Post by tucker9450 on Sept 30, 2007 17:20:21 GMT -5
The Complete Simon
Necronomicon
INTRODUCTION
IN THE MID - 1920's, roughly two blocks from where the Warlock Shop once stood, in
Brooklyn Heights, lived a quiet, reclusive man, an author of short stories, who eventually
divorced his wife of two years and returned to his boyhood home in Rhode Island, where
he lived with his two aunts. Born on August 20, 1890, Howard Phillips Lovecraft would
come to exert an impact on the literary world that dwarfs his initial successes with Weird
Tales magazine in 1923. He died, tragically, at the age of 46 on March 15, 1937, a victim
of cancer of the intestine and Bright's Disease. Though persons of such renown as
Dashiell Hammett were to become involved in his work, anthologising it for publication
both here an abroad, the reputation of a man generally conceded to be the "Father of
Gothic Horror" did not really come into its own until the past few years, with the massive
re-publication of his works by various houses, a volume of his selected letters, and his
biography. In the July, 1975, issue The Atlantic Monthly, there appeared a story entitled
"There Are More Things", written by Jorge Luis Borges, "To the memory of H.P.
Lovecraft". This gesture by a man of the literary stature of Borges is certainly an
indication that Lovecraft has finally ascended to his rightful place in the history of
American literature, nearly forty years after his death.
In the same year that Lovecraft found print in the pages of Weird Takes, another
gentleman was seeing his name in print; but in the British tabloid press.
NEW SINISTER REVELATIONS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY read the front page of
the Sunday Express. It concerned testimony by one of the notorious magician's former
followers (or, actually, the wife of one of his followers) that Crowley had been
responsible for the death of her husband, at the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalu, Sicily. The
bad press, plus the imagined threat of secret societies, finally forced Mussolini to deport
the Great Beast from Italy. Tales of horrors filled the pages of the newspapers in Englandfor weeks and months to come: satanic rituals, black masses, animal sacrifice, and even
human sacrifice, were reported - or blatantly lied about. For although many of the stories
were simply not true or fanciful exaggeration, one thing was certain: Aleister Crowley
was a Magician, and one of the First Order.
Born on October 12, 1875, in England - in the same country as Shakespeare - Edward
Alexander Crowley grew up in a strict Fundamentalist religious family, members of a
sect called the "Plymouth Brethren". The first person to call him by that Name and
Number by which he would become famous (after the reference in the Book of
Revelation), "The Beast 666", was his mother, and he eventually took this appellation to
heart. He changed his name to Aleister Crowley while still at Cambridge, and by that
name , plus "666", he would never be long out of print, or out of newspapers. For he
believed himself to be the incarnation of a god, an Ancient One, the vehicle of a New
Age of Man's history, the Aeon of Horus, displacing the old Age of Osiris. In 1904, he
had received a message, from what Lovecraft might have called "out of space", that
contained the formula for a New World Order, a new system of philosophy, science, art
and religion, but this New Order had to begin with the fundamental part, and common
denominator, of all four: Magick.
In 1937, the year Lovecraft dies, the Nazis banned the occult lodges of Germany, notable
among them two organisations which Crowley had supervised: the A\ A\ and the O.T.O.,
the latter of which he was elected head in England, and the former which he founded
himself. There are those who believe that Crowley was somehow, magickally,
responsible for the Third Reich, for two reasons: one, that the emergence of New World
Orders generally seems to instigate holocausts and, two, that he is said to have influenced
the mind of Adolf Hitler. While it is almost certain that Crowley and Hitler never met, it
is known that Hitler belonged to several occult lodges in the early days after the First
War; the symbol of one of these, the Thule Gesellschaft which preached a doctrine of
Aryan racial superiority, was the infamous Swastika which Hitler was later to adopt as
the Symbol of the forms, however, is evident in many of his writings, notably the essays
written in the late 'Thirties. Crowley seemed to regard the Nazi phenomenon as a
Creature of Christianity, in it's anti-Semitism and sever moral restrictions concerning its
adherents, which lead to various types of lunacies and "hangups" that characterised many
of the Reich's leadership. Yet, there can be perhaps little doubt that the chaos which
engulfed the world in those years was prefigured, and predicted, in Crowley's Liber AL
vel Legis; the Book of the Law.
