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Post by Michael Staley on Jul 13, 2013 23:38:56 GMT
This has long been my favourite of the Nightside Narratives. I believe that the reference to Grant's ancestor, Margaret Wyard, being executed for witchcraft comes from Eric Maple's book Dark World of Witches, where he cites a number of cases from Hopkins' witchcraft inquisition, the case of Margaret Wyard from Framlingham amongst them.
The Wyards - from whom Grant was descended on his mother's side - came over from France several hundred years ago, and settled in Brundish, in Suffolk. Framlingham is nearby.
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Post by Frater Shaddad on Sept 5, 2013 15:25:05 GMT
This, too, is my favourite of all the Narratives! Thank you for the factual information on Margaret Wyard, and her relationship to Grant's familial lineage!
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Post by irenicus777 on Oct 4, 2013 17:52:46 GMT
Are there any plans for a republication of this narrative? I've always wanted to read and have it on my bookshelf (i.e., not pirating) but, unfortunately, the prices of the few available copies are a bit high for my budget...
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Post by Michael Staley on Oct 4, 2013 18:36:36 GMT
Yes, it will be republished. In the original scheme of things, it was designed to be published ahead of The Ninth Arch, since the novel takes some of the themes from Liber OKBISh and puts them in a fictional context. The priority is to get the nine volumes of the Trilogies back into print by the end of 2014, and thus Against the Light is likely to be published in 2015.
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Post by azrael2393 on Oct 4, 2013 20:30:46 GMT
I join in the choir, definitely my favorite. It's like a labyrinth on its own, and after all these years I still haven't got the keys to ALL its passages. One day, maybe
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Post by Michael Staley on Oct 4, 2013 22:23:19 GMT
Then again, maybe not. I read this book many times whilst preparing it for publication, and many times since. In fact, I love to reread it once or twice per year. With each reading, a new insight grows, and I suspect it will always be that way.
A great book, indeed.
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Post by artilect on Apr 13, 2015 21:14:52 GMT
On recently rereading Against the Light, I was struck by the section in 'Part II: Mirroriel' where Grant recounts a dream about House Brundish, the home of his Uncle Henry and Aunt Susan. For those with access to the book, this section can be found on pages 33-46 and is picked up again from pages 61-64.
The passages of note seem to concern free will and one's ability to choose a path. Grant also makes a number of puzzling statements about the nature of time and his mission to complete the Typhonian Trilogies (the year is 1986 in the dream).
I am wondering if anyone has deconstructed this section or if there are any other general comments or impressions about it. It's beautifully written, with an air of nostalgia at its centre and a pleasant reminiscing of family members passed on.
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Post by Michael Staley on Apr 16, 2015 15:03:35 GMT
Against the Light is a fantastic novel with a multitude of layers and depths to it. I read it umpteen times in the course of preparing it for publication in the late 1990s, and have read it many times since. Each re-reading yields fresh insights and understandings. The best way for you to understand the section you have highlighted here is to reread the novel. It will repay repeated readings.
The bungalow called 'Brundish' seems to have been a magnet for Grant's family on his mother's side, the Wyards, and was named after the town in Suffolk where the Wyards appear to have settled from wherever they came. There is an interesting passage early on in the novel:
The novel seems to have been written in the early 1980s. The first typescript was entitled Madeleine, the witch being given the name Medeleine and not Margaret. This early typescript has not survived apart from a few pages and half-page. Only later did Grant hit upon the title Against the Light, and decide to refer to the witch by her real name, Margaret.
As for your question about "deconstruction", perhaps other readers of this novel will chime in here.
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Post by artilect on Apr 17, 2015 22:18:19 GMT
There is an interesting passage early on in the novel: Ah, interesting indeed. Dr. Phineas Marsh Black's book bears the title Clinical Studies in Senescence and Diseases of Memory (Edinburgh, 1886)... but the passage you referenced doesn't appear to be sourced from Phineas' book. Another read of this novel while it's still fresh might be in order!
