A closer look
Howard Phillips Lovecraft literally invented the Necronomicon as a completely fictional plot device for his cosmic horror stories, yet millions of modern occultists genuinely believe it is a real, ancient mystical text. Despite the author explicitly stating in numerous letters that he made the entire book up to make his tentacle monsters sound cooler, enthusiastic publishers released fake versions of the grimoire in the nineteen-seventies to capitalize on the confusion. Now, perfectly earnest teenagers with black fingernails will purchase a copy from their local bookstore and attempt to cast deeply ancient sumerian spells that were actually written by a modern science fiction nerd living in Rhode Island. It brilliantly highlights the mystical community's incredible willingness to embrace ancient sacred lore even when its documented origin is a depressed twentieth-century pulp magazine writer
