Born
in Cologne to parents Ava and Heinrich von Junzt, Friedrich von Junzt
entered university in Berlin in 1814. While there, he met his later
publisher, Gottfried Mülder, and, after their graduation, they
travelled through many parts of Asia – especially the Chinese
interior - before returning to Europe. The duo split up and reunited
many times while based there and Mülder was aware that von Junzt
encountered many strange and dangerous things to which, at the time,
he paid little attention, involved as he was with his own researches.
Upon their return to Europe, Mülder established a publishing house,
but von Junzt returned to academia, publishing his doctoral thesis
before removing to Wurttemburg where he took up a teaching position
for four years.
*****
“Der Ursprung und
Einfluss der Semantic Magische Texte”
This
first paper by von Junzt discusses a type of steganographic hiding of
information in grimoires and other magical texts. Specifically, it
examines the Books
of Moses
and the French editions of Le
Dragon Rouge
and the Poulets
Noire and,
while not denying that their surreptitious re-printings have watered
down whatever effectiveness they might have had, claims that their
sequential numbers and symbolic titles may have formed a cipher
which, if broken or interpreted correctly, might be the pathway to
greater revelations. In effect, he theorises that certain ‘books of
power’ exist as parts of a greater whole and, if read in concert
reveal much more that the sum of their parts. Interestingly, he
touches upon the Codex
Spitalski
and the Codex
Maleficium,
claiming that they too might be similarly linked.
German; “
Der Ursprung und Einfluss der Semantic Magische Texte (The Origin and
Influence of Semantic Magical Texts)”; Friedrich
von Junzt; 1819; 0/1 Sanity loss; Cthulhu
Mythos
+1 percentiles; 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
*****
The
years which von Junzt spent at Wurttemburg were not ones which he
found particularly fulfilling. Feeling confined by the limits of
academia, he left his position in 1823 and began to travel widely,
first through Europe, then on to Asia and the Americas. While doing
so, he investigated many secret and occult societies, learning of
their practises and ambitions. While so occupied in Paris in 1825, he
encountered Alexis Ladeau and the two became firm friends. They
travelled to New York together and set up headquarters from which to
continue their research.
Whilst
there, von Junzt published a further two monographs examining the
roots of two common legend cycles in world mythology and linking them
to atavistic impulses latent in humanity.
*****
“Les
Vampires”
Other
writers have approached this topic with the result that they simply
catalogue various myth cycles, reported incidents and sources,
fictional and allegedly otherwise. Not so, with von Junzt. He
theorises that vampirism may well be a deep atavistic impulse within
humanity and that certain circumstances drive this motivation to the
surface: in essence, vampirism as a physical response to
environmental stimuli. He theorises that this latent urge is a relict
holdover from encounters with extinct beings that expressed this
pattern of behaviour, or somehow instilled it – for reasons unknown
– into the humans of the time. As well, he argues that the
traditional responses to vampiric behaviour are also linked to
instinctual knowledge of how to dispense with these blood-sucking
beings, derived from a distant time when human beings overthrew these
monstrous creatures.
The
monograph received a mixed reception at its presentation with many
commentators feeling that von Junzt established a solid premise but
then let it get away from him.
French; “Les
Vampires”;
Friedrich von Junzt; 1827; 0/1d3 Sanity loss; Cthulhu
Mythos
+1 percentiles; 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
*****
“Les
Lupines”
Following
on from the groundwork established by “Les
Vampires”,
von Junzt examines the werewolf phenomenon, again linking the
expression of lycanthropy to latent impulses lying dormant in the
human psyche. He cites many sources, particularly French court
records of werewolf activity in the 17th
and 18th
Centuries and touches briefly on references to Les
Cultes des Goules.
Through discussion of Indian myth cycles he posits a rabies-like
illness as the basis of lycanthropic behaviour and theorises that
ancient entities may have created this disease as a means of
instilling werewolf-like behaviour in early humans – for reasons
unknown. This paper received a marginally better reception than his
previous effort.
