The 13 Gates of the Necronomicon

by Donald Tyson

  (The Doom That Came to Sarnath)

  A work by the "German mystic and alchemist" Rudolf Yergler, based in part on the writings attributed to Hermes Trismegistus. In it, mention is made of the Year of the Black Goat when a shadow from outside came to Nath, a shadow that might only be dispelled by one who could look upon its true shape and survive the ordeal.

  (The Tree on the Hill)

  Clavis Philosophiae et Alchymiae, a Latin work on alchemy by Robert Fludd, was first published at Frankfurt in 1632 by William Fitzer. The entire print run was destroyed by the actions of the militia shortly after it issued from the press. Fludd managed to get the work reprinted the following year, and it is these copies that survive as the first edition of the work, one of which was seen in Joseph Curwen's library at Providence, Rhode island, in 1746.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  The high priest of Atlantis, Klarkash-Ton, wrote down and preserved the myths of Commoriom, the capital city of Hyperborea (Greenland). The name of the high priest was Lovecraft's tribute to his friend, the writer Clark Ashton Smith, who invented Commoriom for his own fiction. Smith used the term "Commoriom myth-cycle" in a letter to Lovecraft dated February, 1931.

  (The Whisperer in Darkness; At the Mountains of Madness)

  Book on ciphers by John Falconer, subtitled The Art of Secret Information Disclosed without a Key, that was printed at London in 1685 by Daniel Brown. In the book, Falconer gave methods for conveying secret information by means of signs and gestures, such as the Egyptian hieroglyphics and a finger alphabet. An analysis of the writings of Johannes Trithemius, the author of Steganographia, closes the work. Falconer also wrote Rules for Explaining and Decyphering all Manner of Secret Writing, published at London in 1692. The Cryptomenysis Patefacta is mentioned in passing in The Dunwich Horror amid a list of various authorities on cryptography. Lovecraft probably derived the reference from the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

  (The Dunwich Horror)

  A work by the Comte d'Erlette. It was characterized by Lovecraft as "infamous." In The Haunter of the Dark, a copy is discovered by Robert Harrison Blake in the abandoned Church of Starry Wisdom at Providence, Rhode Island. This book was originally the invention of the writer Robert Bloch, who corresponded by letter mail with Lovecraft. The name of the character Robert Blake is a tongue-in-cheek reference by Lovecraft to his friend, Robert Bloch.

  (The Shadow Out of Time; The Haunter of the Dark)

  Book by the French Roman Catholic inquisitor Nicolas Remy (1530-1612), who according to the prevailing custom of his day went under the Latinized version of his name, Remigius. Published at Lugduni in 1595, it concerns the nature of witches and demons, and how they are to be rooted out and opposed. In The Festival, reference is made to the "shocking Daemonolatreia of Remigius, printed in 1595 at Lyons." In The Dunwich Horror, Dr. Henry Armitage, the chief-librarian at Miskatonic University, calls for the Daemonolatreia of Remigius along with the dreaded Necronomicon while searching frantically for some magic formula that will combat Wilbur Whateley's monstrous invisible brother.

  (The Festival; The Dunwich Horror)

  A book on ciphers by Giovanni Battista della Porta (1535-1615) that was published in 1563. The Latin name means "On Concealed Characters in Writing."

  (The Dunwich Horror)

  Tractatus de Lapide Philosophico, published in 1611, is a work on alchemy by Johannes Trithemius (1462-1516). In 1746 it was seen in the library of Joseph Curwen at Providence, Rhode Island.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  An occult text written by "old Ludvig Prinn" that Lovecraft described as "hellish." The writer Robert Bloch first referred to this apocryphal text under the English title The Mysteries of the Worm, but it was Lovecraft who translated the title into Latin.

  (The Haunter of the Dark; The Diary of Alonzo Typer; The Shadow Out of Time)

  A small book of "tough paper" leaves approximately six inches tall by three and a half inches wide, bound between thin metal plates. Its handwritten script relates the events leading up to Typer's mysterious disappearance.

