Kenneth Grant
- This article is about a Thelema personality
Kenneth Grant (✦23 May 1924 – †15 January 2011) was an English ceremonial magician and advocate of the Thelemic religion. A poet, novelist, and writer, he founded his own Thelemic organization, the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis—later renamed the Typhonian Order—with his wife, Steffi Grant. Born in Ilford, Essex, Grant developed an interest in occultism and Asian religion 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 ceremonial magician who had founded Thelema in 1904. Crowley instructed Grant in his esoteric practices and initiated him into his own occult order, the Ordo Templi Orientis (O.T.O.). When Crowley died in 1947, Grant was seen as his heir apparent in Britain, and was appointed as such by the American head of the O.T.O., Karl Germer. In 1949, Grant befriended the occult artist Austin Osman Spare and in the ensuing years, helped to publicize Spare's artwork through a series of publications. 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 the 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 Hindu guru Ramana Maharshi and publishing a range of articles on the topic. He was particularly interested in the Hindu tantra, incorporating ideas from it into the Thelemic practices of sex magic. On Germer's death in 1969, Grant proclaimed himself Outer Head of the O.T.O. This title was disputed by the American Grady McMurtry, who took control of the O.T.O. Grant's Order became known as the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis, operating from his home in Golders Green, north 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.
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, the 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.
Personal life
Grant was a reclusive figure. Unlike various contemporaries in the occult scene, he did not lecture publicly. Janine Chapman, an esotericist who met Grant during the 1970s, described him as "an attractive, well-mannered, well-dressed man in his forties, intelligent, cultivated, and friendly."
Legacy
The historian Dave Evans noted that Grant was "certainly unique" in the history of British esotericism because of his "close dealings" with Crowley, Spare, and Gardner, the "three most influential Western occultists of the 20th century." The occultist and comic book author Alan Moore thought it "hard to name" any other living individual who "has done more to shape contemporary western thinking with regard to Magic" than Grant, and characterized the Typhonian OTO as "a schoolboy gone berserk on brimstone aftershave."
In 2003, the historian of Western esotericism Henrik Bogdan expressed the view that Grant was "perhaps (the) most original and prolific English author of the post-modern occultist genre." Djurdjevic stated that Grant's engagement with Indian spiritual traditions was "both substantial and innovative" as well as controversial while adding that Grant's emphasis on the importance of female sexual fluids helped contribute to the "transformation of the hegemonic masculinity" in Western occultism. Although the membership of Grant's own occult groups remained small, his Typhonian Thelema represented a significant influence over various other occult groups and currents. They included chaos magic, as well as the Temple of Set, the Dragon Rouge, and Andrew D. Chumbley's Cultus Sabbati. The anthropologist Justin Woodman noted that Grant was "one of the key figures" for bringing Lovecraft's work into magical theory and practice, adding that his writings were a "formative influence" on Lovecraftian groups like the Esoteric Order of Dagon, founded in North America during the late 1980s.
The occultist Peter Levenda discussed Grant's work in his 2013 book, The Dark Lord. Here, he asserted that Grant's importance was in attempting to create "a more global character for Thelema" by introducing ideas from Indian Tantra, Yezidism, and Afro-Caribbean syncretic religions.
- More information is available at [ Wikipedia:Kenneth_Grant ]
Sources
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