Kenneth Grant and the Typhonian Ordo Templi Orientis

Orientation

I happen to believe that Kenneth Grant, Outer Head of the Order of the so-called “Typhonian O.T.O.”, has as much authority as anyone to make that claim. In order to demonstrate the truth of this assertion, I must provide you, the reader, with a short history lesson, which follows, set forth in more or less chronological order.

Our story begins on 14 March 1942, when Crowley wrote to Karl Germer: “I shall appoint you my successor as O.H.O. but on special terms. It is quite clear to me that a complete change in the structure of the Order, and in its methods is necessary. The Secret is the basis, and you must select the proper people.” (1*) Crowley called Kenneth Grant “a definite gift from the Gods” and wrote in a memorandum in his diary, 7 February 1945: “Value of Grant: if I die or go to U.S.A., there must be a trained man to take care of the English O.T.O.”

Detailed history of the various O.T.O. groups and Plan 93 From Outer Space.

Crowley, Germer, Grant

From whence did Crowley’s authority derive? In April 1912, he was chartered Grandmaster (X°). Until 1914 and the outbreak of the War, only two lodges were operative in the United Kingdom: Crowley’s and another headed by G.M. Cowie who, like an L. Ron Hubbard, would later run off with the order’s treasury. There can be no doubt, then, that Crowley remained supreme authority over the O.T.O. in England for the next several decades, although he was expelled from the O.T.O. by Theodor Reuss in 1921.

Around 1945, Gerald Gardner, “our beloved Scire,” the leader of many British witches, allegedly was chartered “to constitute a camp of the Ordo Templi Orientis, in the degree of Minerval,” which document seemingly was signed by Crowley. (2*) Gardner, however, never found the time to run the camp, and it is said that this alone led to Germer’s decision to allow Grant to work the first three degrees.

In July 1951, Karl Germer wrote to Frederic Mellinger, saying, “If [the Swiss Hermann Joseph] Metzger would have had access to all of A.C.’S works in the way Grant has had I’d be inclined to see him [as] a parallel case. However — like Grant — there seems to be a lack of money.” (3*) On 18 January 1952, Germer wrote to Grant, “If we want to get the O.T.O. properly going again, we need a competent leader, not only for England but for the whole world. It must be somebody who knows the thing inside out ... I have often thought that you might be chosen for the job.”

Germer himself refused to accept the duties of O.H.O. since he believed that the Reuss O.T.O. had more authority than the Crowley O.T.O. When the spiritual founder of the Order, Carl Kellner, a wealthy German industrialist and Mason, died in 1905, Theodor Reuss assumed leadership. His grant of authority to Crowley was limited to heading a subsidiary of the O.T.O. called the Mysteria Mystica Maxima.

New Isis Lodge and the German irritation

In the early Fifties, Grant established contact with the German order of Fraternitas Saturni. These were Thelemites who worked according to strictly Masonic principles. Grant, in 1955, announced in a manifesto his discovery of a Sirius/Set “current,” and, in April of that year, founded the New Isis Lodge in London. On page 6 of the document, he named Eugen Grosche, an old adversary of Germer’s, as an associate. This infuriated Germer, who took “violent exception” to the reference. (4*)

The expulsion notice

Grosche exacerbated the situation by publishing, in his own German magazine, a short version of Grant’s manifesto. This so angered Germer that, on 20 July 1955, he penned a “Notification of Expulsion” that excommunicated Grant and forbade Grosche from publishing any Crowley writings. In England, a certain Noël Fitzgerald was appointed as Germer’s “personal representative” in matters of the O.T.O. for Great Britain. (5*)

Claimants, allies, rivals

During all of this time, a rival to Germer’s authority oversaw a very successful “O.T.O.” in Switzerland: Hermann J. Metzger, who seems to have been the thorn in the side of any O.H.O. He had a reputation for contentiousness that rivalled Marcelo Ramos Motta’s, but Grant apparently managed to get along with him. Grant told me that during the 1950s he had “a pleasant correspondence with Herr Metzger.” (6*)

One of Crowley’s two literary executors, John Symonds, wrote to Gerald Yorke in September 1969 that he fully supported Grant’s claim to be O.H.O. This was hardly surprising: the two men had collaborated in the editing and annotating of several Crowley works, including an edition of the “autohagiography” and Magick, which latter is regarded as Crowley’s masterpiece. Motta, in October of the same year, ignorant of Germer’s letter of expulsion, expressed a willingness to acknowledge Grant as O.H.O. (7*)

As late as 1976 the Grant members were writing in their magazine Sothis that “Karl J. Germer, having proved himself blind to the implication of Crowley’s letter to him, failed to understand and accept when — soon after Crowley’s death — Grant submitted his plans for change ... It remains to remind those who support the old-aeon concept of the O.T.O. (8*) that they have not produced — nor can they ever produce — the slightest evidence of a creative current in any of its forms.”

It should not be forgotten that the current “Caliph” — which means head of the Californian Agape Lodge, although this term is nowhere explained exactly — once was privy to Grant’s writings via the Canadian publishers of his magazines, or that Michael Paul Bertiaux, leader of the Ordo Templi Orientis Antiqua, let it be known that “I knew that K. Grant was the OHO.” (9*)

Grant has the same right as anyone else to claim himself O.H.O. Had Germer not expelled him, this would simply be without peradventure, and as it is, he is the only claimant personally expelled by a predecessor. On the level of creativity, Grant, exploiting the ideas of the F.S., Frater Achad and M.P. Bertiaux, is definitely one of the spiritual heads of the O.T.O.

It should be explained how a national head, or X°, is either elected or appointed. Under Reuss there was an oath, a sort of Freemasonic ritual, with passwords, grips, signs and even a magic seal, carried out for the appointment of an X°. A question arises: was Grant ever appointed head, or X°, or does the highest-ranking member in a country automatically become X°? For that matter, if the expulsion of Grant by Germer cut the former off from a claim to be X°, did the mysterious Noël Fitzgerald assume that rôle at some point?

Appendix March 2000: Kenneth Grant’s own key dates

The Typhonian O.T.O. as cosmic network

The Typhonian O.T.O. functions as a cosmic network which does not operate through terrestrially based lodges, because its members are not — in a magical sense — centred on earth. Their zones of occult activity are located in spaces which both include and transcend astral levels of consciousness. The Typhonian O.T.O. is not, therefore, a corporate body in a mundane sense — it is controlled by inner-plane contacts focused today through a handful of individuals channelling currents outside the circles of time and space. Regarding Thelema, the Typhonian O.T.O. is considered to be the Machine, the A.·. A.·. as the Operator.

There is no comparison to other O.T.O. versions, essentially because there are no group rituals or ceremonies of initiation at any stage of the degree structure. The basis of initiation is the assimilation of direct magical and mystical working. It follows that all initiation is in effect self-initiation. There is a small amount of set gradework in the Typhonian O.T.O. However, the emphasis is on the initiate charting his or her own course. There is, of course, the experience of others to draw upon.

Kenneth Grant died on 15 January 2011.