The Necronomicon Files: The Truth Behind The Legend [Paperback]

Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce III (Author)

Book Description

Release date: July 1, 2003

Necronomicon-- a mere glance at its pages sends its readers shrieking into the night, their soul seared for all eternity! At least that's what people want you to believe Thank goodness authors Daniel Harms and John Wisdom Gonce III set the record straight in this scholarly yet accessible history of the dreaded tome. The Necronomicon Files is an incredibly comprehensive guide to the Necronomicon that covers all aspects, legends and factual history surroundsing this nefarious book. From a complete history of the book as it evolved in the Cthulhu mythos started by Lovecraft and continued by others, to contemporary editions now available to the public. From appearances and references in movies and other media, to the actual magical concepts behind the fictional and published Necronomicon variants. Much more than just a dry, factual acoount, Harm's and Gonce's deep knowledge in their respective fields of interest bring the history and continuing influenceof the Necronomicon alive with wit and verve. Humours and intriguing, this compassionate examination of the Necronomicon is a thorough repudiation of the myths surrounding it, yet preserves much of the romance and fascination associated with the legend.

Product Details

• Paperback: 368 pages
• Publisher: Red Wheel / Weiser (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1578632692
• ISBN-13: 978-1578632695
• Product Dimensions: 0.8 x 7.4 x 9.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.7 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #416,544 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Dan Harms is an author, librarian, and scholar who deals with topics ranging from the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft to roleplaying games to books of magic. He lives in upstate New York with a cantankerous ball python.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

56 of 61 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars The Necronomicon debunker's bible April 19, 2004

By Royce E. Buehler VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I've been rereading and enjoying Lovecraft, man and boy, for fifty years now. I haven't been a full-blown fan, but I've absorbed several volumes of discussion and criticism. In depth of detail, documentation, readability and balance, this one is head and shoulders above anything else I've seen. Once I track down Daniel Harms' Encyclopedia Cthuliana, I'll be able to toss my old Lin Carter. Hey, it was about to start flaking and putrescing anyway.

I snapped up the Simon version of the Necronomicon the month Avon released it in 1980. I won't bore you with the tale here, but so many unsettling synchronicities attended the purchase that I didn't have the nerve to read through it for over a year. So my mind has definitely been open to taking it seriously. At the same time, I was familiar enough with HPL's descriptions of the mad Arab's book to know it didn't match up, and was at least partly hoax. What a pleasure to find that nearly a third of this book discusses Simon's opus, exploring it from just about every angle. I found the authors' conclusions completely convincing.

Harms is a Lovecraft scholar; he gets almost a third of the book to discuss the history of the Necronomicon as an artifact of the fiction written by HPL and his circle. Even if you are one of those fans who share Howard's complete confidence that the only things that ever really go bump in the night are turns of bad plumbing, this part of the book alone justifies its space on your shelf. There's a bit of biography, a look into the evidence on sources, and a masterfully clear timeline of how, story by story, the notion of the Necronomicon was fleshed out. Harms sticks to business, discussing the Cthulhu mythos only to the extent that it bears directly on some detail about the book. (The one thing I missed seeing here was a catalogue of all the other non-existent companion titles dreamed up by Bloch and Smith and Derleth and the crew.) A reasonably complete list of published titles purporting to be the Necronomicon, with summaries and evaluations, is here too.

Then Mr. Gonce picks up the story from the perspective of the impact of the idea of the Necronomicon on the occult subculture. Of the many supposed "Necronomicons" on offer, only a few claim to include usable spells and rituals. And of these, only the Simon volume is sufficiently explicit and complete to have enticed any significant number of readers to try the contents out. The results have been, as Warren Zevon might have put it, not that pretty at all. So the core of the book devotes itself to untangling the origins of the Simon version, explaining why it is a hoax, and looking at the phenomenon of the many cults, most of them very tiny, that have sprung up around that hoax. Its grimoire is a pastiche from many incompatible cultures and some invokings invented out of whole cloth. As a practicing pagan, Gonce believes many of these individual spells "work", but the incoherence of the whole system means they don't work very well, and amateurs will get into magickal trouble because the book doesn't indicate how to banish what is invoked. For practicing skeptics in his readership, he provides sobering examples of manipulative cults and even murders, which show that you don't need to believe in magick to know that in the hands of alienated teens the Simon edition is bad juju.