Interestingly,
years later in the 1960s, Britain’s Ultimate Press pirated the
contents of these two monographs, turning them into schlocky horror
magazines for the masses, accompanied with lurid and titillating
photographs.
French; “Les
Lupines”;
Friedrich von Junzt; 1828; 0/1d2 Sanity loss; Cthulhu
Mythos
+1 percentiles; 1 week to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
*****
Alexis
Ladeau, c.1828
In
February of 1829, Alexis Ladeau contracted malaria whilst the two
were investigating cult activity in the Florida Everglades region and
he was forced to return home to Europe. Von Junzt continued his
efforts, pushing through from Florida to Louisiana then south through
Mexico and into South America. Not much is known of his movements at
this time (other than what is hinted at in his later writings) but he
showed up unexpectedly in Düsseldorf at the new printing house of
Gottfried Mülder around 1835. At that time, the two of them decided
to write and publish the burgeoning catalogue of cult and other
secret activities which von Junzt had been collecting in his travels.
Von Junzt then returned to Cologne, to his family’s home which he
had inherited, and began work; he contacted Alexis Ladeau to come and
stay with him and to provide services as his amanuensis
while the magnum
opus took
form.
Late
in 1836, von Junzt declared the work – which he entitled Das
Buch von den
unaussprechlichen
Kulten –
finished. Upon receipt of the galley proofs from Mülder, he caught a
train to St. Petersburg, there to perform the final edit. In March of
1837, Mülder travelled to St. Petersburg to collect the final
emendations. After reading it, he told von Junzt that he would “sit
on the manuscript for awhile”, citing no particular reason for the
delay. However, while there, he contracted von Junzt to write a
second book, a task which von Junzt happily agreed to. Several days
later, von Junzt set forth on a journey east towards Mongolia and
Mülder subsequently returned to Germany.
In
1839, Mülder announced the release of Unaussprechlichen
Kulten (as
it would soon become known). Due to von Junzt’s absence, Mülder
wrote the Introduction himself. The quarto binding of this first
edition was in heavy, black full-calf with scarlet marker ribbons and
two metal hasps – a feature considered somewhat ‘antique’ at
this time but which Mülder might well have thought highlighted the
‘dangerous’ nature of the work. It is probably for similar
reasons that he engaged the troubled artist Gunther Hasse to prepare
the lugubrious plates which accompanied the text.
*****
Das
Buch von den unaussprechlichen Kulten
(aka “The
Black Book”)
The
Frontispiece Portrait of von Junzt
From
the First Edition
“I
happened to spy the title that day and bought the book for a
ridiculously small sum. Certainly small compared to the price I’ve
paid for reading it.”
-Robert
M. Price, “Dope
War of the Black Tong”
The
text deals with the traditions of cult patterns around the world and
touches upon such well-known phenomena as the Thugs and the African
Leopard cults. A weighty central section prefaced by an essay
entitled ‘Narrative
of the Elder World’,
deals with the worldwide Cthulhu Cult, the Tcho-tcho peoples and
their diaspora, the cults of Leng and Ghatanathoa and the People of
the Black Stone. In places von Junzt’s masterful, precise prose
breaks down and he dwells ramblingly upon seemingly meaningless
tangents such as the uses of unicorn horns and his supposed sojourn
in Hell; the faithful reader will not let such meanderings distract
them from the multitude of other useful insights to be found. In fact, given that von Junzt's first academic paper was about the steganographic processes of hiding information within seemingly "worthless" magical texts, the erstwhile reader will not lightly dismiss anything contained within a complete version of this work.
“There
are relics of ancient cities supposedly reared before the rise of
man, black stones of impossible antiquity carved with the language of
a race (or races) either extinct or in hiding in the darkest corners
of the world. The black stone monolith that broods in the mountains
of Hungary is but one; the geographer Solinus has written of another,
the Ixaxar, the hieroglyphed ebon worship-stone of an aboriginal race
found in the deserts of Libya. These black fragments, keys to secrets
lost to civilised man, are yet worshiped by those who remember the
great cities of which they once were part...”
