Kenneth Grant

Kenneth Grant (born May 23, 1924 , † January 15, 2011 ) was a British occultist and head of the Typhonian OTO, an OTO offshoot . He was a student of Aleister Crowley and Austin Osman Spare, and he worked with several well-known magicians , including Gerald Gardner and Gregor A. Gregorius .

The Typhonian OTO and the New Isis Lodge

Kenneth Grant is one of Aleister Crowley's students, who each claim to have been appointed by Crowley as his successor as head of the Ordo Templi Orientis . This claim was challenged by Karl Germer , who also saw himself as head of the OTO. After Grant tried to establish closer contacts to Gregor A. Gregorius and his Fraternitas Saturni lodge in Germany, Germer announced that Grant was no longer a member of the OTO.

Grant and some British occultists founded New Isis Lodge in April 1955 , which was magically active until 1962. The publication of the New Isis Lodge manifesto in the box publications of the Fraternitas Saturni was the actual trigger for Karl Germer to expel Kenneth Grant from the order.

The magical work at New Isis Lodge (Nu-Isis) was aimed at exploring the back of the Kabbalistic tree of life , or in other words, trying to reach the sacred through the deepest and darkest secrets. Rites from all parts of the world were celebrated, mostly under the guidance of initiates of these rites.

Grant's large collection of magical objects, including some artifacts from Crowley's legacy, played a role in some of the rituals. The stories of Howard Phillips Lovecraft also influenced the design and interpretation of these rituals. There are also clear echoes of Tantra , especially Vama Marga and Kaula Marga , in the work of the New Isis Lodge .

The New Isis Lodge was a special kind of “research lodge ” whose research work was considered to be over after only seven years. Against the background of the results of this work, Kenneth Grant founded the Typhonian OTO (TOTO), which differs significantly from the other orders, which are derived from Crowley's OTO. The TOTO does not have a fixed system of degrees, since the basis of an initiation should not be an externally celebrated rite, but progress in the order can only be achieved through internally experienced self- initiations . Also, Aleister Crowley's writings are not accorded the high status they have in other OTOs, but Thelema is viewed as a living current that develops with the members. In the TOTO's view, Thelema should be viewed in isolation from the person Aleister Crowley if anything of value is to emerge from it.

Last but not least, these views about the importance of Crowley and about the nature of initiations and degrees led to a bitter dispute between Kenneth Grant's TOTO and the Caliphaten OTO (COTO), which was founded in California and which managed to establish itself as the official successor OTO through legal channels.

Austin Osman Spare

Kenneth Grant was a friend of Austin Osman Spare's later years. He admired Spare's art and also his magical approaches and techniques. Without the journalistic ambitions of Grant, who persuaded Spare to write a last, fragmentary and previously unpublished book, the Grimoire of Zos , the name and art of Austin Osman Spare would probably be a lot less known than they have become, at least in circles with an occultist interest .

The Typhonic Trilogies

Many of Grant's ideas and approaches are easily misunderstood. These include, among other things, the use of the dark mythology of the American author HP Lovecraft , in which Grant often quotes the work of Michael Paul Bertiaux and his connection between Voodoo and Lovecraft's mythology, or his interpretations of alleged UFO sightings. Likewise the Liber Pennae Praenumbra , which he received from Maggie Ingalls (Soror Nema). It is the new aeon of Maat announced and called IPSOS as a word for this eon. He let this flow into his book Outside the Circles of Time , as he understands it as "a key to the transaonic understanding of magic". According to this, the eons should not run temporally or linearly, but parallel to each other, they should be experienced depending on the state of consciousness . Grant also refers to Jack Parsons Liber Babalon , the alleged fourth chapter of Liber AL vel Legis , in some of his books, for example in The Magickal Revival or in Hecates Fountain . Grant's books are often ridiculed because the accumulation of bizarre narratives makes reading between the lines very difficult. On the other hand, Kenneth Grant's books are considered works for advanced learners, which can only be understood through personal experience, but are closed to beginners in magical practice. These books are challenging and demanding of the reader, but they offer glimpses into the magic of the late twentieth century.

Some volumes of the three typhonic trilogies are no longer printed and are therefore only available second-hand, only The Magical Revival , Nightside of Eden , Cults of the Shadow , Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God , Outside the Circles of Time and Hecate's Fountain are below the titles Revival of the Magick , The Night Side of Eden , Shadow Cults , Aleister Crowley & the Hidden God , Beyond the Time Circles and Hecate's Fountain appeared in German. Outer Gateways was announced by Edition Roter Drache for the summer under the title Jenseitspforten , further parts are to follow. Kenneth Grant's passion for creating neologisms makes his books difficult to understand even for people who speak English as their mother tongue.

bibliography

The Typhonic Trilogies

• The Magical Revival ISBN 087728217X
• Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God ISBN 0877282501
• Cults of the Shadow ISBN 1871438675
• Nightside of Eden ISBN 1871438721
• Outside the Circles of Time ISBN 0584104685
• Hecate's Fountain ISBN 1871438969
• Outer Gateways ISBN 1871438128
• Beyond the Mauve Zone
• The Ninth Arch

Other works on the occult

• Remembering Aleister Crowley ISBN 1871438128
• Hidden Lore: The Carfax Monographs by Kenneth & Steffi Grant
• Images and Oracles of Austin Osman Spare
• Zos Speaks! (via Austin Osman Spare)
• At the feet of the Guru (A compilation of articles including those published in Man, Myth and Magic )

poetry

• The Gulls Beak
• Black to Black
• Convolvulous

Novellas and short stories

• The Stellar Lodge
• Against the Light
• Snakewand and the Darker Strain
• The Other Child and other tales
• Gamaliel Diary of a Vampire and Dance, Doll, Dance

German publications

• The Magickal Revieval, Rita Ruther, 1997, ISBN 3-929588-11-0 .
• The Nightside of Eden, Red Dragon Edition, 2008, ISBN 978-3-939459-07-1 .
• Cults of the Shadow, Red Dragon Edition, 2010, ISBN 978-3-939459-29-3 .
• Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God, Red Dragon Edition, 2010, ISBN 978-3-939459-32-3 .
• Jenseits der Zeitkreise (Outside the Circles of Time), Roter Drache Edition, 2012, ISBN 978-3-939459-55-2 .
• Hecate's Fountain, Red Dragon Edition, 2013, ISBN 978-3-939459-72-9 .
• Outer Gateways, Red Dragon Edition, 2014, ISBN 978-3-939459-75-0 .

literature

• Kenneth Grant: Cults Of The Shadow . Skoob, London 1994, ISBN 1-871438-67-5 .
• Kenneth Grant: Hecate's Fountain . Skoob, London 1992, ISBN 1-871438-96-9 .

Web links

• Peter-Robert König on the TOTO
• An English review of the Typhonic Trilogy

Individual evidence

1. ↑ In Memoriam: Kenneth Grant
2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from October 9, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Golem issue 06