In TNN I.6 a great deal has already been written concerning Mr. Kenneth Grant, Aossic Aiwass 718, the self-proclaimed O.H.O. of the O.T.O.. I see no reason to repeat myself at any great length, but to merely state that by the internal evidence of his books alone, Mr. Grant has proven himself to be very unthelemic and worse, a Black Brother, which is, by far, worse than a mere Black Magician.
Let us examine another of his books, Aleister Crowley & the Hidden God (Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1974 E.V.), and see what we can find to possibly add to the already extensive documentation which proves this point of view.
There are some small errors in the book which may confuse the reader, such as the footnote on page 20 where the change in spelling from Babylon to Babalon is discussed. There is a Gamma where an Upsilon should be. Pages 22 and 23 contain Plates 2 and 3 and the captions are placed under the wrong Plates/Trees. These, however, may be mere printer's errors.
Page 39: "LAShTAL, or Nuit-Set-Horus" is rather confusing for ShT represents Horus in one of his many aspects. LA is Nuit and AL is Hadit. (There is much more to this formula.)
Page 123: "... Horus, her (Nuit) 'child' ... is the 'child' or essence of the mother alone." This is patently absurd and smacks of the corrupted Christian teachings concerning the "Virgin Mother".
Page 151: "Set slew Horus" - wrong. Set slew Osiris and Horus avenged his father's death. Another source of confusion is his multiplication of pseudo-synonymous names for Thelema, namely: Cult of Shaitan-Aiwass, 93 Current, Typhonian Current, Therionic Cult, Ophidian Current, Cult of Do What Thou Wilt, Draconian Cult, Draconian Current, Crowley Cult, Cult of the Child, and Aiwass Current. Is it any wonder that the poor aspirant, newly introduced to the Thelemic Path, is confused! And please do not forget that confusion is the essence of Daäth and that it is one of the greatest weapons in the arsenal of the Black Brotherhood.
Again Mr. Grant continues to mislead the unwary aspirant by telling us on page 60 that "The Silver Star (A.·.A.·.) is Sirius." And on page 167 we find "... the resurgent Nu-Isis, the Secret Silver Star." However, the Silver Star is not Sirius, though it is possible that there may be some tenuous link. The Silver Star is one's own True Self, the "star" that every man and every woman is. Concentrate upon that star and not some twinkling little speck of light in the sky. Mr. Grant has forsaken his own True Self, his Holy Guardian Angel, and become one with his Evil Genius. For your own sake, I caution you not to follow in his footsteps, but rather to view him as an example of what to avoid when travelling the Magical Path.
Obviously Mr. Grant suffers from a complex which compels him to worship, exclusively, the Archetypal Suprawoman, his Nu-Isis. A Freudian psychoanalyst could explain this fixation of his better than I. Grant may even be suffering from the famous Oedipus complex.
Mr. Grant also seems to be positively obsessed with his mythical transplutonic power-zone/planet. On page 2 he wrote,
"Chapter Ten summarizes information about a mystical tradition concerning the influx of cosmic energy from a transplutonic power-zone known to Initiates as Nu-Isis. The Book of the Law contains veiled references to this Mystery ..."
And on page 148: "THERE IS a legend known to Initiates concerning the secret abode of the Goddess ... Nu-Isis ..."
This Initiate and others can only surmise that Mr. Grant has grasped a straw and decided to build legends around it.
Page 160: "My number is 11 ...", Grant wrote in reference to a verse from The Book of the Law, and continues,
"This verse points unmistakably to the transplutonic Isis as being the source of that incense of starlight which contains no blood 'because of my hair the trees of Eternity'."
Page 168: "'I am The Empress & ...'", Grant again quotes from The Book, "This is a direct reference to Nu-Isis ..." Seems very indirect to me.
Page 219: "... the sphere of Nu-Isis of which Kether is the focus." Kether is the "focus" of the Boundless or Limitless Light, not some limited sphere or planet. Mr. Grant is as bad as many another religionist who creates a god, then a great god, then a greater god, and so on into absurder absurdities.
The aspirant is cautioned not to practice what Mr. Grant preaches. On page 1 he tells the reader
"I have evolved a method of dream control for contacting extra-terrestrial and non-human entities..."
It is obvious, by his latest book, Nightside of Eden, what the nature of those non-human entities is. On page 222 of Hidden God he writes:
"Each sephira of the Tree of Life has its corresponding qliphoth which is the reflection of the energy which it represents, and these averse sephiroth form what is known as the Tree of Death. Only the well-armed Initiate, the Adept, in fact, can use these power-zones with impunity."
Since the writing of this book, via his others, Mr. Grant has 'revealed' to us that he is an Adept. It is my contention that Mr. Grant is, in fact, an adept ... adept in foolishness. Working with the Tree of Death he only reveals himself to be a bloody necromancer. That which he is in league and works with is truly dead matter, the empty shells of countless other failures; putrescent, corrupted, unbalanced force. What true Initiate, what Adept, in his or her right mind would want to use these so-called power-zones? From nothing you can only get nothing.
I have noticed, in the writings of many of today's 'false prophets', the desperate need to prove that they are superior to the Beast 666, Aleister Crowley, by showing that he erred or misunderstood something. For instance, Grant wrote on page 2,
"I have therefore endeavoured to correct errors of interpretation [of The Book of the Law] in order to diminish the dangers naturally concomitant upon the use of this Current."
While on page 34 he wrote, "Crowley, it seems, failed to obtain the ultimate elixir because he was, despite himself, deeply tainted with fundamental misconceptions engendered by Christianity."
An obvious case of trying to lower the highest to appear higher. Whether A.C. had "obtained the ultimate elixir" or not is a moot point, however, he did live a very long and eventful life and is living yet within the growing success of Thelema, which is quite obvious to the trained Initiate.
A great many of Mr. Grant's arguments are based upon materials written during the Æon of Osiris and transmitted from the Æon of Isis. One wonders how much of this Knowledge is still applicable now in the Æon of Horus. And this man, Grant, who bases so much on such things as the fiction of H. P. Lovecraft (claiming this self-defined writer of fiction to be an Initiate) ... can we be sure that he knows the practical difference between fact and fiction? Page 31's footnote tells us that certain information on this page is "From an unpublished comment on a Tantric Text by a Kaula Adept." The title of the text is not given nor is any further information concerning it, not even the name of this "Kaula Adept". One begins to wonder: Is he making this all up? Is Grant himself the so-called Adept, writing fiction as he goes along?
So much of Mr. Kenneth Grant is revealed in his books, such as his phobia concerning homosexuality and the XI° O.T.O.. Having spent so many words on him in TNN I.6, now being republished in overseas periodicals, I see no reason to waste further words on him in this place. Let me merely, and once more, caution the aspirant against practicing what this particular 'false prophet' preaches. Concerning Mr. Grant, enough has been said, unless, and we hope that it shall not be, he manages to jot off another book and get it published.
We shall remind our Brother Kenneth that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
(Please do not think we have gone soft. Wait until you see Volume III! -ED.)
(TNN II.6.6-9, 1/21/80 E.V.)