A reading approach to The Ninth Arch

[artilect]

For this reader The Ninth Arch has always been the most impenetrable volume in the trilogies and I can't help but wonder why this might be. 

Can anyone say one way or the other whether reading Sax Rohmer's Dope and Richard Marsh's The Beetle would be worthwhile endeavors to assist in elucidating some of the more obscure areas of OKBISh? 

Additionally, I'm struggling with (and trying to resist) the sense that OKBISh itself may be too Kenneth Grant centric to genuinely appeal to a larger audience.  OKBISh's reliance on two admittedly very dated novels combined with befuddling 'fact or fiction' accounts of the goings on of Kenneth Grant as he cruised up and down Chancery Lane during the New Isis Lodge era in the 50s (in the "noon day sunshine" of course!), just feels so far removed from the here and now.  Maybe that's the point?  Comparatively, Liber AL or even S'lba each seem generic enough in their pronouncements to naturally encourage further analysis and engender personal resonances and insight. 

I guess what I'm asking is if others feel that OKBISh may well be a closed system in the true sense of the term?  This wouldn't negate its readability, but it would flavour the way we go about reading The Ninth Arch on the whole.

I think I'm essentially grappling with what Mogg Morgan was expounding on in this 2005 blog posting: "Can you in good conscience recommend The Ninth Arch?"

I will say that this occasion of reading The Ninth Arch - after a bewildering first pass when it initially came out - has seemingly given me more to latch onto.  Slowly and methodically rereading Against the Light over the last couple of weeks in preparation was thoroughly enjoyable.  In the end I can't help but feel that what is contained in OKBISh is somehow more effectively presented in Against the Light. 

Enough of my rambling... someone throw me a paddle!

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

Apr 9, 2015 2:38:15 GMT artilect said:

Can anyone say one way or the other whether reading Sax Rohmer's Dope and Richard Marsh's The Beetle would be worthwhile endeavors to assist in elucidating some of the more obscure areas of OKBISh?

I've not read either of those stories to say anything meaningful about them or their connection to the contents of The Ninth Arch but I will say they've been books on my "to get" list for a number of years for the very reason that they are important to the mythic narrative of some of Grant's works. I suspect that a familiarity with them would help give a context for a lot of the symbolism contained in OKBISh (as well as the rituals that birthed that text) even though I think Grant did a good job describing and/or interpreting much of the symbolism in The Ninth Arch as it is to at least understand what the text may be about.

Apr 9, 2015 2:38:15 GMT artilect said:

Additionally, I'm struggling with (and trying to resist) the sense that OKBISh itself may be too Kenneth Grant centric to genuinely appeal to a larger audience. OKBISh's reliance on two admittedly very dated novels combined with befuddling 'fact or fiction' accounts of the goings on of Kenneth Grant as he cruised up and down Chancery Lane during the New Isis Lodge era in the 50s (in the "noon day sunshine" of course!), just feels so far removed from the here and now. Maybe that's the point? Comparatively, Liber AL or even S'lba each seem generic enough in their pronouncements to naturally encourage further analysis and engender personal resonances and insight.

One could probably say this about most of his output. Personally I feel that Grant was never quite writing for the larger occult audience even if the Carfax Monographs, the first three books of the trilogies and some of his articles like what are found in Man, Myth and Magic might have been slightly directed to that larger audience. I feel that that was more to lay his groundwork firmly within the known occult traditions before he unleashed his own mythic (or nightside) narrative on the world. He definitely didn't seem to care from Nightside of Eden on whether that larger audience was on board or not. The case seems to be that either his musings are understood by, resonated with and inspired his readership or they aren't and didn't. He seemed to put just enough of his Grant-isms in the first three trilogy books to kind of weed out those who would not continue.

