Thoughts About the Qliphoth

“It is futile and false to imagine a coin with one side only.”
  Kenneth Grant - “Nightside of Eden,” p. 2.

A number of occultists have over the last few decades written about the Qliphoth, or Qliphah (singular), and some have stipulated that there is a Tree of Evil or Death in addition to the Tree of Life, acting as its reverse or negative image. This seems to be a theme expressed by some adherents of the left hand path, and some have proposed a Tree of Evil, and through it to assign a quasi hierarchy for the various lists of evil spirits and devils that supposedly populate the material world. Having two such trees allows one the duality of choosing one or the other, or perhaps, going to one then the other. According to Genesis it is true that there were two sacred trees in the Garden of Eden, one was indeed the Tree of Life; but the other wasn’t its opposite. The other tree was the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Since humankind ate from the later and not the former, we have the power and potential of knowing truth on all levels of being, but we are not immortal. Yet the scriptures never mention a Tree of Evil, so one would have to assume that it is apocryphal or even a recent urban myth. However, there is another way of interpreting the Qliphoth and determining how it fits into the overall schema of the Qabbalah without having to propose two opposing trees.

The word Qliphoth or Qliphah comes from the Hebrew root QLPh, which means “to peel off,” and the noun means “husk, shell or rind.” Qliphah, therefore, means in Hebrew, a shell or the outer covering of some kind of fruit or nut. When applied to the Qabbalah it has been variously interpreted as a kind of afterbirth or discarded element. It could even be defined as a previously failed attempt at creation (an abortion), but only if one doubted the perfection of the Godhead. Yet there is another meaning to the word that would allow it to merge into the Tree of Life, but only if we can overcome the basic prejudice built up by the previous definitions. The Qliphoth could simply be the outer shell or husk of the corresponding Sephiroth, and in actuality, it would function more like a socket or the bottom foundation of a specific Sephirah. In other words, the Qliphoth are the backside or unconscious dimensions of the Sephirotic Tree of Life. I believe that Kenneth Grant was the first to propose this interpretation in print, even though Michael Bertiaux has insisted that he first proposed it as a part of the deep esoteric qabbalistic descriptions in his traditional lore (Monastery of the Seven Rays). A few friends of mine have said that such lore would likely have been part of the infamous Choronzon Club workings, and there is, at least, a little bit of evidence to support that belief. (Which I intend to show at the end of this article.) 

Using this revelation, suddenly the Qliphoth are neither evil nor the negative partners to the Sephiroth in the Tree of Life. The troubling Tree of Evil or Death disappears, and in its place is just the night and light sides of the one Holy Tree. Just as we have a light and darkside, so, too,  does the Tree of Life; but that darkside represents neither a duality nor a split between good and evil. As the glyph of the Tree of Life is outwardly defined, all of the elements contained within it are seen as a unified whole, and that includes the Sephiroth, the Pathways, and even the Qliphoth.

I have found it most productive to see the Qliphoth as the arising potential for each Sephiroth - they are, in a word, the unmanifest potential first laid down by the emanations of the negative veils. The fusion of Sephirah and Qliphah is seamless, but each represents a different kind of spiritual quality and hierarchy. One can’t enter into the corresponding qliphah from the sephirah, since through the sephirah, they are both perfectly united. The backside of the Tree of Life can only be accessed through the portal of the gateway of Da’ath, which is also the gateway of the Greater Abyss. Therefore, the individual qliphah can be acquired and realized only through the gateway of Da’ath, otherwise their influences are nearly invisible, except through the periodic subtle dark emanations coming from the abysmal gateway. (Some have called these dark emanations the heartbeat of darkness itself.)

It is my belief that the Qliphoth contains all of the unknown and invisible chthonic proto-elements of our spiritual, mental and physical worlds. Atavism, archaism and dark inner pathways connect the backside of the Tree of Life, like the endless tunnels of the catacombs in Paris. The light side of the Tree of Life has only twenty-two pathways, but the backside has as many possible permutations for pathways as there are sephiroth. Thus all of the sephiroth are interconnected below the surface at the level of the qliphoth with what is nominally called “Typhonian wormholes.” The underworld domain of the backside of the Tree of Life is populated with the dead ancestors, gods and goddesses of the underworld, and the various demonic and sub-elemental spirits and powers.

Aleister Crowley and other occultists (like Grant) have taken some incomplete information from Jewish qabbalistic sources and have given names, qualities and rulers to the ten anti-sephiroth of the Qliphoth. Grant has attempted to extrapolate on this incomplete information and attempted to build up a system of anti-correspondences. I have found this work to be quite weak and incomplete, and based upon a decided Jewish monotheistic mystical bias, which I think is contrary to any practical magickal workings with these forces. I would recommend that the forces and spirits of the qliphoth and their wormhole pathways be examined as merely the negative source potentials for the obverse sephiroth and glyph determined pathways. If they have any names or qualities, it would not be just a mirror image of the surface structures of the Tree. They would be the veritable archaic sources for those structures. The backside of the Tree of Life is without morals and spiritual values, and is therefore, beyond good and evil.

