Kenneth Grant (23 May 1924 – 15 January 2011) was an English occultist, ceremonial magician, writer, and advocate of Thelema. He founded his own Thelemic organisation, the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis (later renamed the Typhonian Order) with his wife Steffi Grant.
Born in Ilford, England, Grant developed an interest in occultism and Eastern religions during his teenage years. After service with the British Army during the Second World War, he returned to Britain and became the personal secretary of Aleister Crowley, the founder of Thelema. Crowley instructed Grant in his esoteric practices and initiated him into his own occult order, Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). When Crowley died in 1947, Grant was seen as his heir apparent in Great Britain, and was appointed as such by the American head of O.T.O., Karl Germer. In 1949, Grant befriended the occult artist Austin Osman Spare, and in ensuing years helped to publicise Spare's work.
In 1954 Grant founded the London-based New Isis Lodge, through which he added to many of Crowley's Thelemic teachings, bringing in extraterrestrial themes and influences from the work of fantasy writer H. P. Lovecraft. This was anathema to Germer, who expelled Grant from O.T.O. in 1955, although the latter continued to operate his Lodge regardless until 1962. During the 1950s he also came to be increasingly interested in Hinduism, exploring the teachings of the Indian guru Ramana Maharshi and publishing a range of articles on the topic. He was particularly interested in Hindu tantric literature and Advaita Vedanta, incorporating them into Thelemic practices. On Germer's death in 1969, Grant proclaimed himself Outer Head of O.T.O. This title was disputed by the American Grady McMurtry, who took control of O.T.O. Grant's Order became known as the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis, operating from his home in Golders Green, London. In 1959 he began publishing on occultism and wrote the Typhonian Trilogies as well as various novels and books of poetry, much of which propagated the work of Crowley and Spare.
Grant's writings and teachings have proved a significant influence over other currents of occultism, including chaos magic, the Temple of Set, and the Dragon Rouge. They also attracted academic interest within the study of Western esotericism, particularly from Henrik Bogdan and Dave Evans.
Biography
Early life and Aleister Crowley: 1924–1947 Grant was born on 23 May 1924 in Ilford, Essex, the son of a Welsh clergyman. By his early teenage years, Grant had read widely on the subject of Western esotericism and Asian religions, including the work of prominent occultist Helena Blavatsky. He had made use of a personal magical symbol ever since being inspired to do so in a visionary dream he experienced in 1939; he spelled its name variously as A'ashik, Oshik, or Aossic. Aged 18, in the midst of the Second World War, Grant volunteered to join the British Army, later commenting that he hoped to be posted to British India, where he could find a spiritual guru to study under. He was never posted abroad, and was ejected from the army aged 20 due to an unspecified medical condition.
Grant was fascinated by the work of the occultist Aleister Crowley, having read a number of his books. Eager to meet Crowley, Grant unsuccessfully wrote to Crowley's publishers, asking them to give him his address; however, the publisher had moved address themselves, meaning that they never received his letter. He also requested that Michael Houghton, proprietor of Central London's esoteric bookstore Atlantis Bookshop, introduce him to Crowley. Houghton refused, privately remarking that Grant was "mentally unstable." Grant later stated his opinion that Houghton had refused because he did not wish to "incur evil karma" from introducing the young man to Crowley, but later suggested that it was because Houghton desired him for his own organisation, The Order of Hidden Masters, and thereby did not want him to become Crowley's disciple. Persisting, Grant wrote letters to the new address of Crowley's publishers, asking that they pass his letters on to Crowley himself. These resulted in the first meeting between the two, in autumn 1944, at the Bell Inn in Buckinghamshire.
After several further meetings and an exchange of letters, Grant agreed to work for Crowley as his secretary and personal assistant. Now living in relative poverty, Crowley was unable to pay Grant for his services in money, instead paying him in magical instruction. In March 1945, Grant moved into a lodge cottage in the grounds of Netherwood, a Sussex boarding house where Crowley was living. He continued living there with Crowley for several months, dealing with the old man's correspondences and needs. In turn, he was allowed to read from Crowley's extensive library on occult subjects, and performed ceremonial magic workings with him, becoming a high initiate of Crowley's magical group, Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). Crowley saw Grant as a potential leader of O.T.O. in the UK, writing in his diary, "value of Grant. If I die or go to the USA, there must be a trained man to take care of the English O.T.O." However, they also argued, with Grant trying to convince Crowley to relocate to London. On one occasion Crowley shouted at him: "You are the most consummate BORE that the world has yet known. And this at 20!"
Grant's family disliked that he was working for no wage, and pressured him to resign, which he did in June 1945, leaving Netherwood. Crowley wrote to Grant's father, stating that he was "very sorry to part with Kenneth" and that he felt that Grant was "giving up his real future." To David Curwen, an O.T.O. member who was another of his correspondents, Crowley related his opinion that "I may have treated him too severely." Crowley put Curwen in contact with Grant, with Grant later claiming that he learned much from Curwen, particularly regarding the Kaula school of Tantra; in his later writings, he made reference to Curwen using his Order name of Frater Ani Abthilal. Although they continued to correspond with one another, Crowley and Grant never met again, for the former died in December 1947. Grant attended Crowley's funeral at a Brighton crematorium, while accompanied by his new wife, Steffi.
