by Kenneth Grant

from OrdoTempliOrientisPhenomenon Website

Foreword

Crowley’s portrait of Lam is a curious drawing which he included in his Dead Souls exhibition held in Greenwich Village, New York, in 1919. In that same year it was published as a frontispiece to Crowley’s Commentary to Blavatsky’s The Voice of the Silence.

That there is a connection between the portrait and the Commentary, sub-titled Liber LXXI, may be inferred from the inscription accompanying the frontispiece, which was entitled The Way:

LAM is the Tibetan word for Way or Path, and LAMA is He who Goeth, the specific title of the Gods of Egypt, the Treader of the Path, in Buddhistic phraseology. Its numerical value is 71, the number of this book.

Crowley left no record as to the origin of this portrait, although he remarked many years later that it was drawn from life. It is certain, however, that the drawing arose from the Amalantrah Working, a series of magical visions and communications received in 1918 through the mediumship of The Camel, Roddie Minor. This was in many ways a continuation of the Abuldiz Working of several years previous. In both of these Workings, the symbolism of the egg featured prominently.

One of the earlier visions of the Amalantrah Working ended with the sentence "It’s all in the egg". During the final surviving vision of this Working, in reference to a question about the egg, Crowley was told that "Thou art to go this Way".

Examining the portrait, we can see the connections. The head of Lam is egg-shaped, and of course the drawing is called The Way. In the whorlings of the face can clearly be seen a stylized ankh, the Egyptian symbol for Going; as a matter of interest, ankh can best be transliterated into Hebrew as kaph nun aleph, 71.

The main theme of The Voice of the Silence, clearly brought out by Crowley, is the need to establish contact with the Silent Self. The corresponds to the Dwarf Self, the phallic consciousness, Harpocrates, Hadit; and the theme runs through much of Crowley’s writing. It is noteworthy in this context that ALIL, ’the image of Nothingness and Silence’, enumerates as 71.

Crowley gave the drawing to Kenneth Grant in May 1945, following an astral working in which they were both involved. Since then it has become apparent that Lam is in fact a trans-mundane or extra-terrestrial entity, with whom several groups of magicians have established contact, most notably Michael Bertiaux in the 1960’s and a group of O.T.O. initiates in the 1970’s. Much remains unclear, however, hence the need for further investigation of this entity.

The idea of extra-terrestrial entities seems to cause difficulties with some people, associating it as they may do with the wilder shores of science-fiction. There is however a wealth of material on this matter to suggest the old cliché that truth is stranger than fiction. See, for instance, Robert temple’s The Sirius Mystery.

Whether these visitors are regarded as visitors from outer space, or as welling up from the depths of some inner space, is neither here nor there. The dichotomy of ’inner’ and ’outer ’ is purely conceptual, arising from the dualist notion of an individual being somehow separate from the rest of the universe, which is somehow ’out there’. There is in fact nothing outside consciousness, which is a continuum. This position is explored in the article Going Beyond, which appeared in the first issue of Starfire.

Lam is discussed in many places in the works of Kenneth Grant, most notably Cults of the Shadow and Outside the Circles of Time, and the interested reader is referred to these. A more lengthy account of Lam is planned for a future issue of Starfire.

In the meantime, the following paper issued by the O.T.O. will be of interest, giving as it does a method of attempting rapport with Lam by using the portrait as a gateway.

click image to enlarge

I - Preliminary

It has been considered advisable by the Sovereign Sanctuary to regularize and to examine results achieved by individual members of the O.T.O. who have established contact with the Magical Entity known as Lam. We are therefore founding an inner Cult of this dikpala for the purpose of amassing precise accounts of such contacts.

Records of rapport should be detailed after the manner suggested in Liber E vel Exercitiorum and should contain any researches into the qabalistic interpretation of the Name and Numbers of Lam, and a study of their relationship to key concepts of the Double Current (93/696).

It has also been considered advisable to regularize the mode of rapport and to construct a magical formula for establishing communion with Lam.

The portrait of the dikpala which is reproduced in The Magical Revival may be used as the visual focus, and can serve as the Yantra of the Cult; the Name Lam is the Mantra; and the Tantra is union with the dikpala by entering the Egg of Spirit represented by the Head. Entry may be effected by projecting consciousness through the eyes.

