Does the Necronomicon exist? Book of the Dead Necronomicon

N. Bavina

Face to face before the dark abyss

Taking a cosmic point of view, we can say that there is an infinite number of worlds, an infinite number of series of both bodily and spiritual adaptation, an infinite number of subjective worlds, that is, representations of the world, an infinite number of series of experience and reaction.

Carl Du Prel. "Philosophy of Mysticism"

...the fear of his soul in front of everything wonderful and catastrophic...

N. Berdyaev

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890 in the American city of Providence, Rhode Island. The precocious boy mastered the alphabet when he was two years old, and by the age of four he was already reading fluently. He developed an early interest in science, and at the age of only sixteen he began to contribute regularly to the Providence Tribune with articles on astronomy. Due to poor health, which caused him early death in 1937, painfully shy and unsociable, he rarely left the hometown, to whom he felt the strongest affection and where he lived all his life.

His literary career began in 1923 with the appearance of the short story "Dagon" in a well-known magazine. In the fourteen years of his life remaining to him, his stories of the mysterious and terrible followed an uninterrupted sequence; Among them are the classics of the genre “Rats in the Walls”, “The Outsider”, “Pickman’s Model”, “Paints from Space”, “Call of Cthulhu”, “Dunwich Nightmare”, “The Whisperer in the Dark”, “The Haunter of Darkness” and others. Despite the rather successful course literary career, Lovecraft was often tormented by doubts about the true value of many of his short stories, about their ability to influence the reader, and he was so successful in infecting others with his doubts that some of his best works (for example, “The Ridges of Madness”) were published only after his death. The reason for this lay mainly in the peculiarities of his nature as a visionary and recluse, who felt himself painfully isolated from people, and in communication preferred correspondence to the living word. Many of the motifs found in his work go back to exceptionally vivid dreams - obviously, it would not be a stretch to call them visions - that visited him all his life. This explains the peculiarity of his style, on the one hand, and the feeling of authenticity of a certain reality that he describes, on the other. This reality, not comprehended by the usual set of senses, “is invisible to the simple eye in the background,” and dictates that special manner of writing, rather indirectly hinting than directly showing, striving, in the words of another spirit seer, to make one feel “through unusual combinations of words, through these images, almost devoid of outline, the presence of such a reality.”

“This is internal space,” as defined by James Bollard, an American science fiction writer who also explores human nature through symbol and myth, - that territory where the external world of reality and inner world souls converge and merge,” or, in the words of C. G. Jung, “those border regions psyche, which unfold into mysterious cosmic matter." Interest in borderline states of consciousness is obviously a recognition of the fact that “unlived and unknown cosmic energies they attack a person from all sides and demand sighted, wise activity on his part.” For ordinary scientific and philosophical consciousness, this cosmic plan of life remains closed. By the way, Kingsley Amis in his book “New Maps of Hell” (1960) - a guide to the “unworldly” world of science fiction - mentioning Lovecraft, finds it necessary to say only that he is more than ripe for a course of psychoanalysis. You can try to look at Lovecraft's works from the point of view depth psychology, which offers a very constructive approach to the analysis of creativity that addresses the unconscious and often directly operates with its symbols.

Transpersonal experience gained through deep exploration of the psyche indicates that the boundaries between a person and the rest of the universe are not immutable; during deep self-exploration of the individual unconscious, something happens that in its effect resembles a Mobius strip. The individual development of the psyche turns into a process of events occurring on the scale of the entire cosmos, and the connections between the cosmos and individuality are revealed. For Lovecraft's characters, the Mobius strip unfolds, so to speak, in reverse side: turning to the cosmos, attempts to master its secrets and wisdom plunge them into the depths of their own unconscious. In this sense, the image starry skies, a certain area of ​​cosmic wisdom, and is Lovecraft’s visualization of the special nature of the unconscious. This nature of it, in almost the same images, is captured by introspective intuition, consciousness directed at itself, for example, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s psychomyth “The Stars Below”: “Stars reflected in deep water... golden sand scattered in the blackness of the earth.” Although Le Guin’s psychomyths no longer seem to be literature proper, since they are called upon to solve not a purely aesthetic problem, still in in this case We are still talking about artistic intuition. But what is a metaphor here is given as an actual reality in an experience of a different order: “... in the depths of his being, the boy knew that he already possessed the freedom he was looking for. This was revealed one night when he was barely nine years old. That night the sky with all its stars entered him, throwing him dead to the ground,” we read in the biography of one of the modern Indian Teachers. The heights turn into depths, and Lovecraft’s heroes get stuck in the “mud of the depths” (“I am mired in a deep swamp” - Ps. 68: 3), in the dirty slurry of sinful thoughts generated by the mind, in the darkness of their unconscious. And they tend, as a rule, into ever greater darkness and depth, obviously unable to resist the temptation of the yawning heights and paradoxes of the psyche. One after another, they begin to be drawn back into the past, into the bosom of their ancestors, to the original undisclosedness, “on the other side.” By force of circumstances or of their own free will, they find themselves in the only place where their fate can be decided: either in a town by the sea, as in the stories “The Celebration” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” or under the shadow of eternal forests, as in “Nightmare.” Dunwich", in the story "Lurking at the Threshold" and in the story "Silver Key". Lovecraft's sea, as if constantly present on the periphery of vision, is mare nostrum with its “mud of the depths,” the element of chaos and destruction is the abyss of the unconscious. The hero of the “Celebration” goes through underground corridors into the abyss of the sea, following the age-old behest of his ancestors, and, having witnessed terrible miracles not comprehended by bodily vision, faced with a consciousness not constrained by the bones of the head, and having encountered a gnawing worm, he almost loses his mind, because the daylight , a more inert mind filled with objects has no way into those “untrodden, impassable places.”