There doesn't seem to be that many occultists who just casually dig Kenneth Grant. One either dismisses his work because of the creative gematria and that mix of "fact and fiction" (as you mentioned) or one becomes totally inspired by his work for, a lot of times and strangely, the same reasons. The whole criticism of mixing "fact in fiction" thing seems a bit unfair to Grant. I personally don't understand it along those lines. I see his work as I've already stated it; as a mythic narrative. As you might know, when one practices Magick the veils between the worlds (noumenal and phenomenal) become thin and one begins experiencing them as overlapping. I think Grant simply attempted to give an account of the magical processes as they were experienced. His "nightside narratives" seem to make that more explicit (perhaps even more obscure to his critics) and of course he probably chose to write those as fiction in order to more effectively convey that. Overall we could describe Kenneth Grant's body of work as liminal. 

Apr 9, 2015 2:38:15 GMT artilect said:

I guess what I'm asking is if others feel that OKBISh may well be a closed system in the true sense of the term?  This wouldn't negate its readability, but it would flavour the way we go about reading The Ninth Arch on the whole.

With no effort on the part of the reader (or maybe better, practitioner) perhaps it's a closed system. Though if it was intended as such I would think he would not have published it for anyone but members of the Typhonian Order. I've found over the years that some of the more difficult ideas to grasp make much more sense when you follow his numerous references (when you can find and/or acquire them). So again, the context of the symbolism of OKBISh may be brought further to light by taking a look at those stories that provided the "mental furniture" of the rituals involved. As Grant states in the foreword: "It is important to bear in mind the influence which these two books had on the mind of the skryer at the time of the transmission of OKBISh."

EDIT: Also, I just want to add that I don't think texts like Liber AL vel Legis are as generic as you imply. Of course anyone can read AL and may get something from it but to begin understanding its own deeper symbolism it helps to not only have an understanding of Crowley's own corpus but an understanding of the ritual and symbolism of the Golden Dawn which informed his life's work. However one interprets how Liber AL came to be there should be no question that the symbolism of the Golden Dawn, which Crowley seemed to have fully integrated into his very being (that's kind of the point of its practices), is the bedrock upon which it rest. Perhaps it has a kind of generic nature to you because you're more than familiar with this symbolism?

The Wisdom of S'lba seems to rest on a lot more with a few of the most obvious symbolic outpourings being Thelema, Zos-Kia and Advaita, all of which can be grasped with a reading of the volumes that preceded Outer Gateways.

Just some thoughts and observations.

[artilect]

Thanks Nalyd, both for your general comments and in a sense, words of encouragement!  I think anyone undertaking a concentrated reading of this book has to weather the storm and persevere until the clouds part.

Perhaps Grant himself says this in his own way within the Preliminary Note to The Ninth Arch:

"The reader is invited to assemble the equations [gematria] relating to the verses of Book 29 [OKBISh], and to interpret them in the light of his or her own magical universe."

I hope others on the board will also weigh in regarding their experiences and insights regarding this book.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

Apr 15, 2015 1:52:53 GMT artilect said:

I hope others on the board will also weigh in regarding their experiences and insights regarding this book.

Me to. The board has been very slow lately to the point of being almost non-active.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

Since posting in this thread I've picked up an old 1926 copy of Sax Rohmer's Dope so will be reading it soon and comparing it to the contents of both Against the Light and The Ninth Arch. I still have Marsh's The Beetle (in fact, Marsh's collected supernatural and weird fiction) on my list of "books to get". Some time in the coming months I'll probably have it as well.

Also Artilect, though I suspect you probably know this, there is a good article by Alistair Coombs titled "Sinister Shades in Yellow" in Starfire II:3 about Sax Rohmer and the influential connections his work has with the Typhonian current. It might be worth checking out if don't already know it.

[artilect]

I have procured both of these books - Dope and The Beetle - so I'll join you in reading them.  I haven't read Coombs' article, but I will try to get my hands on it.

For the past few weeks I have focused 100% of my book reading attention on The Ninth Arch.  I just finished 'The Comment' last night and will start into Appendix 1 shortly.  Generally, much was made clearer for me on this second go round.  It's been frustrating, enjoyable, enlightening and fever-inducing... sometimes all at the same time!

