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Typhonian Trilogies #7
Outer Gateways
As Aleister Crowley's last magical student at Netherwood in the 1940's, Kenneth Grant has upheld a proud occult tradition through a lifetime of study practice and writing. This latest book is not only for experienced students of the occult; it is also excellent for those who are new to Grant's work. Here is Grant moving through magic and beyond to a new and controversial view of human evolution and the ultimate goal of Undivided Consciousness. Topics include the primal grimoire the unfamiliar spirit and the fourth power of the sphinx along with aspects of dream control and the wisdom of S'lba.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1994
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About the author
Kenneth Grant
68 books196 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Kenneth Grant was the head of several important Thelemic orders and author of the influential “Typhonian Trilogies” series (1972–2002) that includes The Magical Revival, Nightside of Eden and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God.
In 1939, Kenneth Grant chanced upon Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice and a few years later began a correspondence with the author (see Remembering Aleister Crowley, Skoob Books, 1991) that would lead to him joining the Ordo Templi Orientis. In 1946, he was initiated into the Argentum Astrum and was confirmed as an IX° in the O.T.O.
Shortly after Crowley’s death in 1947 Grant met David Curwen. Also member of the O.T.O. Sovereign Sanctuary, a keen alchemist and a student of tantra, Curwen initiated Grant into “a highly recondite formula of the tantric vama marg.” This experience further deepened Grant’s interest in oriental mysticism and he detailed his work with the Advaita Vedanta in a number of essays for Asian journals in the early 1950s (later published as At the Feet of the Guru, Starfire, 2006).
In 1948, Kenneth Grant’s wife Steffi (they were married in 1946) wrote to Austin Osman Spare and the couple began an eight-year friendship with the artist. The bookseller Michael Houghton had already introduced Grant to Spare’s opus, The Book of Pleasure, and Spare elucidated his theories with letters and enclosures of manuscripts, with Kenneth acting as amanuensis. In 1954, Spare and Grant co-founded the Zos Kia Cultus: not a cult in the objective sense, but a designation given to the creative nexus of personal magical experience (see Zos Speaks!, Fulgur, 1999).
In the same year Grant founded the New Isis Lodge, with the intention of providing a conduit for “the influx of cosmic energy from a transplutonic power-zone known to initiates as Nu-Isis.” The group ran until 1962 and various accounts of the experiences of the group may be found throughout the “Typhonian Trilogies”.
Coetaneous with the New Isis Lodge, Kenneth and Steffi Grant began work on the Carfax Monographs. This series of ten essays was issued between 1959 and 1963 with the explicit intention to “elucidate the hidden lore of the West according to canons preserved in various esoteric orders and movements of recent times.” It was the beginning of a unique 50 year contribution to Thelemic literature and art that spans poetry, biographical works, fact and fiction.
Copyright © Robert Ansell, 2007
http://www.fulgur.co.uk/authors/grant/
Kenneth Grant was the head of several important Thelemic orders and author of the influential “Typhonian Trilogies” series (1972–2002) that includes The Magical Revival, Nightside of Eden and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God.
In 1939, Kenneth Grant chanced upon Crowley’s Magick in Theory and Practice and a few years later began a correspondence with the author (see Remembering Aleister Crowley, Skoob Books, 1991) that would lead to him joining the Ordo Templi Orientis. In 1946, he was initiated into the Argentum Astrum and was confirmed as an IX° in the O.T.O.
Shortly after Crowley’s death in 1947 Grant met David Curwen. Also member of the O.T.O. Sovereign Sanctuary, a keen alchemist and a student of tantra, Curwen initiated Grant into “a highly recondite formula of the tantric vama marg.” This experience further deepened Grant’s interest in oriental mysticism and he detailed his work with the Advaita Vedanta in a number of essays for Asian journals in the early 1950s (later published as At the Feet of the Guru, Starfire, 2006).
In 1948, Kenneth Grant’s wife Steffi (they were married in 1946) wrote to Austin Osman Spare and the couple began an eight-year friendship with the artist. The bookseller Michael Houghton had already introduced Grant to Spare’s opus, The Book of Pleasure, and Spare elucidated his theories with letters and enclosures of manuscripts, with Kenneth acting as amanuensis. In 1954, Spare and Grant co-founded the Zos Kia Cultus: not a cult in the objective sense, but a designation given to the creative nexus of personal magical experience (see Zos Speaks!, Fulgur, 1999).
In the same year Grant founded the New Isis Lodge, with the intention of providing a conduit for “the influx of cosmic energy from a transplutonic power-zone known to initiates as Nu-Isis.” The group ran until 1962 and various accounts of the experiences of the group may be found throughout the “Typhonian Trilogies”.