-Kevin
A. Ross, Sacraments
of Evil: “Plant Y Daear”
The
writing style of the “Black Book” varies considerably. At its
most lucid it reads much like the ultimate square trying to describe
the Summer of Love, nailing down observations with a gimlet eye and
worried that if anything is missed or overlooked, it might well be
crucial to a full understanding of the phenomena being observed. On
the other hand, von Junzt can be irritatingly obtuse, reverting to
broad hints and obscure references, as if at certain points he
becomes too afraid to speak plainly of what he knows, or as if he
suddenly starts talking to a subset of readers with an assumed wealth
of knowledge. At other times, he rambles and follows murky tangents
with no seeming relevance, often hammering meaningless points or
glossing over what seems to be crucial information. Many early
reviewers dismissed the work as the ravings of a lunatic, and yet
familiarity with the work often reveals a kind of lurking internal
logic.
The
subject matter of the book concerns the dark cults and objects of
worship which von Junzt encountered during his travels. It references
Lion and Leopard Cults in Africa, secret societies and tongs
in China, Rosicrucian and other Freemasonic sects in Europe and the
Americas and goes on to talk of even stranger groups: the pervasive
Bran cult, the Thugs and Dacoits of India, murderous Incan and Aztec
Sun Sects, before beginning to discuss manifestations of the Great
Old Ones and their worship across the planet.
Such
discussions often reference mysterious “keys” but this issue is
never quite pinned down within the text. Just what these keys are and
what they give access to is not mentioned, although one of the “keys”
is supposedly a black stone near Stregoicavar in Hungary. Another
“key” is a jewel which hangs from the neck of a mummy within a
temple in the Honduran jungle. The text reveals that the “key”
grants access to a treasure of some kind, but the Düsseldorf
first edition suggests that the treasure might be of a metaphysical
rather than a literal nature. The Bridewall edition mistakenly gives
the location of the temple as Guatemala and doesn’t mention to what
the key gives access, while the Golden Goblin edition fails to
mention the mummy and specifically discusses “treasure”.
“An
excellent example of [evil Pictish groups] is that from near Loch
Mullardoch, in Scotland. These Picts worshipped the being known as
the Daemon Sultan, but, as in some other locations, the Picts did not
perform this worship unbidden by beings of an older and more malign
species. Indeed, I know for a fact that these remnants from the days
of pre-human reptiles even now walk the Earth.
Another
place where such beings may lurk is in North America, where the Great
Old Ones were worshipped long before the times of Columbus. I am here
thinking specifically of those locations now held by the Spanish in
California”
-John
Scott Clegg, Shadows
of Yog-Sothoth: “The Coven of Cannich”
Much
time is spent in talking about hidden dimensions - “unseen worlds”
– which press in upon our own and the tendency of the barriers
between these worlds to sometime breach, admitting entities and
knowledge from beyond. It might be these other realities to which the
“keys” grant access, but the link between the two is only
implicitly stated, if at all.
A
large part of the text concerns itself with discussion of an age of
history which predates recorded history. Von Junzt calls it the
“Hyborian Age”. He claims it is the time when such legendary
places as Mu, Lemuria and Atlantis existed and he speaks of these
places with some specificity. While so doing, he mentions the Scroll
of T’yog,
a crucial prop in the Muvian saga of the warring between the temples
of Shub-Niggurath and Ghatanathoa in that land. Purported actual
portions of the Scroll
are reproduced in facsimile within the text. Von Junzt talks about
the conquests of the Hyborians, their sacking of Atlantis and
Lemuria and their repeated unsuccessful attempts to sack Stygia, a
fabled land once located where Egypt is nowadays. Finally he
discusses how a Nordic race from the northern lands eventually
conquered Stygia and the Hyborians, bringing their age to an end.