High adepts are supposedly those individuals who have crossed the Greater Abyss, having left their old lives, motivations and aspirations (like lifeless shells) behind them. That crossing is not so much a leap across a chasm as it is the voluntary leap down into the abysmal gateway, and therein fully engaging and resolving the various powers and spirits of the Qliphoth before one is allowed to emerge on the other side, profoundly transformed and completely remade. A high adept has supposedly completed the process of conquering his or her internal issues and complexes before ever attempting this greater passage, and thereby seeking to resolve the sins and inequalities of the world as opposed to the self.

This underworld passage and ordeal has always been the theme of the exalted apotheosis, but it has reflections in the underworld transformative journey of the proto-shaman. Even Jesus descended into hell and underwent its harrowing before ascending into heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of his father. The oldest written variation of this theme is the Egyptian underworld ordeal known as the Book of Gates (Am Duad), where the sun god, ensconced in his solar boat, had to fight the forces of darkness to achieve passage to the eastern horizon every night. As an initiation theme, it is the most important and the greatest of all ordeals, since few emerge as victors from that terrible descent. Likewise is the theme of a mock burial and resurrection, particularly if it is enacted within a temple, vault or sacred grove. Such a theme emulates the famous initiatory burial and ascent that took place in the pyramid tombs of ancient Egypt. All of these themes characterize that the spiritual, mental and physical changes to the one undergoing such an initiation are massive, radical and quite permanent. Madness and death instead of illumination and rebirth could easily be the end result for such an ill prepared undertaking. (One does not take the Oath of the Abyss either lightly or presumptuously.)

In the system of ritual magick that I use, there are some prismatic shaped energy fields that can emulate these kinds of structures and aid one in opening the abysmal gateway, allowing the magician to gain passage within. Such an act must only be undertaken by someone who is supremely knowledgeable and capable of dealing with the consequences. Although I have the knowledge of how to accomplish this kind of working, I have yet to attempt it, for obvious reasons. Still, such an undertaking is definitely on my list of things to do in the next five years or so. Here are the steps that one would need to perform in order to open up this kind of gateway.

1. Establish a highly polarized cross-roads using the four Angles.
2. Build a double concentric spiral vortex, each with a common midpoint. This is done by generating a basic vortex, then establishing a central circle, and finally erecting a vortex within that central circle. Thus generating a vortex within a vortex with a common central point. Both of vortices would have a negative spin (widdershins), so they would produce a kind of black hole singularity with gateways extending into four different universes (what Bertiaux calls his universe A, B, C and D).
3. Establish an inverted Tetrahedral gateway - this would be the entrance into and out of the abyss.
4. Once within the abysmal gateway, Qliphotic path workings would commence. Supposedly, there are thirty-three separate and distinct path working encounters, grouped into three sections of eleven encounters.

(That means that this rite would have to be repeatedly performed at least thirty-three times to satisfy all of the possible variations.)

The Order of the Gnostic Star has a ritual working already written (but not yet attempted) that makes use of the above ritual elements, but there are other attributes to this rite as well. It is a ritual working that has been carefully constructed and refined over the years, but it is still untried. Hopefully, someday, if my progress in self purification and perfection has been sufficiently adequate, I will attempt this working. However, there is no hurry and I am under no obligation to begin this rite at any future date or time. For now there is only the need to continue to learn, grow and work out my internal issues, following a progressive path towards spiritual illumination.

One final thing that I would like to discuss is the practice of Qliphotic path working that is used in this kind of ordeal, and how that supposedly relates to the Choronzon Club workings. As you may or may not know, the Choronzon Club and its lore has become the exclusive property of Michael Bertiuax. This lore, along with other inducements, was offered to me many years ago if I made myself accessible to Bertiaux. Of course, I refused, so I never got to see any of that lore. The one exception was derived from what Michael penned on the back inner cover of my copy of Nightside of Eden, which I had bought from him. The few lessons found at the back of the Voudoun Gnostic Workbook are almost comically useless and meaningless, so all I have is what’s written in the back cover of Kenneth Grant’s book. Still, let us digress a little and discuss the history of the Choronzon Club.

First of all, Choronzon was a powerful evil spirit mentioned by John Dee in his diaries and then elaborated upon by Mathers and Crowley, and later, Grant and Bertiaux, among others. Choronzon is considered the lord of the domains of the Qliphoth and is its guardian and chief initiator. Grant has determined that the gematric value for Choronzon is 333, making its name half the value (and therefore, functioning as the consort and opposite) of the Great Beast, whose number is 666. Choronzon was vividly encountered when Aleister Crowley began to invoke and gain visions through the higher level of the Aethyrs of the Enochian system of magick. This entity was perceived by Crowley as being highly aggressive and quite negative, requiring the magician to engage and defeat it in order to gain access to the more exalted states revealed by the Aethyrs.

