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THE NECRONOMICON SPELLBOOK - Companion of the Book of Fifty Names
THE NECRONOMICON SPELLBOOK - Companion of the Book of Fifty Names
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SNEAK PEAK:
INTRODUCTION
THE CHURCH where it all began no longer exists. Like so much else in this bizarre case which has been quietly making history in the last four years it has receded silently into the mists of memory. Simon had been a monk, a priest, later an abbot and finally a consecrated bishop of this Eastern Church, becoming ordained even before he graduated high school. Coming from a Slavic background (his grandparents fled the Austro-Hungarian Empire) he acquired a broad knowledge of several foreign languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Slavonic, Greek, Latin and even Mandarin Chinese. This ability enables him to communicate with people from many races and nationalities as well as to probe the mysteries of religion and magick in the ancient manuscripts and worn leather books from many long-forgotten lands. As a young priest, he found himself called upon to perform exorcisms among poor ethnic families in the sometimes seedy and dangerous New York City neighborhoods that were his parish. He had faced evil many times in his life, and battled with the devil himself in his many disguises. Yet, he was still not prepared for the sudden appearance of the NECRONOMICON that overcast afternoon in the Spring of 1972.
They had not quite made history yet, those two renegade monks who had unwittingly made it possible for Simon to be one of the first human beings to actually hold the notorious spellbook in his hands. But they would. Shortly thereafter, headlines in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and other papers across the country proclaimed the awful truth. His two brother monks had been arrested for committing the biggest rare book heist in the history of the United States. Little did they know the true value of one of their ill-gotten possesions - the corroded box containing hundreds of pages of manuscript written in a large, cursive hand in the Greek tongue. It was only one of hundreds and hundreds more they had stolem from universities and private collections across the United States and Canada. The two monks would eventually serve time in a federal prison for their offense. And Simon would be left with the task of deciphering what appeared to be an ancient book of spells dating from the ninth century, A.D.
L.K. Barnes had been a student at the university of Colorado when he began painting the bizarre works of aliend landscapes that have become his hallmark to all who know him now. Years ago, he had fantasized about finding the dread NECRONOMICON in an old used book shop, and many of his paintings and sculptures are of themes inspired by his voracious reading of Lovecraft's opus. Somehow, he knew the book had to exist. Somewhere. In some form. He knew it was not a mere fantasy of Lovecraft's - for the very concept of such a book held a power all its own. Then one day in 1977, a friend, whom we can identify only by his initials B.A.K. led him to the Magickal Childe Bookstore in Manhattan. It was just the type of strange and exotic place one would almost expect to find a NECRONOMICON stashed on a forgotten shelf. Jokingly, he asked the proprietor, Herman Slater, if such was the case.
'Certainly,' he replied, and pulled Simon's translated manuscript from behind the counter. 'Here it is.'
The rest, as they say, is history.
Fighting against almost impossible odds, the first edition of the NECRONOMICON was published in December, 1977. Friends and business associates told both Simon and his new partner, L.K. Barnes, that the project was doomed to failure. That it was too expensive. That it would never sell. And that they would be stuck with a cursed book of evil magick for the rest of their lives. They were proven wrong. In a year, the first edition sold out even though it was retailing for fifty dollars a copy. In less than a year, the equally expensive second edition was sold out and a third edition was just printed in 1981. The paperback rights were sold, and there has been talk of motion picture rights for the story of the NECRONOMICON.
But the emergence of the NECRONOMICON has spawned a whole generation of imitations since 1977. The brilliant artist and creator of the sets for the movie Alien, H.R. Giger, has come out with his own Necronomicon; a series of paintings based loosely on the subterranean concepts of H.P. Lovecraft, who popularized the book in the 1920's and 1930's through his short stories and novellas, depicting the NECRONOMICON as the most blasphemous and sinister book of spells the world has ever known (an attitude no doubt based on a serious misunderstanding of the book's true origins and purpose). The British author, Colin Wilson, collaborated in a thin volume published in 1978 containing speculation concerning the existence of the NECRONOMICON.
