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Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Jul 23, 2015 22:36:11 GMT
I'm not sure what really prompted me to make that last post earlier but strangely (synchronistically) I opened up Against the Light just a minute ago to pick up reading where I left off last night and the very first thing I read just now is the start of page 23 talking about Auguste Busche and a mention of the Mephi statue. It has been so long since I've read ATL that it is almost all new to me again, at least as far as the details are concerned. I remember first reading it back in the late 1990's and thinking that roughly the first half seemed fairly coherent but something in the story seemed to shift my consciousness about half way through to where it all registered in a surreal, dreamlike state for me rendering the rest of the story a blur to me. I have always had a hard time remembering what the hell even happened later on. I'm curious to see if it does the same thing again. It's the only time I've had that experience with one of Grant's "nightside narratives". I had a similar sense of dissociation when I first read Arthur Machen's "The Inmost Light" that really gave me a creepy feeling; the whole atmosphere of the room I was in changed. In the case of "The Inmost Light" I can pinpoint exactly where that shift occurred. I can't recall the exact point in ATL so I will be taking note this time around if it occurs again.
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Post by artilect on Jul 24, 2015 0:04:45 GMT
Very interesting connection with Mephi and 'against the light' NKB! Feels as if we're peeling away some layers here...
As for that unsettling feeling, it's funny you mention it because I too had read ATL years ago and it had the exact same impression on me at the time and over the ensuing years. I really liked it when I read it and always remembered liking it, but oddly all I could ever recall was the bit at the start in the crypt and then anything else plot-point or even character related was like a blurry moving point for me; or an unstructured, nebulous kaleidoscopic mish-mash. Even just reading your explanation brings that feeling on again, to the point where it's almost like a mild psychedelic. It makes my brain do a flip.
Having just re-read it (hand in hand with TNA too, which I think is key) I can say that while I do have a better (or at least fresher) handle on the events and characters in ATL, something definitely does happen somewhere along the way in the story where it all descends into dreams within dreams and abrupt location (dimension?) jumping. I don't know, I've never had quite the same experience with any other work of fiction before, but I'll give that Machen you mentioned a go and I'll probably re-read ATL again in the Fall. I have some other Nightside Narratives to get to as well.
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Post by Nalyd Khezr Bey on Jul 24, 2015 1:21:19 GMT
How you described your experience with reading ATL seems to fit exactly what I meant Artilect. I mentioned this personal experience with reading it on another forum several years ago that went as follows (someone else had said something similar about reading Grant's works in general and this was my response):Kenny definitely magically charged this narrative with something. I plan on working The Ninth Arch into my studies soon as well. It's time for me to get back into exploring KG's works again. EDIT: Incidentally, another little tidbit I noticed when I began reading on ATL earlier was that in my post above where I quote Jeffrey Russell he mentioned "the first attested appearance" of the name Mephistopheles in print was in a Faustbook published in 1587. Grant mentions that Margaret Abigail Lavinia Wyard was charged with witchcraft and executed on 11th August, 1588. I thought it was an interesting connection that perhaps the devil in the guise of Mephistopheles was evoked into the world just a year before this incident. Not sure if that is an important piece of trivia or even relevant but perhaps interesting nonetheless. EDIT II: Also in Russell's book is included this picture of a sculpture of Mephistopheles that is very similar to Grant's Mephi bust. Compare... It's funny that I hadn't actually looked at Russell's series of books on the devil in a while and then you guys start talking about Mephistopheles and not only piqued my interest in reading ATL again but set me off looking through Russell's books trying to connect some dots. I had forgotten about that image. In trying to find it somewhere online in order to share it here I came across several Mephi sculptures very similar in style, like this one for example:
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Post by stephen on Jul 27, 2015 15:33:02 GMT
I have only read Against the Light twice, to date: firstly back in 1997 when it was published and secondly in 2010. Of the first occasion my recollections have more than a little in common with those of Artilect and Nalyd Khezr Bey. My second reading was a little more analytical, being part of my preparation for a talk on 'The Entreating of the Stones' with a focus on the Witchcraft element in Kenneth Grant's writings, and even then there was much that remained mysterious. Some very interesting material and images on Mephistopheles (as you may have noticed I am not particularly adept at inserting such items myself). However, I don't think we should get too caught up with the mystique and persona of Mephistopheles in itself; as previously mentioned some of us would identify the Mephi bust with Phineas Marsh Black in the narrative of ATL. Also note that KG entitles his HF chapter "Stopheles" and gives the significance to Mephi as equating with 131 (MAPhI = 131) in the role that it played in introducing a tangential tantrum into a New Isis Lodge ritual. And to introduce another conundrum: the only fact concerning his ancestor that KG says he knew was that she was executed for witchcraft in 1588 and that this was based on research into the available records. Fairly comprehensive lists of those executed for witchcraft in England are now available and they do not include a Margaret Wyard in 1588 - a year in which the English authorities were generally more preoccupied with events leading up to the Spanish Armada - but there was a Margaret Wyard of Framlingham who was very probably executed for witchcraft in 1645: one of the many victims of the fanatical and unscrupulous Matthew Hopkins. One such listing can be found here: www.hulford.co.uk/trials.html
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Post by stephen on Jul 30, 2015 15:38:01 GMT
Further to the preceding with regard to Margaret Wyard.