For some reason, one of Crowley’s favored American students, whose name was Cecil Frederick Russel, became enamored of this entity and used it to name his personal magickal organization. Thus was born the Choronzon Club, which he assembled first in Chicago, and then later in California. Russel had received certain teachings and initiations from Crowley at the Abbey of Thelema in Cefalu, Sicily. Supposedly, he was taught and initiated into the mysteries of the IX and X and XI degress of the O.T.O., and used these teachings to propose a shortcut to becoming an initiated higher adept. Of course, very little of this lore was Russel’s own invention, so he had been plagiarizing and misrepresenting the teachings of the A. A. and the O.T.O. Once exposed, his organization fragmented into two parts and mostly died out.

One of these fragments was the Order of the G.B.G (Great Brotherhood of God), whose lore and practices were published in the late sixties and early seventies by Louis T. Culling, the last chief of that organization. Another fragment of that group had retained the name Choronzon Club and the location, Chicago, but practiced a form of exclusive homosexual trantric magick. By the 1960's this group was dying out when it was discovered by Michael Bertiaux, who merged its teachings with his own. It’s hard to see how such a direct tantric system of magick would have had anything to do with obscure forms of qliphotic qabbalah, but according to Bertiaux (if we are to believe him), the Choronzon Club did indeed teach this kind of lore. Since no one has come forthpresenting the Choronzon Club teachings as they existed before Bertiaux acquired them, we will never know what that lore looked like. Supposedly, it became the basis of the O.T.O.A. (Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua), but since I am outside of that organization and not privy to the exact nature of its teachings, I can only guess and surmise this from rumors and internet related gossip. (I have recently found an interesting article on the web about this subject, and you can read it here.)

All of this would be the barest and meanest of speculation on my part if were not for the colored notes penned by Michael Bertiaux in the back inside cover of my copy of Nightside of Eden. It is labeled “Choronzon Club Pathworking”, and works with the symbolic numbers of eleven and three, which were supposedly very significant to both the higher degrees of the O.T.O. and the Choronzon Club, from which it was based. I am reproducing it here for your curiosity and amusement, perhaps you will find it useful as well. I have been studying these diagrams for many years, and they now make a lot of sense to me. These diagrams show the patterns of the qliphotic pathworkings and how they are to be deployed. There also appears to be alchemical and a sex magick attributes to them as well. I will leave the rest to your erudition and imagination.

Frater Barrabbas

Remembering Michael Bertiaux

 (Bertiaux and Allen Greenfield - 1980's)

It was back in the summer of 1977 on a sweltering Sunday afternoon in Chicago that I got to meet the notorious Michael Bertiaux. I had traveled with my teacher and High Priest, Christopher Syn (Bill Schnoebelen) and selected members of our group from Milwaukee (the infamous “coven from hell”) to attend one of Michael’s lectures. Michael was giving a lecture to a quasi theosophical group consisting mostly of elderly women (who seemed to adore him), and it was so philosophically banal and boring that I can’t remember today what it was about.

I do remember buying a copy of Kenneth Grant’s newest book “Nightside of Eden” from him, which had Michael Bertiaux’s signature and date on the front inside cover, and certain colored pencil tables and other writings in the back inside cover. Those tables and writings were from the supposed “Choronzon Club” lore, and represented the methodology of path working for the back side of the Tree of Life. (It took me nearly seven years later to figure out what it meant and how it worked.) This book was part of a collection of books, recorded cassette tapes and other paraphernalia that Bertiuax was selling to those who had attended his lecture. I talked briefly to Michael after purchasing the book, showing him the colored pencil notes in the back, and seeing that Michael really regretted parting with this book and offered to buy it back, which I smugly declined. Yet it was after we had left the lecture hall and went out to dinner that I got to hear more of the kind of strange and bazar occultism that was Bertiaux’s hallmark perspective, which he applied to nearly everything!

(As a side note, one of Bertiaux’s cassette tapes that Christopher had bought contained an impromptu lecture on the Chaldean Oracles, which is probably one of the more important writings from antiquity. I borrowed it from Christopher, and popped it my cassette player, expecting to hear a lot of amazing revelations. I was truly astonished at how superficial it was. I learned nothing from it, and it would seem that when Michael recorded it, he was also quite ill, and had to stop the tape whenever a coughing fit overcame him. That was an important lesson - not everything that Bertiaux did was worthy or valuable.)

