Discussion of the Obverse Sephiroth

[merlin]

Apart from the Obverse Paths or Tunnels of Set, discussed in some depth in Nightside of Eden, is there - in Grant's trilogies - a discussion of the Obverse Sephiroth themselves? 

[N0T 2]

Don't make me quote chapter and averse ...

No, merlin, no he doesn't discuss the "obverse" of anything, as that would be its front, and the area Kenneth usually describes is the back, the reverse, or as he, following Crowley, calls it - the "averse" aspect.

He does discuss what may be termed averse (or qliphotic) sephiroth here and there, but not as ostensibly as the tunnels - read the books and find out, is the best way.

[merlin]

So why is Dion Fortune writing "The Obverse Sephiroth, or Qlippoth, build up in exactly the same way"? (Psychic Self-Defense, Weiser Edition, p. 127)

Thanks for your answer, I was almost sure that Grant never discussed them in some depth in his published work, anyway I was taking the chance that I missed something.

[stephen]

If you check the definition of OBVERSE you do find that it can be used in the way that Dion Fortune is apparently intending it in Psychic Self Defence.  Google definition is as follows:

noun: obverse; plural noun: obverses

1. the side of a coin or medal bearing the head or principal design.

•the design or inscription on the principal side of a coin.

2.  the opposite or counterpart of a fact or truth.
     "true solitude is the obverse of true society"

adjective: obverse

1.  of or denoting the obverse of a coin or medal.

2.  corresponding to something else as its opposite or counterpart.
 "the obverse fates of the principals"

But as NOT 2 says, AVERSE is the much more usual and preferred term.

Kenneth Grant never makes any complete reference to the traditional designations of the Averse Sephiroth, or the Qlippothic Sephiroth, although there are repeated mentions of Gamaliel as being the Qlippah of Yesod, for example.

(It is doubtful, by the way, that Gamaliel means 'Obscene Ass'. GMLIAL would be GML, Gimel, 'a camel', hence "Camel of God" ?

Try and translate it on Morfix and it just says "Hebrew Name". There was a famous rabbi called Gamaliel, but the Qlippothic attribution evidently implies something more).

However there is the complete diagram of the Tree with its Necronomicon Gnosis attributions given in Hecate's Fountain, which could be regarded as an Averse Tree.

[N0T 2]

 Nah, my money's on Dion just using the wrong word, or her editor fudged it. The sentence merlin quotes makes no sense in context. She intended to indicate the averse or reverse (qliphoth), meaning the opposite to the main or most-noticed- part, what Grant calls the "dayside", which, in English, is designated by the term obverse. The only possible way in which it makes sense to say "obverse" as a counterpart is if you are already discussing the reverse as the main bit, and she wasn't.

It is possible Fortune was consciously avoiding using a term known to be Crowley's brand (from Reguli), or the term used by Mathers (where Crowley got the idea, as most of his ideas), or perhaps her editor read it and baulked at the odd choice of word in context. Or perhaps she actually believed it meant the opposite of what it actually means. In which case OMG maybe all that white-lighting was a cover for something unthinkable...

[N0T 2]

Sept 30, 2018 9:30:05 GMT merlin said:

So why is Dion Fortune writing "The Obverse Sephiroth, or Qlippoth, build up in exactly the same way"? (Psychic Self-Defense, Weiser Edition, p. 127)

Thanks for your answer, I was almost sure that Grant never discussed them in some depth in his published work, anyway I was taking the chance that I missed something.

Fair enough.

I'm surprised by the quote. Why is she writing that? I can't answer - I think it is just a mistake, or vagueness on her part or her editor's. Not everyone bothers with dictionaries and she probably just lapsed into her own casual/mistaken usage without realising it, or the editor disagreed with the term "averse" as being unfamiliar, or something, and quietly "fixed" it, not getting what she meant.

Bear in mind there is never any absolutely "right" or "wrong", or "orthodox" or "unorthodox" use of any of these terms, merely habit or tradition: English may be subverted by Art to new uses. The term "averse" got fetishised when Crowley sustained Mathers' adoption of the term, and really, it is a dualistic, if I may say, "old-aeon", dualism, itself, if construed as such. It may extend as far back as Levi, but he wrote in French, and I can't be bothered looking it up.

It may be that she was simply intending to mean "the other side" to distinguish it from the main side under discussion, without necessarily suggesting any qualities of aversion or reversal, as Stephen suggests, but still, she could and ought to have done so using another term, not "obverse", as that indicates the "face", rather than posterior, of the metaphysical vegetable in question.

Then again, it's all poetry so really, make of it what you will!

[merlin]

Fair enough, yes... Now, where do you think that the best discussion of the averse Sephiroth is to be found, in published form? I have "Qabalah, Qliphoth and Coetic Magic" by Thomas Karlsson (Italian edition), and it seems to me that it's ok.. What do you think? Are there any better sources in your view?

[stephen]

Whatever Dion Fortune's intentions were in using the term "Obverse Sephiroth" in Psychic Self-Defence, when The Mystical Qabalah was published some five years later she had taken to calling the Qlippoth the 'Averse Sephiroth".

As NOT 2 says, the use of all these terms has a certain relativity to it. It is very interesting to observe how the glossary definitions for 'Qliphoth' change or evolve throughout the Typhonian Trilogies. Possibly one of my next writing projects might be to go into that one in some detail with reference to the Tunnels of Set.

Well Merlin, as these are the Kenneth Grant Forums, I would suggest that you pursue the subtleties and complexities of the Averse Sephiroth in the Typhonian Trilogies, even though Kenneth Grant is not particularly interested in them as such.

Thomas Karlsson's book (Italian Edition) would be a good place to start, especially if you are an Italian speaker, in which case do you have Italian editions of Grant's books?  The earlier sections on the Jewish Qabbalistic texts and origins of the concepts of Evil and the Qlippoth are useful and contain much difficult to find material. His take on the Tunnels of Set is worthless, as he removes all of the Thelemic context and significance of the Cells of the Qliphoth which they are given in LIBER 231; the sigils he gives are very pretty but they are not the sigils of the qlippothic sentinels of that Liber. Karlsson is interested in actively working with the Qlippothic entities as a form of Left Hand Path initiation in its more traditional Western Esoteric sense as I perceive it and I regard this as more than a little misguided. 

[N0T 2]

Oct 2, 2018 14:38:49 GMT merlin said:

Fair enough, yes... Now, where do you think that the best discussion of the averse Sephiroth is to be found, in published form? I have "Qabalah, Qliphoth and Coetic Magic" by Thomas Karlsson (Italian edition), and it seems to me that it's ok.. What do you think? Are there any better sources in your view?

A main, if not the only reason Grant discussed the 22 averse paths in Nightside of Eden, was as an outgrowth of his work developing Crowley's legacy in Liber 231, as those entities and ideas were unexplored (or "new" - Crowley invented or "received" them for his book). By exploring this liber, Grant was opening up genuinely new areas of creative occultism first suggested by Crowley. You must appreciate the saturation of the market at the time with similar qabalah and tarot materials, well this was completely new and only the more savvy Crowley readers in the 1970s would have even known what he was talking about. However, due to the slick AA Liber presentation, even among these few would have been very, very few who were in a position to know that Crowley made the whole thing up, rather than stole or inherited it from someone else.

No such Crowley-basis exists for entities associated with the sefiroth, although he provides intabulations of the traditional ones in 777 and elsewhere. Therefore, Grant had no similar basis or task regarding these, due to the long tradition in the Jewish material that they come from, and Crowley's lack of access to/comprehension of any relevant literature at the time, presumably the reason he also never wrote about them (despite publishing Mathers' manuscript, which he stole for that purpose, of the Goetia).

This is probably one reason Grant ignored them in his books. Grant likes to work with imagination and new ideas in occultism, not scholarship or academic presentations of old materials.

The motivations of others for exploring these paths has usually derived from either inspiration from or competition with Grant. I can't recommend any books, sorry.

[merlin]

Oct 4, 2018 14:47:14 GMT stephen said:

Thomas Karlsson's book (Italian Edition) would be a good place to start, especially if you are an Italian speaker, in which case do you have Italian editions of Grant's books? 

Yes stephen, I have the Italian editions of Grant's trilogies, 7 books in total, apart from "Beyond the Mauve Zone" and "The Ninth Arch", that are going to be published in Italian, hopefully in the next few years. I understand this is a monumental work for a translator. There are other books by Grant that were translated into Italian some time ago, but that I lack to this day, especially his fiction. Some of them are not that easy to find now. On another note, I recently noticed the book "Tree of Qliphoth" by A. Mason, and was wondering if anyone on this board has an opinion about it. I am now reluctant in buying books just from the "appealing" title, because from my experience I might find something very different in the actual book. Another book that I noticed is "Monstrous Speech: Hunting Monsters with Kenneth Grant" by S. Syrinx, but I am unaware of its actual content. 

[stephen]

I think you mentioned this book 'Monstrous Speech: Hunting Monsters with Kenneth Grant' by Soror Syrinx previously, but at the time I could not find anything on it. There is more about the author here:

www.goodreads.com/author/show/7716080.Soror_Syrinx

I had never heard of her - Melissa Swaim - but she appears to be quite prolific.  Apparently the book is:


A stream of consciousness approach to Kenneth Grant, by commentary on his writing to explore the unknown dimensions of the mind, as well as the Divine Feminine, often deemed monstrous, still struggling to find a Voice in modern times. This book arose out of a private journal, written during quarantine and the pandemic, containing all the angst I wanted to let out, and as an experiment in what it means to have a voice and giving it something to stand for. amazon.com

I would hazard the guess that it might tell you more about Soror Syrinx than it does about Kenneth Grant.

[Gregory Peters]

Interesting background she gives. Makes me think the biggest obstacle I have faced as an author is using my civil name, quite boring. I should have written under a pseudonym! Ah well there is stil time!