All this is rounded off with a hilarious roll call of films and TV shows that have played off the Necronomicon meme. Many of the film reviews are several pages long, with plot synopses probably more entertaining than the movies themselves. And then each is scored for fidelity to Lovecraft.

If you have only one book about Lovecraft in your library, other than a biography, this is probably the one you want. If your circle of friends includes dabblers (or adepts) in magick, it definitely is.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative, intelligent, and important February 26, 2005

By J. W. Kennedy VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

I've read just about everything BY Lovecraft and lots of stuff ABOUT Lovecraft, and this is one of the most valuable books, aside from HPL's own writing, that I have come across. In my early days I was haunted by the feeling that underneath Lovecraft's fiction were hints of something horribly TRUE, that his work has endured not only because of its artistic merits, but because he had somehow synthesized his voracious reading and vivid dreaming into content that tapped into archetypal sources of human fear. I spent a lot of time hunting for books he mentioned in his stories on his occultist characters' shelves - to ascertain for myself how much of what Lovecraft told was the "truth" and how much he made up - and I found, much to my relief, that many of those books do not exist.

But a few of them do: The Golden Bough, The Witch Cult in Western Europe ... and the Necronomicon. I actually own a number of published books claiming to be "the Necronomicon." There's a list of them in The Necronomicon Files, and I was amused to note that I own most of the publications on that list. I realized early on that none of these books are actually THE Necronomicon from Lovecraft's stories. That book isn't real, never was, and never will be. The question that remained for me was: how "real" are the various Necronomicons that are floating around out there?

The answer to that question, (at least as far as regards the notorious "Simon" edition - now published by Avon,) according to Harms and Gonce, is "real enough to be dangerous in the hands of the foolish." Gonce's section of this book is a wealth of information on the history and theory of Magick. Even if I hadn't been interested in the Necronomicon, this section would still be fascinating to read. I learned a lot of things I never would have even thought about before. The Necronomicon legend is lovingly debunked, but the mystical allure and spiritual danger of the book, whatever it is, are still preserved after reading The Necronomicon Files.

The listing of movies and TV shows was amusing but not useful from my perspective. I've seen more than a few "Lovecraft-inspired" movies and was so disappointed by each and every one of them that I have given up on the celluloid version of the HPL mythos.

16 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars WELL worth reading, if you're interested in all things HPL! January 4, 2004

By Samuel E. Burns

Format:Paperback

As you can probably tell from the ratings, this book impresses those of us who have actually READ it (as the single reviewer giving it the low rating obviously has not . . . not even the dust cover or back of cover comments, apparently)!

Harms and Gonce have performed a scolarly study of the legendary tome of dreaded lore known as the Necronomicon. In their research, they examine the facts, the legends, and the history . . . and they place it firmly right where it belongs: a creation that originally sprang from the mind of fantasy/horror author Howard Phillips Lovecraft.

This book examines many facets of the "Necronomicon legend:"

* How Lovecraft came up with the idea and what might have inspired him;

* The popularization of Lovecraft's fiction and the subsequent arising of a popular opinion that he had been quoting an actual ancient codex;

* The production of the many modern faux versions of the Necronomicon, some firmly tongue-in-cheek and others carefully-reworded versions of extant ancient occult texts (none of which were originally titled "Necronomicon"), in response to the popularity of the title;

* The inclusion of references to the Necronomicon in films and television episodes in addition to written fiction.

The material presented is well-researched and factual, accompanied by proper citations where appropriate, and presented in some detail. In fact, it might well be presented in TOO much detail if the reader happens to be new to the "Necronomicon debate!" The amount of detail presented on both the literary origins and presentations of the Necronomicon, and the connections of the tome to modern Magick, will likely be far too in-depth for anyone interested solely in one and not the other!

But if you are someone with a true scholarly interest in the subject, you will find this book a wonderful thing! I consider it a "must-have" volume for anyone who is deeply interested in the "Cthulhu Mythos" born from H.P. Lovecraft's fiction, and equally so for anyone who has developed a similar interest in the legend of the Necronomicon as an occult studies issue.

Just a bit of warning, however: be prepared to have some things that you might have heard as "Facts" get firmly proven otherwise . . . !