  (The Diary of Alonzo Typer)

  An ancient record that tells of the coming to the Earth of the Great Race from Yith some 600 million years ago. The Eltdown Shards were invented by Richard F. Searight, who corresponded with Lovecraft. In The Challenge from Beyond, Lovecraft wrote that the shards are pieces of clay dug up in southern England from "pre-carboniferous strata." They were translated around 1912 by the Reverend Arthur Brooke WintersHall, a clergyman of Sussex, England, and the translation was published by him at his own expense. It is frequently quoted by occultists.

  (The Shadow Out of Time; The Diary of Alonzo Typer; The Challenge from Beyond)

  "L'Image du monde" ("The Image of the World") is a poem written by the French priest of the Catholic Church, Gauthier de Metz, around the year 1246. It concerns the creation of the universe and the nature of the world, and was quite popular during the Middle Ages. One of its chapters treats astrology. In the Nameless City reference is made to "infamous lines from the delirious Image du Monde." As is often the case, Lovecraft has used the name of a real work of literature, but has attributed to it a sinister reputation that is not deserved.

  (The Nameless City)

  A book from India obtained by Harley Warren in 1919 was written in unknown letters similar to those on the parchment that Randolph Carter discovered in an old oak box that contained the silver key. It is intimated that this book may have been responsible for Warren's death, when he descended down the stone stair of the crypt at Big Cypress Swamp in Florida.

  (The Statement of Randolph Carter)

  An alchemical text by Artephius, thought to have been written in the twelfth century. Liber qui Clavis majoris sapientiae dicitur by Artephius was published in the fourth volume of Theatrum Chemicum in 1613 at Strasbourg. Who Artephius may have been is not know with certainty, but some scholars believe Artephius was the Arab alchemist Al Toghari, who died around 1119. This book was observed to be in the personal library of Joseph Curwen at Providence, Rhode Island, in 1746.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  A grimoire mentioned by the necromancer Joseph Curwen in a letter to Simon Orne, written on the first of May, circa 1750. The reference concerns an instruction given by the evoked Old One, Yog-Sothoth, as to the details of ritual work intended to insure the future resurrection of Curwen after his death. `And IT said, that ye III Psalme in ye Liber-Damnatus holdes ye Clauicle. With Sunne in V House, Saturne in Trine, drawe ye Pentagram of Fire, and saye ye ninth Uerse thrice. This Uerse repeate eache Roode- mas and Hallow's Eue; and ye Thing will breede in ye Outside Spheres."

  A clavicle is a key. With the Sun in the fifth astrological house and Saturn in a trine aspect with the Sun, Curwen is to draw a pentagram of elemental fire. A pentagram of fire is not a blazing pentagram, but a pentagram drawn in a certain way that distinguishes its elemental nature. In modern magic, as it descends from the teachings of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, each of the four elements, and the quintessence or fifth element of Spirit, has its own unique pentagram. They are all identical in shape, but are unique in the way they are drawn. He is then to speak the ninth verse of the third psalm of Liber Damnatus three times. This is to be done on Roodmas and Halloween. By Roodmas, Lovecraft almost certainly had May-Eve, or Beltane (April 30), in mind. Roodmas is actually September 14, but it is often associated by pagans with April 30, which is six months away from Halloween (October 31), on the opposite side of the wheel of the year. The "Outside Spheres" are the celestial spheres beyond the known Ptolemaic universe-beyond the eighth sphere of the fixed stars.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  Liber Investigations Magisterii is the Latin version of an alchemical text by Geber, the Latinized name for the Persian alchemist Abu Musa Jabir ibn Hayyan (721-815). The book was observed in the Providence, Rhode island, library of the necromancer Joseph Curwen in 1746.

  (Th
e Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  This was one of the moldering grimoires discovered by the writer Robert Blake on the shelves of the vestry room in the abandoned Church of Starry Wisdom, in Providence, Rhode island. It is said to be the title of the Latin version of the Book of Ebon.

  (The Haunter of the Dark)

  A work written by Cotton Mather that is also know under its English title The Ecclesiastical History of New England. In The Unnamable Lovecraft referred to "that demoniac sixth book which no one should read after dark." The work consists of seven books in total, published in one volume at London in 1702, but divided into two volumes when republished in Hartford in 1820. Part of it concerns the Salem Witch Trials. An edition of this work was in Lovecraft's personal library.

