Aleister Crowley
Aleister Crowley (1875–1947) was a British occultist, ceremonial magician, poet, and founder of the mystical system Thelema. He is widely regarded as the most influential figure in 20th-century Western occultism. Within UFO research he is mentioned primarily in connection with a claimed contact experience in 1917 in which he allegedly drew the face of a being he called "Lam" — an image many researchers note bears a striking resemblance to the modern Gray alien archetype, predating its widespread popularization by several decades.
| Role | British occultist; mystic |
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Background
Crowley studied at Cambridge and became involved in esoteric orders including the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn before founding his own system, Thelema, based on a text he claimed was dictated to him by a spirit named Aiwass in 1904 in Cairo. He founded the religious order A∣A∣ and later led the Ordo Templi Orientis (OTO). His provocative persona and practices — including ritual magic, drug use, and deliberate public transgression — earned him the tabloid title "the wickedest man in the world."
Lam and the Gray Connection
In 1917, during a series of rituals described as Amalantrah Workings, Crowley claimed to have contacted an entity he called Lam. He produced a portrait of the being — an egg-shaped head, large eyes, tiny nose and mouth — which was published as a frontispiece to a publication in the early 1920s. The image is strikingly similar to the Gray alien archetype that would become prevalent in UFO culture after the Roswell Crash of 1947 and especially after the publication of Whitley Strieber's Communion in 1987.
Some researchers suggest that Crowley's Lam contact may represent an early documented encounter with the same non-human intelligence later associated with Gray aliens. Others treat the similarity as coincidental or as evidence that the Gray archetype was culturally derived rather than based on genuine encounters. The Lam image is referenced in UAP research as one possible precursor to the modern Gray mythology.