Plan 93 from Outer Space
"Like a vast network , the iridescent tendrils of our occult complex spread across the land, linking such centres as are located in California, Florida, North Carolina, Chicago, and New York. These dynamic centres of Thelema receive their vivifying current through our World centre in England." Such was the message of Janice Ayers in 'Sothis' I;2, in September 1977.
...
Crowley's erstwhile secretary Kenneth Grant (who claims to have formed
a link to his 'angel' Aossic, and so calls himself Aossic, Ossik, or
A'ashik) has - together with his followers - developed a more or less
comprehensible outline of a 'new' cosmos on this basis. Interested
readers are referred to Grant's books, many of which remain in print.
[7] In this article we shall be concentrating on Grant's resulting
theoretical expansion of Crowley's demonology. The latter never seems
to have regarded angels or demons as very definite beings; for him,
they ruled the material world, and were useful for things like getting
hold of money. Under Grant's influence they were elaborated into
complex transcendental schemes of alternate dimensions outside the
circles of space and time. "The terrestrial vehicle is an outcropping
in three dimensions of the Angel: the Angel is the fountain of living
waters which empowers the terrestrial vehicle." [8] Through contact
with this fountain, the Holy Guardian Angel (HGA) opens the gate of
remembrance of our supernatural reality, what Grant calls "the
continuum often glyphed as the Goddess of which we are terrestrial
facets." [9] Grant and his adherents 'remember' the origins of Be-ing
[10] and have constructed a remarkably complicated collection of
metaphors drawn from sources such as the Qabalah, H.P. Lovecraft, [11]
Salvador Dalí, Michael P. Bertiaux, Austin Osman Spare, [12] Lemuria,
Atlantis, extraterrestrial visitors from Sirius, the promotion of at
least one new 'New Aeon', and a whole shoal of 'revelations'.
Grant
placed great emphasis on the development of a IX° 'dream-control'
technique, borrowed from Thomas Lake Harris, and introduced into the
Crowleyan O.T.O. by Ida Nellidorf under the name of "eroto-comatose
lucidity." Before going to sleep the sexual energies were first raised
by constant sexual stimulation without orgasm, and then concentrated
onto a talisman bearing a requisite symbol, so that in its dreams, the
aroused libido would copulate with a dream-partner. The talisman would
thus become magically charged, and would make a particular wish - be it
for gold or Gnosis - come true.
...
The Cult of Lam and Michael Staley, Grant's London amanuensis.
The 1919 portrait of Lam drawn by Crowley came into Grant's possession in 1945. Crowley never published any explanation of the image, and this allowed for the development of a distinct 'Lam cult'. For this article, Michael Staley provided the following detail in June 2001: "The point is that Crowley says nothing about Lam in his published writing; whether or not there is anything unpublished, I don't know. Interestingly, I have come across an account by an American visitor to Crowley's flat in Jermyn Street, London, in 1941 or thereabouts, who says that the portrait [he doesn't say who it is, but his description of it - he found it repulsive - leaves no doubt] was on Crowley's wall. When the visitor asked who or what it was, Crowley said that it was a portrait of his guru."In the 1990's this cult (described as the "quintessence of the Typhonian O.T.O. tradition") was supposed to be a manifestation of the Hidden praeternatural/supernatural God or Holy Guardian Angel (HGA), who united the natural with the supernatural. Contact with this HGA was identical to an entry into the Aeon of Ma'at, or the extra-terrestrial continuum. [17] "In my view Lam is the mask of a dynamic state of [extra-terrestrial] [18] gnosis, rather than simply an entity." [19] Staley interested himself in Lam as a state of Gnosis, although he admitted that this state could sometimes also take the nature of an entity's mask; but he would break through these masks.
Crowley's (feminine?) Hoor-paar-kraat (Set) was again understood as the HGA; in the Tetragrammaton YHVH Ra-Hoor-Khuit (Horus) corresponded with the Vav, and Hoor-paar-kraat to the Heh final. "This identifies Hoor-paar-kraat with the Aeon of Ma'at." [20] Lam 'sits' in the Muladhara Chakra's Bija-Mantra, where the Fiery Serpent (or Kundalini) waits to uncoil. The 'optical' union with Lam took place in Lam's eyes, the region of the Ajna-Chakra (and also the seat of the will). [21] According to Crowley this corresponded to a sex-magical act in which one became conscious of the Ajna and Muladhara Chakras during orgasm. [22]
Contact with the HGA was defined as the stage of "reaching critical mass" after doing intensive Abramelin or Liber Samekh exercises. The HGA is the sum total of experience, gathered into this critical mass and then able to take on spontaneous form. [23]
This contact with the HGA - whether experienced in concrete exterior
form, or as the aspirant's spiritual Higher Self - corresponded with
the start of 'occult puberty'. [24] For an occultist, it meant that
there was no longer any distinction between inner and outer. Evolution
demanded that one cast off such old mental habits, [25] and that
humanity should become non-human, as in Crowley's A*A*, where a
kind of superman hatched from the Egg or Babe of the Abyss (that is,
the concept of dissolution in occult Qabalah, the bridge between human
and divine).
Freed of Ego, only this new human creature can help human evolution, and perhaps even that of the universe. ['Babe of the Abyss'; the whole point being that the Kabbalistic Abyss is the ultimate womb from which the soul is born before progressing to the Supernal Triad of sefiroth (Kether, Chokmah, and Binah) on the Tree of Life. After being born from the Abyss, it first reaches Binah, the 'Magna Mater'.]
For Staley, magic is primarily a matter of communicating with non-human entities. However, such entities are not to be found outside human beings, as man and the universe are one - both are aspects of the universe. [26] Staley found better comprehension of this through the Sanskrit concept of Advaita or "not-divided", and in the Prajnaparamita-Buddhist "Sunyavada". At one stage Staley worked with a Lam-Serpent Sadhana, in which the Lam-Serpent was visualised as the Kundalini surmounted by Lam's head. [27] This Lam-Serpent uncoiled itself along the sushumna, while the chakras were visualised, and the Bija-Mantras were vibrated. According to Staley the 'secret' of sex-magic resided solely in the fact "that matter is malleable and can be influenced by sustained, intense visualisation; the potency of this visualisation can be increased by the directed sexual current." [28]
The HGA functioned as the mediator and boundary station between the terrestrial and the infinite. With the HGA projected as the Egregore outside the individuality, the HGA can be used to communicate with the 'Secret Chiefs'; using the occult technique of 'Assuming a God-Form' one becomes an angel/egregore among other angels/egregores.
...
26. In Thelemic terms, the magician expels his blood into the chalice of Babalon. Babalon (or Venus, see Crowley's "Vision and the Voice", 1909) has been the (sometimes masculine) Scarlet Whore of Revelation; her number, 156, is equated Kabbalistically with 'constant copulation' and 'samadhi'.
(excerpt)
Full Article and Hyperlinks:
http://user.cyberlink.ch/~koenig/lam.htm
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