  (The Unnamable; Pickman's Model)

  The works of Hermes Trismegistus "in Mesnard's edition" are said to be present in the Providence, Rhode island, library of Joseph Curwen in the year 1746. The edition referred to is perhaps Hermis Trismegisti, Traduction par J. Mesnard, 8 volumes, Paris (edited by Didier), no date.

  (The Case of Charles Dexter Ward)

  This rare monograph contains a record of oral folklore from Vermont prior to the year 1839, drawn from the memories of the oldest residents of that state. It hints at the existence of a race of monstrous creatures in the remote hills, both on the highest forested peaks, and in the deep valleys between them. Even the wolves were said to shun these regions. Davenport mentions a strange "buzzing voice" heard in these woods.

  (The Whisperer in Darkness)

  A book by the German writer Friedrich von Junzt (1795-1840) that bears the title Unaussprechlichen Kulten in its original language. As the title implies, it concerns the nature of various curious cults that worshipped forgotten alien beings regarded by them as gods or demons. Both the book and its author are the creations of writer Robert E. Howard, a close friend of Lovecraft who is most famous for his character Conan the Barbarian.

  In his 1931 story The Children of the Night, Howard wrote that von Junzt was one of the few men who could read the Necronomicon in the original Greek translation-not "who had read" it, but "who could read" it, the implication being that to read the Greek version of the text was to unhinge the reason of most men. And indeed, Taverel, one of the characters of the story, remarks of von Junzt, "I'm convinced the man is mad." Howard wrote in his story of that same year, The Black Stone, that von Junzt was found dead with the marks of taloned fingers on his throat, in a locked and bolted room, with the pages of an unpublished manuscript scattered and torn all around his corpse. The German's close friend, the Frenchman Alexis Ladeau, pieced the manuscript back together and read it, but was so horrified by its contents that he immediately burned it and cut his own throat with a razor. Fortunately for students of obscure lore, the earlier work by von Junzt did not meet a similar fate but was published, and became Nameless Cults, which is sometimes called the Black Book.

  Howard indicated in the Children of the Night that the book contains information on the cults of Cthulhu, Yog-Sothoth, Tsathoggua, Gol-goroth, Bran, and other dark gods. According to Howard, the most puzzling aspect of Nameless Cults is the frequent recurrence of the theme of keys. Von Junzt made reference to keys in various incongruous contexts, such as when he referred to the infamous Black Stone of Hungry. It is obvious that normal physical keys are not intended, but keys in a symbolic sense that open dimensional locks.

  Howard composed a detailed false history for the work similar to the pseudo-history Lovecraft created for his own Necronomicon. Nameless Cults originally came into print at Dusseldorf in 1839. Fewer than a dozen copies are known to exist. Bridewell published an English translation in 1845. So horrifying was the work that the Golden Goblin Press of New York felt compelled to censor it when they did a reprinting of the Bridewell translation in 1909. Copies of the book were quite rare and difficult to obtain. An edition of the work is kept in a locked vault at the library of Miskatonic University. Many of these details are mentioned by Lovecraft in his story Out of the Aeons, where he refers to the book as "that monstrous blasphemy."

  (The Shadow Out of Time; Out of the Aeons)

  The Necronomicon is at the center of Lovecraft's fiction. It weaves all four threads of the mythos together into a single cord by appearing in stories of all four types-those involving gods and monsters from beyond the Earth, those concerned with explorations of the dreamlands, stories about witchcraft and black magic, and stories that deal with degeneration, decay, and death.

  Lovecraft did not invent the Necronomicon-he dreamed it. The title came to him in a dream, as did the image of the book repeatedly. He came to recognize the mythic power of the book and its mysterious title, which he did not understand when first he dreamed them, and began to insert them into his fiction at frequent intervals. Of all the dream grimoires and evil books mentioned in Lovecraft's stories, none is more ominous, more feared, or more highly prized, than the Necronomicon.

  The manner in which the Necronomicon appears to Lovecraft provides the silver key of insight into his fiction. The underlying core of his work was not contrived or calculated, but sprang forth spontaneously from his dreams and nightmares. His writings were an effort to exorcise these haunting dream visions by placing them into fictional settings that he controlled, rather than being controlled by them as he was while he lay in sleep. For example, the night-gaunts of his childhood terrors, which returned to torment him again and again, where used in The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath to carry his alter ego, the dreamer Randolph Carter, through the air to Kadath, which was otherwise unreachable.

