The Brazen Vessel
Collected Works 2008-2018
by Alkistis Dimech & Peter Grey
The Brazen Vessel documents the creative, magical union 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 It comprises selected texts, essays and presentations, including many previously unpublished works, essays which have fallen out of print and texts that were only published online.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, Apocalyptic Witchcraft and Lucifer: Princeps, and prefigures some of the material in the newly-released Lucifer: Praxis.
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 and forces, 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 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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Table of Contents
PREFACE
Incant! Incant!
The figures and the signs of night
Invocation of Babalon
Embodiment of mystery
Rewilding witchcraft
On sabbatic dance
Raw power: Babalon, witchcraft & female sexuality
Volant: The birdwoman
The Luciferian revolt
Lucifer in a walnut shell
Death mask
The face utterly unlike itself: The ecstasy and passion of Colette Peignot
Strange suppers and spells diverse: Jack Parsons and the origins of The Witchcraft
Beneath the rose
Fly the light: A litany of shadows
The book of spirits: A translation of Le livre des esperitz
The submerged word
The stifling air
In the skin of the beast
In the realm of the senses: Towards an embodied psychedelic consciousness
Dynamics of the occulted body
Forging the body of the witch
Demonic voices
Becoming no-man: The blooded path to Babalon
Satan’s treasures: Dragons, books and the volatilised landscape
The shining land: A foray into the ritual landscape of Cornwall
The pact
The witches’ dance
Cocytus defrosted
Black mass, bright angel
The sacred conspiracy
Seeing through apocalypse
The Amfortas wound
Outside the temple
My time is come: An erotic eschatology of Babalon
TIMELINE
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Photographs and illustrations throughout.
Standard Hardback Edition - Limited to 1225 copies
448 pages. Bound in red linen cloth charged with a cross potent in copper foil, textured white endpapers, white and red silk ribbons, and red-foiled copper dust jacket. Venus kamea insert.
Paperback Edition
448 pages. Sewn paperback, printed on 100 gsm paper, cover with french flaps.
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Press, reviews, endorsements
“… the true worth of this book (besides the obvious physical joy of running finger across artfully-printed and bound paper as you read) is that the writings of both Alkistis and Peter are presented together in way that provides the same depth perception which arises when you see with both eyes or hear with both ears… the essays of both Alkistis and Peter act not like point/counterpoint, but left eye/right eye, or left leg/right leg, constantly propelling the reader together into deeper territories of perception. Neither can be pinned down to a particular focus and very often not even always to a particular writing voice (hardly a surprising thing from two writers who are also lovers)… So The Brazen Vessel is not merely a collection of essays by two writers, but rather a collaborative work born from an erotic coupling of two brilliant and fierce minds, their voices seamlessly weaving in and out of the other’s the way all the best conversations do. And what springs forth from this erotic collaboration is a book I suspect generations of rebels will recognize as a powerful ritual of initiation. Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey are not just writers, nor are they only witches: they are also revolutionaries.”
Rhyd Wildermuth for Sul Books - read the full review here
“This book will seduce you and it will frustrate you. It will frighten you and it will inspire you. You will not agree with all of it. Then again, if you need to agree with all of something in order to find it meaningful and helpful, you’re not ready for The Brazen Vessel… or any of the writings of Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey. If you want your Paganism to be bright and clean and happy, save your money. This book isn’t for you. If you understand that Nature has teeth, you may find it helpful. Because you have teeth too.”
John Beckett - read the full review here
Interview with Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey on Rune Soup - listen here
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About the Authors
Alkistis Dimech is an artist, dancer-choreographer and writer exploring the mysteries of the carnal body and its subtle anatomy through an archaeology and poetics of flesh. Her art and praxis is grounded in ankoku butô (dark dance), which she has practised since 2002.
Alkistis has performed, given workshops and spoken on her practice at events, conferences and research seminars in the UK, Europe and the United States. She is the co-founder of Scarlet Imprint, channelling her creative energies into book design and typography.
Peter Grey is a writer, and the co-founder of Scarlet Imprint. He is the author of The Red Goddess (2007), which has inspired the resurgence of interest in Babalon, the goddess of Revelation. His Apocalyptic Witchcraft (2013) has been called the most important modern book on witchcraft, placing it in the mythopoetic context of the sabbat and in a landscape suffering climate and ecological collapse. His collected writings, from 2008–2018, are published in The Brazen Vessel (2019) with those of Alkistis Dimech. His notable work, The Two Antichrists (2021), is a return to the Babalon and Antichrist workings of Jack Parsons and his eclipsed sodality The Witchcraft. His Lucifer: Princeps (2015) is a study of the origins of the figure of Lucifer; followed up by his most recent work; its second instalment Lucifer: Praxis (2025).
He has spoken at private and public events and conferences worldwide to both practitioners and academics. These have included Occulture, the Occult Conferences in Glastonbury and London, Treadwell’s Bookshop, the Esoteric Book Conference in Seattle, Flambeau Noir in Portland, the Psychology, Art and the Occult conference in London, Here to Go II in Norway, the Trans-States conference in Northampton University, the Magic and Ecology conference for CRASSH at Cambridge University and Pagan Federation events. He can be heard on podcasts including Rune Soup, Secret History of Western Esotericism Podcast, Right Where you are Sitting Now, Thelema Now, Spirit Box, Quarantine Sessions with Jake Kobrin, Against Everyone with Conner Habib, Grimerica, Witches and Wine, Thoth-Hermes, and Rendering Unconscious.
Peter lives with his lover Alkistis Dimech in Cornwall on the edge of the Lizard peninsula, where he surfs in the cold Atlantic, walks the ancient land and pursues his magical practice.
