EDGE OF
THE CIRCLE BOOKS
IS PLEASED
TO PRESENT
THE
FOLLOWING NEW TITLE
FROM
SCARLET IMPRINT:
THE BRAZEN VESSEL
Collected Works 2008 - 2018
by Alkistis Dimech & Peter
Grey
From scarlet imprint, July 2019
Standard Edition Hardcover - $89.95
Bibliotheque Rouge paperback - $45.00
“The Brazen Vessel” documents the
creative, magical partnership of Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey from
2008 to 2018. It comprises selected texts, essays and presentations,
including many previously unpublished works, essays which have fallen
out of print and texts that were only published online. The anthology
marks the first appearance in print of such pivotal texts as
“Rewilding Witchcraft,” a translation of the critical goetic
source *Le livre des esperitz*, and an extended and original
treatment of the witches’ dance. “The Brazen Vessel” testifies
to the prescient, provocative and influential nature of their work.
From the invocation of Babalon, given
at the Thelemic Symposium in Oxford in 2008, to the eschatology of
Babalon given at Occulture Berlin in 2018, the 35 works gathered here
give insight into the process, thought and praxis of the authors,
both as individuals with distinct bodies of work, and as a dynamic
magical union. The works in The Brazen Vessel cast significant light
on ideas developed through “The Red Goddess” (2007), “Apocalyptic
Witchcraft” (2013) and “Lucifer: Princeps” (2015), and
prefigures some of the material in “Lucifer: Praxis”
(forthcoming).
The texts reveal the continuities and
evolution of the authors’ work over a decade. Taken as a whole,
their work proposes unorthodox and undogmatic understandings of
Lucifer and Babalon, as demonised divine figures, as the sources of
transmission of the western traditions of magic and witchcraft. A
shared love of poetry and the magical power of the word is evident in
their distinctive voices. Both have given primacy to the living body
in their practice, through dance, performance, ritual and rites of
devotion and ordeal. Both situate their magical work within the wider
ecological and political environment. In a polyphony of texts, the
ongoing dialogue between two practitioners is made apparent, and the
important and innovative work of Alkistis given its due.
During the ten years documented in the
anthology, Scarlet Imprint led a nomadic existence, moving from
Brighton to Dover, the French Alps and the Welsh Borders, and finally
to West Cornwall; these liminal landscapes and their denizens people
the book. The texts evidence a second web of journeys to conferences,
gatherings and symposia in London, Glastonbury, Brighton, Cornwall,
Scotland, Norway, Belgium, Portland and Seattle. Overlapping with
these are a series of pilgrimages to sacred sites from Patmos to
Cefalù, to standing stones, stone circles, cliffs, caves and the
wilds.
“The Brazen Vessel” is a work of
process, experiment and risk, written by practitioners at the leading
edge of the magical revival.
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