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Liber XXXII · Thelema

Liber XXXII · Thelema · Chapter V: Thelemic Orders

Typhonian Thelema: New Isis Lodge and the Typhonian Order

Typhonian Thelema: Kenneth Grant's New Isis Lodge of 1955, the break with the OTO, and the Typhonian Order's doctrines of Set, Sirius and the Nightside.

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Typhonian Thelema is the branch of Aleister Crowley's religion developed by the English occultist Kenneth Grant, beginning with New Isis Lodge, which he opened in London in 1955. Expelled from the Ordo Templi Orientis that same year, Grant led an independent order, first called the Typhonian OTO and later the Typhonian Order, which teaches that Thelema renews an ancient stellar tradition associated with the goddess, the god Set and the star Sirius. Its emphasis on the "nightside" of the Tree of Life, on Tantra and on Lovecraftian imagery made it the most distinctive and controversial current within Thelema.

What Does "Typhonian" Mean?§

In Greek myth Typhon was a monstrous serpentine giant who challenged Zeus. Greek writers in Egypt, including Plutarch in On Isis and Osiris, identified him with Set, the Egyptian god of the desert, storms and foreigners who murders his brother Osiris. Grant used the word in a sense he took largely from the Victorian poet and amateur Egyptologist Gerald Massey, whose books The Natural Genesis (1883) and Ancient Egypt, the Light of the World (1907) argued that humanity's oldest religion was a stellar and lunar cult of the mother goddess and her son, later overlaid by solar worship.

For Grant, "Typhonian" therefore names a primordial current older than the solar religions of Osiris and Christ: centred on the goddess, on Set as the first god, on the stars of the Great Bear and Sirius, and on the darkness out of which light emerges. He also called it Draconian, after the celestial dragon. Grant believed that Crowley's Book of the Law (1904), discussed in our article on Thelemic doctrine, had reopened this current, even if Crowley did not fully understand it. Egyptologists do not accept Massey's reconstruction, and scholars of esotericism treat Grant's Typhonian history as a mythic framework rather than a historical claim.

New Isis Lodge in London, 1955–1962§

Grant had served as Crowley's secretary in 1945 and remained in contact with the OTO after Crowley's death through Karl Germer, the order's new head, in the United States. In 1955 he founded New Isis Lodge in London. Its name had an astronomical rationale: the lodge's manifesto spoke of a planet beyond Pluto, which Grant called Isis, whose influence was said to be newly entering human consciousness. No such planet has been confirmed, and the idea functioned as a symbol of a coming feminine and stellar current.

The lodge was small, with members drawn from London's occult and artistic circles. Its work drew on the magical art of Austin Osman Spare, whom Grant knew well, on the Kaula and left-hand forms of Tantra, and on the higher degrees of the OTO concerned with sexual magic. Grant later described its workings, including trance, dream and oracle sessions, in his books, and wrote a series of privately circulated papers, the Carfax Monographs, around 1959–1963. Accounts of the lodge come mainly from Grant himself, so its activities are known through his interpretation.

The Break with the OTO and the Typhonian Order§

Germer, a conservative custodian of Crowley's legacy, regarded the manifesto as an unauthorised doctrinal innovation and expelled Grant from the OTO in 1955. Grant did not accept the expulsion. New Isis Lodge continued until about 1962, the year of Germer's death, after which Grant claimed the office of Outer Head of the Order for his own branch. His organisation became known as the Typhonian OTO and was later renamed the Typhonian Order, partly to avoid confusion with the OTO reconstituted in the United States by Grady McMurtry from 1969, whose legal title to Crowley's order was recognised by American courts in the 1980s.

The Typhonian Order has never been large. It works through individual initiation and small groups rather than public lodges, and Grant directed it largely through correspondence and through his books. After his death in 2011 it continued under new leadership. Its relationship to other Thelemic bodies is surveyed in our guide to Thelemic orders.