Randolph Carter (“Silver Key”), distinguished from other Lovecraft characters by his greater internal integrity (he represents not only the “conscious self”, other components of the psyche seem to be integrated into him) and can be called, with some justification, alter ego author, and not just one of his masks - this Carter, having lost faith in culture and rational thinking, “presenting reality in in exact terms”, quite deliberately turns back, “to the initial undisclosedness, unidentifiedness, simplicity and elementaryness of spiritual life.” Leaving urban mechanized civilization, where the inner life of nature is “locked,” he delves into the mystical landscape of his childhood, descending to a common source. And here is the price of admission: your sanity. It is necessary to disrupt the familiar perspective of perception by the “conscious self”, a disorientation of the world must occur: “to forget everything, to lose everything, so that all sides become confused, losing their absolute character, become relative, so that the direction ... of movement is the only coordinate of the world, and then fluctuating all the time” . Looking for " internal space“One of J. Bollard’s characters does the same thing: after turning several times at random, he simply gets lost among the huge concrete “cubes” arranged in regular rows. The experience, in essence, is not new - in order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself. When Randolph Carter in the forest, “lost and wandered too far,” he returned to his childhood home and to himself - a boy who, in his tenth year, through a deep underground grotto (with the significant name “Aspid’s Hole,” which refers him to the region chthonic and supporting the motif of the tree - the world axis, in whose roots the chthonic serpent lurks) managed to leave, again getting bogged down in the liquid mud of the “mud of the depths” covering the bottom of the grotto - to go to where the dragon of the unconscious, “favoring caves and dark places” , has not yet been sacrificed.

Some believe in the existence of a real ancient manuscript called Al Azif or Necronomicon and more or less satisfying the description of Lovecraft, and also that the author invented by Lovecraft had a historical prototype. This view is often held by conspiracy theorists, such as Robert Anton Wilson and Robert Shea in their Illuminatus! trilogy. The famous mystical writer Kenneth Grant took the Necronomicon seriously, as did some modern journalists.

Book

Lovecraft often referred to fictional books in their works, which later became a common practice among science fiction writers - such as, for example, Jorge Luis Borges and William Goldman. The Necronomicon was first mentioned in Lovecraft's story "The Hound", written in 1923, and the first hint of it (or a similar book) appeared in "The Testimony of Randolph Carter" (). The description of the Necronomicon states that the book is dangerous to read, because it can harm the physical and mental health of the reader. Therefore, in all libraries it is kept behind seven locks.

History and origin

How Lovecraft came up with this name is unclear. It may have been inspired by Edgar Poe's The Fall of the House of Usher, as well as the unfinished astronomical poem by the ancient Roman poet Mark Manila, Astronomicon. It is believed that Lovecraft only read this book in 1928.

Lovecraft's original title for the book was Al-Azif ( Al Azif) (in Arabic this phrase means the sounds made by cicadas and other nocturnal insects, which in folklore are often called the conversation of demons, which connects this book with the history of satanic verses), and its creation is attributed to the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred ( Abdul Alhazred). Among other things, the book contains the names of the Ancients and their history, as well as the method of summoning them.

According to Lovecraft, the Necronomicon was written by Alhazred in Damascus around 720, and several translations have since been made into different languages. The Greek translation, from which the book's most famous title comes, was carried out by the fictional Orthodox scholar Theodore Philetus in Constantinople around 950. Ole Worm (Danish philologist, real historical figure, mistakenly placed by Lovecraft in the 13th century), translated the Necronomicon into Latin and noted in the preface that the Arabic original was lost. This translation was published twice, the first time in the 15th century in Gothic script, apparently in Germany, the second time in the 17th century, probably in Spain.

The Latin translation attracted attention to the Necronomicon, and in 1232 it was banned by Pope Gregory IX. Greek translation, printed in Italy in the first half of the 16th century, was probably lost in the fire that destroyed the Pickman Library in Salem. The English scientist and magician John Dee allegedly had his own copy, and it is believed that he also made an English translation, which has survived to this day only in fragments.

Criticism

Critics often criticize Lovecraft for using the Necronomicon as a deus ex machina in his works, mentioning it wherever the narrator talks about the occult, no matter how much the narrator understands the occult. With the exception of the protagonists in The Dunwich Horror, all the characters in Lovecraft's works who read the Mad Arab's book come to a terrible end.

Historical prototypes of the Necronomicon

Historical "Books of the Dead", such as the Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead or the Tibetan Bardo Thodol, have sometimes been described as the "real" Necronomicon. They should not be confused with Lovecraft's Necronomicon, since they are intended to help the dead in their afterlife, and not for the living to call upon the dead for their needs, although Lovecraft may have come up with his Necronomicon under their influence.

Another possible source for the Necronomicon could be the book Picatrix (Arabic: Ghayyat al-Hakim), attributed to Maslama ibn Ahma al-Magritit. This book of magic was written in Arabic around the year 1000 and translated into Latin for the Castilian king Alfonso the Wise in 1256. The book consists of four chapters and contains extensive information on astral and talismanic magic. It is curious that it contains a message about a certain mysterious city of Adocentin, allegedly founded in Egypt by Hermes Trismegistus. In the Middle Ages, the book was highly valued, but was considered “black magic.” For example, french king Henry III (16th century), having allowed Agrippa d'Aubigné to familiarize himself with it, took a solemn oath from him not to make copies of the book.

