Kenneth Grant celebrated this archetype in an almost frenzied literary oeuvre that straddles the lines between scholarly discourse, imaginative fiction, and poetic invocation. Crowley assumed the mask of the Beast 666 to frighten away the shy, the reticent, the cowardly. Lovecraft has warned us against these dark mysteries in the most dramatic terms. The Enemy, the Other, the Adversary, He who inhabits the undiscovered territory which must be charted and mapped by any who wish to consider themselves worthy explorers of the psyche. What else would the reader expect from that Dark Lord who inhabits the most primal and hidden depths of the unconscious? The Lord of the Shadow Realm, whose very existence has been hysterically lambasted as an evil aberration, who has been conceived as blasphemous and terrifying since people first sat around campfires near the openings to their caves, whose devotees have ever been feared and hunted. THIS IS A WORK OF HERESY, a book meant to challenge. I am the hideous god, and who mastereth me is uglier than I. I am Baphomet, that is the Eightfold Word that shall be equilibrated with the Three. I am the Eye in the Triangle, the Silver Star that ye adore. Now shalt thou adore me who am the Eye and the Tooth, the Goat of the Spirit, the Lord of Creation. ILLUSTRATIONS Kabbalistic Tree of Life Necronomicon Sigil Sri ChakraĭANCING WITH THE DARK LORD JAMES WASSERMAN 17. ISBN 978-0-89254-207-9 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available upon request Book design and production by Studio 31 Printed in the United States of America CONTENTS Preface: DANCING WITH THE DARK LORD Introduction: THE BEAST IN THE CAVE Chapter One: STRANGE AEONS Chapter Two: GODS, THE BEAST, AND MEN Chapter Three: UNSPEAKABLE CULTS Chapter Four: THE NECRONOMICON GNOSIS Chapter Five: SONS OF GOD, DAUGHTERS OF MEN Chapter Six: THE MAUVE ZONE Chapter Seven: THE DARK LORD Appendix: KALAS, TITHIS, AND NITYAS Glossary of Terms No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from Nicolas-Hays, Inc. Cover painting reproduced by kind permission. 7 Newburyport, MA 01950 Copyright © 2013 by Peter Levenda Rosaleen Norton artworks copyright © Walter Glover. Box 540206 Lake Worth, FL 33454-0206 Distributed to the trade by Red Wheel/Weiser, LLC 65 Parker St. Published in 2013 by Ibis Press A division of Nicolas-Hays, Inc. The reader may expect to be introduced to Yoga and Buddhism, Gnosticism, And he plumbs the depths of Lovecraft's fears. Levenda explores the roots of the beliefs and doctrines Crowley utilized to develop his system. Author Peter Levenda posits a mystic alliance between the thematic content of Lovecraft's fiction and the magical writings of the primary exponent of the Law of Thelema, Aleister Crowley. Lovecraft, Jack Parsons, Austin Osman Spare, and Charles Stansfeld Jones (“Frater Achad”), Grant formulated a system of magic that expanded upon that delineated in the rituals of the OTO: a system that included elements of Tantra, of Voudon, and in particular that of the Schlangekraft recension of the Necronomicon, all woven together in a dark tapestry of power and illumination. Using complementary texts from such disparate authors as H. One of the least understood manifestations of Thelemic thought may be found in the works of Kenneth Grant, the British occultist and one-time intimate of Aleister Crowley, who discovered a hidden world within the primary source materials of Crowley's Aeon of Horus.