  Lovecraft wrote a detailed fictional history of the book, as an aid to his memory when he chose to insert references to it into his stories. The book was penned by the mad Arab poet, Abdul Alhazred, at the city of Damascus prior to the year 738, which is the year of the poet's disappearance and presumed death. It was written during Alhazred's last years, and in his old age. Lovecraft gives the year of the book's composition as circa 730.

  How Alhazred went mad is never revealed, but it would be natural to assume that some great mental and emotional shock unseated his reason, if indeed he was mad. He may have been sane, but dismissed as mad by those of his contemporaries who read what he wrote, and were unable to comprehend how a sane man could have written it. At any rate, his mind was clear enough to produce the Necronomicon, so his insanity, if it existed at all, was of a selective kind.

  The original Arabic name for the book was Al Azif. Lovecraft wrote in 1927 in his History of the Necronomicon that the Arabic word azif means the sound made by nocturnal insects, which was assumed by the Arabs to be the howling of demons in the darkness of the desert night.

  The book did not achieve the Greek title of Lovecraft's dream until it was translated from Arabic into Greek by Theodorus Philetas of Constantinople in the year 950. The book, which was of course in manuscript at the time, was prohibited in 1050 by Michael, Patriarch of Constantinople, and all known hand-made copies of it were gathered together and burned. At least one copy escaped the fire. Over the intervening century from the date of its translation, all known copies of the Arabic text had been lost, so Michael had reason to hope that the work had been utterly obliterated by the flames. This hope was vain, however.

  Olaus Wormius translated the Greek text into Latin in 1228. In his preface, Wormius confirmed that the original Arabic text was no longer to be found. Both the Latin and Greek translations were suppressed in 1232 by Pope Gregory IX. The Greek translation of Theodorus was printed in Italy at some time between the years 1500 and 1550. The Latin translation of Olaus was printed twice, in a beautiful fifteenth-century blackletter edition published in Germany, and in a seventeenth-century edition that was probably printed in Spain. Neither of these later editions bore any internal indications of their place of origin or publishing house, so their dates and the cities in which they were printed remain conjectural.

  Note that the Latin translation was printed a century or so before the pri
nting of the Greek translation, even though the Greek translation is almost three centuries older. Lovecraft wrote that the last Greek copy of the text known to exist perished in a fire at Salem in 1692, the year of the infamous witch trials at Salem-Village.

  The English mathematician and magician, John Dee (1527-1608) made an English translation of the Necronomicon that was never published. Wilbur Whateley possessed an incomplete manuscript copy of Dee's translation damaged by rats and worms, that had been handed down to him from his grandfather, old Wizard Whateley. Only fragments of Dee's original manuscript exist today.

  Of the two extant printed Latin editions, an example of the fifteenth-century German printing was in Lovecraft's time housed under lock and key in the British Museum. It may be presumed to now reside in the British Library. A copy of the seventeenth-century Spanish printing is kept at the Bibliotheque Nationale at Paris. Other copies of the seventeenth-century edition are housed in the Widener Library at Harvard, and in the world-renowned collection of esoteric texts in the library of Miskatonic University at Arkham. Another copy is in the library of the University of Buenos Ayres.

  Lovecraft wrote that there are rumors of a fifteenth-century copy in the private collection of a certain celebrated American millionaire. Perhaps he had William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951) in mind, but this is only conjecture on my part. A less well-supported rumor placed a Greek printing of the Necronomicon in the library of the Pickman family of Salem, but if it ever really existed, it vanished when the artist, Richard Upton Pickman, disappeared in 1926.

  In the uncompleted story The Descendant, a young Englishman named Williams with an interest in the occult buys a copy of the German black-letter edition of the Latin translation from a Jewish bookseller in Clare Market. It is described as having a bulky leather cover with a brass clasp. The price asked by the Jew is slight, even though an old bookseller with a bent back in Chandos Street has previously informed Williams that there are only five copies known to exist, and all of them are kept carefully locked away by library custodians. There is the implication that the Jew knows more about the book than he lets on, and has sold it to Williams out of some secret malice.