Regarding the solemnly cited cycles of myths of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, R'lyeh, Nyarlathotep, Naga, Yib, Shub-Niggurath, etc., etc. - I confess that this is completely my invention, like the densely populated and diverse pantheon of Pegana Lord Dunsany. The reason they appear in Dr. de Castro's work is because the above gentleman is a client of mine - I review his work - and I inserted these references into them for fun. If any of my other clients post their work on W.T. , you may find even more rampant cults of Azathoth, Cthulhu and the Great Old Ones! The Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred is also something that must still be written in order to become a reality. Abdul is my favorite fantasy character; in fact, that's what I called myself at the age of five, being a big fan of Andrew Lang's translation of the Arabian Nights. Some years ago I made a pseudo-historical account of the life of Abdul, and the vicissitudes that befell his disgusting and unimaginable manuscript of Al Azif and its translations after his death... - an account which I will follow in my subsequent references to this dark and damned book. I for a long time referred to certain passages from the Necronomicon - indeed, considering it a good entertainment to give credibility to this artificial mythology by extensive quotation. However, it might be worth writing to Mr. O'Neill and reassuring him about white spot in his mythological erudition!

… I read Arabian Nights when I was five years old. In those days I often put on a turban, drew my beard with a burnt cork and called myself by the name (only Allah knows where I dug it!) Abdul Alhazred - which I later used, in memory of old days, as the name of the hypothetical author of the hypothetical Necronomicon!

As for writing the Necronomicon - I wish I had enough energy and ingenuity to create it! I'm afraid this will be a difficult task, given the variety of references and hints I've made over the years! I could, of course, produce an abridged Necronomicon - containing passages that would be considered at least reasonably safe for humanity to read! Because Black Book von Juntz and Justin Jeffrey's poems are already on sale, I should probably think about immortalizing old Abdul!

By the way, there is no “Necronomicon of the Mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.” This hellish and forbidden volume is the figurative essence of my concept, which others from the W.T. also used for backgrounds in works.

As for the Necronomicon, allusions to it used three times in the last month have generated an incredible number of inquiries regarding the veracity and possibility of obtaining the works of Alhazred, Eibon and von Juntz. In each case, I sincerely admitted to the forgery.

Regarding the Necronomicon, I must confess that this monstrous volume is simply a figment of my own imagination! Inventing horror books is a favorite pastime of the supernatural, and... many of W.T.'s regular correspondents. can boast of such - although it may be that there is nothing to boast about. Using each other's demons and imaginary books in their stories tends to entertain different authors - so Clark Ashton Smith often talks about my Necronomicon while I refer to his Book of Eibon... and so on. This pooling of resources allows us to create a pseudo-compelling backdrop to dark mythology, lore, and bibliographies - although, of course, none of us has the desire to actually mislead readers.

Regarding the terrible Necronomicon of the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred - I confess that both the sinister volume and its cursed author are nothing more than fruits of my imagination - like the evil entities: Azathoth, Yog-Sothoth, Nyarlathotep, Shub-Niggurath. Tsathoggua and the Book of Eibon are the inventions of Clark Ashton Smith, while Friedrich von Juntz and his monstrous "Unaussprechlichen Kulten" are born of the fertile imagination of Robert E. Howard. While amusing themselves with creating a compelling cycle of fictional folklore, our entire gang often refers to demons created by other members that have acquired the status of pets; so for example Smith uses my Yog-Sothoth, and I use his Tsathoggua. I also sometimes insert a few of my own demons into the stories I watch or co-write with other professional clients. Thus, our black pantheon acquires extensive publicity and pseudo-authority, which it would not otherwise receive. However, we never try to reduce everything to an actual deception and always diligently explain to inquirers that this is 100% fantasy. To avoid ambiguity in my Necronomicon references, I have compiled a short history his “creation”... This gives him a kind of verisimilitude.

Now let's touch on the “terrible and forbidden books” - I have to say that most of them are completely fictitious. There is not and never was any Abdul Alhazred and Necronomicon, since I came up with these names myself. Robert Bloch was inspired by the idea of ​​Ludwig Prynne and his De Vermis Mysteriis, and the Book of Eibon is the invention of Clark Ashton Smith. The late Robert E. Howard is responsible for Friedrich von Juntz and his “Unaussprechlichen Kulten”...

Relatively real existing books on dark, occult, and supernatural themes - in truth, their number is small. For this reason, there is much more satisfaction in inventing mythical works such as the Necronomicon and the Book of Eibon.

The name “Abdul Alhazred” was coined for me by an adult (I can’t remember who) when I was 5 years old, and after reading “The Arabian Nights” I passionately desired to become an Arab. Years later it occurred to me that it would be funny to use it as the name of the author of the forbidden book. The name "Necronomicon"... came to me in a dream.

To Harry O. Fisher (late February)

Notes

See also

There are legends about this book. She was always shrouded in an aura of ominous mystery. Creepy legends associated with the book of the dead “Necronomicon” have been familiar to humanity for a long time. IN different times the book was called differently - “The Key to the Gates of Hell”, “The Book of Evil”, “The Book of the Dead”, but today it is most often called “ Book of the Dead Necronomicon."

Some consider the Necronomicon to be a fiction of the famous writer Howard Lovecraft, but most are still confident that the book is real. Today on the Internet there is huge amount sites where anyone is invited to familiarize themselves with the contents of the legendary tome. However, with all the power of the World Wide Web, there are things that are beyond its control, and the Necronomicon is one of them. This book will always be kept secret from the uninitiated, and it is in our interests that this order is not violated for as long as possible.

According to legend, the book contains the history and magical rituals of the great ancients - a race that lived on Earth before the advent of humanity. To the one who learned the secrets of the Necronomicon, not only the wisdom of the ages was revealed, but also the power over otherworldly forces. However, the book does not reveal its secrets to everyone, and the price for idle curiosity and ignorance can be mental health or even death.