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eric
New Member
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Post by eric on Jul 9, 2015 15:04:34 GMT
Love that book I be read it three times, it has influenced my ceremonial work and witchcraft more than any other. I almost sense it to be a deliberate allegorical cypher.... Now I have to read it Again... Lol
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Post by Amfortas on Jul 16, 2015 23:46:30 GMT
I find the dustjacket illustration of Against the Light remarkable -- as with the text it encloses there is much to fathom!
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Post by artilect on Jul 17, 2015 1:19:54 GMT
Interesting. What about it draws you in Amfortas? If I had a try at it (leaving the back cover as is and inserting the Crowley painting as a frontispiece): Mephi is, somewhat menacingly I might add, staring Kenneth down as he goes against the light!
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Post by stephen on Jul 17, 2015 15:54:43 GMT
I agree with Amfortas that the jacket cover to Against the Light is of great interest; intriguing, in fact. Although just to complicate matters, I am more familiar with the design shown here, rather than that which Artilect has reproduced. _ I have no idea of the provenance of the sculpture/bust in the lower left here, although I had not taken it as Mephi, but rather a representation of Phineas Marsh Black. The hand holding the parchment 'against the light' of the church window at Merthyr Mawr ?? (thats a ? for the conjectural location and a ? for the remembered spelling); the crudely incised sigils including that of New Isis; and the watercolour by Crowley of a Yellow Sage in a distinctly Atu XVIII The Moon scenario. What might it all mean ? Its a shame that we did not get a frontispiece for this first volume of Nightside Narratives, one of the elements of the cover design might then have been placed there with additional identification.
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Post by artilect on Jul 17, 2015 16:38:29 GMT
Sorry, didn't mean to complicate things with my alternate cover design, I just really like those two images together.
Okay, so regarding whether the statue is actually Mephi, we can consult Hecate's Fountain, 'Stopheles' chapter, page 186 of the Skoob edition: I took the inclusion of Crowley's Yellow Mage painting to be a nod to the 'squat abnormality' aka The Yellow One.
Are the sigils/hieroglyphics not from the Grant Grimoire? I had assumed so and they seem to be an entry-point for mystical experiences in the story. I had considered that they may also be related to Spare's Man is a Bundle of Ids, but the designs don't match. Page 54 of ATL is where you'll find the fabric held against the windowpane scene, but the sigils/hieroglyphs are of course mentioned frequently throughout the story.
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Post by artilect on Jul 17, 2015 16:48:46 GMT
Also Phineas Marsh Black
Coincidence?
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Post by Amfortas on Jul 17, 2015 23:41:11 GMT
I too had connected the bust at the bottom right with Phineas Black and was astonished to learn that it's actually Mephi! But then, as Michael pointed out, the text of ATL expounds -- and exemplifes -- a doctrine of avatars.
It's the sigils depicted on the Grimoire leaf that I've puzzled over the most, particularly in the light of the injunction in Ninth Arch, Appendix I. Down the years I may have 'twigged' one or two of them, but the "altogether different picture" has not yet emerged ...
Kenneth Grant achieved something quite remarkable with this text, and its tendrils have yet to fully unfurl.
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Post by artilect on Jul 18, 2015 1:47:58 GMT
Some additional info on the sigils from page 65: The idea of some future (or imminent?) infiltration by the 'Others' will be familiar to anyone reading Grant. Interesting then Amfortas that you mention the Sign of Protection.
How one can 'see' them in the sigils however is another matter that I haven't the foggiest clue about.
