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. Stephen Skinner mentioned it in his introduction to the Enochian Disctionary, and Francis King has mentioned it in his introduction to the Armadel, a reprint of a spell book of the Middle Ages.
A reviewer for Fate Magazine warned his readers against possible misuse of the Book as it might involve serious hazards to one's health (mental, physical, or spiritual?), and indeed much of the Book's legend concerns the formulae for the invocation of dark powers from under the earth or beyond the veil of the stars. However, these same forces are in actuality no more than the long-forgotten psychic abilities of humanity, retained over millions of years since the first human walked the earth and was in intimate communication with the powers of nature, the heavens, and the animal kingdom. These forces are the remnants of ancient gods worshipped by the earliest recorded Western civilization: the Sumerians, a race that disappeared mysteriously from the face of the earth over four thousand years ago.
The Editor and Publishers of the NECRONOMICON hope, by this volume, to present a short guide to the use of the spells of the Book that would enable anyone to simply pick it up and use it without fear or risk. The spells concerning the Fifty Names of the Sumerian God Marduk were chosen because of their universal appeal to the basic needs and desires of every human being; Love, Wealth, Peace of Mind, Protection Against Enemies, and Wisdom being among them. The Editor felt that the benefits to be derived from the use of these spells should not be restricted to those who have the time and the academic background necessary to follow the entire complex system through to its end; a process that would take most people over a year to perform properly. Instead, in the following pages, a simple mathod of using the names, words and seals of Marduk has been outlined and demonstrated so that anyone can follow the process easily and with success.
This means you.
We have received many letter from people who have been very impressed with our publication of the NECRONOMICON but who find the arcane language and eerie instruction and diagrams a trifle confusing, and who have asked us to simplify it for them so that they could get right into the spells and turn their lives around without entailing any psychic harm. We have seen it as our responsibility, therefore, to present this book as an answer to those letters and those requests for a neat, simple method of using the ancient and awesome forces of the NECRONOMICON to gain wisdom, power, love and protection in these troubled times.
So, we urge you not to put off using the spells that make up half of this report. There is no reason why you should sit back and wait for someone else to pick it up and later tell you how great it worked, how wonderful the results are, how fast your wished can come true. This is your opportunity to decide that finally, today, you assume full and total responsibility for you life and happiness; that the time for sorrow, fear, doubt and confusion is over; that from now on, you are your own master with the help of the malefick of the incredible NECRONOMICON.
These spells were originally worked by the mystics of ancient Sumeria, a mysterious civilization that flourished in what is now knows as Iraq over two thousand years before the birth of Christ. No one knows who the Sumerians really were, or where they came from. Some say they came from the darkest parts of Africa, where they were a nomadic people. Then, suddenly, in less than a hundred years they became a full-fledged agricultural society with cities and farms and beautiful temples that reached to the skies. They gave credit for their awakening to a strange being who came to them from the sea, wearing a diving suit, and who taught them writing, science, agriculture, architecture and, of course, magick. Almost overnight, the Sumerians became a people. Working the system of the NECRONOMICON in the seven-storied temples, they became the most cultured and powerful force in the Middle East. It is their sytem of magick that has been retained in the NECRONOMICON. Now, after literally thousands of years, this secret mystical system for winning power, love and success is made available to everyone.
Of course, the original spells were in the Sumerians' own language, but thanks to the team of translators who worked with Simon on the decipherment of the manuscript, we can now understand what the spells were about and how to work them properly in English.
But, in order to work properly, some Sumerian words have been kept because they are known as 'words of power'. A 'word of power' is a word that contains power in itself; in its very pronunciation, in the sounds that comprise it. It cannot be changed, or else its power would be lost forever. Hence, we have kept the original Sumerian words of power in their original state, with the sounds intact. Some of them may look difficult to pronounce at first, but take it very slowly and you will derive much benefit from it. These are the words once spoken thousands of years ago in the Sumerian temples to summon cosmic forces of such scope that the mind clearly balks at trying to picture the rituals that must have accompanied them in those days. So take the time and trouble to learn the correct way to pronounce the words you want to use. The effort will pay off a hundredfold when you actually employ your ritual.