When Kenneth Grant as the narrator of ATL states that he consulted the archivist at Ipswich and that records revealed that his ancestor Margaret Abigail Lavinia Wyard was executed for witchcraft on 11 August, 1588, I had no particular reason to doubt this, as he had stated previously that this was the only known fact about her. However, on pages 24-25 of the novella, we do get further biographical embellishments which purport to be taken from original documents, but which have a certain eldritch nuance about them.
Researching this further, brought up fairly detailed listings of those tried and executed for witchcraft, and among these, Margaret Wyard of Framlingham did indeed appear, but in 1645, when English witch persecutions reached their most extreme during the English Civil War and the activities of Matthew Hopkins, the notorious Witchfinder General.
The following summary gives most of what we know about her:
Margaret Wyard confessed to having seven imps, including flies, dogs, mice and a spider. She had only five teats, however, which forced her imps to fight “like pigs with a sow.” Wyard said the Devil had come to her seven years earlier in the likeness of a calf, saying he was her husband. She would not submit sexually to him ( a comment, perhaps, on the state of her marriage) until the Devil returned as “a handsome young gentleman.”
'The Encyclopedia of Witches, Witchcraft and Wicca' - Rosemary Guiley (2008).
The original published source is 'Witch Hunting and Witch Trials' by Cecil L'Estrange Ewen (RKP, 1929), which gives a richer flavour:
Margaret Wyard confessed in 1645 that “she had seven imps like flies, dors [bees], spiders, mice, and she had but five teats, and when they came to suck, they fight like pigs with a sow.”
I have no idea whether KG knew of this classic study, but it makes interesting reading. Not able to study it myself, as the copy that Sheffield Central Library has in their store was not to be found when I went to consult it yesterday.
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Post by stephen on Aug 3, 2015 14:24:50 GMT
OK, so where do I take this from here? Page 97 of The Ninth Arch gives a good summary of the Wyards of Brundish and their attitude to the activities of Awryd - they disowned and rejected her and suppressed the information - according to KG's researches.
Brundish is a small, scattered village some five miles north of the country town of Framlingham. The family name of Wyard seems to be widespread in the area and the more distinguished members of the family were established here: a substantial manor house still remains. In the churchyard of St. Lawrence are the tombstones of the following: John Wyard, 1599-1669 Susan Wyard, 1595-1670 Mary Wyard, 1635-1700 James Wyard, 1636-1715 James Wyard, 1673-1741 Jane Wyard, 1650-1715; note that all of these lived into their 60s and 70s, probably an indication of their privileged status.
John Wyard of Brundish, Esq. (presumably the above), son of Randolph Wyard, was High Sheriff of Suffolk for both 1658 and 1659. There are other Wyards than these, but the repetition of names makes their relationships difficult to establish. As KG notes, and not too surprisingly, there is no tombstone of Margaret Wyard at St. Lawrence, Brundish. Whether she is our executed witch of 1588 or 1645, she would not have been buried here, whatever her relationship to this distinguished family.
What else might we say about the Witch? She was rebaptised as Awryd which KG observes is "an obvious anagram of Wyard". (p.3, ATL). I do not think he considers the gematria of Awryd, AVRID = 221 which has the correspondences of AIGVRA, 'a heathen altar' and MAMTzIM, 'powers, forces' and fit well enough! (221 is also the value of a left-handed swastika drawn on the square of Mars, if we want to get more technical?).
And there was something about the name which encouraged further consideration: awyrd is an Anglo-Saxon word derived from awerdan and awyrdan: 'to injure, deprive; cause to vanish; hurt, or spoil'. All of these being traditional accusations applied to witches.
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jez
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Post by jez on Aug 5, 2015 23:33:11 GMT
The tombstones you mention aren't in the churchyard, but in the floor of the church itself. As prominent members of a major local family, they were presumably interred in the crypt. I have some snaps of the inscriptions, from a visit to Brundish last autumn, though they add little to the tale.
