Kenneth Grant (Typhonian Order), "Vinum Sabbati" (1961)

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Abstract

This chapter highlights Kenneth Grant’s “Vinum Sabbati” (1961). Grant became an influential figure in the British Thelemic movement, and to some extent British occultism in general, after Aleister Crowley’s death in 1947. “Vinum Sabbati” is a short essay on the Witches’ Sabbath, and two principal lines of reasoning are intertwined in the text. To some extent, Grant argues that the witches’ Sabbath had roots in pre-Christian magical ceremony; the main part of the text, however, is an attempt to explain the logic and magical motive behind the rite of the Sabbath. What Grant here calls “the medieval Sabbath” is perceived by him to be a corrupted remnant of an ancient Egyptian religious ceremony dedicated to the god Set. Moreover, the Devil, presiding over the Sabbath, is described by Grant as a reinterpretation of older pagan deities such as Pan or Set, he is the sun and the life force—but he is also that source of creation in which the performers of the Sabbath are trying to reabsorb themselves. Even though “Vinum Sabbati” is one of Grant’s earliest texts, it expounds basic elements of an understanding of the Devil that is never really revised.
Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSatanism
Subtitle of host publicationA Reader
EditorsPer Faxneld, Johan Nilsson
PublisherOxford University Press
Chapter11
Pages174-186
Number of pages13
ISBN (Electronic)9780197650394, 9780197650400
ISBN (Print)9780199913558, 9780199913534
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2023

Subject classification (UKÄ)

  • History of Religions

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