I found Michael to be highly creative, intellectually facile, extremely imaginative, charming, in an old world sort of way, and full of outlandish occult tales of power, horror and secret lefthand path societies. From his perspective, the world had a definitive Lovecraftian taint, mixed with the musty scent of long dead corpses and the exciting thrill of true evil. But who was Michael Bertiaux and what was he really like? I can answer these questions, although what I learned about him happened so many years ago. Yet it made such an impression on me that I have not forgotten any of it. Meeting and interacting with Michael Bertiaux was certainly not something that anyone would ever forget. (I do believe that people change and no one stays the same, but after my experiences with him, I never had any desire to see if Michael himself had actually changed.) 

Why am I writing about this weird occultist and what happened between us over thirty years ago? Why indeed!

Lately, there has been a lot of discussion about a supposed classic work written by Bertiaux, entitled “The Gnostic Voudoun Workbook,” a creepy favorite tome for collectors and afficionados of the ultra-obscure. This book is as famous now as its notorious author, a white Midwestern American who blended the traditions of Haitian Voudoun and various systems of Western occultism long before others in the U.S. had ever thought of doing it. Yet Michael Bertiaux crawled out of complete obscurity into the black light of occult notoriety not by his own skill or enterprise, but by the efforts and gratuitous attentions to the dark side of occultism propagated by Kenneth Grant in his numerous books.

Kenneth Grant made Michael Bertiaux famous within a small community of ceremonial magicians and occultists. If it wasn’t for Kenneth Grant, I doubt that Michael Bertiaux would have been known outside of his Chicago community, and even within that locale, Michael was very, very obscure. His fame was wholly spread by the books written by Kenneth Grant, and since then, some have believed the hype and stories spread about him. Michael himself has helped to spread a lot of rumors and tall tales about himself, and delighted in the effect that it had on others. Scandal and controversy were always a part of what Michael did and said, so I suppose his greatest curse would have been to be ignored or dismissed. 

While it is true that I have a copy of his book in my occult library, and I have attempted to read it through a few times (only to give up), having known Michael Bertiux in the late 70's (which would have been considered his “hay days”), I can truly say that I don’t take him, his book or his methodologies very seriously. I would also advise others not to seek any nuggets of wisdom from Bertiaux’s writings, because honestly, I truly believe that there aren’t any. I also believe that there are a lot of better sources for all of the topics that his book attempts to cover. Michael’s writings are tainted by his disguised brutal sense of humor and by his own astonishing imagination, which he tended to liberally use to fill in the blanks or make something far more interesting or sinister than it might have been. Michael is, therefore, something akin to a pulp fiction writer and a tabloid publisher. It’s probably an impossible task to distill his writings to determine the actual traditions and practices from which they are derived, so I have given up attempting to do so.

Additionally, to have a serious conversation about the book “The Gnostic Voudoun Workbook” is to give far greater credence to Bertiaux than what he really deserves. I will maintain that he was a capable occultist and could work fairly malefic magick if he so desired, but he never represented any kind of traditional teaching or initiation. Bertiaux was a creative huckster who had very little respect for any tradition. He used magickal and occult lore to paper his world much like a child would use the beautiful photographs in a slurry of magazines to create amusing collages.

Therefore, when I read about occultists giving Michael Bertiaux’s writings a serious critique, I found it quite ridiculous. I am almost certain that Michael would find such discussions to be very amusing, too. Like Aleister Crowley, Michael believed that any PR was good PR, and after all, it only helps to sell more books. I have even heard through the grapevine that Michael is planning on publishing more books (“Cosmic Meditation” and “Vudu Cartography”), and why not? His first book is a classic that has sold for hundreds of dollars on the internet, but most would find it to be a confused mishmash of hoodoo, Haitian voudoun, Thelema, Shintoism (?) and every other obscure religious or occult system pasted together in a curious but delirious manner. To me, this book is a sinister joke, but you would have had to know Michael Bertiaux to appreciate the punch line.

I knew Michael Bertiuax from around the summer of 1977 through the summer of 1979. I have recounted in a previous article the story about the last time I visited him in his Chicago lair, where he demonstrated to me the art of Megapolisomancy. You can find that article here, just in case you missed it. I also visited Michael with my teacher, Bill Schnoebelen, and was off-handedly initiated into the cult of Baron Samedi as a fully vested priest or houngan, you can find an article describing that event here. Do I feel different because of this event? Does this mean that I have a valid Haitian initiatory lineage included with everything else that I am working and doing with my occultism? The answer to these questions is a very solid “no.” This initiation was done as a way of attempting to gain access to me, and since I never let Michael in, either physically or magickally, I would have to say that nothing significant happened to me, luckily. I was forced to quickly drink a large goblet of Jack Daniels Wild Turkey, but for some odd reason I remained stone cold sober, probably because I didn’t trust Michael and was very much on my guard.

