2 posts tagged “kenneth grant”
Diabolical various
Introduction by Peter Grey
Edited by Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey
Diabolical is a weighty tome of over 350pp.
With nine colour plates of original infernal artwork from Stafford
Stone, Kyle Fite, Thomas Karlsson, and Johnny Jakobsson.
Bound in red cloth shot through with charred black.
The cover is stamped with the devil's verse in heavy black fractur.
It comes in an edition of 999 copies, hand numbered in dragon's blood ink.
A copy of the No Smoke Without Fire Edition can be yours for thirty-five English pounds.
The Grimoire tradition is being reinvigorated in the living practice of the carcists, magicians and sorcerors who dare to work with these books.
Those of us who do this work, regardless of whether we trepass amongst the angels or daemons, are often slandered as diabolical. Our books are also regarded as diabolical, being incomprehensible, demonic and without spiritual or practical value.
We throw this back at our accusers by demonstrating that these books are more complex than black and white theology allows, and as repositories of forbidden knowledge are worth their weight in gold. This is where the spirits lie.
We are upholding our side of the pact and continuing to produce the most groundbreaking and relevant titles of the modern occult revival. To this end, Scarlet Imprint have convened an international cabal of writers and artists from England, Poland, Holland, Sweden, Spain, Brazil, Canada and America.
Our writers for this project are:
Jake Stratton-Kent
Eric de Pauw
Aaron Leitch
Paul Hughes-Barlow
Mark Smith
Stafford Stone
Thomas Karlsson
Johnny Jakobsson
The Anonymous author of Pharaoan
Humberto Maggi
John J. Coughlin
Krzysztof Azarewicz
Donald Tyson
Kyle Fite
These individuals meet for the first time within the pages of our newest title, Diabolical and give tongue to their excursions into these texts and others:
The Red Dragon/Grand Grimoire
Grimorium Verum
Lemegeton
The Sacred Magic of Abramelin the Mage
The Testament of Solomon
The Nightside of Eden
The Wisdom of S'lba
Qutub
Liber 231
Liber 325 The Bartzabel Working
The Holy Books of Thelema
The Voudon Gnostic Workbook
The Taufer books...
Substantial original essays and inspired original artwork, in a striking talismanic production, Diabolical will astound you.
More information at scarletimprint.com
A new reader review of David Beth's Voudon Gnosis:
Seized by the Eyes
Kenneth Grant has described the main purpose of his books as to prepare people for encounters with unfamiliar state of consciousness. In Voudon Gnosis, David Beth describes the principles in the works of Michael Bertiaux as leading to true Gnostic Luciferean transformation. Both Grant and Bertiaux have devised highly original systems of magic which draw on the creativity of the adherent. This is not a simple structured system of rote learning, rather they both offer guides or pointers into deep and complex magical universes which the adherent must learn to develop him or herself. In Bertiaux’s system, adherents use ‘La Prise des Yeaux’, a form of occult active imagination, to explore their magical universe, often documenting it through personal art works.
Bertiaux’s writings do not outline a linear system of magic or esoteric spirituality. Rather they delve into a complex but intriguing web of magical openings which could be analogised by the system of points chaud where magical entities are impregnated in the physical body of the adherent and then activated as required to meet certain purposes. His system is catholic by nature and purpose, and much richer by reason of this. By, as David Beth describes, using a range of spiritual and esoteric systems, it opens up a broad magical universe, which then allows for the absorption of the diverse range of energies.
Bertiaux’s magnum opus, the Voudon Gnostic Workbook, is a dense, complex and voluminous compilation of papers on the magical system he has worked on and helped develop over the last number of decades. Finally back in print in an affordable paperback edition, it a dense and bulging tome of truly occult methodology and philosophy. It is a foreboding text with a seemingly multitude of ports of entry.
David Beth has chosen some of the key elements of the system and provided a lucid exegesis in a slim and attractive volume published by Scarlet Imprint. Expanding on an article originally published in the Howlings anthology, the text has been expanded on and structured in an even more user-friendly manner. There are also some extra diagrams, which help facilitate a clearer comprehension of the complex areas covered.
Armed with the insight gained through reading Voudon Gnosis, the Voudon Gnostic Workbook becomes a much less foreboding document, and the true potential and scope of its magical system becomes much more clear. While there have be other primers of sorts for other magical systems, in particular thelemic magick, I have yet to read a text which is comparable in the effect it has had in introducing the possibilities and scope of a magical system or philosophy. While this is of course a function of staggering scope of Bertiaux’s system, credit must also be due to the author, David Beth, in unveiling some of the content of this ophidian chthonic current.
In addition to an explanation of some of concepts of voudon gnosis, there are also some very useful appendices. Of particular interest in an essay on an initiated interpretation of love, AMOR, which explores the conception of esoteric love, a subject I found fascinating. There are further instructional material on the use of fetishes and time travelling, expanding on materials touched upon in the main text.
Voudon gnosis has been produced in a limited edition and will no doubt soon sell out. It must surely classify as one of the most intriguing and practical occult texts published in recent years and should be classified as essential reading for anyone with more than a passing interest in esoteric methodology.
-David Heney