Invasion of the Energy Spectres
In this talk, I look at the ufological turn in occultism spearheaded by the occultist Kenneth Grant. Critical to understanding this turn, but less well studied than Grant's Typhonian Trilogies, is his novella, Against the Light. Though ostensibly a work of fiction, Against the Light is replete with tangible terrestrial locations and actual sites of supposed ingress. I will explore some of these sites, particularly in Suffolk, and their significance in understanding the palimpsest of initiation and ufologicks that weaves through Grant's work, a lineage immediately traceable to Arthur Machen's meld of Celtic folklore and cosmic horror. Touched upon in Against the Light and further developed in his non-fiction work, The Outer Gateways, Grant expounded the idea that contactees were receiving warnings about our planet, post-Hiroshima. As such, we can construe this aspect of his work as a form of occult ecology on a cosmic scale, and we will discuss the development of his thinking in this area. I will also briefly review the contemporaneous work of Maggie Ingalls and Allen Holub during the 1970s and their adjacency to Grant's explorations. The talk will then explore the influence of Tantra and Buddhism on Grant's extraterrestrial concerns. Finally, we will look at the connection between Grant's void, established through this coopting of Eastern religion, and the cosmic nihilism of Thomas Ligotti. How might we embrace this void or heed its warning, and how can our work feed into a lineage of writers and visionary artists that is both folkloric and cautionary?
The Underworld Service
The Underworld Service is a musical project celebrating syncretism through electronic hymns and sermons. For this performance, we will perform two hymns to the outer reaches of occultism. This performance will complement and expand on the ideas of the talk, demonstrating a creative implementation of ultraterrestrial electronics. In the first hymn, we will invoke the imagined cult of Ixaxar, first realised in the fiction of Arthur Machen and later coded into the outré mythos of Kenneth Grant as one of his many touchstones for traffic with alien entities. In the final piece, we will soundtrack the work of Maggie Ingalls and Allen Holub, cohorts of Grant, who, in the mid-1970s, achieved rapport with transhuman entities known as the Forgotten Ones.
Bio
Andy Sharp is a multimedia artist and writer. For many years, he ran English Heretic, a creative research project that subverted heritage history to explore an esoteric rendering of England. The project released over a dozen records and magazines, anthologised by Repeater Books in 2020 as The English Heretic Collection. Since then, he has written a study of magic through the lens of geography called The Astral Geographic, published by Watkins Wisdom in 2023. He continues to talk on a wide range of esoteric and cultural subjects and to develop music under the moniker The Underworld Service as an application of his magical research. He has an MSc in Neuroscience and lives in London.
In this talk, I look at the ufological turn in occultism spearheaded by the occultist Kenneth Grant. Critical to understanding this turn, but less well studied than Grant's Typhonian Trilogies, is his novella, Against the Light. Though ostensibly a work of fiction, Against the Light is replete with tangible terrestrial locations and actual sites of supposed ingress. I will explore some of these sites, particularly in Suffolk, and their significance in understanding the palimpsest of initiation and ufologicks that weaves through Grant's work, a lineage immediately traceable to Arthur Machen's meld of Celtic folklore and cosmic horror. Touched upon in Against the Light and further developed in his non-fiction work, The Outer Gateways, Grant expounded the idea that contactees were receiving warnings about our planet, post-Hiroshima. As such, we can construe this aspect of his work as a form of occult ecology on a cosmic scale, and we will discuss the development of his thinking in this area. I will also briefly review the contemporaneous work of Maggie Ingalls and Allen Holub during the 1970s and their adjacency to Grant's explorations. The talk will then explore the influence of Tantra and Buddhism on Grant's extraterrestrial concerns. Finally, we will look at the connection between Grant's void, established through this coopting of Eastern religion, and the cosmic nihilism of Thomas Ligotti. How might we embrace this void or heed its warning, and how can our work feed into a lineage of writers and visionary artists that is both folkloric and cautionary?
The Underworld Service
The Underworld Service is a musical project celebrating syncretism through electronic hymns and sermons. For this performance, we will perform two hymns to the outer reaches of occultism. This performance will complement and expand on the ideas of the talk, demonstrating a creative implementation of ultraterrestrial electronics. In the first hymn, we will invoke the imagined cult of Ixaxar, first realised in the fiction of Arthur Machen and later coded into the outré mythos of Kenneth Grant as one of his many touchstones for traffic with alien entities. In the final piece, we will soundtrack the work of Maggie Ingalls and Allen Holub, cohorts of Grant, who, in the mid-1970s, achieved rapport with transhuman entities known as the Forgotten Ones.
Bio
Andy Sharp is a multimedia artist and writer. For many years, he ran English Heretic, a creative research project that subverted heritage history to explore an esoteric rendering of England. The project released over a dozen records and magazines, anthologised by Repeater Books in 2020 as The English Heretic Collection. Since then, he has written a study of magic through the lens of geography called The Astral Geographic, published by Watkins Wisdom in 2023. He continues to talk on a wide range of esoteric and cultural subjects and to develop music under the moniker The Underworld Service as an application of his magical research. He has an MSc in Neuroscience and lives in London.