Nyarlathotep
is mentioned briefly in the text as well and is described as being
adorned with tentacles; it’s possible that von Junzt was unaware of
the endless multiform avatars of this entity.
In
summing up, Das
Buch von den unaussprechlichen Kulten
is an overflowing catalogue of cult activity at the end of the
Victorian Age and into the early Twentieth Century. It is a book to
be persevered with and pored over in order to get to grips with its
subject matter, but it will repay erstwhile Investigators who plumb
the darker depths of cult activity.
(Source:
Children of the Night,
Robert E. Howard)
German: Das
Buch von den unaussprechlichen Kulten;
Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt, Introduction by Gottfried Mülder,
illustrated by Gunther Hasse;
Düsseldorf,
1839; Sanity Loss: 1d8/2d8; +15 percentiles to Cthulhu
Mythos;
average 52 weeks to study & comprehend
Spells:
“Addresse Zhar” (Contact
Deity / Zhar);
“Annäherungs-Bruder” (Contact Ghoul); “Sperre von Naach-Tith”
(Barrier of
Naach-Tith);
“Winken Sie dem großen zu” (Contact
Dagon);
“Anruf-Äther-Teufel” (Contact
Mi-Go);
“Benennen Sie weiter den Sun” (Call
/ Dismiss Azathoth);
“Bennenen Sie weiter Cyaegha” (Call
/ Dismiss Cyaegha);
“Rufen Sie weiter den gehörnten Mann an” (Call
/ Dismiss Nyarlathotep);
“Benennen Sie weiter das, das nicht sein sollte” (Call
/ Dismiss Nyogtha);
“Rufen Sie weiter die Waldgöttin an” (Call
/ Dismiss Shub-Niggurath);
“Befehl Aeriereisende” (Summon
/ Bind Byakhee);
“Befehlen Sie die Bäume” (Summon
/ Bind Dark Young);
“Beherrschen Sie das Unbekannte” (Call
/ Dismiss Ghatanathoa);
“In Verbindung treten Sie mit den Kindern vom tiefen” (Contact
Deep Ones);
“Wiederherstellung zum Leben” (Resurrection);
“Nahrung des Lebens” (Food
of Life)
*****
According
to his normal practice, von Junzt returned unexpectedly to Düsseldorf
from Mongolia in 1840, and contacted Mülder, telling him that he had
prepared a draft of the second book which he had agreed to write.
Mülder, in turn, contacted Ladeau in Cologne, and made him aware of
his friend’s return.
Ladeau
made his way directly to von Junzt’s hotel but was unable to obtain
a response from his room. Finally, hotel staff and police forced the
door only to find von Junzt strangled to death inside and surrounded
by the scattered remnants of his new manuscript. It was ominously
noted that all of the windows of the room had been locked and bolted
from the inside, a practise which the paranoid von Junzt always
adopted, even using his own padlocks where he felt the security was
insufficient to his needs.
In
the days that followed, Mülder received many queries from those who
had purchased Unaussprechlichen
Kulten,
asking if there was some link between the book and its author’s
terrible demise. Despite reassurances to the contrary, many of those
who had bought it, later destroyed it in a superstitious frenzy. In
the next few weeks a government investigation followed and the book
was placed on a list of banned titles and its further publication
proscribed.
In
the meantime, Ladeau returned to Cologne and the von Junzt estate and
began to re-organise the manuscript found in von Junzt’s hotel
room. However, upon completing this task and reading the text, he
threw it into the fireplace and slit his throat with a straight
razor. This subsequent death did nothing to reassure authorities or
prevent Unaussprechlichen
Kulten
from being banned and burned. The taint ascribed to the work extended
as far as Gottfried Mülder himself as his business failed and he was
declared bankrupt within the space of a year.
That
might have been the end of the book but for the fact that a Jesuit
priest, Pierre Sansrire, translated a copy into French and had it
published in St. Malo, in 1843. This was, again, a short run edition
and no known copies of this version have survived, probably due to
intervention by the Catholic Church.
