by Marco Visconti
My recent interest in the Hellier phenomenon has received its fair share of snarky comments from many Serious Thelemites™, especially as I kept discussing it publicly and even organised a well-attended online seminar on it during the months of lockdown. Even Thelemic Union, which keeps on providing decent content for the increasingly disappearing Thelemic milieu, has taken a jab at the concept with one of their latest memes. Still, over at my Patreon, a lot of interest is focused precisely on this type of magical investigation.
So much that I think it’s time to address the elephant in the room: does the search for Ultraterrestrials have anything to do with Thelema?
I think this might be one of those times when going back to Crowley might help clarifying the matter beyond any reasonable doubt.
In a letter to the only effective heir he ever properly designated, Karl Germer, he states:
“Magick is getting into communication with individuals who exist on a higher plane than ours. Mysticism is the raising of oneself to their level.”
It would seem then that the Master Therion, the Prophet of Thelema, the one infallible source that every Serious Thelemite™ relentlessly quotes to death, had his mind pretty clear on the topic: the end game is to use the tools of Magick and Mysticism to open a channel of communication with beings that exist beyond the shackles of the human condition.
Aiwass, the minister of Hoor-Paar-Kraat and the voice that dictated the Book of the Law, was one such being: he describes it in a way that could well be considered the first modern sighting of a “Man In Black”. And so were Amalantrah and Abuldiz, intelligences contacted by Crowley during two fundamental magical Operations of his career.
It was through these subsequent Operations that he received the drawing above, called LAM. It has been heavily inferred by Kenneth Grant to be, in fact, Crowley’s artistic rendition of Aiwass itself. Surely it has inspired more than 2 generations and counting of magical pioneers with its enigmatic stare.
We could just admit that, Crowley being Crowley, simply drew the image of a penis entering a vagina, or maybe even an anus. Maybe as a way at hinting at the sexo-magical IX and XI Operations of O.T.O. which he used constantly after the penny-drop-moment with Theodore Reuss in 1912 -if we have to believe Crowley’s timeline, which as usual is sketchy and doesn’t add up. But that’s a story for another day.
In Arabic, “Lam” means “not” – and “not”, Nuit, is certainly a cardinal point in the Current. Crowley memorised and recited Surah al Iklahs while doing Enochian work in Algeria and claimed to have recited it over a thousand times. The word Lam appears 3 times in that surah. Incidentally, the same surah appears also at the beginning of Liber ARARITA, one of the most mysticals and insightful Holy Books of Thelema.
Let’s look at the goode olde Gematria now: Lamed Aleph Mem adds to 71.
71 is, obviously, the value of a lot of stuff, but notably of ADONAI spelt in full: the Lord of Liber LXV, and another cardinal figure/concept in the Holy Books.
Also the most used combinations of Lamed Aleph Mem are MILA, “circumcision” and MAALA “full”, but also “pregnant”.
Maybe it’s a drawing of human genitals conjoined, after all…
Maybe it’s a hint of the kind of Operation needed to get in touch with these “individuals who exist on a plane higher than ours”.
After all – SPOILERS! – that’s how Hellier ends, too: with the intimation hidden in the cypher to learn and perform the Star Sapphire, that is the sex magick.
And so what’s exactly the problem with the Serious Thelemites™?
In a nutshell, the ongoing secularisation of Thelema as planned since the late 90s by O.T.O. Inc. and its efforts, now completely frustrated, to embrace the all-American mega-church model: one where Thelema was nothing else but a pseudo-psychological self-help system, where Magick was just a more complex mindfulness meditation technique, and where the very focus of Thelema – the search and connection with praeter-human intelligences the very way Crowley, Dee, Kelley and countless other magicians and Adepts did – was best to left forgotten in the name of respectability.
And to that, I say: fuck off.
This OTO-indoctrinated, mainly American, flock still mock Grant because “he claimed that LAM was a REAL ALIEN” and that’s almost always their jumping point.
This is not true at all, since it’s clear to anyone that has even read just a couple of Grant’s books that LAM is used as a glyph, a focus point that turns into a gateway for those in tune with this specific current. Is this so hard for them to take in or is it the first time they hear about such a technique in the occult? Is it because they haven’t read any Grant at all or is it because they fail to understand what he was writing about and what he actually meant by all that?
Could be any of the above, but this isn’t really about LAM, it is about Grant. Sure, Grant made mistakes and exaggerations, but I think it’s pretty obvious they just follow a common propagandistic narrative in order to ridicule his legacy. They must feel pretty threatened by what he represents.
Their religion might start crumbling down in case more people start getting interested in sitting down and reading all the material available. O.T.O. Inc. has not published any Crowley in the past 20 years, and recently has been trying to move from the neoliberal megachurch model into full neofascist theocracy with Gunther and his Dominionist worldview (and alt-right troll squads) at the helm. Is the strategy to keep people dumb on purpose?
Furthermore, Kenneth Grant’s most relevant and significant points were that Pseudo-Masonic Magical Orders are redundant in the modern age, and that magical ability is not dependent on gender. But that’s inconvenient to some people, who prefer to emphasise or distort his other notions in the course of dismissing him for their own purposes.
In conclusion… no matter what you think of the Hellier phenomenon, no matter what your understanding (or lack thereof) of the “secret cypher of the UFOnauts” might be, no matter your personal opinions on people like Allen Greenfield, Kenneth Grant, and no matter if you think that all ghost-hunting television is essentially garbage (I am not a huge fan myself), I urge you to stop and realise that these kind of experiences are precisely the magick you look for.
Suspend the disbelief, and embrace the strange.
Unless you want to be yet another edgelord on Discord claiming to be a Magister Templi looking for absolute, rational Truth: they are a dime a dozen these days.
For a fantastic explanation on the plight of the Serious Thelemites™,I recommend the essay by Rodney Orpheus on the matter, here.
Other articles by Marco Visconti:
- Heteronormativity And Gender Essentialism In Thelemic Ritual And Communities
- 5 Things To Expect After Leaving OTO
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