Michael Staley presents Kenneth Grant's The Ninth Arch (in-store)

The Ninth Arch was first published in 2002, as the ninth and final volume in the series of Kenneth Grant’s Typhonian Trilogies, the publication of which had started with The Magical Revival in 1972.

Recently reprinted by Starfire Publishing in both hardback and paperback formats, The Ninth Arch runs to 592 pages, includes a 32-page section of scintillating colour and black & white plates and encompasses illustrated endpapers, as well as a colour frontispiece.

The book is an expanded commentary on Liber OKBISh, ‘The Book of the Spider’, a rich and exotic text which was received in the late 1950s during the period of New Isis Lodge. This document has echoes of an earlier text, ‘Wisdom of S’lba’, whose origins can be traced back to the mid-1940s; indeed, there are quotes from S’lba embedded in the text of ‘The Book of the Spider’.

In this talk about The Ninth Arch, Michael Staley considers the role of transmitted texts, the circumstances of its reception within New Isis Lodge, and the background against which ‘The Book of the Spider’ was earthed. He then goes on to consider some of the main strands of the text. What, for instance, is the significance of the Spider? In what sense was The Ninth Arch written as the culmination of the Typhonian Trilogies?