Apocalyptic Witchcraft
Apocalyptic Witchcraft
Paperback – March 21 2013
by Peter Grey (Author)
The spectre of witchcraft is haunting the West, the dead giving up their secrets. This is a ritual unveiling of these mysteries. It is a vision and a revelation of the mytho-poetic structure of the Art. Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a bold project which does not seek to impose an orthodoxy on what is the heresy of heresies. Instead, it suggests a way forward.
Apocalyptic Witchcraft gives a compelling and profound account of the Sabbat and Wild Hunt as living experiences. These are the core of our ritual practice. Dream, lunar and, critically, menstrual magic are explored as a path to this knowledge. The wolf, the Devil, and the Goddess of witchcraft are then encountered in a landscape that ultimately reveals the witch to her or himself. These are not separate threads, but arise from a deep mythic structure and are woven together into a single unifying vision. Alternating between polemic, poetic and ecstatic prose, an harmonious course is revealed in a sequence of elegant stratagems. The book is threaded together with a cycle of hymns to Inanna, pearls on the tapestry of night. Seemingly disparate aspects are joined into a vision which is neither afraid of blessing nor curse. This is a daring undertaking, born from both urgency and need. It offers a renewed sense of purpose and meaning for a witchcraft that has seen many of its treasured ideas about itself destroyed. An apocalyptic age demands an apocalyptic witchcraft, and this is a book which is offered up to revolutionise the body of the craft, a way out of the dark impasse. Tradition is not static, it flows, and this work pours forth a vision for the future. Founded in pilgrimage and ritual, encountered in dreams and gleaned from the conversations of both doves and crows, a remarkable narrative unfolds. Its wings span from prehistory, through the witch panic and it emerges fully fledged into our present moment of crisis. It offers a witchcraft for our time. Apocalyptic Witchcraft is a controversial, luminous text. A shuddering paroxysm of eternal renewal beneath the serpent moon. It is neither a how-to book, nor a history, rather it is a magical vision of the Art in its entirety.
About the Authors
Peter Grey is the co-founder of Scarlet Imprint with Alkistis Dimech. He is a devotee of Babalon and the author of The Red Goddess, which has become the standard work on the goddess of Revelation. His controversial Apocalyptic Witchcraft has been called the most important modern book on witchcraft, placing it in the context of the sabbat and in a landscape suffering ecological collapse. It stands in the tradition of the work done by Peter Redgrove, Ted Hughes and Robert Graves. His latest work is Lucifer: Princeps, a study of the origins of the figure of Lucifer. Further essays can be found in Howlings, Devoted, At the Crossroads and XVI. His work has also appeared in numerous journals and collections, such as The Fenris Wolf, and online through the Scarlet Imprint journal scarletimprint.com/journal. Peter has spoken at conferences in England, Scotland, Norway and the United States, including Occulture, the Occult Conferences in Glastonbury and London, the Museum of Witchcraft and Magic in Cornwall, Treadwell’s Bookshop, the Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle, Here to Go in Norway, and many others. Presentations on witchcraft, grimoire magic and Lucifer can be seen on the Scarlet Imprint YouTube channel.