It will be noted that the entity is depicted without ears, which suggests that Lam is in some sense connected with the Silent of Wordless Aeon of Zain. The fact that the portrait was used by Therion as a frontispiece to The Voice of the Silence (H.P. Blavatsky) may have a precise magical significance. It was originally reproduced in The Equinox, volume 3, number 1, after a five-year ’volume of silence’ during which no issues of The Equinox appeared.

The Equinox was the Official Organ of the A\A\ (Argenteum Astrum), the Silver Star represented astronomically by Sirius, the Star of Set.

 

II - The Magical Procedure

The mode of Entering the Egg may proceed as follows. Each votary is encouraged to experiment and to evolve his own method from this basic procedure:

1. Sit in silence before the portrait.

2. Invoke mentally by silent repetition of the Name.

3. If response is felt to be positive, but not before, enter the Egg and merge with That which is within and look out through the entity’s eyes on what appears now to the votary an alien world. (Adumbrations of identity with Lam may be experienced as a strong sense of the unreality, or unfamiliarity, of the ’objective’ universe.)

4. Seal the Egg, i.e. close the eyes of Lam and await developments.

5. At the first sign of stress or fatigue, return to mundane consciousness by opening the eyes and by oozing out of the Egg in a form determined by the experiences within.

6. Perform, astrally, the Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram of Earth, at the Eight Spaces, and record all experiences in detail, paying particular attention to lunar phases (celestial and, where applicable, terrestrial), and any physiological phenomena accompanying the experience.

The invocation of Lam should be performed only in a fully protected Circle, which involves Banishing in the Eight Directions of Space with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram of Earth, followed by the Invoking Ritual of the Hexagram of Earth. Then, proceed with a silent invocation of Aiwass, and intense aspiration to Yuggoth (Kether) and the Great Old Ones, before actual LAMeditation commences.

It is suggested that votaries experiment with this technique and submit their Records to appointed members of the Sovereign Sanctuary of the O.T.O. Synchronicities that are considered significant may help to facilitate future Workings, and may be incorporated therein with the object of establishing a more profound rapport.

Group working is considered inadvisable. Each votary should work in isolation or only with his or her magical partner, although IX° Working is held to be extremely dangerous in this area, even if both parties are officially IX°. A similar observation applies to VIII° Workings, and, most emphatically, to Lunar Workings, which should on no account be performed in this context.

Each votary should work independently, and should be unaware of the identities of other Cult members. This is important if ’objective’ or so-called ’scientific’ evidence of Contact is to be obtained.

It may take years to accumulate significant evidence of contact with Lam, and - if Lam is the Gateway - with Those who lie Beyond. It may be that communion with the dikpala lies through congress with a Priestess chosen by Lam, or with one who possesses certain characteristics peculiar to this office, in which case new procedures will have to be devised. At the present time, however, it is advisable to confine experiments to mental and/or astral modes of intercourse.

An Inner Order of the Cult can - and will, if necessary - be formed to accommodate other modes of Working.

III - Why the Cult has been Founded at this Time

The Cult has been founded because very strong intimations have been received by Aossic Aiwass, 718’.’ to the effect that the portrait of Lam (the original drawing of which was given by 666’.’ to 718’.’ under curious circumstances) is the present focus of an extra-terrestrial - and perhaps trans-plutonic-Energy which the O.T.O. is required to communicate at this critical period, for we have now entered the Eighties mentioned in The Book of the Law.

It is Our aim to obtain some insight not only into the nature of Lam, but also into the possibilities of using the Egg as an astral space-capsule for travelling to Lam’s domain, or for exploring extra-terrestrial spaces in the sense in which O.T.O. Tantric Time-Travellers are exploring the Tunnels of Set in intra-cosmic and chthonian capsules.

Members of the O.T.O. who feel strongly attracted to this Cult of Lam are invited to apply for participation therein. It is open only to Order members. They should contact Frater Ani Asig, 375’.’ of the Sovereign Sanctuary, O.T.O. and submit a formal, typewritten and signed acceptance of the conditions of Working outlined here.

It should be understood that proficiency in the magical formulae of this Cult does not necessarily comport eligibility for advancement in the O.T.O., its parent Order.

Kenneth Grant (image right)

Aossic Aiwass, 718’.’
O.H.O. of O.T.O.
London and Miami; Spring Equinox, 1987 e.v.