This sounds like a juicy tale and a bit of gossip, so I will satisfy the curiosity of my readers and briefly relate it. As an object lesson, it says everything that anyone needs to know about Michael Bertiaux. I found him to be cruel, manipulative, ruthless, and completely without any human compassion whatsoever. This is not the kind of person that you could trust, believe in, nor would you place yourself into his hands for any reason. I would rather offer my head to the gaping jaws of a crocodile than give myself into the hands of this man. Anyway, I am digressing here, so let us get back to the story.

Back in the summer of 1977, I was quite taken with Michael Bertiaux. Having read and reread the book “Cults of the Shadow” written by Kenneth Grant, I was eager to meet him. Michael was a big deal for our coven, so we all began to study and engage with various African Traditional Regions, particularly with the Haitian diaspora variations. We weren’t really interested in the outer court religious beliefs and practices of the common man, and we had little respect or understanding for the Haitian culture. We were, in a word, occult pirates who were trawling for new thrills and supposedly forgotten dark practices, and Michael served us up a bounty of these beliefs and practices, being a pirate himself. We sought out the practices of the bokor or black magician, and the various obscure occult orders where such individuals met and congregated. It’s likely that these traditions and occult systems were mostly invented by Bertiaux, or based on some facts mixed with rumors and legends, and he also filled them out with his own concoctions. It’s hard to say what was authentic and real, and since we were steeped in our fantasy associated with those beliefs and practices, we really didn’t care. Besides, who had the time and money to travel to Haiti and actually perform the proper kind of research to verify what Michael was telling us?

At first, only two members of our extended coven periodically went down to Chicago to work with Michael. Those two members were Christopher and a senior member named John, yet after the first trip, only Christopher went down to see Bertiaux. It seemed that John’s first experience was too traumatic to be repeated. I thought this strange, but John regaled us with his frightful experiences with Bertiuax. It would seem that Michael used a form of sexual terrorism to get his students into the right frame of mind for his various occult and magickal operations. He would select an approach that was guaranteed to frighten and unbalance his subject, acting as either a homosexual or a heterosexual lover, as it suited him. His unwanted advances would be rationalized as being the only manner that such occult knowledge and initiatory mysteries could be communicated. It was an excuse to sexually abuse and exploit individuals who came seeking knowledge and special teachings, and Bertiaux had no problem obliging those foolish enough to accede to his desires.

Michael was around middle height, portly, with a dark Mediterranean complexion and features. He was bald, bearded and hirsute, having hairy knuckles and even hairy toes. His back and shoulders had a pelt of coarse hair, so he had a kind of beast-like quality when naked, except for the top of his head. He wore glasses, except when working magick and not needing to read. How do I know such intimate details about this man? I am sure you can guess - I saw him nude on more than one occasion during my short two adventures working magick with him.

Michael often performed his Voudoun ceremonies completely nude, or sometimes he would wear a mask. This was quite a departure from Michael the wandering bishop, who would wear beautiful handmade silk and satin vestments and perform private masses using the Greek Orthodox rite (of St. Basil). In his mundane habits, Michael would wear rather drab and even ill fitting clothes - he looked a bit like a slob. He was much more comfortable wearing exotic outfits than fitting in with the urban masses. Since he worked for the State of Illinois in the capacity of a bureaucrat in the government aid services, he probably wore a nice suit and easily fit in with the grey masses of fellow bureau workers. I never saw him wear a suit, since the few times I visited were during weekends.

My initiation consisted of first being completely naked, presented to the various spirits and lwa of the dead, then being forced to drink a third of a bottle of Wild Turkey, and finally, being sexually accosted by this man. I remember distinctly lying naked on the floor of his temple, with this rather flabby fury man laying on top of me, pinning me down while attempting to french kiss me (as I gritted my teeth) and thereby arouse me. Yet all it did was bring out in me a sense of complete revulsion and a stubborn willpower to keep myself from being violated in any manner. I succeeded in that, but then probably didn’t receive the full blessing of being magickally affected or transformed by Michael’s operation. I was given a title and an accolade later, but I actually felt little changed, and I was just relieved that I had avoided any spiritual contamination. My teacher just accepted all of this without a single complaint, and didn’t intercede for me when it was obvious that I was resisting Bertiaux with all my efforts. I was also restrained out of courtesy and some degree of openness to Michael, since otherwise, I would have become violent towards him.

I now know why Christopher didn’t interfere with Michael when he was assaulting me, and that is, he had hopes to receive the many blessings of Bertiaux’s initiations. Indeed, he underwent many initiations, got his bishop’s consecration and other titles, and much of this is actually documented in his books. Christopher, or Bill Schnoebelen, which was his real name, completely cooperated with Michael Bertiaux for a couple of years. He probably had to endure quite a bit of sexual abuse at his hands. I have heard that others who have sought out initiations from Michael Bertiaux received far more than they bargained for, having to forbear him with the favor of anal sex as a certification of the transmission of legitimate occult initiations. Although I had been offered such enticements myself, after just one episode, I tactfully demurred any further accolades. I found Michael’s admission price for initiation into his dubious mysteries much too high to pay, and I knew that I could get the same lore and initiations (if I really wanted them) from other less exploitative sources.