*****
French: Le
Livre Noir des Cultes Indescriptibles;
translation by Pere Pierre Sansrire; St. Malo, France, 1843; Sanity
Loss: 1d8/2d8; +12 percentiles to Cthulhu
Mythos;
average 48 weeks to study & comprehend
Spells:
“Entrez en contact avec Zhar” (Contact
Deity / Zhar);
“Goule de contact” (Contact
Ghoul);
“Barrière de Naach-Tith” (Barrier
of Naach-Tith);
“Contactez le Mer-Père” (Contact
Dagon);
“Diable d'éther de contact” (Contact
Mi-Go);
“Rassemblez le Sun” (Call
/ Dismiss Azathoth);
“Rassemblez Cyaegha” (Call
/ Dismiss Cyaegha);
“Appelez l'Homme à Cornes” (Call
/ Dismiss Nyarlathotep);
“Rassemblez la Chose qui ne devrait pas être” (Call
/ Dismiss Nyogtha);
“Appelez la Mère de Terre” (Call
/ Dismiss Shub-Niggurath);
“Appelez les Démons de Vol” (Summon
/ Bind Byakhee);
“Rassemblez les Arbres de Marche” (Summon
/ Bind Dark Young);
“Appelez Dieu de Gorgon” (Call
/ Dismiss Ghatanathoa);
“Entretien aux Enfants des Profondeurs” (Contact
Deep Ones);
“Reconstituez les Morts à la Vie” (Resurrection);
“La Nourriture de la Vie” (Food
of Life)
*****
What
is
known, however, is that unscrupulous British bookseller, M.A.G.
Bridewall, bought a copy of the St. Malo edition in a London
bookstore and found it so scandalous that he had it broken up, turned
into English by several translators, and published under his own
imprint. This quarto volume was re-titled ‘Nameless
Cults’
and was released in 1845. It was a poorly presented production,
riddled with mistakes and errors (due to the quality of the
translators and the fact that they were unaware of each others’
efforts) and marred by the presence of lurid, randomly-sourced
woodcut illustrations with little relevance to the text.
*****
English: Nameless
Cults;
unauthorised translation published by M.A.G. Bridewall; Unknown
translator(s); London, 1845; Sanity Loss: 1d8/2d8; +12 percentiles to
Cthulhu
Mythos;
average 48 weeks to study & comprehend
Spells:
As per Unaussprechlichen
Kulten,
but most of the spells are either incomplete or faulty; Roll POWx2 to
discover a working version of a particular spell
*****
In
1909, the Golden
Goblin Press
of New York issued a new translation into English from the German
original (unfortunately maintaining the Bridewall variant of the
title), complete with full-colour plates redrawn from the Hasse
originals by Diego Velasquez. Unfortunately, the editors saw fit to
expurgate fully one quarter of the text and the final result was so
expensive as to render it largely inaccessible to the general public.
In the same year, the Starry
Wisdom Press
is said to have released its own translation but copies have never
been located. The
Miskatonic University Press
has often come forward with plans to reissue the work in a scholarly
edition, complete with annotations and accompanying essays, but the
heirs of the von Junzt estate have repeatedly refused to give
permission for another printing.
*****
English: Nameless
Cults;
Expurgated translation of the German edition issued by Golden Goblin
Press; Unknown translator; New York, 1909; Sanity Loss: 1d8/2d8; +9
percentiles to Cthulhu
Mythos;
average 30 weeks to study & comprehend
Spells:
None
*****
After
von Junzt’s departure to St. Petersburg, Alexis Ladeau began
writing an account of his life with the explorer, detailing their
time together from their meeting in Paris to his forced return from
America to recuperate from his malaise. This manuscript was included
as part of the von Junzt estate and was discovered by valuers, called
in by the inheritors to determine the property’s total worth. It’s
not known exactly how M.A.G. Bridewall came into possession of the
manuscript, however his publishing outfit issued it in the year after
the release of their Nameless
Cults (a
terrible mistranslation of the title), no doubt hoping to heighten
the excitement caused by that publication. The von Junzt estate
sought an injunction against Bridewall to prevent publication of any
further material by von Junzt; however, as Ladeau
was the author of this work and not
von Junzt, the order was quickly beaten down by the British courts.
