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.

First, read Dead Names, pages 228-229, on the Temple of Nabu at Borsippa.

The original source for Simon's assertion is an article for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland written in 1861. You can find it here. In it, archaeologist H. C. Rawlinson observed:

I was soon after struck with the coincidence, that the colour black for the first stage, red for the third, and blue for what seemed to be the sixth, were precisely the colours which belonged to the first, third, and sixth spheres of the Sabaean planetary system... I announce it therefore now, as an established fact, that we have, in the ruin at the Birs, an existing illustration of the seven-walled and seven-coloured Ecbatana of Herodotus.

As for Herodotus, you can check Histories 1, 98 here. If you do, you'll notice that the two color schemes don't fit together. Rawlinson maintains that Herodotus got the color scheme wrong, and transplanted the city from Borsippa to Ecbatana, and, well, Rawlinson was a man of impressive accomplishments, but I didn't buy that either.

Simon presents this scheme, but he does not include some information. He does not mention that the scholar Morris Jastrow found these colors were based upon "no satisfactory evidence" and the linkage of them with planetary bodies "is highly improbable" (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 618), as we pointed in our book. Simon's own source, Michael Baigent's From the Omens of Babylon, is more willing to accept it, but nonetheless calls Rawlinson's theory "interesting speculations" for which "no further evidence has been discovered."

As it happens, three years after Baigent's book was published, the Austrian working at Borsippa between the Gulf Wars had the following to say about the temple's appearance:

Their picture of the temple's exterior is almost complete. The first two
levels were covered with bitumen and were black. The third, fourth and fifth
were decorated with blue-glazed bricks and possibly adorned with bulls and
lions.

The sixth and seventh terraces, close to the sanctuary, were wholly made of
mud brick.

"For cultic purposes the Mesopotamians thought mud to be the purest of
substances," said Helga Trenkwalder, leader of the seven-member Austrian team.
"On top was Nabu's residence with rooms for servants and priests and wings for
his wife, Tachmitum, his children and daughters. It must have looked really
fantastic."

So, what does this have to do with the gates?

There is one other important piece of information that Simon does not give in his book. Even if we set aside the evidence above and accept the color scheme as Simon takes it from Rawlinson, there is still another difficulty with the schema. As Ashnook has pointed out, the gates purport to be an ascent into the stars for the magician. Yet, in Simon's own source, the lowest layer of the ziggurat, where the ascent begins, is colored black and associated with Saturn - the color and planet associated with the last gate of the Necronomicon Gatewalking. The other colors and planets are also mirrored up the pyramid, and one walking up would have encountered them in precisely the reverse order portrayed in the Gatewalking ceremony. Simon's sources are unambiguous on this point - so why the inversion?

I hope this demonstrates why I have my suspicions regarding the book.

This post has been edited by Danharms: Apr 25 2006, 06:28 PM

First, read Dead Names, pages 228-229, on the Temple of Nabu at Borsippa.

The original source for Simon's assertion is an article for the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland written in 1861. You can find it here. In it, archaeologist H. C. Rawlinson observed:

I was soon after struck with the coincidence, that the colour black for the first stage, red for the third, and blue for what seemed to be the sixth, were precisely the colours which belonged to the first, third, and sixth spheres of the Sabaean planetary system... I announce it therefore now, as an established fact, that we have, in the ruin at the Birs, an existing illustration of the seven-walled and seven-coloured Ecbatana of Herodotus.

As for Herodotus, you can check Histories 1, 98 here. If you do, you'll notice that the two color schemes don't fit together. Rawlinson maintains that Herodotus got the color scheme wrong, and transplanted the city from Borsippa to Ecbatana, and, well, Rawlinson was a man of impressive accomplishments, but I didn't buy that either.

Simon presents this scheme, but he does not include some information. He does not mention that the scholar Morris Jastrow found these colors were based upon "no satisfactory evidence" and the linkage of them with planetary bodies "is highly improbable" (The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 618), as we pointed in our book. Simon's own source, Michael Baigent's From the Omens of Babylon, is more willing to accept it, but nonetheless calls Rawlinson's theory "interesting speculations" for which "no further evidence has been discovered."

As it happens, three years after Baigent's book was published, the Austrian working at Borsippa between the Gulf Wars had the following to say about the temple's appearance:

Their picture of the temple's exterior is almost complete. The first two
levels were covered with bitumen and were black. The third, fourth and fifth
were decorated with blue-glazed bricks and possibly adorned with bulls and
lions.

The sixth and seventh terraces, close to the sanctuary, were wholly made of
mud brick.

"For cultic purposes the Mesopotamians thought mud to be the purest of
substances," said Helga Trenkwalder, leader of the seven-member Austrian team.
"On top was Nabu's residence with rooms for servants and priests and wings for
his wife, Tachmitum, his children and daughters. It must have looked really
fantastic."

So, what does this have to do with the gates?

There is one other important piece of information that Simon does not give in his book. Even if we set aside the evidence above and accept the color scheme as Simon takes it from Rawlinson, there is still another difficulty with the schema. As Ashnook has pointed out, the gates purport to be an ascent into the stars for the magician. Yet, in Simon's own source, the lowest layer of the ziggurat, where the ascent begins, is colored black and associated with Saturn - the color and planet associated with the last gate of the Necronomicon Gatewalking. The other colors and planets are also mirrored up the pyramid, and one walking up would have encountered them in precisely the reverse order portrayed in the Gatewalking ceremony. Simon's sources are unambiguous on this point - so why the inversion?

I hope this demonstrates why I have my suspicions regarding the book.

Greetings Danharms

The gates of the Necronomicon correspond with the planets starting with the closest to the sun and ending with the planet most distant from the sun. Or perhaps more correctly the planets in the order that they seem to circle the earth the fastest. Moon, Mercury, Venus, Sun, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn. A pretty logical way to climb the ladder of lights knowing that the Igigi or stars are next. Of course these are only the ones known to the Sumerians. The Sumerians invented astrology and the Necronomicon is steeped pretty heavy with it.

Something interesting about magick. Sometimes doing things backwards makes it more powerful. The case of the Skin Walkers is not related but their source of power is in doing the reverse of the normal. Skin Walkers are Native Americans who shave thier heads instead of growing their hair long. They wash with sand and dry off with dirt. These are the evil shape shifters of Navaho myth. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skin-walker What wikipedia does not tell is well known to Native Americans that these Indian Kashipani do many things backwards.

Albeit Skin Walkers are evil doing some ritual backwards in itself is not evil. For example raising the cone of power counterclockwise. <Native American tradition simular to the witches drawing down the moon.>

This post has been edited by smasher666: Apr 25 2006, 07:08 PM