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Post by stephen on Jul 18, 2015 10:46:40 GMT
Well, I took out my copy of Against the Light last evening - its copy no.4 of the deluxe edition, as a matter of fact - and had a good long look at the cover images and then consulted the "Stopheles " chapter in Hecate's Fountain and saw the Light, or at least some of it. Yes, Artilect, you are correct without a doubt that the bust on the cover is that of MEPHISTOPHELES. I have come into the library this morning, having copied out that very same quotation from page 186 of HF, which continues: It was, indeed, a very orthodox representation of Mephi, and would have merited no further attention had it not been for its curiously compelling quality.I had never made the connection before, partly, perhaps, because the orthodox representation of Mephistopheles has never really registered with me; but here he is:
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Post by stephen on Jul 18, 2015 10:57:40 GMT
Ahem... to continue: I think that the Phineas Marsh Black identification very much applies. And the role of Crowley's The Yellow Mage is duly acknowledged.
It seems virtually impossible to discuss Against the Light without reference to The Ninth Arch and vice versa. I have had a fraught and busy week and I am limited for time, but I suggest that OKBISh verses 508-519 and the commentaries to them very much relate to the topics under discussion here, and also to a delineation of the complex relationship between the hell-bird and the Qrixquor.
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Post by N0T 2 on Jul 19, 2015 3:55:37 GMT
Ahem... to continue: I think that the Phineas Marsh Black identification very much applies. And the role of Crowley's The Yellow Mage is duly acknowledged. It seems virtually impossible to discuss Against the Light without reference to The Ninth Arch and vice versa. I have had a fraught and busy week and I am limited for time, but I suggest that OKBISh verses 508-519 and the commentaries to them very much relate to the topics under discussion here, and also to a delineation of the complex relationship between the hell-bird and the Qrixquor. When I first read Artilect's post, I nearly wrote a post saying this - the description of the skullcap that Black wore gives the picture away clearly as him - an amazingly eerie image. But it had been so long since I read the book that I wasn't entirely sure of the name, so I googled what I thought the name was: Phineas Black, leaving out the "Marsh". Imagine my surprise to discover the entire page of results leading to the Harry Potter wiki, as Phineas Black is in fact a character in that universe too! (Go on, you know you want to... and I wonder if JKR used the name knowingly or not?). As I didn't have my copy with me at the time I was so bamboozled ("But I was sure the name was Phineas Black") that I refrained from posting anything at all. Now I know the truth: Mephistophiles was a professor at Hogwarts.
The Mephi chapter you mention in the other post is an extraordinary episode with distinct resonance with the work of another occultist working elsewhere around the same period with whom the Grants were almost certainly unaquainted at the time, details of which, when I have permission, I hope to present.
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Post by Michael Staley on Jul 20, 2015 14:32:29 GMT
The identification of Mephi with Phineas Marsh Black is not something which had occurred to me before, but it's an interesting idea.
Over the years I discussed this novel several times with Kenneth Grant. The only fictional character, he maintained, was Phineas Marsh Black, who was a composite character. I had until recently thought that the image of the bust of Mephi on the front cover was there as a connection with the Busche Emporium. However,if Mephi is one of the composite elements of Uncle Phin then its presence on the cover is clearer.
An earlier poster mentioned the Grant Grimoire. As a matter of interest, I recently came across a sheet of paper in KG's handwriting listing the titles of the first two trilogies (so likely dating from the early 1980s, after he'd written Hecate's Fountain but before he'd started work on the third trilogy. The titles were headed GRANT'S GRIMOIRE, a fairly obvious identification though not one I'd made before.
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Post by stephen on Jul 20, 2015 15:55:23 GMT
Posted by N0T 2 yesterday at 4:55am:
The Mephi chapter you mention in the other post is an extraordinary episode with distinct resonance with the work of another occultist working elsewhere around the same period with whom the Grants were almost certainly unaquainted at the time, details of which, when I have permission, I hope to present.
This sounds intriguing. The Mephi business at The Busche Emporium occurred prior to the Second World War, so we are talking early 1939, perhaps, when Kenneth Grant would have been a very young man of 15 years. It would not have been unusual at that period for him to have already left school and be 'making his way in the world' and be living in central London. It was some years later, I think, that he would have made the acquaintance of Steffi. It probably also partly explains the marked impression that the incident made on him at the time.