Regardless, it was banned by German law and no translation into the
German tongue currently exists.
*****
Reminiscences
of Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt
“Reading
what Von Junzt dared put in print arouses uneasy speculations as to
what it was that he dared not tell. What dark matters, for instance,
were contained in those closely written pages that formed the
unpublished manuscript on which he worked unceasingly for months
before his death, and which lay torn and scattered all over the floor
of the locked and bolted chamber in which Von Junzt was found dead
with the marks of taloned fingers on his throat?”
-Robert
E. Howard,
“The Black Stone”
English; Reminiscences
of Friedrich Wilhelm von Junzt;
Alexis Ladeau; M.A.G. Bridewall, London, 1846; 0/1d2 Sanity loss;
Cthulhu
Mythos
+2 percentiles; 2 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells:
None
*****
Bankrupt
and down on his luck, Gottfried Mülder
relocated to Leipzig, looking for a way to turn his life around. An
encounter with a fellow publisher got him thinking about the time he
spent with von Junzt in China after their graduation. Mülder
had been intent upon his own explorations, researching the history
and methods of printing in China, and had not paid particular
attention to von Junzt’s activities: von Junzt had spoken at length
of the wonders which he had encountered but Mülder
had paid them about as much attention as von Junzt had lent his own
discoveries – that is, very little. Urged on by the publisher,
Mülder
agreed to re-visit that period by means of hypnosis and, over many
sessions, a manuscript was developed which promised to be as
sensational as anything to have come directly from von Junzt’s pen.
Mülder
published these as The
Secret Mysteries of Asia.
Unfortunately, largely due to German economic interests in China at
the time, most of the print run was seized and destroyed soon after
publication. Several copies, along with those in the possession of
Mülder
himself, escaped destruction, mainly by virtue of having been mailed
to the author’s colleagues and associates for academic review.
*****
The
Secret Mysteries of Asia, with a Commentary on the Ghorl
Nigral
The
sessions of hypnosis revealed that von Junzt had claimed to have
found his way to a supposedly mythical kingdom named Yian-Ho in the
heart of western China. He claimed that the people who dwelt there
headed a secret organisation, a cult of worshippers, dedicated to an
alien god, with tentacles stretching across the planet. While there,
he was permitted to look upon a forbidden text, the Ghorl
Nigral or
Book of
Night, and
to uncover it secrets. This is a very similar set of circumstances to
those surrounding Madame Blavatsky’s introduction to the Book
of Dzyan.
The
Ghorl
Nigral is
a grimoire written by an alien wizard named Zkauba from a planet
called Yaddith. It tells of Zkauba’s efforts – along with his
fellow practitioners – to save his planet from destruction due to
an infestation of Dholes. In this regard he was unsuccessful and was
forced to use his “light envelope” to escape alive. The book
contains much information about the despicable Dholes and has spells
which are effective against them: one of those spells is included in
this commentary. This material might well be thought of as delusional
ravings on von Junzt’s part (as remembered by Mülder),
however mention of the Ghorl
Nigral,
along with a discussion of its contents, is also contained within The
Book of Eibon.
The
rest of the Secret
Mysteries
talks about the ancient secretive cult based in China and discusses
its organisation, operations and ultimate goals. Much is speculative
on von Junzt’s part – as relayed through Mülder
– and the picture is vague and incomplete, but there is a
discussion of many Chinese secret societies, the Tcho-tcho peoples
and their magical abilities, and the level to which they are able to
infiltrate and co-opt political and other organisations across the
globe.