Something interesting about the continuous reference to the two novels in The Ninth Arch (outside of the cast of characters that Michael Staley neatly summarized during his talk at the launch for the book wayyy back in 2002), particularly with Dope, is the seeming importance of 'location' to Grant.  He calls these locations 'power-zones', but the puzzling thing about the zones is that some can only be personally meaningful to Grant himself, e.g., 'Brundish'. We get some concrete examples of these zones in the following comments: 448-15, 791-12, 867-1, 873-7.

I'm reminded of an organizing principle attributed to the Torres Strait Islanders of Australia: "The mythical narratives in which Ancestral Beings construct the sacred geography of a region (adhiad) provide an important schema for relating individual identity, relationships to place and relationships between peoples and groups."

This seems appropriate to both OKBISh and Against the Light, where ancestry, mythical/contemporary fictional characters and location all somehow intersect to propel the movement of the narrative.

[PW PV 113]

...most impenetrable volume...agree...reading it was more of an experience of shifting in and out of consciousness than any of the others of the trilogies. It reminded me of a Chinese flu I had in Sydney when I was hot and cold at the same time. The Leng plateau resonated with the Dieng plateau. Rumours of covens in the Forest of Dean - Clutterbuck, Pickering, Fotheringhill. Driving to Rutland with black ice on the road. OKBISH. That savage bird like a pterodactyl, always returning to the Yellow River, in an opium haze, Spellbound

Perhaps a second reading might allow for more of an engagement of the overrated left side of the brain, but for the first, it was far too pleasurable to relax and be washed over, to lie on the shore and have the waves carres over one 

[stephen]

Back from the wastelands, albeit briefly.

Artilect, I can indeed empathise with some of your observations.  I have had something of an alternating 'love/hate' relationship with TNA since I acquired it in February, 2003 e.v.  At times, I also, have expressed the opinion that some of the themes presented in TNA are 'actually' presented more coherently in the 'fictional' Against the Light.

Kenneth Grant makes the point of noting that OKBISh is a more subjectively received text than Wisdom of S'lba, for example.

I have made a tentative start on some analysis of OKBISh in my essay in the last Starfire and if you have a copy of this, you might care to refer.  KG himself was having problems in making productive headway with the commentary in many cases as I believe is evident in his text in places; as regards some of his gematria, there are times when it would not be going too far to say that he is 'grasping at straws' (and was well aware of the fact). 

Sax Rohmer's Dope is well worth a read and enjoyable in its own right. There is much stimulating exotic - if not esoteric - imagery to be encountered there.  Richard Marsh's The Beetle - available in the very reasonably priced Wordsworth Mystery and Supernatural series - is a bit more heavy going; published in the same year as Dracula and more popular for awhile.  It is most significant for its mention of the 'Children of Isis' in their coleopteric manifestation.  KG states that Marsh is the only author of whom he knows to make any mention of them which naturally begs the obvious question.  Then, of course, there are the beetles encountered by Crowley at Boleskine when he and Rose were playing around with elements of The Book of the Law.

[N0T 2]

The Beetle is hilarious. Utterly Victorian in its mien and yet cleverly tongue-in-cheek amidst its oddity, charm and subtle prescience: witty, rhythmic and delightful.

Regarding The Ninth Arch, the supreme gob-stopper of renown and infamy, one wonders how much relevance may be found in this particular musing by Mr. Magee. 

For all its apparent meanderings and seeming frayed ends, there is something nuclear about it, to me. An inferno of impressions and cascading rivers of soul-movement that bleeds out into the visible, into history, into other people's lives - people who never knew the man existed, nor he them.  I hope to share a tenuous example at a later stage.

[stephen]

"The reader is invited to assemble the equations [gematria] relating to the verses of Book 29 [OKBISh], and to interpret them in the light of his or her own magical universe."

