The Magical Revival

The Magical Revival by Kenneth Grant Contents + +++ + Introduction page 1 Return of the Phoenix 5 2 Metaphysical Bases of Sexual Magick 26 3 Dark Dynasties 50 4 Centres of Power 68 5 Drugs and the Occult 84 6 Barbarous Names of Evocation 100 7 Star Fire 119 Blood, Vampirism, Death and Moon 8 137 Magick 9 Strayed Gods 150 10 Dion Fortune 173 11 Austin Osman Spare and the Zos Kia Cultus 180 12 The Death Posture and the New Sexuality 199 13 Conclusion 209 † Glossary 213 † Bibliography 230 † Index 234 ERRATA This volume is a direct reprint from the 1972 first edition, in which there were a number of errors. These have all been markedwith an asterisk wherever they arise in the text, and have been listed on page 234. Illustrations + +++ + facing page Aleister Crowley at the age of fifty-six 20 Liber Oz (The Book of Strength) 21 The magical seals of Crowley's occult organization 52 Magical designs on the ceiling and floor of the Vault of the Adepts 53 Lam, an extraterrestial Intelligence with whom Crowley was in astral contact 84 Aleister Crowley in 1910 85 The Stele of Revealing 116 Austin Spare in the Death Posture 116-7 Formula of Zos Vel Thanatos 116-7 The Self in Ecstasy by Austin Spare 117 NU-Isis by Austin Spare 148 Black Eagle, a painting by Austin Spare of his familiar 149 The Death Posture: preliminary sensation symbolized 180 The Magical Thought-stream by Austin Spare 180 Preliminaries to the Witches' Sabbath as painted by Austin Spare 181 Line Illustrations † The Qabalistic Tree of Life, showing the ten Sephiroth and twenty-two Paths 212 The Qabalistic Tree of Life, showing the system of grades according to Crowley's†† 213 reorganization of the A.'.A.'. † † For STEFFI and GREGORY Acknowledgements + +++ + † The author has at his disposal the entire body of Aleister Crowley's writings (published and unpublished), and wishes to thank Mr. John Symonds-Crowley's literary executor- for allowing complete freedom in the use of it. He also wishes to thank Frater Ani Abthilal, IX O.T.O., who made available an initiated Tantric work on the worship of the Supreme Goddess, by an Adept of the Left Hand Path, which has thrown much light on the Draconian Mysteries that Crowley and others helped to revive. Foreword † "For us, who have the inner knowledge, inherited or won, it remains to restore the true rites of Attis, Adonis, Osins, of Set, Serapis, Mithras, and Abel". These words of Aleister Crowley inspired me as a youth, and, imagining myself as one of those to whom they were addressed, I soon discovered that for some reason I have not been able to fathom it was the god Set that I was being called upon to honour. I accordingly took it upon myself to penetrate the Mysteries of this, the most ancient of deities, and to trace the history of his rites from an indefinite antiquity to the present day. When I wrote The Magical Revival, twenty years ago, I had no notion that the book would form the first of a series of trilogies that I would still be engaged upon in the nineties. Nor did I expect it to interest any but the serious occultist. But the numerous letters which I received after its publication, and the often profound comments expressed in them, caused me to plan the series subsequently known as the Typhonian Trilogies. Toward the close of the eighties I was approached by Skoob Esoterica, who sought to re-issue under the title of Hidden Lore the Carfax Monographs which I had produced in the early sixties in collaboration with Steffi Grant. This project led not only to the task of publishing the next of the remaining volumes of the trilogies, under the careful editing of Christopher Johnson and Caroline Wise, but also to the reprinting of the earlier titles. So, here again is The Magical Revival. Kenneth Grant, London, 1990. "The Knower of Truth should go about the world outwardly stupid like a child, a madman or a devil." Mahavakyaratnamala Introduction THE purpose of this book is to place in perspective the various occult tendencies that led up to the revival of interest in Occultism in recent years, and to interpret this resurgence in terms of humanity's need for a universal approach to Reality that transcends all previous systems of mystical and magical Attainment. Emphasis is placed upon the work of Aleister Crowley (1875-1947), because he embodies in a highly concentrated form the particular Magical Tradition that underlies the present revival, and for a similar reason space is given to Austin Osman Spare (1889*-1956), Dion Fortune (1891*-1946), Charles Stansfeld Jones (1889*-1950) and others, who in their own peculiar way revitalized the Current. Having for many years practised magick as a result of personal contact with Crowley, I have been able to relate his work to the ancient systems which