Until
fairly recently, a private press re-printing of the Secret
Mysteries
residing in the Library at Miskatonic University was thought to be a
copy of the Ghorl
Nigral
itself: the cataloguing has now been corrected.
(Source:
Lovecraft
at Last,
Willis Conover & H. P. Lovecraft)
German; The
Secret Mysteries of Asia, with a Commentary on the Ghorl
Nigral; Gottfried Mülder;
Leipzig, 1847; Sanity loss: 1d4/1d8; +7 percentiles to Cthulhu
Mythos;
average 16 weeks to study and comprehend
Spells:
Glass from
Leng; Liao Drug; Command Dhole; All
of the T’ai
p’ing t’ao
*****
In
1848, eight years after his death, most people would be forgiven for
thinking that the works of Friedrich von Junzt had been exhausted.
However, in the winter of that year, a small publishing house in
Ingolstadt in German Bavaria quietly issued a further work – the
purported translation by von Junzt of the hellish Necronomicon
itself. The books were printed in a short run and mailed to a list of
subscribers in an attempt to keep the entire operation quiet;
however, a zealous customs official unearthed an unclaimed parcel and
traced the contraband book to its source. The raid upon the publisher
was too late and the original manuscript was burnt before the
government could lay claim to it. The publishers confessed to
printing the book but swore that, while the work had been written by
von Junzt, it was not the proscribed Unaussprechlichen
Kulten,
but another work which they had received anonymously through the
mail. They were able to provide the envelope in which it had arrived
at their premises and it was noted that the address had been written
upon it in Cyrillic characters.
There
are those who say that this manuscript was a duplicate of the one
which Ladeau read and destroyed after von Junzt’s death; others say
that Ladeau’s manuscript was unique, and that, further, it wasn’t
destroyed but rather buried with him. Certainly several attempts to
desecrate his grave have taken place, and an exhumation order was
carried out by the Nazis during World War Two, although whether it
revealed anything has never been determined.
*****
Necronomicon,
das Verichteraraberbuch
It
seems only too reasonable to assume that someone who spent so much of
their time shining bright lights into the darkest corners of
religious belief would encounter the Necronomicon
at some stage or other. Von Junzt, much like George Angell and
Francis Wayland Thurston in the decades after him, discerned a unity
of cultish devotion connecting many disparate and unevolved
communities worldwide and drew the inference that a global fraternity
was at work.
Unlike
Angell and Thurston, von Junzt stumbled early onto the Necronomicom
and, rather than trying to connect confused and wide-ranging
phenomena back to a nebulous source, determined that the Necronomicon
was
the source and then used it to track its various dark expressions out
across the face of the planet. In this sense, the Necronomicon
was a major tool in the construction of his own sanity-wrenching
work,
Unaussprechlichen Kulten.
The
original manuscript having been destroyed, the certainty of von
Junzt’s authorship is open to debate. Many sensational and lurid
works have appeared across the globe since von Junzt’s death,
spuriously attributed to him with an eye to garnering sales, and not
all of them published by Bridewall, or Ultimate Press. In favour of
the attribution is the fact that much of the material presented in
this volume is cross-referenced with Unaussprechlichen
Kulten,
demonstrating the validity of von Junzt’s thesis: in biological
terms, he seems to argue that the Necronomicon
is the genotype, or code, for cult activity across the planet, while
Unaussprechlichen
Kulten is
its phenotype, or expression.
There
are no spells presented in this work, although von Junzt (if he is
the author) lists what magical procedures occur and also their
expected effects. The rest of the material lines up fairly accurately
with what is known of the Necronomicon’s
dark contents.
German; Necronomicon,
das Verichteraraberbuch;
Friedrich von Junzt (attrib.); Ingolstadt, Bavaria, 1848; Sanity
Loss: 1d10/2d8; +10 percentiles to Cthulhu
Mythos;
average 40 weeks to study & comprehend
Spells:
None
*****