Michael’s history, or how he came to acquire all of this knowledge, was not really a secret. Michael freely told the story about how in the early sixties (1963), he was sent to Haiti as a Christian missionary (in the Anglican church), and I believe that he was, at the time, not a Catholic, but with Catholic sympathies. However, after spending a short time in Haiti, and meeting the man who would become his teacher and mentor (Dr. Jean-Maine), Michael supposedly aborted his missionary job and stayed in Haiti for a number of years. It was there that Michael became an old Catholic bishop (although there is some question about his actual lineage) and acquired a lot of his Voudoun initiations, including learning to be a bokor and gaining access to some of the more obscure and secret occult organizations. 

Keep in mind that this was during the time when Duvalier Sr. was running the country. It’s even rumored that his teacher had to leave Haiti in the last years of his life during Baby Doc’s reign. How much of this was factual is subject to debate. I did see pictures of Michael’s teacher, from older black and white photos to more recent color pictures. Michael also appeared to know a lot of people, including French and European occultists, and others from South America as well as the Carribean. He talked on the phone to some of these individuals during my visits, sometimes in French, and he also talked with his mother at least twice, which made Michael seem more human. I can say that he loved his mother fiercely, and acted as the dutiful son when talking to her on the phone. (I found this to be quite comical, because while talking to his mother, he was sitting in an apartment full of things that she would probably find abhorrent.)

While I stayed with Michael for that one full weekend (and there was another brief weekend some months later), I had to fend him off constantly - he saw it his duty to keep me on the defensive the entire time. However, I also had time to look over Michael’s voluminous papers, notebooks and other materials. Some of what was published in Michael’s book consisted of loose type-written papers back then. I even got to play around with a device that Michael had crafted which he used to travel back and forth in time. It was an old metal lamp cover for a reading light tree which had wires attached to it, connecting it to a flat piece of wood, brightly painted with silver and gold paint on a black background. It was voudoun magickal micro-circuitry (according to Michael), and the lamp shade part, which was shaped like a cone, fit over the head. I never got to try it out to see if it actually worked.

Other devices that Bertiaux had was a black box with a black light in it, which he used for a kind of Voudoun seance, and various African fetishes, some of them authentic. He also had an electrostatic massage wand, which he threatened to use on my privates. Michael’s furniture was ornately painted and decorated with bright colors depicting snakes, scorpions, centipedes, spiders, vevers, sigils and anything else that was spooky or ooky. His walls were covered with hundreds of paintings, depicting either Voudoun or even Lovecraftian horror themes (some of these are shown in Kenneth Grant’s books). At night, these variously primitive horrific paintings and garish furniture seemed to come alive and move and quiver of their own volition, since they were often painted in Acrylics using pure electric or complimentary colors. In a sense, Michael’s home was like sorcerer’s toy box, full of papers, notebooks, magickal implements of various kinds, strange books, paintings, luxurious Persian carpets, Greek Orthodox icons and the images and regalia of black magick - it was a highly cluttered large apartment full of beauty, strange wonder and horror. This is what attracted poor souls to Michael, all of them somehow hoping to gain some of this knowledge. He took from them whatever he could get, mostly in the way of sexual favors, psychic access and various forms of vicious manipulation.

 

During my two visits to see this man, Michael Bertiaux had moved his residence from one location to another on the east side of Chicago. He had at first lived in a large basement flat that had little light to illuminate it during the day. It was a gloomy and tenebrous place, with walls painted a dingy green pastel that seemed to fit Michael quite well. Some months later, he moved to a lofty penthouse apartment overlooking Lake Michigan. This apartment was well lit and actually bright and luminous during the day, with bright white walls and many colorful carpets, yet at night it became the same shadowy place full of nameless things skulking around that his old apartment had been. Spending the night in Michael’s home, although considered an honor, was neither peaceful nor pleasant, at least for me.

Michael was a heavy drinker when I knew him, although alcohol never seemed to have much of an effect on him. He told us that the alcohol served to feed the spirits who drained it from his body, thus freeing him of its influences. I believe that I had experienced the same thing while working with him. He was a gracious host, always serving various exotic mixed drinks to his guests, but I always supposed that he did it to get his guests inebriated so as to make them more amendable to his manipulations. Michael once joked that he wanted to take the various bottles of liquor in his liquor cabinet and remove their labels, replacing them with planetary, Qabbalistic and zodiacal symbols. Then he could mix together various liquors to create what he called Qabbalistic cocktails. To this day I wonder if he actually did that - it seemed like a very creative and amusing idea. While sharing drinks with his guests, Michael would engage in his most favorite pastime; he would gossip about other famous occultists that he knew. Michael also expected his guests to supply him with gossip and dirt on the occultists that they knew. I often wondered if Michael was in the business of blackmailing other occultists, or at the very least, helping to spread rumors and reveal the improprieties of others.   

