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Kenneth Grant:: WTF???

  
 
Issaiah Saysir
17:18 / 24.02.04
A friend passed along a book entitled Outer Gateways by Kenneth Grant. This seems to be the best suited forum available to gain information on all things 'magickal'. I have been told that it is a combination of the OTO/AA/Crowley philosophioes combined with the UFO/Other Worldly Creatures ideas.

Can anyone expand on the basis of Grant's ideas for me?
 
 
Papess
18:32 / 24.02.04
There is a very useful feature for finding information on Barbelith called a "Search" function.

Here is what came up for Mr.Grant:

Kenneth Grant

New Kenneth Grant - "The Ninth Arch"

Kenneth Grant and "bestial etymology"

Kenneth Grant booklaunch, London, 21st

Just for starters, anyway. I hope you may find something of use to you in those links. I also found a site a while back, which I cannot find now but maybe someone remembers and has it bookmarked, was a bizarre link list that was related to the Blue Brethren or Brotherhood, (B.'.B.'.) I am not certain right now.

Maybe Sebastian, Grant or Illmatic would remember.

*crosses fingers*
 
 
Boy in a Suitcase
22:52 / 24.02.04
Kenneth Grant is a gas fitter from Luton
 
 
LVX23
23:31 / 24.02.04
In a very small, probably somewhat ignorant, nutshell:

Grant is head of the Typhonian Order, an offshoot of the OTO. While Crowley never quite took a firm stand on whether the entities he was contacting originated extraterrestrially or from inside his own skull, Grant believes they are very real entities residing primarily in the Sirius star system. The method he feels is most appropriate for achieving gnosis and contacting these entities is a hybrid of Thelema and Tantra involving the ingestion of various shades of female ejaculatory and menstrual fluids, or kalas.

At least this is what I've gathered from the 2 books of his I've read. Please don't discount him by my summary. There are a lot of good bits in his work and he's certainly worth checking out.
 
 
Avalon Qadosh
02:34 / 25.02.04

Is Grant still alive?
 
 
--
03:14 / 25.02.04
I ordered "Nightside of Eden" recently. Still waiting for it to come in though.
 
 
LVX23
05:17 / 25.02.04
I remember the B'B'...don't remember the url tho. i think they disappeared a while back...
 
 
illmatic
08:27 / 25.02.04
There's a good review over on Phil Hine's site. I like his books but they are very strange. A lot of what's he's doing seems to be about suggesting odd ideas and concepts - a gestalt of weird imagery, rather than advocating the literal truth of any of it, of giving techniques for people to use. All the elements that Chris mentions are there, but I wonder how much Grant actually believes in any of them? The stuff about the "kalas" for instance, evokes images of orietal mysteries, dusky eyed maidens and incredible rites, but there's nary a clue about how to do it. They defintely span the boundary between fact and fiction - Grant's quite fond of horor fiction, and talks about Arthur Machen and HP Lovecraft in his works, and has put out a couple of novellas in recent years. (The only one I've read has been completely batshit crazy). The best chapter in the one you've got is the one on "Creative Gematria".

(sorry can't remember that link).

(Sory, can't remember the link).
 
 
illmatic
08:45 / 25.02.04
Re: The kalas as talked about by Grant. This is or was a real phenomena in Asia at one time, connected with Indian alchemy - check out this review. (Bearing in mind this is a scholarly tome, heavy emphasis on the lingusitics and comparison, none on the personal experience). However, how much resembalence this bore to Grant's recension of it is anyone's guess. I think of Grant's stuff as a kind of re-imagining of these events.
 
 
---
09:41 / 25.02.04
Grant is head of the Typhonian Order, an offshoot of the OTO. While Crowley never quite took a firm stand on whether the entities he was contacting originated extraterrestrially or from inside his own skull, Grant believes they are very real entities residing primarily in the Sirius star system.

Haha, we need David Icke here to see some of this, i'd have a right laugh reading his posts.
 
