|
Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Nov 24, 2014 17:05:33 GMT
Polaria: The Gift of the White Stone - what an interesting sounding book Nalyd! Did a quick search for it just now and see that it is a bit out of my price range currently ($700 and up for a used copy!). The idea of treating Lovecrafts writing with a sort of typhonian-alchemical lens is *very* intriguing. Is this a book that Grant referenced, or did you come across it from some other means? Gregory, I don't know what to say to that pricing other than it's a bit outrageous. I didn't even realize it is potentially worth that much. I bought a copy back in 1996 through the old Adventures Unlimited mail order catalogue for probably at least the cover price of $14.95. I don't think it has been in print since then though. My only advice to you is that if you ever come across a reasonably priced copy don't pass on it. Of course "reasonably priced" is up to you. Knowing what the book actually is I would probably not pay more than maybe $80-100 for it if I had to have it. Grant never referenced this book anywhere that I know of but it would be interesting to know if he knew of it. My buying this book back then was more out of curiosity based on the strength of the description of it in that catalogue where it mentioned that it treated Lovecraft as "America's secret alchemist". I will say that my, at the time, recent familiarity of Grant's writings probably did allow me to take notice of such a work and I'm glad I did because this book proved to be personally important to me over the years partially because it is so different than any other Lovecraftian esoteric analysis I've ever seen. Grant's work comes the closest to it but only in terms of form not content. It also shares a great deal in style with Robert Graves' The White Goddess. Perhaps the strangest feature of all is an introduction written by Lon Milo DuQuette. I've become rather dismissive of a lot of DuQuette's written output as I've grown magically over the years but in this introduction he seems to reveal certain insights that he leaves out of his own works. Towards the end of the introduction he has this to say overall of Polaria which I couldn't have put better myself:He could have said the same of Grant's works which I suspect he might in secret. Sorry to completely deviate from the thread topic like that but I didn't think this little deviation warranted a separate thread discussion.
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Nov 27, 2014 15:29:40 GMT
Isn't "It was by the straying that I found the path direct" one of Spare's aphorisms, or at least my paraphrase of it ?
My own branching out into the gematria of Azif appeared to be moving more into Lovecraft than having anything to do with Hans Vaihinger; my identification of the 'As If' formulation with the number 818 was a fairly spontaneous piece of gematria new to my first posting, then as you do, I began exploring the further ramifications.
AZ-IPh (phey final) = 818, while ATz-IPh = 181, (818 + 181 = 999).
And I find that 181 is the number of the Aramaic word NMTzA, 'reality'.
"The 'As If' world... the world of the 'unreal' is just as real and important as the real or actual...indeed it is far more important for ethics and aesthetics." - to quote Vaihinger from Grant in Zos Speaks!
First came across the word in Gershom Scholem's Major Trends in Jewish Mysticism in a quotation from Moses Cordovero:
HALVH KL NMTzA VAIN KL NMTzA HALVH - "God is all reality, but not all reality is God".
The statement requires some contemplation, and I won't go into the context here, but it seems that it is dealing with the same proposition that Grant is making with regard to Vaihinger, albeit expressed in a qabbalistic theosophical mode.
|
|
|
Post by stephen on Dec 1, 2014 15:35:19 GMT
I've wondered this myself and made this connection a long time ago. I even casually pointed it out on this forum HERE almost exactly a year ago. EDIT: Incidentally, that post was what sparked the idea to even start this thread. The homophony as-if/Azif was first connected by Kenneth Grant, and is suggested throughout Grant's explorations of these subjects in the Trilogies.
I like it, Stephen.
Also, if you take Aleph for Aayin, it's 887. Not palindromic, but worthy of our contemplation nonetheless.
Another aside really, I'm just getting back to NOT 2's last comment: Hi NOT 2, when you said that 887 was worthy of our contemplation, I wondered if you had something specific in mind ? On checking, I had no Hebrew correspondence for this number and was inclined to agree with KG's observation in his commentary on OKBISH verse 887 that: "The Oracle is silent". But with persistence, I have two contrasting Greek correspondences: emphobos - 'full of fear; terrified' and epichoregia - 'support, provision' (of which the first seems to have relevance to that verse in OKBISh). Ah, we gematria users are such obsessives.....
|
|
|
Post by N0T 2 on Mar 2, 2015 11:22:24 GMT
I suspected you'd answer in that fashion. Fair enough though. I wasn't attempting to take any credit for that 'as if'/azif connection but just pointing to the fact that I did previously mention it elsewhere. I sometimes wonder if this forum is even worth bothering with because most of us are already on the same or very similar page here. There is not much new to share with one another it seems. I say that in jest of course. I did come to the 'as if'/azif connection independently of Grant's writings though. My inspiration was more W. H. Müller and his book Polaria: The Gift of the White Stone. Müller relies heavily on "phonetic cabala". Curiously, in all of his alchemical exegesis of H. P. Lovecraft's mythos and how it relates to the "polar tradition" he never once mentions Al Azif that I can remember. I just applied his own methods to it myself. LOL Snap!
It calls to mind the 493rd Aphorism of Zos, does it not? :
|
|
|
Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Mar 2, 2015 20:23:20 GMT
Good find NOT 2. Thanks for pointing to it. It does indeed seem to imply that primal grimoire Al Azif.
|
|