I found all of Michael’s fetishes, magickal toys and volumes of occult lore to be fascinating and highly alluring - but the price was too high, so I passed on obtaining any of it. I knew that I could be nearly as creative as Bertiaux. I would prefer to know the various sources that I had gathered information from as well as freely admitting to others that I had created or invented something. Michael never admitted to creating or inventing anything. It was all from his various teachers and contacts, and even spirits or lwa, and all of it, according to him, was from traditional sources; but those sources were never cited nor indicated anywhere. After my last harrowing visit, I decided that I would cease having any further contact with him.

Since those times I have met other occultists, Thelemic magicians of various stripes (like Allen Greenfield) who have fully engaged Michael Bertiaux to gain his knowledge, acquire some of his voluminous papers and receive initiations. I also know that they paid a very high price for that knowledge or those initiations. Being made a bishop by Bertiaux was something of an inside joke for me and others who had personally known him, since we knew that the recipient of such an honor had to give himself or herself to Michael in a very intimate way. Yet I never had any regrets about disconnecting myself from Bertiuax, and never sought to reconnect with him.

As an object lesson, I believe in sharing my occult knowledge with others and in engaging with groups in a completely egalitarian manner.  I would never exploit a student or take advantage of them. In short, my brief adventure with Michael Bertiaux and Bill Schnoebelen taught me to respect and honor anyone who came to me for knowledge or experience. I learned a priceless lesson from these two men about how not to teach and engage with other people.

Frater Barrabbas

Final Farewell to Kenneth Grant

I recently discovered that Kenneth Grant, a noted and somewhat famous occultist and writer, had passed from this world to the next. Mr. Grant died on January 15, 2011, although many of us were not aware of it at the time. So I am putting together this brief eulogy to celebrate his great accomplishments and to note his passing at the ripe old age of 86. (Kenneth Grant: born 1924, died 2011.)

Mr. Grant was probably best known for his Typhonian trilogies, a series of 21 books that examined the dark side of occultism and magick. Grant was probably one of the first to attempt to give African Religious Traditions an occult context, and he also lionized, for a short time, the obscure and infamous occultist, Michael Bertiaux. He also was one of several individuals who claimed, for a time, to be the Outer Head of the Order of the O.T.O., a claim that produced a rather famous series of law suits, which in the end, he lost. Grant also knew Aleister Crowley during World War II, although that time period characterized Crowley’s declining years, both as an occultist and an elderly man. Crowley died in 1947, but the youthful Grant lived on to take up the torch of Thelemic magick, and to cultivate and evolve it into a profoundly post modern perspective. Grant also knew and was friends with Austin Spare, another amazing pagan occultist and artist.

At the present time, I can’t recall anyone else who was such a masterly proponent of the Lefthand Path than Grant, and his books very likely inspired a whole generation of LHP magicians and occultists. It was through Grant’s books that the Left Hand Path took on a particularly irresistible glamor. However, many of Grant’s techniques used to link together various obscure practices and beliefs were tenuous at best, fictional fabrications at worst. Grant also took the literary creations and fantasies of the infamous Lovecraftian Chthulhu Mythos and brought them into a supposedly respectable occultic context, which became rich fodder for chaos magicians everywhere. He was also deeply involved in resurrecting the writings and artwork of Austin Spare, and probably singlehandedly kept that work from succumbing to complete oblivion. His wife, Steffi Grant, added her darkly themed ink drawings to the burgeoning collection of “night gallery” artwork, which was always included on the cover and in black and white picture prints in the middle of each book. This artwork had as much impact on readers as the various odd and obscure occult concepts that Grant sought to darkly illuminate in his books.

Grant left a powerful and irreparable stamp on the practice of ceremonial magick and occultism, and those who practice chaos magick, emulate the practices of Austin Spare, seek to integrate ATR beliefs and practices into their western occultism and magick, develop a system of magick based on the Necronomicon and the Chthulhu mythos, practice lefthand tantra, or who seek a deeper understanding and appreciation of the writings of Crowley, owe him a great debt of gratitude. Grant seemed to leave no stone unturned, and he managed to forge together the dispirit threads of post modern occultism, science fiction and fantasy, horror fiction, exotic ethnic traditions and obscure antiquities, producing a blend of dark occultism and Lefthand Path practices. If you have even the faintest attraction to the dark side of occultism and magick, then Grant is likely your spiritual godfather, whether or not you have read his books.