 
LVX23
16:15 / 25.02.04
Well, as sci-fi as it may sound, I wouldn't discount the Sirius phenom completely. The star system seems to show up quite often and undoubtedly has a certain grip on aspects of our unconscious. Ken Grant, Crowley, Bob Wilson, Tim Leary and the Starseed Transmissions, the Dogon (see The Sirius Mystery...all have had fairly intimate relationships with Sirius. Whether it exists solely in our minds or not is another question but, to my mind, it's as good a candidate as any for extra-terrestrial intelligence.
 
 
Unconditional Love
22:56 / 25.02.04
what kind of gas does he fit?
 
 
trouser the trouserian
03:51 / 26.02.04
Let's not forget that Grant was one of the people responsible for the rise of interest in the works of Austin Osman Spare, and he also brought the magical ideas of more contemporary adepts such as Michael Bertiaux and Nema to a wider public. One of my favourite Grant books was Remembering Aleister Crowley (published by Skoob Books) - more autobiographical than his other works, it really carried across for me a sense of what it must have been like for Grant, as a young man, to have met and studied under Crowley.

KG also has had an influence on Lovecraftian magic - apparently he had a hand (tentacle?) in the foundation of the Esoteric Order of Dagon, which I understand, has now been reabsorbed into the Typhonian OTO.

Grant's work has been influential, but a lot of his ideas seem rather quaint - he has some funny ideas about women; is quite insistent that the XIth degree sex-magic of the OTO is nothing whatsoever to do with botty-burgling; is arguably over-reliant on the works of Theosophists such as Gerald Massey/Alvin Kuhn, and he often makes some curious connections - for example, in Nightside of Eden he identifies the Chaldean Lilith with the Hindu Lalita - without really 'explaining' the links, and occasionally falls back on the old get-out clause that this is, after all, an "initiated" commentary.
 
 
_Boboss
11:50 / 26.02.04
just here to check pms and saw this. few questions/ my penn'orth:

where is the tunnels of set hypothesis best fleshed out? is it nightside of eden? does it differ greatly from standard qlippothic lore?

really sound thrashing of kenny g's sax magic from an 'orthodox' thelemic viewpoint:

http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7069/grant1.html

[thelemite websites are brilliant. like christian websites would have been if they'd had the net in 100 ad]

more kindly 'he's mad, but fun' review by the high beardy mage in Kaos 14 available through the Biroco.com portal

grant's harder to read than joyce imho, which is why his books are such fun. there's lots to be said about the way he's affected the whole world, from bigging-up spare before carroll was a twinkle to sticking cthulhu and the boys so close to the forefront of phantastick lit and gubbins. but now's not the time.

that's it 'moff again
 
 
_Boboss
11:53 / 26.02.04
oop forgot - for such a mad bastard his book outer gateways has one of the simplest and most lucid explanations of the neither/neither - that the boy suitcase was asking about recently - that i've read since bobby wilson. heavy wei wu wei quotes and all sorts of goodness.
 
 
illmatic
12:36 / 26.02.04
Yo - it is fleshed out in NoE. I have no idea how or to what extent it differs from traditional ideas of the Qlipoth, but I really can't see the Rabbis getting down with. I have a funny story about that - back in the early 80s, a mate leant his copy back to a friend whose Dad was a rabbi. He showed it to his dad, who described it as "the most dangerous book since Mein Kampf"!! So I'd guess it difers from traditon a bit!!
 
 
trouser the trouserian
12:39 / 26.02.04
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Parthenon/7069/grant1.html

Ah yes, the 'infamous' Frater Kelly, 'scourge' of Kenneth Grant and who, it seems, has fallen out with just about every other Thelemic author. There was a rumour circulating in the UK in the early 1980s that Kelly had declared 'magical war' on Ray Sherwin - who used to run The New Equinox magazine in which Kelly held forth at some length.

KG's "Tunnels of Set" concept is mainly set out in Nightside of Eden.
 
 
The Fourth
18:46 / 26.02.04
I haven't read any of KGs books but did dip in as for reference while researching and exploring Our Lady Babalon! Didn't like what I found there at all. Lot's of stupid ideas about scarlet women, thought he was probably misogynistic. The most favourite thing I came across in one of his books was him saying that 'retromingent vaginas are the best.'
 
