ABSTRACT
The Necronomicon is an imaginary tome of occult lore first referenced in stories by horror writer H.P. Lovecraft. However, many people, including evangelical moral entrepreneurs and law enforcement, are unaware of the book’s fictional origins. They assume not only that it is an actual ancient text but that reading it leads to spiritual danger and criminal behavior. This chapter takes an “ecological” approach to the Necronomicon legend to analyze how and why this confusion arose. It identifies four groups of people involved in creating new claims about the Necronomicon: hoaxers, who deliberately tried to sow confusion; occultists, who understand the Necronomicon’s origins but create rituals based on Lovecraft’s ideas; deviant adolescents, who use texts published by hoaxers to perform their transgressive identities; and moral entrepreneurs who cite the Necronomicon as evidence of an occult threat to society. These four groups have borrowed from, invoked, and otherwise referenced one another to build up the Necronomicon legend. Significantly, some of these groups are largely unaware of Lovecraft and his work, showing that the legend has become largely independent of its creator.
