Mr. Grant's travels

[merlin]

I understand that we'll probably never have a Kenneth Grant biography, since he was a very private person. Anyway, I was wondering if is there, in correspondence or else, any documented travel by Mr. Grant (in Europe or elsewhere) in Grant's maturity, after Crowley's death, I mean. 

[John Hope]

I expect someone else will be able to help you more with this type of research merlin, however, the only bits of biographical information in this area that I know of (apart from Grant's time in India) would be Grant's interest in Candleston Castle in Wales, (hopefully someone will chime in regarding this to confirm) and his travels in the US, visiting friends/initiates over there.

[merlin]

It should be of much interest to me, when Starfire will publish Grant's Selected Correspondence Vol. I, to find if some biographical information surfaces, including maybe information on his travels in the US and elsewhere!?

[John Hope]

Yes, it will be a very interesting work! I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Grant travelled extensively in later life.

[stephen]

Hi John, I think that we may be working under some false suppositions here, so in the absence of more authoritative comment I will throw in my observations.

Kenneth Grant enlisted in the Army in the hope of being posted to India in 1942 apparently, when he was eighteen. As Alan Moore has noted this was in the dark days of WWII. He was discharged some eighteen months later for health reasons, apparently. I have not seen any definitive statement that he actually managed to get to India during his brief army career.

I have not seen any mention of him having visited North America. The general pattern seems to be that people tended to come to England to visit Kenneth at his home in London. Margaret Ingalls/Nema came over to see him several times I believe; Jeffrey D. Evans and Ruth Keenan were over in 1989 - see the photo in BTMZ (I met them both in Oxford on this occasion I think); and there is the photo of Kenneth with Sri S.P. Reddy in 1984 - plate 14 in At the Feet of the Guru. There is a photograph of him with Zivorad Mihajlovic-Slavinski, once again in Kenneth's lounge or sitting room.

Kenneth Grant's parents owned a holiday bungalow in Porthcawl, South Glamorgan, Wales - "yclept Brundish" - see Against the Light.

He appears to have been very fond of the area and continued to visit and holiday there as I understand it. Various locations in the area play a part in the Nightside Narratives - Candleston Castle, Merthyr Mawr, and "Carfax" cottage.

[John Hope]

Hi Stephen, yes the problem is having vague recollections of reading and hearing certain things and then not having any firm corroboration. I can’t recall who told me about India so I shouldn’t really have mentioned it. Racking your brains can you think of any mention at all to a trip to India during the 50s? I was also thinking of a visit to Florida in the mid to late 80s, but again that was read from thrid party correspondence. Until a definitive biographical work appears it is best to stick to what we can confirm, which you have covered very well above.

[stephen]

I read Henrik Bogdan's essay on "Advaita Vedanta in the Works of Kenneth Grant" the other evening. Henrik is very precise with his dates for the publication of Grant's essays on Advaita, most of which date to the 1950s, but he makes no mention of him ever having visited India during this period. I believe that Mike Magee said Grant spent time in India during the 1950s, but it is strange that he never mentions having done this in the essays, or anywhere in the Typhonian Trilogies. It is fairly clear that he never made it to India during his brief army career.

Jeffrey Evans and his wife lived in Florida, but as I mentioned, they visited Grant in England during the 1980s. It was the general consensus of those of us who were interested in, and/or corresponded with him, that he became increasingly reclusive during the later 1980s and throughout the 1990s and beyond.

Not sure at all that the definitive biographical work will ever materialise, but there is a wealth of information on both Kenneth and Steffi in Servants of the Star & the Snake !

[John Hope]

Thanks for that Stephen! You have jogged my memory now and I'm fairly sure also that the India comment was from Mike Magee, but I agree it is strange that it is not mentioned in any of Grant's works.

I haven't read Servants of the Star & the Snake yet (I know, I'm a philistine!) I'm hoping it will be an xmas gift! Very excited to read it, everyone I've spoken to who has read it has said how excellent it is.