Higher Consciousness
Psychic competence requires access to higher states of consciousness. It also requires knowledge of chakras and the means to stimulate and activate them safely, allowing the opening of the Third Eye.
And the key to this is meditation. The problem is, as Aleister Crowley found out, meditation is so demanding and boring it can easily drive one to madness.
Seeking shortcuts, adepts and black magicians, through the ages, have tried to achieve higher consciousness through occult means - ritual, drugs and blood sacrifice etc. However, while these things may expand the mind temporarily, they also weaken it, making it dependent upon and subservient to superhuman, god-like intelligences that will possess and torment any unfortunate souls foolish enough to seek contact. Even though these individuals may appear to be wealthy, successful and enigmatic to casual observers.
Crowley enjoyed being a figure of controversy and frequently deliberately provoked it among his peers and in the media. Author and Crowley expert Lon Milo Duquette wrote in his 1993 work The Magick of Aleister Crowley that:
Crowley clothed many of his teachings in the thin veil of sensational titillation. By doing so he assured himself that one, his works would only be appreciated by the few individuals capable of doing so, and two, his works would continue to generate interest and be published by and for the benefit of both his admirers and his enemies long after death. He did not—I repeat—did not perform or advocate human sacrifice. He was often guilty, however, of the crime of poor judgment. Like all of us, Crowley had many flaws and shortcomings. The greatest of those, in my opinion, was his inability to understand that everyone else in the world was not as educated and clever as he. It is clear, even in his earliest works, he often took fiendish delight in terrifying those who were either too lazy, too bigoted, or too slow-witted to understand him.
Within the system of the magical Order A∴A∴ founded by Aleister Crowley, one of the two most important goals is to consciously connect with one’s Holy Guardian Angel, the "Silent Self", representative of one's truest divine nature: a process termed “Knowledge and Conversation.”
It should never be forgotten for a single moment that the central and essential work of the Magician is the attainment of the Knowledge and Conversation of the Holy Guardian Angel. Once he has achieved this he must of course be left entirely in the hands of that Angel, who can be invariably and inevitably relied upon to lead him to the further great step—crossing of the Abyss and the attainment of the grade of Master of the Temple.
In other words, selling your soul to the Devil.
Kenneth Grant and the Cult of Lam
There has been a lot of speculation and general confusion/misinformation about Aleister Crowley and one of his 1919 drawings titled “Lam.” The general consensus says that Lam represents a “Grey” alien, contacted by Aleister Crowley during a Magickal operation titled The Amalantrah Working. Many people have also related Lam and the drawing to Aiwass, which is the name Crowley ascribed to a being who dictated The Book of the Law in a contactee like experience. Crowley also eventually came to view Aiwass as his own Holy Guardian Angel.
Aiwass, an alleged superhuman intelligence contacted by Aleister Crowley in 1904, dictated to Crowley a work called “Liber AL,” or “Book of the Law,” which prophesied wars and revolutions leading to the collapse of Christian civilizations and the dawn of the Aeon of Horus. Liber AL also proclaims the Law of Thelema, usually summed up in three mantra-like aphorisms: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law,” “Love is the law, love under will,” and “Every man and every woman is a star.”
According to former Crowley student Dr. Israel Regardie, a Reichian psychotherapist and occultist, Aiwass represented the deepest, most abysmal part of Crowley’s own mind, which is common to all life, mammal, insect, and all, deeper than either Freudian or Jungian unconscious. According to another Crowley student, Kenneth Grant, Aiwass is an extraterrestrial from Sirius.
-Robert Anton Wilson’s book, Everything is Under Control
However, the idea that Crowley believed Aiwass and Lam to be the same entity, or that either were extraterrestrials from Sirius, is only the speculation of Kenneth Grant and those who have based their research on source material written by Grant.
Grant founded various organizations within his own break-away branch of the OTO, which were largely focused on contact with non-human entities. It is important to note that Grant was expelled from the “official” OTO for his work in this area. Though it must also be noted that the validity of any modern OTO organization is an issue of debate in itself.
Grant declared himself as the true successor to Crowley as Outer Head of the Ordo Templi Orientis, with no evidence to back his claim. Later a document supposedly written by Crowley and declaring Grant as O.H.O. surfaced, creating much debate and was eventually proven to be a fake. Much of the same kind of controversy surrounds the current official OTO.
Within Grant’s Typhonian Order, The Cult of Lam was created around a method designed to contact Lam, who Kenneth Grant believed to be both Aiwass and an extraterrestrial from Sirius. This method involves using the Lam portrait, or a mental visualization of Lam, as an object of focus in meditation. Oversimplified, one makes use of the mantra “Lam” and meditates on the eyes, eventually being drawn into them. In this way one enters into the egg shaped head and is then able to look out through those same eyes, and “view the world from yonder.”
Surprisingly, the idea that we can contact ETs, are ETs or are a hybrid mix of human and ET is very much alive today. It's, in fact, becoming an obsession! New Agers keep harping on about it - that's all they ever talk about!
"Rock has always been the Devil's music." ― David Bowie
Conclusions
The New Age movement, media psychics, channelers, occultists, spoon benders, musicians and celebrities are all (consciously or unconsciously) involved in materialistic money making ventures, fraud, drugs, demonic possession, cult creation, mind control and black magic. However, the whole lot of them seem to be dancing to Crowley's tune, reinforcing the idea that Crowley was actually greater than he ever imagined and a true inspiration to all budding adepts.
Truths of great import are hidden in plain view, but few, so very few, ever get to see them!
Sources
Most of the biographical data relating to famous living, dead or reincarnated persons was either copied directly from articles found at Wikipedia or slightly modified. It therefore remains free under the GNU Free Documentation License (GFDL).
Past life readings were supplied by trained expert Brianstalin who has studied with various gifted healers and teachers including the Dalai Lama.
Brianstalin reminds us that although the Akashic Records remains the ultimate source of all knowledge, we must access this source directly in order to determine the truth of what he or anybody else is telling us.