Grimoires In Pop Culture
The most popular grimoire of all time? Maybe not quite a household name, but definitely very well known, is H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional grimoire, the Necronomicon. The fictional book has drawn much interest to H.P. Lovecraft’s work, not to mention several librarians and booksellers having been caused sufficient amounts of grief, with readers pouring in requests for the non-existant book. The first time the Necronomicon was mentioned in Lovecraft’s work, was in the story, “The Hound”, and has been alluded to by several other horror writers. A few people have even gone the extra mile, to complete the mystery, by slipping listings for the Necronomicon into rare book archives, and one even popped it into the card category for the Yale University library.
The mysterious Simon Necronomicon, or “Simonomicon”, published only recently in the late 1970’s is called such because it was written by an unknown individual, referred to simply as “Simon” in the book’s introduction. It’s based partially on the Lesser Key of Solomon, the fictional elements of the Necronomicon, and a great deal of Sumerian mythology. It contains detailed listings of of demons and gods from the fictional works of Lovecraft, while also developing them further, with the support of ancient Sumerian mythology. The introduction to the modern grimoire does its best to establish strong ties between Lovecraft, Aleister Crowley and Sumerian mythology. Much of the book, or the main theme in general is the struggle between good and evil; the Ancient Ones, being evil, and the Elder Gods, children who rebelled against the Ancient Ones, being good.
The two books are different from another in, naturally, that one actually exists. For more information on the real conflicts about this grimoire, and many others, by the rest of society, feel free to flip over to the controversy section. That considered, the biggest controversial issue about the Simon Necronomicon, is whether or not it’s real; some consider it a hoax, some consider it genuine, but the one thing this book draws upon, is the consideration of all who have come in contact with it.