I believe that Artilect is right to draw attention to this statement by Kenneth Grant in his preliminary note to TNA.

There is so much in both the text of OKBISh itself and expanded upon in the commentary that is of deep personal relevance to Frater Aossic that this is, perhaps, the most productive way of approaching the book.  At the same time, it is presented to us as an all-embracing system that seeks to place the work of Crowley and Achad, of Spare and Lovecraft, (to mention only the major protagonists), into one coherent methodology for accessing the Mauve Zone.  Somewhere in its labyrinthine structure, Grant's Grimoire is waiting to be discovered.

It has taken me an inordinate length of time to put that paragraph together, but I think that it may serve as an introduction to some elements of The Ninth Arch that I spent most of last evening and night revisiting.  However, I think that its about time for a picture:



I think that this is the cover design for The Beetle which KG mentions on page 121 of TNA; by C. Buchel, 1922 - perhaps the edition which he read and owned.

[stephen]

542-23: From waking to sleeping with dreams in between:

543-24: The waking a frenzy of distraction; the sleeping a void; only the inbetweeness gathers in its dusk the reverberant images of our recurrent history in the space-time froth of remembered encounters.

544-25: And if the veil is sundered and the Tower collapses

545-26: 'then' becomes 'now' and 'there' becomes 'here'; so time is confounded and space a moment's loose geography marbled by regret.

546-27: "There is no other way."

Well, we have to start somewhere, therefore, my assertion is that as well as being remarkably evocative, these verses represent the essential core of OKBISh; indeed Grant says of them:  "The key to the Mauve Zone is concealed in the imagery of [these] verses..."

Combined with verses 345-347 and the frontispiece by Spare, "Man is a Bundle of Ids", I regard them as the key to the whole.

[Nalyd Khezr Bey]

It's funny to me that I come back here now to check in on what's new and see that some of you are still talking about Marsh's The Beetle as I just ordered a copy of it just a couple of days ago. I'm not sure when I will be able to squeeze that book or Rohmer's Dope into my reading schedule but it is now one of my near future study projects.

I was also looking over The Ninth Arch just this morning as well and started reading it from the beginning and there is something I want to ask about but I think the other thread about this subject is more appropriate.

Thanks for finding and sharing that cover art stephen. It more than likely is the one that Grant describes in that footnote. I like it.

[artilect]

May 14, 2015 13:45:25 GMT stephen said:

I think that its about time for a picture:



I think that this is the cover design for The Beetle which KG mentions on page 121 of TNA; by C. Buchel, 1922 - perhaps the edition which he read and owned.

Very interesting, a beetle situated on a woman's forehead! 

Could this cover design, at least in part, be the inspiration for Margaret Leesing's Candleston Crypt encounter with the Qrixkuor in Against the Light?  Given Grant's reference to the cover in TNA (thanks stephen) and looking at this image, it certainly seems this is possible. The reference in TNA associates the image with clairvoyance, an attribute also obviously related to the skryer Margaret Leesing.

[artilect]

May 14, 2015 14:55:43 GMT stephen said:

542-23: From waking to sleeping with dreams in between:

543-24: The waking a frenzy of distraction; the sleeping a void; only the inbetweeness gathers in its dusk the reverberant images of our recurrent history in the space-time froth of remembered encounters.

544-25: And if the veil is sundered and the Tower collapses

545-26: 'then' becomes 'now' and 'there' becomes 'here'; so time is confounded and space a moment's loose geography marbled by regret.

546-27: "There is no other way."

Well, we have to start somewhere, therefore, my assertion is that as well as being remarkably evocative, these verses represent the essential core of OKBISh; indeed Grant says of them:  "The key to the Mauve Zone is concealed in the imagery of [these] verses..."

Combined with verses 345-347 and the frontispiece by Spare, "Man is a Bundle of Ids", I regard them as the key to the whole.

I agree that these are important passages stephen; I had also noted them, along with 314-25, mentioned in the thread about TNA and AGL. 