TO BE CONTINUED... Buy now and enjoy the contents in full!
INTRODUCTION
THE CHURCH where it all began no longer exists. Like so much else in this bizarre case which has been quietly making history in the last four years it has receded silently into the mists of memory. Simon had been a monk, a priest, later an abbot and finally a consecrated bishop of this Eastern Church, becoming ordained even before he graduated high school. Coming from a Slavic background (his grandparents fled the Austro-Hungarian Empire) he acquired a broad knowledge of several foreign languages, including French, Spanish, Italian, Slavonic, Greek, Latin and even Mandarin Chinese. This ability enables him to communicate with people from many races and nationalities as well as to probe the mysteries of religion and magick in the ancient manuscripts and worn leather books from many long-forgotten lands. As a young priest, he found himself called upon to perform exorcisms among poor ethnic families in the sometimes seedy and dangerous New York City neighborhoods that were his parish. He had faced evil many times in his life, and battled with the devil himself in his many disguises. Yet, he was still not prepared for the sudden appearance of the NECRONOMICON that overcast afternoon in the Spring of 1972.
They had not quite made history yet, those two renegade monks who had unwittingly made it possible for Simon to be one of the first human beings to actually hold the notorious spellbook in his hands. But they would. Shortly thereafter, headlines in the New York Times, the Christian Science Monitor and other papers across the country proclaimed the awful truth. His two brother monks had been arrested for committing the biggest rare book heist in the history of the United States. Little did they know the true value of one of their ill-gotten possesions - the corroded box containing hundreds of pages of manuscript written in a large, cursive hand in the Greek tongue. It was only one of hundreds and hundreds more they had stolem from universities and private collections across the United States and Canada. The two monks would eventually serve time in a federal prison for their offense. And Simon would be left with the task of deciphering what appeared to be an ancient book of spells dating from the ninth century, A.D.
L.K. Barnes had been a student at the university of Colorado when he began painting the bizarre works of aliend landscapes that have become his hallmark to all who know him now. Years ago, he had fantasized about finding the dread NECRONOMICON in an old used book shop, and many of his paintings and sculptures are of themes inspired by his voracious reading of Lovecraft's opus. Somehow, he knew the book had to exist. Somewhere. In some form. He knew it was not a mere fantasy of Lovecraft's - for the very concept of such a book held a power all its own. Then one day in 1977, a friend, whom we can identify only by his initials B.A.K. led him to the Magickal Childe Bookstore in Manhattan. It was just the type of strange and exotic place one would almost expect to find a NECRONOMICON stashed on a forgotten shelf. Jokingly, he asked the proprietor, Herman Slater, if such was the case.
'Certainly,' he replied, and pulled Simon's translated manuscript from behind the counter. 'Here it is.'
The rest, as they say, is history.
Fighting against almost impossible odds, the first edition of the NECRONOMICON was published in December, 1977. Friends and business associates told both Simon and his new partner, L.K. Barnes, that the project was doomed to failure. That it was too expensive. That it would never sell. And that they would be stuck with a cursed book of evil magick for the rest of their lives. They were proven wrong. In a year, the first edition sold out even though it was retailing for fifty dollars a copy. In less than a year, the equally expensive second edition was sold out and a third edition was just printed in 1981. The paperback rights were sold, and there has been talk of motion picture rights for the story of the NECRONOMICON.
But the emergence of the NECRONOMICON has spawned a whole generation of imitations since 1977. The brilliant artist and creator of the sets for the movie Alien, H.R. Giger, has come out with his own Necronomicon; a series of paintings based loosely on the subterranean concepts of H.P. Lovecraft, who popularized the book in the 1920's and 1930's through his short stories and novellas, depicting the NECRONOMICON as the most blasphemous and sinister book of spells the world has ever known (an attitude no doubt based on a serious misunderstanding of the book's true origins and purpose). The British author, Colin Wilson, collaborated in a thin volume published in 1978 containing speculation concerning the existence of the NECRONOMICON.
TO BE CONTINUED... Buy now and enjoy the contents in full!
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