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Post by stephen on Aug 7, 2015 15:03:06 GMT
Hi Jez. Yes, I really should have known that the tombstones would be in the church; I've visited enough old churches in my time. Plus, the fact that KG says that they are, in that passage on page 97 of The Ninth Arch. Mea culpa !
Did you get any sense of the genius loci of the place when you made your visit ?
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jez
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Post by jez on Aug 8, 2015 20:55:46 GMT
There was something about the place that stood out.
I'm used to countryside with hills (parts of Kent and North Lancashire), so the sightlines of Suffolk were noticeably wider, until we came to seek the church at Brundish. The hedgerows were full of trees, rising high and nearly meeting in the middle like green tunnels. We drove past St Lawrence's the first time, and it's large for a village church, with a most imposing foursquare tower. There were bees nesting over the porch, with a number of them buzzing languidly around in the autumn sunshine. The inside was very welcoming, bright with whitewash, animated by the flitting shadows of the bees flying outside the window. It felt a worn yet loved old building, with a sense of a great deal of time folded into quite a small space.
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Post by kylefite on Jun 27, 2016 0:52:31 GMT
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Post by artilect on Jun 27, 2016 3:22:27 GMT
Fantastic, thanks Kyle. The WhollyBooks site has some very interesting articles pertaining to KG. I've added 3 of them to the ever-expanding Directory post, including the transcript of Emma Doeve's recent talk on Against the Light.
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Post by PW PV 113 on Oct 24, 2016 12:33:32 GMT
Kudos for republication ! What a book; a web of subtle hypnosis ! Like incense; produces a haze, a heady fug, promotes delirium; like a tropical disease. A letting go outside oneself. Kenneth doesn’t conjure the horror like Lovecraft – although I don’t admire Lovecraft (for other reasons), he could conjure the old horror with words, couldn’t he ? But Kenneth doesn’t need to; the time-travelling theme and pure magical history is far more intriguing; Kenneth with his words always pulls you in, gets you lost in the forest; proper lost. Here he’s untied to theory and free to paint his lurid, roving genealogy. There is a fragility about this conjuration too; dependent on the connection to others – an insecurity we all share – progressing by the way of the known to his unique area; that part of the collective he signposts; the edge of the marsh – a boundary that’s inherently hard to define. Better to drink it in and experience it; let its effects grow. Five stars.
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Post by Raj Don Yasser on Mar 11, 2017 15:39:53 GMT
I finished my first reading of Against the Light last night and my experience differed from most folks. Having only read the first trilogy, At the Foot of the Guru, and few of Grant's short stories, I was confused throughout the beginning of Against the Light and it didn't begin to make sense until half-way into it. This morning, having read through this thread, some questions were resolved, but it's clear that in order to fully grasp the content one needs to have read the later trilogies.
I was pleasantly surprised to read, in the final pages, a short reference to eternal recurrence, and Grant's appreciation of this concept as expounded by Ouspensky. This was the first "Fourth Way" reference I've read in any of Grant's works.
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Post by Michael Staley on Mar 12, 2017 12:32:51 GMT
You'll grasp more of the novel with repeated reading, I suspect. Much of the novel was developed whilst Grant was writing Outer Gateways, so it may be that you need more familiarity with Grant's later books to fully appreciate it. It's my experience that the novel stands in its own right, but then I was familiar with Grant's published work when first reading the typescript of the novel in 1996. Repeated readings have given me more insight into the novel, and that will likely be the case for you.
There are passing references to Gurdjieff in Grant's work. I can't think offhand of where these references occur, but Kenneth had works by Gurdjieff, Ouspensky, Nicoll, Bennett etc in his library, as well as the various memoirs of Gurdjieff that have been published over the years. In the early to mid 1970s David Hall sent Grant the typescript for his comparative study of Crowley and Gurdjieff, Beelzebub and the Beast. Grant had a high opinion of the work, which suggests some familiarity with Gurdjieff's work; he recommended it to several publishing contacts, though these came to nothing at the time.
There are some references in Grant's work to Ouspensky's absorbing novel about eternal recurrence, Strange Life os Ivan Osokin, of which I believe he had a high opinion.
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Post by Raj Don Yasser on Mar 17, 2017 1:16:09 GMT
Very interesting. Now I'm wondering if Grant ever rubbed shoulders with Nicoll or Bennett, both of whom shared similar interests and resided in London.
I recently read David Hall's book and enjoyed it immensely. In all my life, I've never, not even once, met somebody who shared a strong interest in both Crowley and Gurdjieff. In the several Gurdjieff inspired groups I've worked with, everybody without fail had a poor opinion of Crowley. In the 90's, while working with a Thelemic organization, I couldn't find one person with more than a passing interest in the Fourth Way. Reading Beelzebub and the Beast was a breath of fresh air, I only wish David were alive to express my appreciation.