 
--
19:07 / 26.02.04
I avoided him for some time because I heard that he had written some homophobic stuff (or stuff that could be considered homophobic), but as I can't verify that he ever did I can't really hold that against the man until I investigate him further.

Actually, the real reason why I avoided him was because his books are so damn expensive.
 
 
Mycroft Holmes
02:28 / 29.11.05
email i recieved today. Don't know if this has been posted elsewhere:

Dear Patient Friends,


At long last, and after innumerable problems with the printing, we are proud to announce that "Convolvulus and Other Poems" by Kenneth Grant is now finally available.


Kenneth Grant needs no introduction to the occult cognoscenti: his 9 volume 'Typhonian Trilogies' redefined magick and inspired a new generation of occultists. Equally fascinating has been his other creative output, the fictional 'nightside narratives' of weird tales that "provide direct access to a number of dream-gates" (Jan Fries).

Now comes the long-awaited publication of the definitive collection of Kenneth Grant's collected poetry. Prose is a record of experience, whereas all real poetry is experience itself, for both poet and reader. Where prose achieves this quality it is no longer prose but poetry, regardless of its form or structure.

Poetry is therefore direct experience, a means of knowing Reality. This Reality consists not in what is experienced, but in the act of experiencing itself. Poetry is capable of surprising the erroneous tendency of the Ego to identify itself with a particular body. If allowed to be poetry; if allowed to be itself; if allowed full and free utterance, it can be as powerfully disruptive as imagery in visual realms. Disruption follows eruption, and re-integration follows disintegration. Only where Consciousness embraces ­ and thereby dissolves ­ all Egos; only when the latter¹s tendency to appropriate to itself that which in reality belongs to Absolute Consciousness is abolished, may a new start be made and a new beginning lead to the constant recurrence of ever fresh experience, which it is within the power of poetry to achieve.

These hauntingly beautiful and emotional poems, with titles such as 'Sorcery', 'Sigils', 'Words of Power' etc., offer a direct demonstration of ritual invocation/evocation as it should be performed.

Convolvulus contains all of the previously published poems from Black To Black and The Gull¹s Beak, plus the hitherto unpublished collection Convolvulus: Poems of Love and The Other Darkness. Together, these poems span the years from the nineteen-forties to the present day. Integrated with the poems are 21 sketches by Austin Osman Spare.

Convolvulus materialises in two editions totalling 750 copies; a standard edition, hard-back, sewn binding, 192 pages, bound in black Wibalin with a dustjacket by Steffi Grant. The first 75 copies comprise a deluxe issue, available only from the publishers. The boards are bound in hand-made paper, and quarter-bound in black goatskin with gold blocking, with specially printed endpapers, and top and tail bands to the binding. Each deluxe copy includes the dust-jacket, and is individually numbered and signed by Kenneth and Steffi Grant.

The deluxe edition is now completely sold out, and the standard edition is going fast.

The price of the standard is £25.00. Postage is extra, and varies according to destination as follows:
UK £4.00
Americas & Canada £7.00
Europe £6.00
Australasia & Pacific Rim £8.00

The book can be ordered directly from the publishers:



Starfire Publishing Ltd


BCM Starfire


London WC1N 3XX


UK





PayPal, cheques, postal orders or international money orders are all acceptable forms of payment. All payments must be in Sterling only, and must be payable to Starfire Publishing Ltd.


Please allow 28 days for delivery.

starfire.publishing(at)virgin.net





Robert Taylor
Starfire Publishing Ltd
BCM Starfire
London WC1N 3XX
UK
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
05:36 / 02.12.05
His Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism is a pretty good read.
 
 
Eudaimonic.lvx
11:30 / 02.12.05
His Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism is a pretty good read.

Aern't you thinking about Gareth Knight?
 
 
doctoradder
02:37 / 06.12.05
Um, yeah, anything with "Practical" in the title probably ISN'T by Kenneth Grant.

