which is Dead Names : The Dark History of the Necronomicon has been out for awhile and it is still not released as of yet BUT they have finally released a picture of the book and a quick overview.

Here is the picture of the new book:

(IMG:http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v235/Frater_Nero/newbook.jpg)

and here is the Book Description:


The most feared, fascinating, and dangerous book in the history of humankind . . . Necronomicon

An ancient Arabic text -- a powerful book of spells that could, in the wrong hands, create unimaginable and irreversible devastation -- the Necronomicon featured prominently in the stories of legendary horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. For many generations, few believed it to be anything other than pure fiction.

But in 1972, a young man who, for his own protection, must be known simply as "Simon," stumbled upon an old, handwritten manuscript that ultimately proved to be an authentic edition of the unholy work.

Dead Names is the startling true account of the dark and violent history of this most fearsome of books: from its Middle Eastern origins to its reemergence centuries later; its role in pivotal events of the twentieth century, from the JFK assassination to the Son of Sam murders; and the terrible fates that befell those who helped bring the Necronomicon out of the shadows and into the light of day.

On pages 197-98 of Dead Names, Simon presents his evidence of a pre-Lovecraft mention of Cthulhu that appears in the Mafteah Shelomoh, better known in English as the Key of Solomon. Hermann Gollancz published a facsimile of this work, said to originate in 1700 in Amsterdam, in 1914, and in turn Joseph Peterson has made this available on his CD obtainable here. According to Simon, one of the spirits mentioned in this document is rendered as KThULH, while the next one appears as Mazkim.

Before proceeding with the analysis, I wish to point to one URL of interest for our discussion - a list of the various voces magicae in magical documents. Based on my own research on such texts, this is only a small sample of the wide variety of magical names that appear in the Greek magical papyri, in Hebrew mystical texts, in the corpus of bowl incantations from the Middle East, and elsewhere. Given the amount of this material, it is unsurprising that somewhere a word similar to "Cthulhu" or "Kutulu" does not appear.

It should also be noted that the Mafteah Shelomoh is a late period grimoire, which Gershom Scholem noted was a mixture of Hebrew, Christian, and Arab contents. Its geographic and chronological date of copying, far from any potential Babylonian roots, and its nature as a mixture of all sorts of content, considerably raises the chance of these names being the result of coincidence and scribal error rather than a survival of millennia-old Necronomicon-based lore.

Still, I've got two Necronomicon names in close proximity, and many of you won't believe the above alone. I'd better get to work.

I'd throw up some JPEGs of the following, but I have neither the technical skills nor the permission. Simon, I can direct you to the proper sources for what you don't have.

I have the Peterson CD-ROM (I recommend it highly), and I was able to identify the pages in question (40b and 41b). My Hebrew vocabulary could fit on the head of a pin, and after sending it to a few Hebrew speakers, I can safely say this is an unusual and difficult cursive script. Still, for those who have the CD-ROM or the original book, I'd call your attention to the material to the bottom right of page 41b. We have a large number of interesting names of spirits - some can be found elsewhere, and those might be considered proprietary by certain magical orders, so I won't mention them here. Besides, I'd like ceremonial magicians here to take the opportunity to look at it themselves, to ensure I'm not just seeing what I want.

My observation is that the letter that has been read as a "kaf" in the first spirit's name is actually a "beth." There's at least two different versions of "kaf" here, it seems, and a "beth" with a concave line at the top and without the tail often associated with the letter. This makes the first letter of the spirit's name "B," which means that our spirit has a name more like "Bathoolah," who seems to be a spirit connected with the constellation Virgo.

Is there a way to verify this? On the next page, Simon mentions another manuscript of the Mafteah Shelomoh kept at the British Library. This reference is to Oriental MS 14759. I was able to view images of the pages (29b and 30a), which correspond to those in the printed version but provide the spirit's names in more conventional Hebrew script. While the lettering on 29b has flaked enough that the presence of a tail signifying a "beth" is not absolutely certain, that on 30a begins with an unmistakeable "beth."

Thus, the name of this spirit is likely "Bathoolah." Without that, the presence of "Mazkim" becomes more acceptable as belonging to the realm of coincidence.