Coetaneous with the New Isis Lodge, Kenneth and Steffi Grant began work on the Carfax Monographs. This series of ten essays was issued between 1959 and 1963 with the explicit intention to “elucidate the hidden lore of the West according to canons preserved in various esoteric orders and movements of recent times.” It was the beginning of a unique 50 year contribution to Thelemic literature and art that spans poetry, biographical works, fact and fiction.
Copyright © Robert Ansell, 2007
http://www.fulgur.co.uk/authors/grant/
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
May 10, 2015
Human life is a sordidly short event, the avenues of experience which most people will encounter and explore are woefully uneventful and most lack any real depth or development. Grant reveals some wonderful and extraordinary paths which can enliven, and transform the lives of those willing to tread them, they can lead to various inhuman and unnatural encounters and events. Grant was never much of a traditional Magician, he found his place in the liminal currents and it was given to him to open several very significant doors. The world is never the same once one has read Grant thoroughly and with a suspension of prejudice and preformed notion applies these practices. It does seem that for the unprepared and underdeveloped these workings do very quickly destroy anything we would recognize as modern humanity and can cause what would seem to the status quo as tragedy. These can be conceived as wrathful manifestations of the superlative blessings of the One Existent, when one seeks transforming and inhuman gnosis one shouldn't be too surprised when the fruits of such gnosis have results incompatible with societal norms and function. Most of this unpleasantness can be avoided by first following a program of magical development like that offered by the A.'.A.'. to its advanced degrees before beginning to work with this current. Also several of the sinister traditions seen to be working this system very effectively with minimal side effects as well. As always Grants history and Qabala are suspect when taken in context of this universe but seem to have a necessary effect on the subconscious mind of the practitioners of this tradition which makes the working of this current much easier when they are just taken at face value, this is an aspect of the art of this path and it renders these writings as initiator experiences in their own right.
June 23, 2008
I liked this book very much: it contains some of the best and most clear writings of Grant. However, I was not so impressed with the "Wisdom of S'lba" nor with Grant's comments on it. Aide from that, the best part of the book, as far as I am concerned, is the one where he discusses the three states of mind (waking, dreaming, and sleeping) with three types of reality and three types of magick (by extension). The most singular is the idea that thoughts that stream through our consciousness are equivalent to the dreams.
August 5, 2021
Outer Gateways is full of fun. In this book, Kenneth Grant speculates on all manner of interesting subjects, from extraterrestrials in the work of classic occultists, to meditation practice, etc. It's written in Grant's usual DIY style, and yes, there is more of that irritating gematria (I tend to skip these parts).
The centerpiece of Outer Gateways is "The Wisdom of S'lba," a poem that Grant and his associates channeled from mysterious sources. Without this poem, I probably would have rated Outer Gateways at 4 stars. While the general subject matter is intriguing, Grant's analysis in this book is less rigorous than elsewhere (e.g. in The Magical Revival or Outside the Circles of Time), and at times the writing feels like filler. "The Wisdom of S'lba," however, is a fantastic, original work, deserving repeated attention, and reads like an offbeat version of Advaita Vedanta philosophy. The primary subject matter seems to be the relation between self and a kind of cosmic transcendence.
Outer Gateways is a very good book, and one that deserves to be more widely read. However, as with most of Grant's books, it is ridiculously expensive. It's thus advisable to seek out Grant's newly re-published work first, as that work is more reasonably priced. For an accessible primer to Grant, I would recommend reading Ramana Maharshi and HP Lovecraft. Maharshi's thinking undergirds Grant's approach to mysticism, and Lovecraft accounts for the darkly cosmic component of the work.
The centerpiece of Outer Gateways is "The Wisdom of S'lba," a poem that Grant and his associates channeled from mysterious sources. Without this poem, I probably would have rated Outer Gateways at 4 stars. While the general subject matter is intriguing, Grant's analysis in this book is less rigorous than elsewhere (e.g. in The Magical Revival or Outside the Circles of Time), and at times the writing feels like filler. "The Wisdom of S'lba," however, is a fantastic, original work, deserving repeated attention, and reads like an offbeat version of Advaita Vedanta philosophy. The primary subject matter seems to be the relation between self and a kind of cosmic transcendence.
Outer Gateways is a very good book, and one that deserves to be more widely read. However, as with most of Grant's books, it is ridiculously expensive. It's thus advisable to seek out Grant's newly re-published work first, as that work is more reasonably priced. For an accessible primer to Grant, I would recommend reading Ramana Maharshi and HP Lovecraft. Maharshi's thinking undergirds Grant's approach to mysticism, and Lovecraft accounts for the darkly cosmic component of the work.
January 21, 2008
Crowley meets Lovecraft
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews