KENNETH GRANT & TYPHONISM

'Kenneth Grant's numerology may be suspect, his historical sources unreliable, but his poetical intuition is strangely prescient. I may not want to be part of the only true order but I can't help admiring his eclecticism, his culture, his generosity towards other artists and writers. So this book is really a triumphal arch - the final act from a highly creative magician and writer who has done more than any other living adept to explicate Crowley's magical universe and to initiate us all into some very sinister mysteries.'

From a review of The Ninth Arch

Outside the Circles of Time
By Kenneth Grant
£32.50 / Hardback

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Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare
By Kenneth Grant

£19.99 / $40 / Paperback

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Images and Oracles of Austin Spare tells a fascinating tale of magical art and sorcerous battles in the post war British occult revival. If you're one of the lucky ones who've read their new copy you will at some point be wondering about the nature of the 'Zoetic Grimoire of Zos'. And for that bit of the jigsaw you need to take a look at Kenneth Grant's sequel to Images - Zos Speaks, Encounters with Austin Osman Spare and (also available from Mandrake) a memoire of Austin Spare's friend and patron, Frank Letchford.

Starlit Mire
illustrated by Austin Osman Spare
£32 / $64

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Review for Against the Light (currently OUT OF PRINT)

'Some books are written to be read repeatedly. Much of Kenneth Grant's previous writings fall into this category, they require endurance, a keen memory and a subtle sense of humour. More so, they thrive on weaving strands of associations, on reading between the lines and on recognising the interplay of book, reader and the world manifesting around the two. With Against the Light, things do look somewhat different. Unlike most of Mr. Grant's books, this nightside narrative appears in the guise of a novel, but it might as well be classed as poetry. None of its contents pretends to be factual, and none needs to be taken seriously. this might put off serious students of the occult (they never die out do they?) believing that novels are only soft amusement to be enjoyed after a tough day struggling with scientific gematria. Appearances can be deceptive. Against the Light is a highly practical work for those who dare to enter a web of darksome intricacies, or who enjoy a mind-stimulating surrealistic kaleidoscope as their bedside reading. Its a books that breathes the morbid splendour of the swampland, the realm where firm ground and yielding morass alternate and the nature of the dreaming depends on the will of each reader. Its representation as a novel offers the author a great amount of freedom to shape the world subjectively, and to cast a spell of fascination. Unlike those books dealing with facts, the new Kenneth Grant novel provides direct access to a number of dream-gates, and as the work pertains to the magick and enchantment of the nightside, these gates are open to all who can tune in to the fascinating convolutions of the non-linear.

'Set in South Wales during several periods of this century, the witchwoods of South England of the past, in the crowded, sunlit streets of London before the war and in the hidden temple of New Isis Lodge, all times and spaces come to merge in the network of tunnels and inner spaces that stretch between mind and memory, and lead in an irresistible flow beyong the outer gateways that comprise the limits of our thinking, This is none of the usual occult novels which have saintly adepts holding monologues of awesome depth and dullness, nor is it a story, a history in the common sense of the word. Having said this, I still can't tell you what its all about. It could have a dozen plots or none at all, could convey a dozen magical formulae and still perplex the mind of those who search for them. In these realms, as is typical for the nightside, consciousness dances along the labyrinthine pathways of the transpersonal and what emerges in the end is basically the portrait of each reader. Are you ready for utterly unusual perspectives? Enjoy the cornucopia of subjectivity and apply its secrets to the making of your own magickal universe. This may sound over the top, but having devoured the book twice and looking forward to the third reading I can only recommend that you set out to discover its hidden pleasures for yourself.