So, in both of these books, Grant seems to be saying something about the nature of memory, recollection, remembrances, nostalgia and the ability of dream to somehow fold all of this up into a timeless present.  The creation of some form of a time machine perhaps?  He also places accolade on Proust's endeavours in this area; there's a mention on page 28 of Outer Gateways regarding the memory/dream connection.    

[stephen]

In the preceding post Artilect has observed:

 So, in both of these books, Grant seems to be saying something about the nature of memory, recollection, remembrances, nostalgia and the ability of dream to somehow fold all of this up into a timeless present. The creation of some form of a time machine perhaps? He also places accolade on Proust's endeavours in this area; there's a mention on page 28 of Outer Gateways regarding the memory/dream connection.  

As regards the first observation: yes, this is a central element of both Against the Light and The Ninth Arch.  Also there is no doubt that Grant admired and valued the work of Proust.

Not so much "the creation of some form of time machine perhaps" but the attainment of that state of awareness where all of these phenomena are perceived with equivalence and with equanimity, if that makes sense. (I am deliberately avoiding any technical terminology here).

At the same time, Grant asserts that the purpose of OKBISh is to Open the Gateways, so that we are dealing here also with a more dynamic formula of dream control as well, and the magical mechanicks of this are to be found in those verses relating to the formulae incorporated by Spare in his "Man is a Bundle of Ids".

[artilect]

May 29, 2015 15:01:32 GMT stephen said:

At the same time, Grant asserts that the purpose of OKBISh is to Open the Gateways, so that we are dealing here also with a more dynamic formula of dream control as well, and the magical mechanicks of this are to be found in those verses relating to the formulae incorporated by Spare in his "Man is a Bundle of Ids".

Diving through the cone. 

For all of the flak that Grant takes about not providing practical working methods in his books, it's good to note that they are there... if you look hard enough.

I don't practice ceremonial magic so the dream realm is where I focus most of my interest. The peppering of dream control information throughout the volumes, along with 'Chapter 11: Aspects of Dream Control' in Outer Gateways (fantastic!), is enough to keep a 'practitioner' busy for quite a while.

[The Double-wanded One]

May 14, 2015 14:55:43 GMT stephen said:

Well, we have to start somewhere, therefore, my assertion is that as well as being remarkably evocative, these verses represent the essential core of OKBISh; indeed Grant says of them:  "The key to the Mauve Zone is concealed in the imagery of [these] verses..."

This is exactly what I've been feeling too, in my recent engagements with Liber Okbish recently. Put simply: 
Liber Okbish, is symbolically a key or representative guide to the Mauve Zone. The Ninth Arch itself, is like the grimoire itself that that conjurors the mind subconsciously or not, to; in one way or another, experience it. 

[Deleted]

Dope and The Beetle have what seem to be initiated information about the Children of Isis, the Night of Isis, and the Plateau of Leng, the Cult of the Ku, among others. As authors will do, they point to other works that have related information, possibly for karmic reasons. Grant mentions Sax Rohmer in a few places in the Trilogies. These books, along with the Ninth Arch and Against the Light, are intermingled keys to the gnosis he is presenting. All of them can be difficult reads, the Dope and Beetle because of some 'dryness', and the Grant books because of their complexity. Each time I read them and cycle through, other pieces unlock each other.

While OKBIsh is likely one of those 'forbidden books written in eternity' like Liber AL, Chumbley's 52 Books of the Domain, Stele 718, parts of the Bible, and ZOS's cryptograms, who in my opinion did not read but 'wrote' them in the Kabaa himself. I found the comments valuable on their own. He lays down more Qabalah here than elsewhere IMO. These verses being received in the twilight consciousness, is my guess, by it's nature is difficult and cryptic work. A great tome, difficult to penetrate, but the other books are needed to get past the outer layers. However since the nightside verses are in the clear, even though encrypted, seems to draw the reader to the regions of the strata where the book is 'written'.