Kenneth Grant

Kenneth Grant
Grant in the library of his Golders Green home. Taken by Jan Magee in 1978.
Born	(1924-05-23)23 May 1924 Ilford, Essex, England
Died	15 January 2011(2011-01-15) (aged 86)
Nationality	English
Occupation	Novelist; writer; ceremonial magician
Spouse(s)	Steffi Grant (m.1946–2011)

Kenneth Grant (23 May 1924 – 15 January 2011) was an English ceremonial magician and prominent advocate of the Thelemite religion. A poet, novelist, and writer, he founded his own Thelemite organisation, 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 several months serving in India with the British Army amid 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, initiating 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. Founding the London-based New Isis Lodge in 1954, Grant added to many of Crowley's Thelemite teachings, bringing in extraterrestrial themes and influences from the work of 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.

In 1949, Grant befriended the occult artist Austin Osman Spare, and in ensuing years helped to publicise Spare's artwork through a series of publications. 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 Golders Green home. In 1959 he began publishing on the subject of occultism, and proceeded to author the Typhonian Trilogies, as well as a number of novels, books of poetry, and publications devoted to propagating the work of Crowley and Spare.