The New Isis Lodge and Austin Osman Spare: 1947–1969
Steffi Grant introduced herself to the occult artist Austin Osman Spare in 1949, having learned about him while she was modelling for Herbert Budd, a tutor at St. Martin's School of Art who had studied alongside Spare. Steffi purchased two of Spare's artworks, which she gave to Kenneth as a present for his twenty-fifth birthday. She subsequently introduced her husband to Spare. At the time, Spare had fallen into poverty, living in obscurity in a South London flat. Although making some money as an artist and art tutor, he was largely financially supported by his friend Frank Letchford, whom he affectionately referred to as his "son". There was some animosity between Letchford and Grant, although it is apparent that Spare preferred the former, having known him for 12 years longer, and placing him first in his will. Grant desired a closer relationship, and in 1954 began signing his letters to Spare "thy son." Letchford claimed that Spare often told the Grants "white lies ... to boost a flagging ego." Grant's first published work represented a brief "appreciation" of Spare's work that was included in a catalogue for the artist's exhibition held at Temple Bar in London in 1949.
Grant had continued studying Crowley's work, and a year after Crowley's death was acknowledged as a Ninth Degree member of O.T.O. by Karl Germer, Crowley's successor as Head of O.T.O. Grant then successfully applied to Germer for a charter to operate the first three O.T.O. degrees and run his own lodge, which was granted in March 1951. As this would mean that his lodge would be the only chartered O.T.O. body in England at the time, Grant believed that it meant that he was now head of O.T.O. in Britain. Germer put Grant in contact with Wilfred Talbot Smith, an English Thelemite based in California who had founded the Agape Lodge, knowing that Smith was the only man who had practical knowledge of O.T.O. degree work. Smith was eager to help, and wrote at length on his experiences in founding a lodge, although he was made uneasy by Grant's magical seal of "Aossic" for reasons that have never been ascertained, and their correspondence soon petered out.
Grant began restructuring the system of O.T.O. by augmenting its grading structure with that of Crowley's other occult order, the A∴A∴. This attempt failed, as Grant's attentions were increasingly drawn into his founding and running of the New Isis Lodge. The lodge became operational in April 1955 when Grant issued a manifesto announcing his discovery of an extraterrestrial "Sirius/Set current" upon which the lodge was to be based. In this manifesto, Grant claimed that a new energy was emanating down from Earth from another planet which he identified with Nuit, a goddess who appears in the first chapter of Crowley's Thelemic holy text, The Book of the Law. Germer however deemed it "blasphemy" that Grant had identified a single planet with Nuit; on 20 July 1955, Germer issued a "Note of Expulsion" expelling Grant from O.T.O.
Grant however ignored Germer's letter of expulsion, continuing to operate the New Isis Lodge under the claim that he had powers from the "Inner Plane". Upon learning of Grant's expulsion, Smith feared that O.T.O. would split up into warring factions much as the Theosophical Society had done following the death of Blavatsky. Grant's Lodge continued to operate until 1962. According to Grant, the group consisted of about thirty members and met every seventh Friday at the lodge's premises, which for a while were in the basement of Curwen's furrier's store at Melcombe Street, near to Baker Street in central London. During the period in which he worked with the lodge he claimed to have received two important texts from preternatural sources, the Wisdom of S'lba and OKBISh or The Book of the Spider.
From 1953 to 1961 Grant immersed himself in the study of Hinduism, becoming a follower of the Hindu guru Ramana Maharshi. He was also interested in the work of another Hindu teacher, Lord Kusuma Haranath, and was credited with encouraging and helping to create the three-volume Lord Haranath: A Biography by Akella Ramakrishna Sastri. He also authored articles on Advaita Vedanta and other Hindu topics for Indian journals like the Bombay-based The Call Divine, as well as for Richard Cavendish's Man, Myth & Magic. Many of these articles would be collected into a single anthology and published as At the Feet of the Guru in 2005. Grant believed that the O.T.O.'s sex magic teachings needed to be refashioned along tantric principles from Indian religion, in doing so relying heavily on Curwen's ideas about tantra.
After Spare's death, Grant began to focus more on his own writing career. From 1959 to 1963, Grant privately published the Carfax Monographs, a series of short articles on magic published in ten instalments, each at a limited print run of 100. Nine of these volumes included original artworks produced by Steffi, reflecting the increasing collaboration between husband and wife which would be reflected in many of Grant's subsequent publications. The Carfax Monographs would eventually be assembled together and re-released as Hidden Lore in 1989. In 1966 he also privately published a small book of his poems, Black to Black and Other Poems. During the 1950s and 1960s Grant also authored a number of novellas, although these would only be published by Starfire Publishing between 1997 and 2012.
Typhonian O.T.O. and growing fame: 1970–2011