Don't read it, you'll go mad

Magickian Donald Tyson tells us The Truth About the Necronomicon, the best book H. P. Lovecraft never wrote.

Perceiving that so many gullible human beings were willing to believe that such a book as the Necronomicon existed, writers came along who wrote collections of quasi-occult gibberish and titled them the Necronomicon. There is nothing particularly wrong with this sort of harmless fun, provided those who buy these books realize that they are concoctions of the imagination. I have two of them in my own library.

One is The Necronomicon: The Book of Dead Names "edited" by George Hay and introduced by Colin Wilson, first published by Neville Spearman in 1978 — and I do mean “first published.”

The other is The Necronomicon, Edited with an Introduction by Simon, copyrighted in 1977 by Schlangekraft Inc., and published by Avon in 1980 — I am honored to own the first printing of the Avon edition.

It seems to me that at some time in the past I read a third version of the Necronomicon, but I cannot locate this book in my library and cannot remember how I may have come across it. Most likely I read it in a dream, which is not too unusual an occurrence for me — I've written numerous books in repeating dreams, and often find myself in strange libraries reading curious old texts while I lie asleep.

Other published versions of the Necronomicon exist. They numbered around half a dozen or so, the last time I checked. But I've only read the two in my library, and the one in my dream. Both of the published texts are of limited interest -- the dream text was somewhat better, as I recall.

By all means, purchase, read, study, memorize and take to heart any and all of the books sold in the stores with the title Necronomicon, but for heaven's sake remember as you do so that they are phonies, each and every one. The only genuine Necronomicon is the one you will read in your own dreams, as I did, and as Lovecraft did.

Tyson, of course, has written one of his own.

Iä! Iä! Cthulhu f'thang!