I started to collect and read Grant’s books back in the late seventies, when the “Coven from Hell” that I belonged to decided that it should branch out into lefthand path occultism and magickal practices. I had to start with his first set of books that were already in print, but soon caught up and read every book up to a certain point. I recommend several of his books, which I consider to be classics and important reading material for anyone who is interested in having a well rounded occult background. The following list of works authored by Grant are just a small part of my recommended reading list, although some may be out of print, very expensive or quite difficult to find.

“The Magical Revival” (Weiser 1972) - This was Grant’s first book that set the tone for all of the books that were to follow. At this juncture, Grant was interested in extending the occult concepts and practices of his mentor, Aleister Crowley. He also introduced to the world the writings, artwork and practices of Austin Spare.

“Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God” (Weiser 1974) - The second book goes further into producing deeper revelations of the Thelemic current, focusing on aspects of sex magick, dream control, the Qliphoth and left hand tantra, which is a part of what Grant calls the “Ophidian current.”

 “Cults of the Shadow” (Weiser 1976) - The third book breaks the ground of revealing the background and connections of the infamous and secretive Lefthand Path, including forays into various African religious and magickal practices, Voudoun (with an emphasis on the Petro rites), lefthand tantra from India (Vama Marg), and numerous other reputed traditions both east and west that were infamously tainted with the lefthand path. It is in this book that Michael Bertiaux is introduced to the occult community. Grant even went so far as creating an African version of the Tree of Life, something that Bertiaux had also been working on.

“Nightside of Eden” (Muller 1977) - The fourth book is probably one of the great classics of lefthand path occultism. It is in this book that Grant attempts to pull together a complete system of the Qliphoth with all of its associated symbology and chthonic spiritual entities. Grant’s main premise is that the Qliphoth is nothing more than the backside or unconscious shadow of the Tree of Life, and that a knowledge of the Qabalah is incomplete without a corresponding knowledge of the Qliphoth, which exists as the core and the source of everything spiritual or material.

“Outside the Circles of Time” (Muller 1980) - The fifth book takes the knowledge and concepts forged in the previous two books and brings them together by tying in yet another source, which is that the lefthand path has its origins in extraterrestrial influences. According to Grant, we have not only been visited in the past by extraterrestrials, our entire corpus of dark occultism as well as even some of the genetic anomalies of sorcerous individuals have been due to periodic intercession and intercourse with extraterrestrials. This is where Grant begins to pull themes and ideas from H.P. Lovecraft into his work, as well as introduce the occult world to the workings of a group of magicians in Cincinnati who had proposed a new aeon of the Egyptian goddess Maat. I thought that this was also a good book, but Grant’s ceaseless proofs involving Gematria and other very obscure occult evidence seemed at times to be grasping at straws.

“Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare” (Weiser 1975) - Another excellent book by Grant. This book revisits some of Spare’s writings and reproduces a lot of Spare’s artwork. Grant attempts to categorize and give a more rational framework for Spare’s occult beliefs and practices, but the deeper examinations are contained in the above books. This book had quite a variety of Spare’s artwork beautifully reprinted, much of which had not been in the public purview for half a century or more. If you want to get a real insight and perspective into Austin Spare through his artwork, this is probably one of the best books on that subject. The artwork is carefully reproduced and given a greater critical and logical context that Spare himself was unable to provide in his earlier writings.

Kenneth Grant also produced his own versions of the books by Aleister Crowley “Magic in Theory and Practice” and “Book Four,” combining them together to produce a work entitled “Magick.” I never purchased a copy of this book, so I can’t make any recommendations for it. Grant had an interesting perspective on Crowley, and in some ways seemed to understand him in a deeper and more profound manner than compared to the writings of his other students and torch holders. In all, Grant published more than 21 books, although most of what he published I neither purchased nor read, since the bulk of it came out after the above six books. 

Beyond the above list of works, Grant, in my opinion, began to produce books simply for the sake of marketing himself and selling them. Very little ground breaking material surfaces from these works, and it would seem that Grant’s brilliance finally succumbed to telling tall tales and producing a fictional account of his occult world and experiences. Particularly painful is Grant’s writings about the “Mauve Zone” and his animating of much of Lovecraft’s fictional writing into supposed occult revelations. I found the books, “Hecate’s Fountain” and “Outer Gateways” to be nearly useless and even somewhat silly. I stopped buying and reading Grant’s books after attempting to read these two awful tombs, and decided that he had finally come to the end of producing anything revelatory or even useful in a practical sense.

Grant cranked out many more books, but I only gave them a cursory glance when I ran across them in occult bookstores. I felt that I had the best of what Grant was to produce in his long life, and had no regrets about not purchasing any more of his works. He had faded somewhat from the focus of my work, but his revelations and accomplishments with the six books listed above stand as a foundation to the work that I am doing, and the work that many others are doing. We all owe Kenneth Grant a debt of gratitude for all of the amazing things that he did give us in his literary career.

Frater Barrabbas