On the Lam, Part Two: Great Balls of Fire

The Wickedest Man Alive in the Granite State

Two summers before he undertook the Amalantrah Working, Aleister Crowley was living — not to mention performing rituals and encountering weird phenomena — in New Hampshire:

In 1916, while living near Bristol, New Hampshire, Crowley promoted himself to the rank of Magus through a ceremony of his own devising. According to Richard Cavendish, in History of Magic and The Powers of Evil in Western Religion, Magic, and Folk Belief (both currently out of print), this involved baptizing a toad as Jesus of Nazareth, then crucifying it.

Though OTO purists protest Cavendish’s claims as to Crowley’s ritual activities, one thing is for certain: Crowley wrote a letter to The New York Times (of all places) complaining of a strange visitation in the form of ball lightning:

To the Editor of The New York Times:

I do not know whether globular lightning is a sufficiently
rare phenomenon in this country to merit remark. Yesterday a
globe of fire with an apparent diameter of about a foot burst on
the floor of the middle room of a cottage here and within a few
inches of my right foot. Curiously enough, no damage of any
kind was done.

ALEISTER CROWLEY.
New Bristol, N.H.,
July 13, 1916

Crowley wasn’t there alone; he was the guest of a famous astrologer. One who traced her lineage back to two presidents born in my old neck of the woods:

Between 1913 and 1918, Evangeline Adams owned the Jonathan K. Pike House, which was built around 1803 as a parsonage for the village church next door. This is the cottage where Crowley stayed during the summer of 1916. Although Crowley refers to the dwelling as “a cottage on the shores of Lake Pasquaney in New Hampshire” (Confessions, p. 806), it really isn’t on the shore.

Indeed, Crowley clarifies this fact a few pages later in his Confessions when he writes that the distance between the cottage and “the water’s edge…was barely a hundred and fifty yards in all” (p. 812).

Adams was an occultist whose fame overshadowed that of Crowley’s. Well, in America, at least:

Related to two United States presidents, Evangeline Adams capitalised on an upscale image to serve such clients as J.P. Morgan, Charles Schwab, Tallulah Bankhead and Joseph Campbell.

In 1914, Adams was tried for fortune telling in New York, but was acquitted of all wrong-doing. (Adams) utilised the cycle of Uranus in the US chart and said “the signs point to a war .... for religious, racial and political reasons, in 1942, 1943 and 1944”.

(She) also warned of impending financial difficulties: “In 1928 and 1929... it behooves everyone to be extremely cautious in investment and money matters, and be prepared for this threatening configuration of planets”.

Adams worked on a book with Aleister Crowley in the teens; gossip has it that they were also personally involved. After they separated, however, Crowley published an attack of Evangeline’s astrological skills and business methods, calling her “a grey-haired old woman of exceedingly shrewd expression”.

And as you can see from the map, Crowley was less than an hour’s drive from where Betty and Barney Hill reported to have been abducted by beings almost identical to the creature Crowley would claim contact with in New York in just over a year and a half.

Even more remarkable is the fact that the highway that links Crowley’s stomping grounds with the Hills’ abduction spot is Interstate 93, that number being the holiest of holies in Thelemite gematria:

The number 93 is of great significance in Thelema, a religious philosophy founded by English author and occultist Aleister Crowley in 1904 with the writing of The Book of the Law (also known as Liber AL vel Legis)

The central philosophy of Thelema is in two phrases from Liber AL: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law” and “Love is the law, love under will.“ The two primary terms in these statements are “Will” and “Love”, respectively. In the Greek language, they are Thelema (Will) and Agape (Love). Using the Greek technique of isopsephy, which applies a numerical value to each letter, the letters of both of these words when added together equal 93.

The next thing the Hills recalled was being frightened by the unusual flying object, and the occupants inside of it. Barney scurried back to the car where Betty was waiting. They jumped into the car, and raced down the highway. Looking for the object, they found that it was now gone.

As they drove on, they began to hear a beeping sound... once, then again. Although they had been driving only a couple of minutes, they were 35 miles down the road!

35 miles down the road would have ensured that the Hills would have woken up in the very same town in which Crowley was actually living: that being Hebron, not Bristol.

Adams’s cottage was located in the village of Hebron, NH, ten miles north of Bristol: “Hebron village is situated very pleasantly on a plain near the northwest shore of the lake. It contains a church, town hall, schoolhouse, a store, and several dwellings.”

Of course, Interstate 93 was Route 3 back when the Hills were driving it, and who knows what when Crowley was there.

But it gets better-- the next town over from Bristol? Hill.

Note also that the exit which the the Hills would have taken off of Route Do What Thou Wilt Shall Be the Whole of the Law is Exit 33, just to add the cherry on top.

If Crowley had intended this as a working, he couldn’t have possibly arranged it more brilliantly: shortly before decamping to Bristol/Hebron he took over the Ordo Templi Orientis, the occult order whose highest degree is the 11th (don’t ask why, if you don’t know already: you probably don’t want to know).

And?

Well, it so happens that Hill, NH is bordered on the south by Route 11.

But Crowley didn’t seem to have intended this as a working, otherwise we’d never hear the end of it. And the Amalantrah Working itself never seemed to rate on his personal best list: it’s only since the Hill abduction drama and the rise of alien abductions that the Working became a thing.

But the links here are tantalizing: even though I’d argue that Crowley’s role in the UFO era has been greatly overblown, the connections between Lam and the Hills’ captors are undeniable.

And the fact that Crowley was literally right down the road from the later Hill drama not long before his alleged contact certainly adds new pieces to the puzzle.

But hold on to your hats, because there are even more pieces. And they’ll take us right up to the present day…

TO BE CONTINUED