The de Grainville Manuscripts 

This work is of significant importance and beautifully reproduces both the original manuscripts and directly represents what Pierre-André de Grainville (1728-1794) wrote (and, most valuably, deleted). 

The contents have been faithfully reproduced and directly translated, including the many deletions and annotations of the specific numbers referred to throughout the document. This is the most ‘completely incomplete' version achievable. Why is this so important?  The well-intentioned ‘revival' of the Élus Coën by Robert Ambelain was assembled from incomplete source documents, using the spiritual transmission and lineage passed on via the secret Chevalier Profès and Grand-Profès grades of the Rite Écossais Rectifé of Willermoz, which continue to be preserved within some of the regular masonic iterations of French Freemasonry. The path and training of a Coën is necessarily long and requires guidance, personal devotion and instruction. It is, therefore, immediately apparent that Ambelain heavily utilised de Grainville's manuscripts in his reconstitution. What also becomes evident is the number of gaps that he filled, and reflecting upon these, one interprets the substituted material differently. Indeed, for these reasons neither the Recuil d'hiéroglyphes nor the Table alphabétique des 2400 noms of the Fonds Prunelle de Lière have been included in this book. 

The path of the Coën is a most obscure, recruiting as it does from a small proportion of members of the myriad Martinist Orders. The apparent cachet associated with the Order belies that the work is arduous, time-consuming, and solitary. In these manuscripts, de Grainville clarifies his experiences with, and practical comments upon, the ritual work incumbent upon the Élus Coën practitioner in his encounters with discarnate beings (along with hidden references that are only recognisable to a Coën). This is of the most outstanding value to a practitioner, as the writings of de Grainville bridge the years between the original iteration and the reconstructed Coën orders today. 

In summary, this edition of les Manuscrit de Grainville stands alone in its genuine value and greatest utility to understanding the Élus Coën. The series of primary Coën documents that this completes reflects the devotion given to this most verifiably accurate edition of extant EC material, which is of the greatest value to the practising Coën and those interested in eighteenth-century theurgy alike.