Key Doctrines: Set, Sirius, Kalas and the Nightside§

Several ideas give Typhonian Thelema its character. The first is a reorientation from sun to star. Where Crowley spoke of the Aeon of Horus, the child god, Grant emphasised that Horus is inseparable from Set, his dark twin, and that the "star" in Thelema's maxim that every man and every woman is a star should be taken in an astronomical and initiatory sense, with Sirius as a source of spiritual influence.

The second is Grant's reading of Tantra. He interpreted the Tantric kalas, often described as subtle emanations associated with the phases of the moon and with the female body, as the key to the OTO's sexual mysteries. Historians of Tantra regard this reading as highly selective, but it made the feminine partner central to his magical system.

The third is the "nightside". In Nightside of Eden (1977) Grant treated the Qliphoth of Kabbalah, traditionally the shells or husks of evil, as a hidden reverse of the Tree of Life. He described twenty-two "tunnels of Set" running behind the paths, each governed by a spirit whose sigil he took from Crowley's Liber 231. These tunnels were to be explored in dream and trance, not to embrace evil, he argued, but to integrate the dark side of consciousness. This approach is a major source for later left-hand path currents.

Lovecraft, Lam and Outer Gateways§

The most surprising element of Typhonian Thelema is its use of the weird fiction of H. P. Lovecraft (1890–1937). Grant argued that Lovecraft, though a materialist, had unconsciously perceived the same "outside" intelligences that Crowley contacted, and that names such as Cthulhu and Yog-Sothoth could be read as veiled references to Typhonian powers. He saw a parallel in a 1919 drawing by Crowley of a domed, large-eyed figure called Lam, which Grant treated as a gateway to extraterrestrial or trans-Plutonian consciousness. Later books in his series, such as Outer Gateways (1994) and Beyond the Mauve Zone (1999), develop these themes through dreams, received texts and gematria.

Grant also drew together other post-Crowley currents. He wrote approvingly of the Voudon Gnosticism of Michael Bertiaux in Chicago and engaged with the idea of an Aeon of Maat, a feminine aeon of justice and balance, first proposed by Crowley's onetime disciple Charles Stansfeld Jones and later developed by the American magician Nema. In this way the Typhonian current became a meeting point for experimental Thelemic and post-Thelemic magic.

Influence on Later Magick and Culture§

Typhonian Thelema shaped occult culture far beyond its membership. Grant's books revived Spare's sigil magic and passed it to the founders of chaos magick in the 1970s. His treatment of the Qliphoth informed Qliphothic magic, including the Swedish order Dragon Rouge studied by the historian Kennet Granholm. Lovecraftian magical groups, among them the Esoteric Order of Dagon, took up his fusion of fiction and ritual, and his imagery runs through occult art, experimental music and extreme metal.

Within Thelema the response has been divided. Many members of the larger OTO regard Grant's history as speculative and his doctrines as departures from Crowley's teaching. Others value him as an imaginative interpreter who kept Thelema open to new revelation. For the life behind the system, see our biography of Kenneth Grant.

Frequently asked questions§

What was New Isis Lodge?§

New Isis Lodge was a magical lodge founded by Kenneth Grant in London in 1955. Its manifesto announced a new current linked to a hypothetical planet called Isis, and its work combined Thelema with Spare's magic and Tantra. It operated until about 1962.

Is the Typhonian Order part of the OTO?§

No. Grant was expelled from the OTO by Karl Germer in 1955. His branch was at first called the Typhonian OTO, but it later took the name Typhonian Order and is independent of the international OTO that traces its succession through Grady McMurtry.

What are the tunnels of Set?§

In Grant's Nightside of Eden they are twenty-two passages on the reverse side of the Kabbalistic Tree of Life, corresponding to the Qliphoth. Each is associated with a spirit and a sigil taken from Crowley's Liber 231. Grant presented them as regions of consciousness to be explored in trance and dream.

Sources and further reading§