![\"grant.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/02\/grant.jpg\")
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Kenneth Grant by Austin Spare (c. 1951).<\/em><\/p>\n Kenneth Grant, writer and occultist, died last month but the event was only announced this week<\/a>. He’ll be remembered for the nine fascinating occult treatises he wrote from 1972 to 2002, and for continuing the work of Aleister Crowley as head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a position which became fraught in later years as various occult factions disputed his authority. Having collected occult books for much of the 1980s I find his name calls out from the shelves more than many other writers; as well as authoring his own works he edited all the major Crowley texts with Crowley’s executor John Symonds, presenting them in authoritative editions for a new readership.<\/p>\n Grant proved a very loyal champion of people he admired, significantly so in the case of Austin Osman Spare whose work he collected, exhibited and republished from the 1950s on. It was Grant’s position as one of the many advisors for Man, Myth & Magic<\/em> in 1970 which resulted in the part-work encyclopedia using one of Spare’s stunning drawings as the cover picture<\/a> for its first issue. That effort alone gave Spare an audience far beyond anything he received during his lifetime, and Grant ensured the magazine featured Spare’s work in subsequent issues. Grant’s occult works made liberal use of unique illustrations by his wife, Steffi Grant, Austin Spare and others. The books were singular enough even without their pages of curious artwork, a beguiling and sometimes incoherent blend of western occult tradition, tantric sex magick and hints of cosmic horror which were nevertheless always well-written, annotated and crammed with technical detail. Alan Moore in 2002 examined the experience of an immersion in Grant’s mythos with a wonderful review he called “Beyond our Ken<\/a>“. He notes there the influence of HP Lovecraft, another of the visionary figures who Grant championed throughout his life.<\/p>\n In Spaces Between from The Great Old Ones (1999).<\/em><\/p>\n And speaking of Lovecraft, I’ve often wondered whether Kenneth Grant ever saw a copy of my Haunter of the Dark<\/em><\/a> collection. For the opening of the Great Old Ones<\/em> Kabbalah sequence which Alan Moore and I created for the book I added an extra piece of art entitled In Spaces Between<\/em>, a reference to Coil via an epigraph from Grant’s Outside the Circles of Time<\/em> (1980) which I borrowed for the facing page:<\/p>\n For there are Thrones under ground Invoke Them in Darkness, Outside In Silence, in Sleep, in Conjurations Coil aficionados will recognise those words as the origin of some lines from Titan Arch<\/em><\/a> (1991):<\/p>\n There are Thrones under ground Grant followed his epigraph with another quote, from Lovecraft’s Necronomicon<\/em>.<\/p>\n In addition to Alan Moore’s Grant review, Fulgur have a detailed Kenneth Grant bibliography<\/a> on their pages. They were also the publishers in 1998 of Zos Speaks! Encounters with Austin Osman Spare<\/em> by Kenneth and Steffi Grant, a memoir and celebration of Spare’s work which revealed this trio of remote astral voyagers to be human beings after all. The book is currently out of print but it’s essential for anyone interested in Austin Spare or, for that matter, Mr and Mrs Grant.<\/p>\n Previously on { feuilleton } Kenneth Grant by Austin Spare (c. 1951). Kenneth Grant, writer and occultist, died last month but the event was only announced this week. He’ll be remembered for the nine fascinating occult treatises he wrote from 1972 to 2002, and for continuing the work of Aleister Crowley as head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, a position … Continue reading “Kenneth Grant, 1924\u20132011”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,42,22,26,43,3,16,23],"tags":[317,103,391,2469,316,2272,1687,2216,2214,7316,320,167,2215],"class_list":["post-8798","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-books","category-horror","category-lovecraft","category-magazines","category-music","category-occult","category-work","tag-absinthe","tag-alan-moore","tag-aleister-crowley","tag-austin-osman-spare","tag-austin-spare","tag-coil-group","tag-hp-lovecraft","tag-john-symonds","tag-kenneth-grant","tag-man-myth-magic","tag-necronomicon","tag-obituaries","tag-steffi-grant"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pq7rV-2hU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8798","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8798"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8798\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8798"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8798"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8798"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"between.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.johncoulthart.com\/feuilleton\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/07\/between.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
\nAnd the Monarchs upon them
\nReign over Space and Beyond<\/p>\n
\nThe Circles of Time<\/p>\n
\nOf Chaos, the Deep will respond…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nAnd Monarchs upon them
\nThey walk serene
\nIn spaces between<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n\u2022 New Austin Spare grimoires<\/a>
\n\u2022 Austin Spare absinthe<\/a>
\n\u2022 Aleister Crowley on vinyl<\/a>
\n\u2022 Austin Spare\u2019s Behind the Veil<\/a>
\n\u2022 Austin Osman Spare<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"