The stuff I've encountered by Grant (OUTER GATEWAYS & HECATE'S FOUNTAIN) are utterly madcap but weirdly intoxicating... but I'd be wary of trusting him as a reliable guide on pretty much ANY subject at all. His readings on Crowley are sometimes pretty bizarre, and his (highly influential) attempts to consolidate Lovecraft's Mythos with Magickal traditions, I personally find questionable & often torturous.

There's something interesting in his idea of writers like Lovecraft & Machen as adepts of another sort -- possibly channeling important material directly out of Ideaspace. But to accept a pulp writer's tale-spinning as directly received gospel is an intellectually precarious practice, at best.

One of the hallmarks of Grant's stuff is a complete blurring between the walls of fiction & reality. It's both dazzling and troubling. For example, he tends to report exotic rituals that strain all credulity, and which inevitably end nightmarishly. (I'm thinking in particular of an incident wherein he describes something like an elaborate acrobatic act performed on a giant metal sculpture of the Tree of Life that ends with the practitioner/performer plummeting into a bottomless pit.) I may be misremembering the details, but the point is, it's sheer outlandishness, described with absolute poker face as absolutely factual.

It's easy to rip him apart for his mashups of fact & fiction -- but personally, I think there's something interesting in his conflation of imagination and reality, in a manner that reminds me in some ways of the dizzying, intoxicating quality of "Morning of the Magicians" & Pauwel & Bergier's other books... and at least in their case, RT Gault has argued persuasively that their factual elisions and fabulations are part of a very clear program intended to break open the reader's head to reveal a new way of reinterpreting history and reality.

Also, pretty much all of his books on Spare are essential and Not to Be Missed. Even the big chunky ZOS SPEAKS! which, if it doesn't break your wallet will break your foot if you accidentally drop it.

But on the other hand, his Gematria will make you bleed from the ears; you shouldn't trying to figure his numbers without fistfuls of Tylenol and/or acid.
 
 
LVX23
03:26 / 06.12.05
I find him an interesting read though I think he's a bit quick to reduce the canon of western and eastern mysticism to the various flavors of female vaginal excretions. At least he spent a lot of time doing this in "AC & the Hidden God".
 
 
Tuna Ghost: Pratt knot hero
17:53 / 19.12.05
Aern't you thinking about Gareth Knight?

Oh for fuck's sake. This is like the fourth time I've mixed the two. Why does my brain insist on viewing the two names as the same? I'm about to perform mind altercation with a Q-tip here.

But, at any rate, Gareth Knight's Practical Guide to Qabalistic Symbolism is good. Kenneth Grant has written no such book. My bad.
 
 
Anthony
06:38 / 04.01.06
i like his ideas filtered through this stuff:

http://www.shadowtarot.net/tunnels_of_set.asp

i don't think i'd have the patience to read his actual works.
 
 
--
15:24 / 04.01.06
Heh, I got "Convolvulus" as a Christmas gift. Pretty interesting... I'm still undecided how good of a poet Grant is, but it does show another side of his character... A more emotional side, you could say (dare I say romantic even? Most of these ARE love poems). Lots of pretty Spare drawings to accomodate the text also. They even have a rare picture of Grant himself (not surprisingly, he's not smiling... I don't think I've ever seen a picture of him smiling).

I'm kind of curious to see what his fiction is like. I recall reading a review that Alan Moore did of "Against the Light" in, I think it was Kaos magazine or something like that, and it sounded pretty interesting. I've read most of the Typhonian trilogies, with the exception of "Beyond the Mauve Zone", which appears to be harder to get then "Outside the Circles of Time". Theoretically, you COULD cobble a practicing system based on Grant's style of magic, but he freely admits that his books are not practical workbooks of magic. However, the production of each one is top-notch (great covers, great art, and so forth) and their entertainment value can't be beat, though it seems by the final trilogy he was starting to run low on ideas and just repeating himself. Still, "Cults of the Shadow", "Nightside of Eden", "Outside the Circles of Time", and "Hecate's Fountain" are some of the best occult books I've ever encountered, and well-worth seeking out, especially if you have an interest in how the writings of Lovecraft influenced modern-day occultists (or, for that matter, if you have an interest in people such as Spare or Achad or Bertiaux).
 
  
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