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Post by artilect on Jul 21, 2015 1:03:15 GMT
An earlier poster mentioned the Grant Grimoire. As a matter of interest, I recently came across a sheet of paper in KG's handwriting listing the titles of the first two trilogies (so likely dating from the early 1980s, after he'd written Hecate's Fountain but before he'd started work on the third trilogy. The titles were headed GRANT'S GRIMOIRE, a fairly obvious identification though not one I'd made before. Very interesting! This sheds some light on one of the sections I mentioned earlier, particularly pages 34-36 regarding 'the Work' for those who wish to follow-up.
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Post by N0T 2 on Jul 21, 2015 8:55:52 GMT
Posted by N0T 2 yesterday at 4:55am: The Mephi chapter you mention in the other post is an extraordinary episode with distinct resonance with the work of another occultist working elsewhere around the same period with whom the Grants were almost certainly unaquainted at the time, details of which, when I have permission, I hope to present.This sounds intriguing. The Mephi business at The Busche Emporium occurred prior to the Second World War, so we are talking early 1939, perhaps, when Kenneth Grant would have been a very young man of 15 years. It would not have been unusual at that period for him to have already left school and be 'making his way in the world' and be living in central London. It was some years later, I think, that he would have made the acquaintance of Steffi. It probably also partly explains the marked impression that the incident made on him at the time. Hi Stephen,
The plot thickens... page 138 of The Ninth Arch says Busche traded after the end of WWII, but page 187 of Hecate's Fountain says he did so before the war, re-stated p.189; and page 493 of The Ninth Arch he says it was in the late nineteen-thirties, confirming the earlier date, making that on page 138 of TNA an anomaly or mistake. Clearly many decades between the events and the writings, but I wonder if it's possible to determine if one or the other date is more historically accurate? On balance, it seems the earlier date, which you mention.
Salient points in the episode (as per Hecate's Fountain): Kenneth is shopping for pieces to lend his new rooms 'atmosphere', becomes drawn to dark shelves containing the bust, and is trying to decide whether its curious appeal is due to the shop's lighting or to an 'other' quality, when a voice informs him the store is closing. He turns to ask the price of the bust, but discovers himself alone in the room, indeed on the whole floor. He forgets about the bust, purchases other items, leaves the store, drops his parcels at home and goes out for the day. When he returns home he discovers the bust of Mephi amongst the items he got from Busche's emporium, although he hadn't bought it. He returns at the first chance to return the item clearly acquired by mistake, to find the store vacant and "to let". He re-wraps it and forgets about it for 20 years. Then in 1958 he finds that a visiting occultist (Oola) and guest of of his Lodge has chosen it - drawn in by its smile - to 'earth' the force (Oolak) conjured in a ritual. When he discusses this with her, the image of the shopkeeper who bade Kenneth "goodnight" at mid-day on the day he left the Emporium, is evoked.
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Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Jul 23, 2015 20:49:10 GMT
I started re-reading Against the Light a few days ago just to freshen my memory of it all because of what I am seeing in this discussion. I appreciate all the connections that have been made above regarding the Mephi statue on the cover. I had never put Mephi and Phineas Marsh Black together either but it does make some sense. I don't know if this has been noted above (I don't think so) but the statue may also be a direct reference to the title of the book itself as the name Mephistopheles can mean "against the light" in a sense. Here is what Jeffrey Russell says about the name in his Mephistopheles: The Devil in the Modern World:...and:So "he who is not a lover of light" can also roughly mean "opposed to the light" or "against the light". I also think Mephi slightly resembles the central character (Kenneth Grant? Maybe Phineas Black in light of this discussion?) in Steffi's the Stellar Lode/Mystic Eye painting that we talked about HERE not long ago.
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