Necronomicon
INTRODUCTION
IN THE MID - 1920's, roughly two blocks from where the Warlock Shop once stood, in
Brooklyn Heights, lived a quiet, reclusive man, an author of short stories, who eventually
divorced his wife of two years and returned to his boyhood home in Rhode Island, where
he lived with his two aunts. Born on August 20, 1890, Howard Phillips Lovecraft would
come to exert an impact on the literary world that dwarfs his initial successes with Weird
Tales magazine in 1923. He died, tragically, at the age of 46 on March 15, 1937, a victim
of cancer of the intestine and Bright's Disease. Though persons of such renown as
Dashiell Hammett were to become involved in his work, anthologising it for publication
both here an abroad, the reputation of a man generally conceded to be the "Father of
Gothic Horror" did not really come into its own until the past few years, with the massive
re-publication of his works by various houses, a volume of his selected letters, and his
biography. In the July, 1975, issue The Atlantic Monthly, there appeared a story entitled
"There Are More Things", written by Jorge Luis Borges, "To the memory of H.P.
Lovecraft". This gesture by a man of the literary stature of Borges is certainly an
indication that Lovecraft has finally ascended to his rightful place in the history of
American literature, nearly forty years after his death.
In the same year that Lovecraft found print in the pages of Weird Takes, another
gentleman was seeing his name in print; but in the British tabloid press.
NEW SINISTER REVELATIONS OF ALEISTER CROWLEY read the front page of
the Sunday Express. It concerned testimony by one of the notorious magician's former
followers (or, actually, the wife of one of his followers) that Crowley had been
responsible for the death of her husband, at the Abbey of Thelema, in Cefalu, Sicily. The
bad press, plus the imagined threat of secret societies, finally forced Mussolini to deport
the Great Beast from Italy. Tales of horrors filled the pages of the newspapers in Englandfor weeks and months to come: satanic rituals, black masses, animal sacrifice, and even
human sacrifice, were reported - or blatantly lied about. For although many of the stories
were simply not true or fanciful exaggeration, one thing was certain: Aleister Crowley
was a Magician, and one of the First Order.
Born on October 12, 1875, in England - in the same country as Shakespeare - Edward
Alexander Crowley grew up in a strict Fundamentalist religious family, members of a
sect called the "Plymouth Brethren". The first person to call him by that Name and
Number by which he would become famous (after the reference in the Book of
Revelation), "The Beast 666", was his mother, and he eventually took this appellation to
heart. He changed his name to Aleister Crowley while still at Cambridge, and by that
name , plus "666", he would never be long out of print, or out of newspapers. For he
believed himself to be the incarnation of a god, an Ancient One, the vehicle of a New
Age of Man's history, the Aeon of Horus, displacing the old Age of Osiris. In 1904, he
had received a message, from what Lovecraft might have called "out of space", that
contained the formula for a New World Order, a new system of philosophy, science, art
and religion, but this New Order had to begin with the fundamental part, and common
denominator, of all four: Magick.
In 1937, the year Lovecraft dies, the Nazis banned the occult lodges of Germany, notable
among them two organisations which Crowley had supervised: the A\ A\ and the O.T.O.,
the latter of which he was elected head in England, and the former which he founded
himself. There are those who believe that Crowley was somehow, magickally,
responsible for the Third Reich, for two reasons: one, that the emergence of New World
Orders generally seems to instigate holocausts and, two, that he is said to have influenced
the mind of Adolf Hitler. While it is almost certain that Crowley and Hitler never met, it
is known that Hitler belonged to several occult lodges in the early days after the First
War; the symbol of one of these, the Thule Gesellschaft which preached a doctrine of
Aryan racial superiority, was the infamous Swastika which Hitler was later to adopt as
the Symbol of the forms, however, is evident in many of his writings, notably the essays
written in the late 'Thirties. Crowley seemed to regard the Nazi phenomenon as a
Creature of Christianity, in it's anti-Semitism and sever moral restrictions concerning its
adherents, which lead to various types of lunacies and "hangups" that characterised many
of the Reich's leadership. Yet, there can be perhaps little doubt that the chaos which
engulfed the world in those years was prefigured, and predicted, in Crowley's Liber AL
vel Legis; the Book of the Law.