It is believed that these manuscripts are capable of opening gates to parallel worlds. The gates open in both directions, and in exchange for strength and power, the magician risks letting spirits of enormous destructive power into our reality. Perhaps this is why they always tried to hide the book of the dead “Necronomicon” from the eyes of ordinary people, so that no one could read it. We cannot play with what we cannot understand and realize. However, the Necronomicon can not only destroy, it opens up enormous opportunities for comprehending other worlds, and therefore expanding consciousness. But in order for this to become possible, humanity needs to “grow up” a little more.

Origin of the book

The original Necronomicon was written in Arabic and at the time of its creation was called “Al Azif”. Such an unusual name arose as an imitation of ominous night sounds, which the Arabs mistook for a demonic howl. The book was created by the mad poet Abdul Alhazred around the 8th century. A native of Sanaa, one of the provinces of Yemen, he left home and went to travel around the Middle East. He lived for two years near the ruins, for several years he learned the wisdom of the Egyptian priests in Memphis, and then spent a whole decade in the Arabian desert, which was then called Rub al Khaliyah (meaning “empty quarter”), and today is called Dakhna (“Dark Red Desert”) ").

This place has long been considered unclean, and residents of nearby lands still try to avoid it, so as not to inadvertently incur the wrath of the owners of the desert - evil spirits, servants of Satan and the angel of death. Legends say that this desert is inhabited by demons and terrible monsters, and the survivor of it has always been considered a hero. The poet was lucky - he returned alive and spent the rest of his life in the Syrian city of Damascus. There he created his mysterious book.

According to ancient Arabic belief, it is in Dakhna that the entrance to the mysterious city of Irem is hidden. Arab mystics and magicians (maghribs) considered Irem a very important and sacred place. Its full name is Irem zat al Imad. According to old legends, this city was built by a genie at the behest of Shah Shaddad. The Maghribs believed that Irem was located on a different level of reality, and not in physical location such as Damascus, New York or Riga. They were convinced that the columns were a symbol of the creatures of the former race and called Irem the “City of Columns,” that is, the city of the Ancients. By the will of Allah himself, this beautiful city was destroyed. Now all that remains of it are sand-covered ruins, under which the great knowledge of an ancient powerful civilization is buried.

At all times, the magicians of the East sought to find the way to the hidden city, but this was not at all easy. Some tried to penetrate beyond reality with the help of lucid dreams, others through meditation. There were also those who wanted to step into the unknown with the help of powerful drugs. It doesn’t matter how, but a person had to achieve fana - a state when the shackles of the flesh fall off and the spirit unites with the great emptiness. For those who managed to gain power over this sacred void and go beyond its limits, great power and unlimited power over the inhabitants of both worlds - over people and jinn - were revealed.

In the 8th century, those people who had contact with jinn were called “majnun” - possessed by power. All Sufi heroes were "majnun". However, in modern times this word is translated as “mad man.” This is why Alhazred was considered a mad poet. In the old days, all Arabic books were written in verse, including even such orthodox works as the Koran. Arab culture claimed that poets were inspired to write by genies. This is why the Prophet Muhammad persistently denied that he was a poet. He wanted to show all people that he was inspired by Allah, and not some genie.

According to Arab mythology, jinn are powerful creatures who lived in the world before the appearance of people. Some unknown circumstance forced them one day to leave our world for another reality, where they are now in a sleeping or frozen state. The magician who conquered the void gained the power to awaken the genies and revive them in our reality.

It is unclear how the Yemenite wanderer managed to discover the road to the forbidden city, but it was there that he found a repository of precious manuscripts that contain knowledge great race, who lived on Earth long before the advent of our civilization. In the culture of the East, this race is usually called the Ancients. Everything that Abdul Alhazred learned from the manuscripts of Iram, he described in his book. Truth, disclosure secret knowledge brought him neither fame nor recognition.

According to legend, Abdul Alhazred suddenly disappeared from Damascus, where he lived in the last years of his life, and no one ever saw him again. However, popular rumor claims that the poet was torn to pieces right on the street by some terrible invisible monster.

The further fate of the tome

Whatever the fate of the author, his work has been preserved. Around the 10th century, the Al Azif manuscript was translated into Greek and received the familiar name “Necronomicon” (“necro” in Greek means “dead”, and “nomos” means “experience”, “customs”, “rules”, “postulate”).

In 1230, the book was translated into Latin, in this translation it retained the Greek title, and later, in the 16th century, the manuscript fell into the hands of Dr. John Dee, who translated it into English. John Dee is a legendary man, a favorite of Queen Elizabeth of England, one of the greatest scientists of the 16th century, an alchemist, magician and sorcerer. The most brilliant courts of Europe competed for the honor of hosting him. One day, at the invitation of Emperor Rudolf, he arrived in Prague and there, according to testimony historical chronicles, in the highest presence, transformed pieces of lead into high-grade gold. If you wish, you can turn to the wonderful book by Gustav Meyrink “The Angel of the Western Window” and read the biography of this amazing person - John Dee, the chosen one of the Ancients, one of the three translators of the book “Necronomicon”.

For many centuries, representatives of various religions and cults hunted for every copy of the Necronomicon in the hope of destroying such a dangerous tome forever. But, as legends say, there are 96 copies of the book in the world, and no matter how hard the followers of traditional religious organizations try to destroy the Necronomicon, the number of books always remains the same. However, only seven of them are of real value, that is, they can serve as gateways to other dimensions - three in Arabic, one in Greek, two in Latin and one in English (the one from the pen of John Dee). The remaining copies have some defects. However, these books are endowed with enormous power that sets the Necronomicon apart from all others.