he has been instrumental in reviving. My interpretation of his work is not a matter of speculation for it can be substantiated entirely by reference to the vast mass of material (diaries, letters, essays, books, etc.) which survived his death in 1947, from which I have freely quoted. As regards Austin Spare, being his literary executor I have access to supposed, the metaphysical was the exoteric version, not vice versa. This is proved conclusively by the seventeenth chapter of The Book of the Dead, which is certainly the oldest body of written teachings known to man. Here, side by side with the text which was intended for general use, appears the interpolated gloss of the initiated priest, explaining the text after the mauner of the Gnosis, or Magical Tradition. The secret, oral, or hidden wisdom embodied in the gloss, refers to the physical origins of the abstract concepts which appear in the text; spiritual matters are explained in terms of physical, more precisely of physiological, phenomena. These explanations were usually reserved for initiates, and the reason for their concealment was due to the physical nature of the Gnosis, which became, in truth, the forbidden wisdom of later ages. The ancients may not have been acquainted with psychology, sexology and endocrinology as known today, but they most certainly were acquainted with the occult uses of the sexual current, the improper handling of which leads to disaster; and they were infinitely more knowledgeable concerning the sexual sciences than are Western psychologists today. In mediaeval times secrecy was resorted to more as a safeguard for the occultist than for the world of which he formed a part. The scene is not much different today, except that the tables are turned. The indiscriminate revelation of occult formulae often leads to insanity and death. The unprepared who meddle with occult processes invite trouble. In the realm of profane science the horror of the situation is today only too apparent. The magician, who was the scientist of bygone days, was wiser than his modern counterpart. He hedged his science about in order to protect not only himself but the world about him. The reader will therefore appreciate the reason for the peculiar method employed in the construction of this book. I have resorted to the time-tested method of symbolic metathesis, when the subject-matter requires that veil of secrecy demanded no less today of the occultist than of the Hierophant of ancient times. With this difference: I have introduced no blinds, no deliberately misleading statements or vague allusions to formulae that cannot be shown to be as precise in their action and reaction as their analogues in the more orthodox sciences. As some of the terms used in this book may be unfamiliar to [Page 4] readers unacquainted with the works of Aleister Crowley, or of Occultism generally, an exhaustive glossary is appended. Finally, I have where necessary adopted Crowley's orthography of the word magick to distinguish it from the ceremonial techniques with which it is usually - and almost exclusively - associated. 1 Return of the Phoenix † † IN 1933 Crowley wrote a series of articles for a daily newspaper in which he denounced black magic in no uncertain terms: "To practise black magic you have to violate every principle of science, decency and intelligence. You must be obsessed with an insane idea of the importance of the petty object of your wretched and selfish desires. "I have been accused of being a 'black magician'. No more foolish statement was ever made about me. I despise the thing to such an extent that I can hardly believe in the existence of people so debased and idiotic as to practise it. "In Paris, and even in London, there are misguided people who are abusing their priceless spiritual gifts to obtain petty and temporary advantages through these practices. "The 'Black Mass' is a totally different matter. I could not celebrate it if I wanted to, for I am not a consecrated priest of the Christian Church The articles answered those, and they were many, who accused him not only of being a black magician but of performing black masses and perverted rites. The ill-considered calumny continues, and Crowley's name- nearly a quarter of a century after his death-is still associated with baleful sorcery and diabolism. This misconception is not easy to rectify, partly owing to massive ignorance on the subject [Page 6] of Occultism and partly owing to prejudices stemming from faulty conditioning. To an individual living five thousand years ago-long before the Biblical version of Genesis had been written down - Crowley's Cult of Satan, or Shaitan as then called, would have evoked no feelings of perversity and guilt.

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