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To: alt.magick,alt.magick.chaos,alt.magick.order,alt.satanism,alt.magick.tyagi
From: tyagi@arkaotika.abyss.com (tyaginator)
Subject: PCrumhorn: Kenneth Grant
Date: 27 Mar 1999 01:35:34 -0800

[from thelema93-l@hollyfeld.org: Patrick Crumhorn ]

     93.

On Sun, 7 Jun 1998 Khemwaset@aol.com wrote:

> 93....ok, so no takers on the Reguli query.  Anyone besides myself find any
> curious use for Kenneth Grant's work, besides the usual observations I have
> heard over the years regarding his "out thereness" that is.  TOTO is not my
> cup of tea, but Grant's work has occasionally added the most intriguing spice,
> ambiance, and perspective to various aspects of the work that would have
> otherwise gone lacking.

     Hail Kutulu!  ;-)  I was a member of the Typhonian OTO for many
years, and while it's no longer my cup of tea either, my view of Grant's
material is much the same as yours.  Clearly not for everyone, and subject
to an incredible amount of misinterpretation by those with only a cursory
familiarity with it.  A lot of Grant's critics attack him on grounds of
specious scholarship, but my feeling is that they are missing the point.
Grant freely admits in many of his books that he is engaging in intuitive
free-association of words, images, and ideas.  The fact that this method
of association has been of great creative value to dozens of prominent
occultists, artists, musicians, etc. over the past couple of decades seems
to get ignored by his critics.  The same comments apply to Michael
Bertiaux, who at least is *so* far out there that academic criticism just
doesn't seem to enter into the picture. ;-)  Certainly there's nothing in
G.H. Frater H.B.'s editorial annotations to Crowley's works that spark
such inspiration and original approaches to magick, so far.

      Grant is *not* that great a writer, and has always needed an editor
(though it would have to be an editor who deeply understood the topics
Grant was dealing with).  Hence, he gets raked over the coals for
"advocating" positions that he may not actually hold, simply because he's
describing ritual formulae or philosophical positions held by others. 
I've found similar problems occur with my own postings, both here and on
various political lists or newsgroups.  As R.A. Wilson says, "do not
misunderstand me too quickly," and Grant's writings lend themselves to
just that sort of response, alas. 

>  Any Shadow Tarot users here also.

      Yep.  I worked my way through several rituals based on the Shadow
Tarot and/or Nightside tunnels contained in Mishlen Linden's "Typhonian
Teratomas" a few years back.  Still integrating a lot of it to this day.
It pretty well got me *off* the entire set of assumptions regarding schema
of initation and "spiritual progress" contained in the whole Golden
Dawn/A.'.A.'. paradigm.  There *is* no God but Man/Woman indeed, and
nothing to transcend, reject, or rise above.  This is a viewpoint that
colors my opinion of such things as the "bodhisattvic vow" that we were
discussing on the list a few weeks back.  If you meet the Bodhisattva on
the road, kill hir, or at least chant "hell, no, we won't go."  ;-)

>  I have used it for 5 years, not constantly, but as needed.  I have
> found that the spontaneous "initiations" I received from that work took
> far longer to assimilate than any others I have experienced.  Curious on
> other observations.  93 93/93

     One of the more amusing criticisms I've encountered of Grant's
"Nightside of Eden" work with Liber 231 is the whining that "Grant only
dealt with the qlipoth, and not the genii."  Wheras Grant states quite
clearly in Nightside of Eden that the "dayside" symbolism was already
explored by Crowley in his voluminous commentaries on the Atus in the Book
of Thoth.  Linda Falorio and Mishlen have managed to show the incredible
value of Grant's initial exposition, while taking it even further, and
making it accessible to any magickian who wishes to expand hir horizons
beyond Golden Dawn/Crowley assumptions.

     This is not to defend everything that went on in the TOTO over the
past couple of decades.  But I do diferentiate between Grant the mage and
Grant the would-be OHO of an occult order.  I also know, to my own
satisfaction, that Grant managed to create an initiatory pathway via the
TOTO "current" that transcends the limitations of both himself and the
Order he heads.  One need look no further for proof than manifestations
such as Falorio & Linden, TOPY (in its various phases), Amookos and other
magicko-tantrik orders & currents, the Esoteric Order of Dagon, Nema's
Maat magick, and many other flavors of msgickal and occult art & science
that either came out of, were associated with, or received
cross-pollenization from, the Typhonian OTO or Kenneth Grant.  If Grant
had a failing, it came from trying to control or take credit for all the
manifestations of the current.  A common enough failing, that should not
detract from his roles as post-Crowleyan iconoclast, magickian, and
inspirer of original directions in occultism.

     93  93/93

				Patrick


          Patrick Crumhorn                 patrik@io.com 
                     http://www.io.com/~patrik/
                 "Compression is the vise of kings"


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