Rulers and dictators such as Napoleon, Bismarck and Hitler sought to possess a true copy of the Necronomicon. There is evidence that after the end of World War II, special groups were created in the USA and USSR that searched for this unknown relic. Apparently, their efforts were not crowned with success.

Myth or reality

The Book of the Dead owes its current popularity to its father. literary genre horror to Howard Lovecraft. She is mentioned in almost a dozen of his works. According to legend, the writer managed to take one of the copies of the Book of the Dead from followers of the “Crows of Death” sect. To preserve the Necronomicon, with the help of his friend, archaeologist Andrew Scott, Lovecraft chose to hide it in a safe place somewhere in the middle of the sands of the Sahara. The fate of the two friends after this was tragic: Lovecraft soon died, and his archaeologist friend disappeared without a trace.

Howard Lovecraft wrote in the genres of fantasy, horror and mysticism. He successfully combined these three directions, which gave rise to many rumors. Lovecraft created the unique world of the Cthulhu Mythos. During his lifetime, as often happens, his work was not particularly popular. After the death of the author, it began to have an increasing influence on modern literature. To emphasize the uniqueness of the writer’s talent, his works were separated into a separate subgenre - Lovecraftian horror.

At the end of his life, in his letters to friends, Howard Loughcraft admitted that the Necronomicon was a figment of his imagination.

Ancient legends say that the first copy of this book was written on the skin of virgins, with their blood, but these are most likely just legends. Due to the large number of those who wanted to claim the authorship of this book, the real Necronomicon was lost in a huge number manuscripts presented as originals, but which are just a distorted likeness.

Some researchers have tried to connect the Necronomicon with the famous Egyptian Book of the Dead or Bardo Thodol, a similar treatise written by the sages of Tibet. However, these books were intended to make it easier for the dead to transition to another world, and do not contain recipes for how to use their power for earthly needs. Versions have appeared that the prototype of the “Necronomicon” could be the medieval “Picatrix” or the strangest manuscript in history - the so-called.

Throughout the 20th century, works appeared that claimed to be the true “Necronomicon”. It is often confused with works such as Grimoirium Imperium (published in the late 1970s), Simon's Necronomicon (published in 1977 by Schlangekraft Inc., which is the most popular version of the book), and Liber Logaeth (published by the writer and paranormal investigator Colin Wilson). There are also a number of lesser-known likenesses of such authors as Ripel, DeCamp, Quinn, R’lyich, etc. With such an abundance of texts, artistically designed editions and even gift versions of books appeared.

The appearance of so many versions of the book can serve as further proof of the mystery and inaccessibility of the true Necronomicon. Special Interest the book was spurred on by such feature films, like “The Unnamable” (“The Unnamable”, 1988), “The Unnamable 2” (“The Unnamable II: The Statement of Randolph Carter”, 1993), “The Book of the Dead” (“Necronomicon”, 1993), “Dreams in the House Witches" ("H.P. Lovecraft's Dreams in the Witch-House", 2005), "The Amazing Journeys of Hercules" (season 6, episode "City of the Dead"), "Valdemar's Legacy" (2010-2011). The plot of the most famous and popular film “Evil Dead”, parts 1 and 2, is based on the fact that terrible demonic events begin precisely after reading spells from the pages of the Necronomicon.

Despite numerous forgeries and speculations, not only the location, but also the true content of the Necronomicon still remains a mystery. If you believe Lovecraft, in addition to their own history and descriptions of the most complex magical rituals, the ancients reveal the secrets of the structure of the Earth and outer space. Many postulates of the book contain information that is open modern mathematicians and physicists only in the last century.

Mysterious content

“So what does it say?” - you ask. About the dark secrets of the nature of the Earth and the universe. The book identifies some of the deities that the Ancients worshiped. Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth were considered especially important. Yog-Sothoth is the past, present and future. This is the extent of infinity. It is an omnipresent and all-encompassing being. In the center of it lives a twin brother - Azathoth. This little dwarf is the support of the entire universe and the ruler of the worlds. Azathoth radiates into infinity waves of probabilities from which sets of possibilities are created for every cosmos and every being in the universe. Scientists say that Azathoth's idea is closely related to the latest models of quantum physics. It is difficult to imagine that at the beginning of centuries the inhabitants of the Arabian deserts understood the mathematics of chaos, the laws parallel spaces and similar topics about which our modern science just starting to guess.

Deity Yog-Sothoth

Yog-Sothoth and Azathoth are endless expansion and endless compression. By the way, “Azatoth” is translated from Egyptian as “the mind of Thoth,” and Yog-Sothoth can be considered a derivative of Yak Set Thoht (“Seth and Thoth are one”). According to Egyptian mythology, Set and Thoth are the dark and light aspects of the world. Necronomicon researchers believe that Greek translator“Al Azif” replaced the names of Arab deities with Egyptian ones, since at that time Egypt was considered the cradle of human civilization.

Further, the Necronomicon reports on the mysterious power inherent in the Earth. She is personified by the dragon Cthulhu, a deity whose round face was depicted with a dozen prominences or tentacles. Some orientalists rank Cthulhu among the Ancients. They believe that he was their high priest. And there is such a legend that says that if a magician or wizard calls him to wrong time, Cthulhu will rise from the abyss of the Pacific Ocean and strike humanity with an unprecedented disease - attacks of madness, from which neither old nor young will be saved. Legend says that people's dreams are the thoughts of Cthulhu, and our life is his dream. When the deity wakes up, we will disappear. So, better not wake up Cthulhu.

The book also mentions Other gods. It is they who attract people who crave exorbitant power to the Necronomicon. All of them were united by a single goal - to find the City of the Ancients and enlist the support of terrible but powerful forces.

The soul and mediator of the Others was Nyarlathotep - the Mighty Messenger. Through him, Maghrib wizards came into contact with Azathoth. Nyarlathotep was often called the Crawling Chaos. It could take any form, but knowledgeable people always recognized it by its smell. The Necronomicon contains symbols and spells for summoning Other gods. One of them, Shub-Niggurath, appeared in the form of a black goat. By the way, he was worshiped not only by the Arabs, Greeks and Egyptians, but also by the Sumerians - the most ancient civilization humanity.

Many magicians were interested in other creatures described in the Necronomicon. About a third of the book is devoted to controlling shoggoths - shapeless "eels" from bubbles of protoplasm.

Another interesting race are "deep". They live in the depths of waters, caves and underground cavities. Their appearance resembles a cross between a fish, a frog and a human, and they are ruled by the deity Dagon, an ally of Cthulhu. Dagon was mentioned in the Philistine tradition, later becoming the Babylonian Oannes, and then evolving into the Greek Poseidon and Roman Neptune. The “deep ones” are easy to control, but the power over them fascinates the magician so much that he gradually becomes their slave himself.

Perhaps the most disgusting creatures described in the Necronomicon are ghouls or ghouls. They are similar to humans in many ways, but their breed is usually revealed by their fangs and monstrous facial features. Ghouls can have sexual intercourse with humans. In addition, under certain circumstances, a person can easily turn into a ghoul. However, reverse transformation is no longer possible.

Necronomicon Fragment - Pinterest Occult

In modern popular culture ghouls are considered vampires, but this is not entirely true. Today's vampires are representatives of the spiritual Order of the Trapezoid. These are the magicians of the so-called Left Hand Path. Ghouls are their divine leaders (or rather, energy templates). The mages of the Order of the Trapezium are obsessed with the idea of ​​immortality. Their experiences and actions inspire disgust and fear. The power of the vampires modern world amazingly big. But no matter how much they praised ghouls, they were and remain brainless corpse eaters, who have one thing on their mind - to bite and drink human blood.

The magical symbols and spells of the Necronomicon allow people to go beyond physical reality. But the trouble is that the book is usually not used by the best representatives of humanity.

In addition, on the pages of the manuscript you can find detailed description process of enslavement human souls and instructions for creating psychotronic weapons. Magic formulas from the Necronomicon can teach a person to go beyond the boundaries of our reality. The power of the Necronomicon is aimed at ensuring that the book falls into the hands of only self-centered and power-hungry people. Of all the dark mysteries of the universe, they usually choose the worst, and the fruits of their labors fall heavily on humanity.

On the other hand, the Necronomicon is a great source of spiritual wisdom, calling on the dedicated reader to gradually ascend to the heights of knowledge of existence. Whoever is able to penetrate information structure encrypted text, will be able to obtain a colossal amount of knowledge.

If we discard all supernatural premises, then no one will be able to say what the Necronomicon actually gives, and whether a person is able to know its full power. Perhaps someday there will be someone who will be able to absorb the wisdom hidden in the book. One can only hope that if one day the book itself finds its chosen one, it will turn out to be a sage and not a dictator.

Modern translations of the books “Al Azif” and “Necronomicon” are publicly available on the Internet and anyone can read them. But before you start reading, you should remember that it may be unsafe for the reader.

The article is based on material from the publication “Secrets of the 20th Century”.

Taking a cosmic point of view, we can say that there is an infinite number of worlds, an infinite number of series of both bodily and spiritual adaptation, an infinite number of subjective worlds, that is, representations of the world, an infinite number of series of experience and reaction.

Carl Du Prel. "Philosophy of Mysticism"

...the fear of his soul in front of everything wonderful and catastrophic...

N. Berdyaev

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was born on August 20, 1890 in the American city of Providence, Rhode Island. The precocious boy mastered the alphabet when he was two years old, and by the age of four he was already reading fluently. He developed an early interest in science, and at the age of only sixteen he began to contribute regularly to the Providence Tribune with articles on astronomy. Due to poor health, which caused his early death in 1937, painful shyness and unsociability, he rarely left his hometown, to which he had a strong attachment and where he lived all his life.

His literary career began in 1923 with the appearance of the short story "Dagon" in a well-known magazine. In the fourteen years of his life remaining to him, his stories of the mysterious and terrible followed an uninterrupted sequence; Among them are the classics of the genre “Rats in the Walls”, “The Outsider”, “Pickman’s Model”, “Paints from Space”, “Call of Cthulhu”, “Dunwich Nightmare”, “The Whisperer in the Dark”, “The Haunter of Darkness” and others. Despite the fairly successful course of his literary career, Lovecraft was often tormented by doubts about the true value of many of his short stories, about their ability to influence the reader, and he was so successful in infecting others with his doubts that some of his works, and some of his best (for example, “The Ridges of Madness” "), were published only after his death. The reason for this lay mainly in the peculiarities of his nature as a visionary and recluse, who felt himself painfully isolated from people, and in communication preferred correspondence to the living word. Many of the motifs found in his work go back to exceptionally vivid dreams - obviously, it would not be a stretch to call them visions - that visited him all his life. This explains the peculiarity of his style, on the one hand, and the feeling of authenticity of a certain reality that he describes, on the other. This reality, not comprehended by the usual set of senses, “is invisible to the simple eye in the background,” and dictates that special manner of writing, rather indirectly hinting than directly showing, striving, in the words of another spirit seer, to make one feel “through unusual combinations of words, through these images, almost devoid of outline, the presence of such a reality.”

“This inner space,” according to the definition of James Bollard, an American science fiction writer who also explores human nature through symbol and myth, “is the territory where the outer world of reality and the inner world of the soul converge and merge,” or, in the words of C. G. Jung, "those border areas psyche, which unfold into mysterious cosmic matter." Interest in borderline states of consciousness is obviously a recognition of the fact that “unexplored and unknown cosmic energies attack a person from all sides and require sighted, wise activity on his part.” For ordinary scientific and philosophical consciousness, this cosmic plan of life remains closed. By the way, Kingsley Amis in his book “New Maps of Hell” (1960) - a guide to the “unworldly” world of science fiction - mentioning Lovecraft, finds it necessary to say only that he is more than ripe for a course of psychoanalysis. You can try to look at Lovecraft’s works from the point of view of depth psychology, which offers a very constructive approach when analyzing creativity that addresses the unconscious and often directly operates with its symbols.

Transpersonal experience gained through deep exploration of the psyche indicates that the boundaries between a person and the rest of the universe are not immutable; during deep self-exploration of the individual unconscious, something happens that in its effect resembles a Mobius strip. The individual development of the psyche turns into a process of events occurring on the scale of the entire cosmos, and the connections between the cosmos and individuality are revealed. For Lovecraft's characters, the Mobius strip turns, so to speak, in the opposite direction: turning to space, trying to master its secrets and wisdom plunges them into the depths of their own unconscious. In this sense, the image of the starry heavens, a certain region of cosmic wisdom, is Lovecraft’s visualization of the special nature of the unconscious. This nature of it, in almost the same images, is captured by introspective intuition, consciousness directed towards itself, for example, in Ursula K. Le Guin’s psychomyth “The Stars Below”: “Stars reflected in deep water... golden sand scattered in the blackness of the earth” . Although Le Guin’s psychomyths no longer seem to be literature proper, since they are not intended to solve a purely aesthetic problem, nevertheless, in this case we are still talking about artistic intuition. But what is a metaphor here is given as an actual reality in an experience of a different order: “... in the depths of his being, the boy knew that he already possessed the freedom he was looking for. This was revealed one night when he was barely nine years old. That night the sky with all its stars entered him, throwing him dead to the ground,” we read in the biography of one of the modern Indian Teachers. The heights turn into depths, and Lovecraft’s heroes get stuck in the “mud of the depths” (“I am mired in a deep swamp” - Ps. 68: 3), in the dirty slurry of sinful thoughts generated by the mind, in the darkness of their unconscious. And they tend, as a rule, into ever greater darkness and depth, obviously unable to resist the temptation of the yawning heights and paradoxes of the psyche. One after another, they begin to be drawn back into the past, into the bosom of their ancestors, to the original undisclosedness, “on the other side.” By force of circumstances or of their own free will, they find themselves in the only place where their fate can be decided: either in a town by the sea, as in the stories “The Celebration” and “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” or under the shadow of eternal forests, as in “Nightmare.” Dunwich", in the story "Lurking at the Threshold" and in the story "Silver Key". Lovecraft's sea, as if constantly present on the periphery of vision, is mare nostrum with its “mud of the depths,” the element of chaos and destruction is the abyss of the unconscious. The hero of the “Celebration” goes through underground corridors into the abyss of the sea, following the age-old behest of his ancestors, and, having witnessed terrible miracles not comprehended by bodily vision, faced with a consciousness not constrained by the bones of the head, and having encountered a gnawing worm, he almost loses his mind, because the daylight , a more inert mind filled with objects has no way into those “untrodden, impassable places.”

Randolph Carter (“Silver Key”), distinguished from other Lovecraft characters by his greater internal integrity (he represents not only the “conscious self”, other components of the psyche seem to be integrated into him) and can be called, with some justification, alter ego author, and not just one of his masks - this Carter, having lost faith in culture and rational thinking, “presenting reality in precise terms,” quite deliberately turns back, “to the original undisclosedness, undetectability, simplicity and elementaryness of spiritual life.” Leaving urban mechanized civilization, where the inner life of nature is “locked,” he delves into the mystical landscape of his childhood, descending to a common source. And here is the price of admission: your sanity. It is necessary to disrupt the familiar perspective of perception by the “conscious self”, a disorientation of the world must occur: “to forget everything, to lose everything, so that all sides become confused, losing their absolute character, become relative, so that the direction ... of movement is the only coordinate of the world, and then fluctuating all the time” . In search of “inner space,” one of J. Bollard’s characters does the same thing: after turning several times at random, he simply gets lost among the huge concrete “cubes” arranged in regular rows. The experience, in essence, is not new - in order to find yourself, you have to lose yourself. When Randolph Carter in the forest, “lost and wandered too far,” he returned to his childhood home and to himself - a boy who, in his tenth year, through a deep underground grotto (with the significant name “Aspid’s Hole,” which refers him to the region chthonic and supporting the motif of the tree - the world axis, in whose roots the chthonic serpent lurks) managed to leave, again getting bogged down in the liquid mud of the “mud of the depths” covering the bottom of the grotto - to go to where the dragon of the unconscious, “favoring caves and dark places” , has not yet been sacrificed.

Ancient legends say that the first copy of this book was written on the skin of virgins, with their blood, but these are most likely just legends. Due to the large number of people who wanted to take credit for this book, this Necronomicon lost in a huge number of manuscripts passed off as the original, but which are just a distorted likeness.

The Necronomicon is often confused with such works as: Grimorium Imperium (published in the late 1970s); Simon's Necronomicon (published in 1977 by Schlangekraft, Inc. and is the most popular version of the Necronomicon today); Liber Logaeth (published by writer and paranormal investigator Colin Wilson). There are also a number of lesser-known similarities such as: Ripel; DeCamp; Quina; Text by R'lyich et al.