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Post by Michael Staley on Mar 19, 2017 12:10:35 GMT
I recently read David Hall's book and enjoyed it immensely. In all my life, I've never, not even once, met somebody who shared a strong interest in both Crowley and Gurdjieff. In the several Gurdjieff inspired groups I've worked with, everybody without fail had a poor opinion of Crowley. In the 90's, while working with a Thelemic organization, I couldn't find one person with more than a passing interest in the Fourth Way. Reading Beelzebub and the Beast was a breath of fresh air, I only wish David were alive to express my appreciation. In the mid to late 1960s, growing up in my small hometown, Bedford, I began to develop a strong interest in Crowley. I'd been interested in the occult as long as I could remember, and went through various phases such as Spiritualism, Buddhism and Eastern Mysticism in general, Western Occultism, etc. There didn't seem to be anybody in Bedford who shared my interest in Crowley, and therefore I began to look further afield. Eventually, through a magazine via which people bought and sold books, I made contact with David Hall. Though he had an interest in Crowley, it was soon evident that Gurdjieff was where his interests really lay. Nevertheless his interest in and knowledge of Crowley was extensive and deep enough for him to embark upon the comparative study which was finally published a few years back. A chapter of it was published in the first issue of Sothis as, I think, 'Time and the World'. Although I had, and still do, what you refer to as a passing interest in Gurdjieff, what I read in David's typescript was very interesting and indeed inspirational. Though the book is a slow seller, I'm glad that it was finally published and is there to be picked up by anybody interested in Gurdjieff and/or Crowley. As you say, the cross-over between the two groups is not that extensive at present. There are areas of the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky work which doesn't much interest me - the table of hydrogens, for instance. By all accounts, it was in the late 1920s or early 1930s that Crowley and Gurdjieff met. I've often regretted that they met at what was probably the worst years of Crowley's career. Having come very close to destroying himself with drugs at Cefalu, it's my opinion that much of the subsequent years was spent recovering.
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Post by Raj Don Yasser on May 25, 2017 21:45:50 GMT
I recently read David Hall's book and enjoyed it immensely. In all my life, I've never, not even once, met somebody who shared a strong interest in both Crowley and Gurdjieff. In the several Gurdjieff inspired groups I've worked with, everybody without fail had a poor opinion of Crowley. In the 90's, while working with a Thelemic organization, I couldn't find one person with more than a passing interest in the Fourth Way. Reading Beelzebub and the Beast was a breath of fresh air, I only wish David were alive to express my appreciation. There are areas of the Gurdjieff/Ouspensky work which doesn't much interest me - the table of hydrogens, for instance. Interestingly enough, neither the Gurdjieff Foundation, nor other "Fourth Way" groups with which I've been affiliated, have much interest in the table of hydrogens. During a break on a work-weekend I asked one of the senior members a question related to it and the reply was something to the effect that nobody spends much time studying the table of hydrogens anymore. Keep in mind this took place ten years ago and the focus might have shifted but I doubt it. Although I greatly appreciated the format of the Foundation groups, the body-based mediation approach, continuing to utilize many practices which are still useful during the day, and while I still enjoying playing Gurdjieff/DeHartman's music on the piano, there came a point about ten years ago when I couldn't get past the religious nature, the near-deification of Gurdjieff, at some Foundation dinners. Oddly enough, the most outwardly "religious" take on the Fourth Way is William Patrick Patterson's version of the teaching, in which G is deemed a prophet. Nevertheless, I like his periodical quite a bit along with his appreciation for Advaita Vedanta. A number of years ago Patterson devoted a series of articles on Gurdieff and Advaita, with a serialized essay on Ramana Maharshi in his quartely publication.
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2021 11:27:50 GMT
I would love to address someone interested in telling (me) something more about the "Grimoire Grantiano" mentioned in one of the Nightside Narratives? In Against The Light it is said a (medieval?) manuscript of GG yet exists somewhere in Italy, owned by a (non-identified) family. However, reading this thread I came across information that could be understood to mean the Grimoire is just a metaphore - since the very same term was employed by Kenneth Grant to denote the books of first two trilogies. I always liked the idea of a physical manuscript that would eventually be unearthed by the intrepid magicians of the Typhonian Order, perhaps assisted by resourceful Italian readers of the Trilogies devoted to Grant and all things pertaining to the Typhonian Tradition.
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Post by Michael Staley on Jan 28, 2021 16:30:41 GMT
Against the Light incorporates a lot of biographical information, but remains a novel. If the Grimoire ever existed physically, it was not amongst Kenneth's papers when he died, and nor have I come across a reference to the Italian grimoire. Towards the end of the novel, the gromoire is a child's colouring book.
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