"Decoder"

Thelemites have labored for decades to determine the "order and value of the English alphabet" referred to in chapter I verse 55 of Liber AL. Crowley's magical son Charles Stansfeld Jones, aka Frater Achad, arrived at a partial solution as long ago as 1918, but abandoned his efforts at an early stage, unwilling or unable to carry them through. That task fell instead to Carol Smith of British order the OAA, who succeeded in deriving a viable English Qabala from the text in 1974 a full 70 years after it was first transcribed.

Although difficult to summarize, Smith's approach basically entailed treating the letters of the alphabet as if they were fixed points on-the circumference of a circle and numbering them sequentially, starting at A and counting forward 11 places each time. Thus L became number two, W number three, H number four and so on. By continuing in the fashion until all 26 characters had been assigned a value she arrived at an elementary substitution code similar to those once common in juvenile spy fiction. Interested readers can duplicate the entire process for themselves in minutes. It requires no particular effort once the basic principle has been grasped, and may indeed constitute the solution to 'this mystery of the letters;' albeit the biggest mystery of all is why Achad himself was seemingly unable to finish what he'd started.

Despite all that's happened since 1974, the ramifications of Smith's discovery still haven't been fully explored. Perhaps the most convincing evidence in support of her claims is to be found in American author Allen H. Greenfield's slim volume Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts (ISBN 1-881532-04-6) which runs to only 110 pages but nevertheless merits every penny of publishing house Illuminet's $9.95 cover price. Greenfield obviously sets great store by such virtues as brevity and encapsulation, writing with a notable economy of words yet still managing to cast fresh light on one of esoteric tradition's most closely guarded secrets. It is his contention that Ascended Masters throughout history have communicated with their human agents via elaborate codes based on numerology and the Qabala. Me further alleges that by applying the key encrypted in Liber AL it is possible to crack the most recent of these codes and literally "trace the UFOnauts to their very doorsteps."

Allen H. Greenfield speculates that publication of his book Secret Cipher of the UFOnauts will render New Aeon English Qabala Cipher 6 (NAEQG) obsolete as a magical weapon and relegate it to the role of 'astro-archeological tool.' There are signs that this is happening already, he adds, pointing out that the cipher works best when applied to vintage cases in which 'funny names' figure prominently.

Albert K. Bender's 1962 potboiler Flying Saucers and the Three Men is a case in point. The text contains only one 'funny name' ('Kazik') but nevertheless rewards careful study.

Bender himself exhibited a degree of paranoia unmatched by his contemporaries. Preoccupied with the occult, he spent the early 1950s brooding on UFOs in a specially appointed 'chamber of horrors' and eventually fell prey to some form of psychic attack (albeit many latter-day readers are likely to find his symptoms indicative of nothing more sinister than migraine). Flying Saucers and the Three Men relates how he arrived at an undisclosed 'secret' regarding the origin and purpose of flying saucers and was later visited by three MIB who whisked him off to Antarctica for further astounding revelations. No firm indication is given as to the nature of these revelations but NAEQG provides several tantalizing clues.

To begin with, the letters comprising ALBERT K. BENDER have a value of 195, which, as Stephen Dziklewicz points out, also = ALIEN ABDUCTIONS. Significantly, Gray Barker's roman a clef The Silver Bridge deliberately shortens Bender's name to AL K. BENDER which has a value of 114, THE NAME (i.e., Bender's name held the key to his experiences) and even more unambiguously, CHOSEN ONE.

The Silver Bridge also refers to Bender's alien visitors as the lurking horror.' a phrase reminiscent of H.P. Lovecraft. LURKING HORROR = 142 the same value as MEN IN BLACK. This spectacular direct hit for NAQ6 should be enough to convince even the most hardened skeptics that some force beyond mere coincidence is at work here.

Intriguingly, 142 also = BACKWARD DARKNESS and ALL LONELY PLACES, cryptic phrases hinting at the MIBs real point of origin.

Toward the end of his first full-blown encounter Bender was entrusted with the cant-language shibboleth 'Kazik' and told to repeat it whenever he wanted to invoke the MIB again. KAZIK = 50 AND MIB = 64, values which combined = 114: AL K. BENDER. What's more, the sum of KAZIK (50) and T H R E E M E N (150) = 200: BLACK PILGRIMAGE. Evidently Bender's uneasy relationship with the MIB was merely one stage in a much wider process of initiation.

It should be obvious even from this brief summary that Secret Cipher... is the product of a deeply mystical sensibility. Indeed, its emphasis on ritual magic and the Qabala would probably incline most nuts and-bolts UFOlogists to give up reading after only a few pages. A key passage stresses that the messages passed on to society at large by contactees and channellers "are meant to be understood only by deep initiates in possession of the code out of which the cipher was constructed." This code was purportedly introduced to UFOlogical circles at an early stage by such enigmatic figures as Meade Layne and especially George Hunt Wiliiamson, "who may have helped [George] Adamski concoct his Orthon story."




(Greenfield also stresses that Williamson was "certainly an initiate, much given to codes and ciphers." Perhaps significantly Williamson devoted an entire chapter of his 1959 book Road in the Sky to the word 'El' and its derivations. A student of elder lore, he was no doubt aware that 'El' is the correct pronunciation of AL.)

 

Elsewhere Greenfield name-checks Richard Shaver, originator of the Mantong alphabet, for his part in promoting the contemporary UFO mythos; likewise Williamson's ill-fated confederates Wilbur Wilkinson and Karl Hunrath. He traces human interaction with UFOnauts back to remote times and shows would-be adepts how they too can use the cipher to "resist Alien Abduction and Alien Conquest."

Some occultists and classical scholars will no doubt balk at what is effectively a simplified latter-day alternative to the traditional Hebrew Qabala; but such objections must ultimately be weighed against the cipher's undoubted value as a research tool. On the face of it there is something preposterous about the idea of using Liber AL to 'decode' UFO messages; yet anyone who follows Greenfield's suggestions will be forced to concede that there are indeed "virtually always case-specific correlations on the very first attempt. "

The burden of proof for any claim inevitably rests with the claimant, and Greenfield certainly argues his case convincingly. An ordained Gnostic Bishop, he puts something of himself into every line he writes. This intense personal involvement elevates Secret Cipher... from potboiler level to the status of instant cult classic. It is to be regretted that the author of such an important book has produced so little else in the same vein.