The true Necronomicon was written by a mad poet from the city of Sanaa, a province of Yemen, Abdul Alhazred and had original title"Al Azif", which roughly translates to "The Howl of the Night Demons".

It is worth mentioning that Abdul Alhazred was not considered insane in the literal sense. To understand true meaning With this word, let me plunge a little into eastern practices.

Eastern practices

In the Middle Ages, the Arabs believed in the existence of the city of Irem (full name Irem zat al Imad) hidden in a parallel world, located in the Rub al Khali desert (in ancient times, the “Empty Quarter”, modern name Dakhna "Dark Red Desert"). According to their beliefs, it was built by a genie on the orders of Shah Shaddad Maghribah. All eastern magicians dream of going there, since great knowledge is hidden there, left by the previous race that lived on Earth before us.

This place is considered a secret door to the Great Void (that is, the exact equivalent of the Kabbalistic DAATH). Maghrib wizards entered there in altered states of consciousness. To do this, they used three methods: they used special narcotic substances, mastered lucid dreaming and practiced complete absence thoughts. There, in this mystical space, they communicated with the inhabitants of the Void and comprehended the art of annihilation.

Fana (annihilation) is highest achievement in Sufi and Maghrib mysticism. During annihilation, the magician threw off the shackles of matter and was absorbed by the Void. Then, with the help of certain secret techniques, he went beyond the Void and gained incredible power over creatures of both realities - over people and over genies.

According to Arab myths, jinn once preceded humans on Earth. For some reason, they moved to another reality and are now “frozen” in it, that is, they are in a latent (“sleeping”) state. A magician who has touched the Void can introduce one or more genies into earthly reality, and then the genies become faithful allies.

In the 8th century, those people who had contact with jinn were called “majnun” - possessed by power. All Sufi heroes were "majnun". However, in modern times this word is translated as “mad man.” This is why Alhazred was considered a mad poet.

In the old days, all Arabic books were written in verse, including even such orthodox works as the Koran. But Arab culture claimed that poets were inspired to create by genies. This is why the Prophet Muhammad persistently denied that he was a poet. He wanted to show all people that he was inspired by Allah, and not some genie.

Necronomicon of Alhazred

Let's return to the author of the famous Necronomicon. Before writing this work, Abdul Alhazred traveled a lot to learn the truth of the structure of the world. In his search, he traveled throughout the Middle East: he lived for two years near the ruins of Babylon, for five years he studied the underground and secret caves of Memphis, for ten years he wandered through the southern desert of Arabia, which at that time was considered inhabited by evil spirits and all sorts of evil spirits serving Satan and the angel of death. . According to Abdul Alhazred, it was there that he found the ruins ancient city, under which there was a sanctuary with manuscripts about the knowledge of the race that preceded humanity. Many peoples of the East call this race the Ancients...

Whether this is true or a fiction of the writer is not known, but a little later Abdul Alhazred settled in Damascus, where he began work on his life's work, and Al Azif was completed around 700 AD. It was from this moment that the history of the Necronomicon began.

Necronomicon Magic

Around the 10th century AD, the Al Azif manuscript was translated into Greek and received the familiar name of the Necronomicon (“Necro” in Greek means “dead”, and “nomos” means “experience”, “customs”, “rules” , "postulate").

In 1230, the book was translated into Latin, where it did not lose its Greek title, and later in the 16th century the manuscript fell into the hands of Dr. John Dee, who translated it into English.

There is a statement that since the 17th century, no matter how hard followers of various religious cults tried to destroy this book, the number of its copies in the world is always 96. However, only seven of them have real value, that is, according to legend, they can serve as gateways to other dimensions. Three such books are in Arabic, one in Greek, two in Latin and one in English (the one from the pen of John Dee).

The remaining copies have distortions of the text, but despite this, they are endowed with enormous power that distinguishes the Necronomicon from all other ordinary books.

The book indicates some deities of the previous race - they personify the principles of time, space and infinity, the dark and light aspects of the world, eternal chaos and the forces of nature. Arabic manuscripts say that secrets can be found there human mind and easily master the ability to influence the human psyche.

According to the Necronomicon, our Earth has a mysterious power, which is personified in the image of the Supreme Deity - Cthulhu. It also talks about the arrival of the “Ancients” race and the fall of humanity as soon as Cthulhu is awakened. Legend says that people's dreams are the thoughts of Cthulhu, and our life is his dream. When the deity wakes up, we will disappear. So you better not wake up Cthulhu.

It also talks about other ancient deities such as: Nyarlathotep - Mighty Messenger; Shub-Niggurath; Nyarlathotep - Creeping Chaos; Azathoth; Dagon; etc. All these powerful gods, as well as various evil spirits of other worlds, can be summoned using the book. That is why many rulers and dictators such as Napoleon, Richard Francis Burton, Gurdjieff, Bismarck, Hitler sought to possess it. After World War II, special groups were created in the USA and USSR to search for this unknown relic.

The Necronomicon appears before us as a great source of the Wisdom of the Spirit and what we are accustomed to calling magic. Its author encourages each reader to gradually ascend to the heights of knowledge of existence. Everyone can mentally penetrate the information structure of the encrypted text and obtain the amount of knowledge for which he is ready. The Necronomicon is multi-layered, and provides personal revelations to each person who reads it.

If we discard all supernatural premises, then no one will be able to tell you what the Necronomicon actually gives, and whether a person is capable of knowing all its power. Perhaps someday there will be someone who will be able to absorb the wisdom hidden in the book, only with each century the chance that this will happen inexorably decreases.