The Occult History of the National Security State

A little High Weirdness, on the heels of the Merlin Project.

Saturday, The Independent reported on the release of thousands of declassified documents, held by the UK's Ministry of Defense UFO department, SF4, "detailing credible observations of unidentified flying objects reported by RAF personnel, British Airways pilots and senior police officers."

The files contain incidents such as this:

In July 1977 Flt Lt A M Wood reported "bright objects hanging over the sea''. The MoD document adds that the RAF officer said the closest object was "luminous, round and four to five times larger than a Whirlwind helicopter". The UFOs were reported to be three miles out to sea at a height of about 5,000ft.

The officer, whose report is supported by Cpl Torrington and Sgt Graham, said: "The objects separated. Then one went west of the other, as it manoeuvred it changed shape to become body-shaped with projections like arms and legs." The men who were positioned at the picket post at the RAF station were able to observe the strange objects for an hour and 40 minutes.

At the same time a radar station detected the objects in exactly the same position as the men had observed them. It registered them to be between 30 to 35 degrees before they disappeared from the screen.

The report describes Flt Lt Wood as "reliable and sober". It adds: "Two contacts were noted on radar, both T84 and T85, at RAF Boulmer. They were also seen on the Staxton Wold radar picture which is relayed to West Drayton... On seeing the objects on radar the duty controller checked with the SRO at RAF West Drayton as to whether he could see the objects on radar supplied from RAF Staxton Wold."

I know this is an intellectually embarrassing topic. I know because I embarrass myself by raising it. Even on the rare occasions when unidentified aerial phenomena are accorded a serious treatment in the reputable press, it seems inappropriate to draw attention to the stories as somehow newsworthy, rather than regard them as sensationalist trifle. I think this is unfortunate, because the declassified records show that this subject is taken extremely seriously deep within the same Defense establishments which foster its ridicule. As seriously as they take it, so should we.

The Independent calls the above incident "among the most credible reports of a possible visit by extraterrestrial life-forms." As much as I respect The Independent, drawing such a conclusion seems to me sloppy work. Of course it's entirely predictable, as the UFO = alien spacecraft is a pretty hard meme to crack. But consider the story. The declassified report is a sober telling of something fantastic; something which shouldn't be, yet is. Why must it be ascribed to ETs, when the report doesn't even include the observation of a life-form?

Respected researcher Jacques Vallee says, "I will be disappointed if UFOs turn out to be nothing more than spaceships." Me, I think I would be relieved.

Why? Here's a for instance.

In 1918 in New York City, occultist and British spy Aleister Crowley conducted a ritual he called the "Amalantrah Working" intended to create a "magick portal" - a dimensional rift - through which certain intelligences would be invited to cross and manifest themselves in the world. Crowley claimed that one being he called "Lam" did cross, and he drew a portrait. The image bears striking resemblance to the "Greys" of later UFO mythology.

Crowley and "Lam":



In 1946 in New Mexico, Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard conducted a ritual they called the "Babalon [sic] Working," to reopen the portal. Parsons was a rocket scientist, co-founder of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and "true father of US space exploration," according to Werner von Braun. (He was to die in 1952 in a mysterious explosion.) Hubbard, the future founder of the Church of Scientology, was an officer of US Naval Intelligence. Both were adepts of the Ordo Templi Orientis, which was originally an "Illumined" high Masonic order, and led at the time by Crowley.

Jack Parsons and L Ron Hubbard:



Ardane Stewart picks up the story:

The gist of it was that Parsons desired to take the spirit of Babylon, the “Whore of Babylon,” and invest it in a human being. The idea was to create a child in the spiritual world, and then call down the spiritual baby and direct it into a human womb. When born, this child would incarnate the forces of Babylon, which they considered to be a good thing.

...the rites were duly performed as written from January 4th to 15th of that year. It is not known if a spiritual child was enwombed from them. What is known is that the Magickal Portal first created by Crowley - and which originally let Lam into the earth-world - was reestablished with considerable intensity by Parsons and Hubbard. From the diaries of the participants, it is also clear that they were not as adept as Crowley in the closings of portals. What they seemed to have accomplished was the drastic enlargement and ripping of an existing Magickal Portal and the subsequent non-closure of it. Perhaps the rip they created was not possible to close. In any event, the modern UFO era began exactly a year and a half later on June 24th, 1947, with Kenneth Arnold's sighting over the Cascade Mountains in Washington State.

Stewart quotes Kenneth Grant, current head of the OTO, as saying “Lam is a Great Old One whose archetype is recognizable in accounts of UFO occupants.” Grant has organized an OTO "Cult of Lam," and a number of members claim remarkable success in their invocation of the "trans-mundane" being, or perhaps type of being. One contactee, Michael Bertiaux, regards Lam as the “subterranean burgeoning of Lucifer-Gnosis,” which represents the "appropriate path of human spiritual growth at this time."

None of this would merit much attention from me, apart from these four facts:

1. The UFO phenomenon remains unexplained.
2. The modern phenomenon exploded at the time and place of the "Babalon Working."
3. The phenomenon is the subject of an abiding cover up.
4. US military-intelligence has demonstrated a deep and ongoing interest in the occult and cult organizations, including the OTO.

For instance, Alex Constantine writes that a "number of intelligence agents with occult interests already had their hooks into the OTO. One of them was Gerald Yorke, a veteran British intelligence agent working...'with American intelligence in an attempt to absorb the OTO into the idealogical warfare network of the political right.'" And it may be worth noting that Retired Colonel and Satanist, Michael Aquino (about whom we've written before), writes that his Temple of Set "recognizes and enjoys cordial relations with the US OTO."

In Messengers of Deception, Vallee writes:

The social process caused by the belief in the [UFO] phenomenon takes the form of new sects, movements, and "contact" cults. Close observation of these cults shows that they are monitored and in some cases deliberately manipulated by occult groups, government organizations, and extremist political movements.... The group of people who will first manage to harness the fear of cosmic forces and the emotions surrounding UFO contact to a political purpose will be able to exert incredible spiritual blackmail.

He adds

I believe there is a very real UFO problem. I have also come to believe that it is being manipulated for political ends. And the data suggest that the manipulators may be human beings with a plan for social control. Such plans have been made before, and have succeeded. History shows that having a cosmic mythology as part of such a plan is not always necessary. But it certainly helps.

Since it's at last becoming respectable to compare Bush's America to Hitler's Germany, perhaps we should also remember the occult history of the Nazis, and wonder whether that fascination is another legacy adopted by the National Security State. Because as much as George Bush quotes, or rather misquotes, the Bible, he governs more as a follower of Crowley than of Christ. From Crowley's Book of the Law: "We have nothing with the outcast and the unfit: let them die in their misery. For they feel not. Compassion is the vice of kings: stamp down the wretched & the weak: this is the law of the strong: this is our law and the joy of the world."

In Messengers of Deception, Vallee recounts two briefings in the mid-70s with American and French officials. While the White House Assistant Science Advisor was only concerned with public relations - how the "flying saucer" business was spun - the French cabinet minister demonstrated genuine concern about the nature of the phenomenon.

Vallee asked him whether he thought the "phenomenon, or at least its social effects, might be under the control of a human group - not necessarily a government?"

The cabinent minister replied:

That possibility does exist. But we know what human beings would do with such power. I have seen the effects of power, believe me, in my years in government. If that turns out to be the answer, I will jump into the Seine without waiting for developments.

But no worries. George Bush just really, really likes the Texas Longhorns.