Anyone who has listened to German black/death metal band Dark Fortress' new album, Eidolon, can tell that the band's new frontman Morean is a fierce, commanding presence. He's also frickin' smart as he proves in his guest blog, in which weighs the value and veracity of occult tome The Necronomicon.
Click "more" to read Morean's heavily contemplated arguments and perceptions:
Is The Necronomicon real?....
Few occult matters have been discussed as polemically and hotly as this age-old question. Since the infamous grimoire made its first grand public appearance in H.P. Lovecraft's short stories, it has inspired many artists, writers, musicians and filmmakers to explore the ancient worlds beyond ours, manifesting in a thousand disguises ranging from the deadly serious: (Simon, or Gregor A.Gregorius, "Ipsissimus" [the "selfest"] of the Fraternitas Saturni); elaborate hoaxes (George Hay / Robert Turner); inspired fiction (Donald Tyson), art books (H.R.Giger's magistral, but only remotely connected tome); and music (several bands as far as I know, as well as the long-awaited but never realized Celtic Frost album).
It has made countless cameo appearances such as the "Necronomicon-ex-mortis" in the "Evil Dead" movies or the "Necrotelicomnicon" (which I freely translate as "the yellow pages of the dead") in Terry Pratchett's "Discworld" series. But broadly as the issue is debated, here are the basic arguments as presented by the groups involved:
1. The Humanists say it's not real because multidimensional god-monsters from outer space don't exist.
2. The realists, including Lovecraft, argue it's not real because Lovecraft made it up.
3. The romantically inclined Lovecraft fans say, "It's real, because I want it to be."
4. The psychonauts posit it's real, but not in our set of dimensions.
5: Some ceremonial magicians claim, "It's real, because I tried the spells and they worked."
Simon, the author of the maybe least obviously fake Necronomicon, recently released a book called "Dead Names," in which he -- rather convincingly, at first -- describes the occult scene in NYC in the early '70s, and how he obtained the manuscript that led to his version of the book, trying to prove once and for all that his edition is the real thing. What I didn't understand, besides his failure to provide any photo or other proof of those infamous pages (which, of course, disappeared without a trace after the translation was completed), was the fact that he dedicates the last quarter or so of this new book to lash out at his two main critics. And their main argument against the truthfulness of his testimony is that the quotations from the "real" Necronomicon in Lovecraft's work, and the page numbers H.P. gave, don't coincide with the Simon version at all. In my opinion that's an argument barely worth discussing. Trying to prove fiction with fiction is something that all religions continue to get on our nerves with, and it has never convinced me ("The Bible is true because The Bible says so" -- yawn...)
So, is The Necromonicon real or not? The Great Beast Aleister Crowley would probably answer, "send those two a--holes to clean the sewer."
I'd like to ask something else: is the first question really relevant? Because, see, it doesn't matter if those "forbidden" texts that float around on patient paper were made up by a fake bishop in New York in 1973; by a sociopathic conservative orphan in a dusty attic in the 1920's; by Elizabethan court astrologer John Dee or some Olaus Wormius in the Middle Ages; by a pot-smoking demented Arab in Yemen in the 8th Century; or by a shivering Sumerian 3000 BC just before he got swallowed by the nuclear chaos from beyond (which he probably ushered into this world by an imprudent combination of lines on a tombstone). The much more interesting subject is what all these texts talk about -- worlds, dimensions, entities and energies so much older and larger than us that mankind becomes nothing more than a meaningless and powerless speck of dust on the cosmic canvas (a theory much in resonance with contemporary astronomy). The whole point, for everyone with more than an adolescent or theoretical affinity to this lore, is to find a way to perceive and experience these vibrations, be it by spiritual channeling, by experimental eldritch psychosis, direct gnosis or somebody else's art or writings.
I, for one, have had my share of psychic frequencies that were not meant for feeble human minds -- inexplicable and monstrous visions truly beyond the anthropomorphic paradigm that has ever dominated our spiritual universe. Therefore, these energies have little or no connection to the world of man; the described entities cannot be coerced into striking our annoying neighbor down with lightning on our bidding, to provide us with great piles of money or manifest as the juicy succubus which earth fails to provide for our miserable existence. All we can do, if we're granted a glimpse behind the universe, is watch in awe, get inspired by the unreachable, overcome our horror of the unknown by initiation into inhuman forces and offer a perspective into a bigger cosmos by sharing our experiences with our fellow ape-descendants.
Of course we fail as we do so, because you cannot describe something that has no place in this world with our language, conceived to describe only what we know. Objective, scientific proof for invisible things in alternate realities is a logical dead-end, just like empiric psychology. In that sense, Cthulhu is no less real than Jesus, God, love or justice, whatever their fans might cry. It's just that He cannot help us solve our own existential riddles because man has no significance in His cosmos.
I will not discuss my own experiences in that realm in such a cheap rant as this one. Suffice it to say, what I have seen and felt in dreams and broad daylight, on horror trips and in highly sober states of mind, raised serious doubts in me that these twisted things could spring from my deranged imagination alone. If they did, I'm a psychotic genius, should be locked up and learn how to paint. Since I really don't think so, what remains is the Promethean certainty of having stolen a peek into things that were not meant for me or any of us. This continues to inspire me, and has left a memory more real than anything I've experienced in my far-from-boring earthly existence. Looking for other people's testimonies of comparable taste and charge, all I could find were the various Cthulhoid writings I mentioned above. Vague and doubtable as they are, it shows me that others might have picked up similar signals "from beyond" and that's good enough for me. If I publish my experiences in a book and call it "Al Azif," I'll be the laughing stock of the community because how can it be real if it's written now? If I call it "The Wrkstfrglknh-hmmahhh Grimoire of Morean," no-one will give a s--t, but there wouldn't be a doubt that it's genuine. I, in turn, couldn't care less if others think my observations are fact or fiction; my job as an artist is to transform imagination into some form of reality, and I'm grateful for those horrid encounters I've had in the astral sphere. So much of what we call reality now has its roots in somebody's imagination.
To the materialists, monotheists, anthropocentrists and nihilists out there: this discussion is not for you (other than for satiric purposes....).
To everybody else, I say: stop squabbling over words of other people. They are (or were) the same suckers like you and me. If The Necronomicon is not real, it should be invented.
What counts is always, always what's in your own head -- if you can literally keep an open mind, there's no end to the potential you can unleash. What name it bears matters little, except to yourself; the spiritual t-shirt we choose to wear is but a crutch for our monkey brains to justify the reality of our soul by associating it with a group. And by the way, printing something doesn't make it true. (I would wish for that lucidity in the fanatics of this world...) Our power lies in transforming ourselves, and by that alone we are permitted to change the world. The Necronomicon, in all its guises, can provide a powerful lever to break the cage of "enlightenment" we lock our benighted and depraved minds in, even if it's just to push the limits of what we can imagine. If it doesn't work for you, feel free to try tea-leaves, sheep intestines, Jesus-cookies or mushrooms. But stop looking for truth in our universe of deception, ignorance and subjectivity. We're all free to dress the philosophical vacuum we inherit at birth with the bull--it of our choice.
Hope to have offended you.... 
I salute you!
Iä Yag-Shuthath,
Morean
(Dark Fortress / Noneuclid / The Hungry Gods)
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