Kenneth Grant

Author profile

born

May 23, 1924 in Essex, The United Kingdom

gender

male

website

http://www.fulgur.co.uk/authors/grant/

genre

Religion & Spirituality

influences

Aleister Crowley, Austin Osman Spare

About this author

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Kenneth Grant (b.1924, Essex) is the head of several important Thelemic orders and author of the influential “Typhonian Trilogies” series (1972-2002) that includes The Magical Revival, Nightside of Eden and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God.

In 1939, Kenneth Grant chanced upon Crowley’s Magick and Theory and Practise and a few years later began a correspondence with the author (see Remembering Aleister Crowley, Skoob Books, 1991) that would lead to him joining the Ordo Templi Orientis. In 1946, he was initiated into the Argentum Astrum and was confirmed as an IX° in the O.T.O.

Shortly after Crowley’s death in 1947 Grant met David Curwen. Also member of the O.T.O. Sovereign Sanctuary, a keen alchemist and a student of tantra, Curwen initiate...more Kenneth Grant (b.1924, Essex) is the head of several important Thelemic orders and author of the influential “Typhonian Trilogies” series (1972-2002) that includes The Magical Revival, Nightside of Eden and Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God.

In 1939, Kenneth Grant chanced upon Crowley’s Magick and Theory and Practise and a few years later began a correspondence with the author (see Remembering Aleister Crowley, Skoob Books, 1991) that would lead to him joining the Ordo Templi Orientis. In 1946, he was initiated into the Argentum Astrum and was confirmed as an IX° in the O.T.O.

Shortly after Crowley’s death in 1947 Grant met David Curwen. Also member of the O.T.O. Sovereign Sanctuary, a keen alchemist and a student of tantra, Curwen initiated Grant into “a highly recondite formula of the tantric vama marg.” This experience further deepened Grant’s interest in oriental mysticism and he detailed his work with the Advaita Vedanta in a number of essays for Asian journals in the early 1950s (later published as At the Feet of the Guru, Starfire, 2006).

In 1948, Kenneth Grant’s wife Steffi (they were married in 1946) wrote to Austin Osman Spare and the couple began an eight-year friendship with the artist. The bookseller Michael Houghton had already introduced Grant to Spare’s opus, The Book of Pleasure, and Spare elucidated his theories with letters and enclosures of manuscripts, with Kenneth acting as amanuensis. In 1954, Spare and Grant co-founded the Zos Kia Cultus: not a cult in the objective sense, but a designation given to the creative nexus of personal magical experience (see Zos Speaks!, Fulgur, 1999).

In the same year Grant founded the New Isis Lodge, with the intention of providing a conduit for “the influx of cosmic energy from a transplutonic power-zone known to Initiates as Nu-Isis.” The group ran until 1962 and various accounts of the experiences of the group may be found throughout the “Typhonian Trilogies”.

Coetaneous with the New Isis Lodge, Kenneth and Steffi Grant began work on the Carfax Monographs. This series of ten essays was issued between 1959 and 1963 with the explicit intention to “elucidate the hidden lore of the West according to canons preserved in various esoteric orders and movements of recent times.” It was the beginning of a unique 50 year contribution to Thelemic literature and art that spans poetry, biographical works, fact and fiction.

Copyright © Robert Ansell, 2007

http://www.fulgur.co.uk/authors/grant/(less)

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Books by Kenneth Grant

Average rating: 4.02 · 542 ratings · 32 reviews · 30 distinct works

	Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God by Kenneth Grant, Christopher Johnson (Editor), Aleister Crowley 3.90 avg rating — 42 ratings — 4 editions	My rating:
	Nightside of Eden 3.88 avg rating — 34 ratings — published 1995 — 3 editions	My rating:
	Cults of the Shadow 4.00 avg rating — 30 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	The Magical Revival 4.64 avg rating — 28 ratings — 4 editions	My rating:
	Outer Gateways 4.09 avg rating — 22 ratings — published 1995	My rating:
	Outside The Circles Of Time 4.50 avg rating — 16 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:
	Remembering Aleister Crowley 3.84 avg rating — 19 ratings — published 1993	My rating:
	The Images And Oracles of Austin Osman Spare 4.73 avg rating — 15 ratings — 3 editions	My rating:
	Hecate's Fountain 4.13 avg rating — 15 ratings — published 1993	My rating:
	Gamaliel: The Diary Of A Vampire & Dance, Doll, Dance 4.55 avg rating — 11 ratings — 2 editions	My rating:

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Quotes by Kenneth Grant

“Atavistic resurgence, a primal urge towards union with the Divine by returning to the common source of all, is indicated by the backward symbolism peculiar to all Sabbath ceremonies, as also of many ideas connected with witchcraft, sorcery and magic. Whether it be the symbol of the moon presiding over nocturnal ecstasies; the words of power chanted backwards; the back-to-back dance performed in opposition to the sun's course; the devil's tail - are all instances of reversal and symbolic of Will and Desire turning within and down to subconscious regions, to the remote past, there to surprise the required atavistic energy for purposes of transformation, healing, initiation, construction or destruction.”
― Kenneth Grant, Hidden Lore: Hermetic Glyphs

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Kenneth Grant

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Upcoming Events

Quotes by Kenneth Grant

combine editions
Books by Kenneth Grant