UPDATE: Ritual of LAM: A Translation

lamlarge Wow, that was fast! A few hours after I published my commentary on one of the more interesting rituals from the Saucers of the Sorcerers manuscript—called Through the Gates of the Eyes (LAM)—my Facebook friend Bryan Pitkin contacted me and offered to provide a translation of the Enochian language. He qualified his translation by stating that he isn't an expert, but has a number of dictionaries available to provide a basic, if a bit loose, translation.

He wrote:

“Enochian never translates smoothly but if you do a word-by-word parsing of the ritual excerpt you posted you get the following:

M: OL OIAD NIISO NANAEEL

man god, the just come away

A: CHRISTEOS OIAD NIISO ODO OL OIAD OADRIAX LAVA

let there/these be god, the just come away open, unveil man god, the just lower heavens pray

M: LAM MICMA OBZA DRILPI OBZA GASSAGEN OL OIAD GAHA

LAM path behold half, one half, dual greater (than) half, one half, dual divine power creating angel of same man god, the just will exist

M: ODO NOQOD OOANOAN OD NIIS OIAD OL OVOARS MAD NE SIAION

open, unveil ministers eye, eyes and carry you god, the just man center temple, temples

A: OADRIAX OVOARS NOQOD OOANOAN OL NIA-COD OL OIAD IZIZOP OAD-IAX

lower heavens center ministers eye, eyes man safe traveling, passage man god, the just vessel, container, vessels (highest) lower heavens

M: OL LVLO OFAFAFE OIAD OOANOAN!

man tartar, mother of vinegar vial god, the just eyes in their eyes!

OADRIAX DLVGAR OECRIMI OL BNG OL OIAD IZIZOP OADRIAX OD MAHORELA DONASDOGAMATASTOS

lower heavens to give, gave sing praises, praised (v) man guardian man god, the just vessel, container, vessels (highest) lower heavens and dark heavens hell fire

A: OECRIMI OD HOATH OL C DRILPI OBZA LAM!

sing praises, praised (v) and man duke greater (than) half, one half, dual LAM!

So . . . what to make of this? Well, other than the weird tartar and vinegar reference (the ingredients for a LAM sandwich?), this translation shows the ritual is clearly more than just jumbled nonsense. It fits with the Kenneth Grant/Typhonian O.T.O. conception of LAM as gate to other worlds/realities, so it either emerged from or is based upon that tradition. There are references to traveling (astral travel), lower and higher heavens, vessels and containers, and a special emphasis on eyes (again, see Grant's The LAM Statement for how the eyes of this entity are used as a gateway).

I welcome any thoughts, additions, corrections, etc. I am going to a Fortfest this weekend, so won't have a lot of free time, but my hope is to get at least a few more pages scanned by the end of the weekend. In the coming weeks, I will try to write something about what I'm starting to see as the emerging mythology and theme(s) of the order.

But this exegesis has the potential to seriously derail work on my novel-in-progress, so I'm going to have to force myself to get my head out of it and back into book three of m Blackwater Lights trilogy—or my editor will wring my neck!

A big thanks to Bryan for his assistance!

EDIT: I forgot to mention that Bryan suggested that the SoS order may also have links to chaos magick of the Peter J. Carroll variety, in light of the references to dissociative anesthetics (chaotes sometimes use drugs as part of their workings). There are definitely elements very similar to chaos magick elsewhere in the document, and I will be pointing those out as I go along.