Margerie Bonner Lowry reported that while at work on Under the Volcano, Lowry began to explore the theosophists' canon ranging from P.D. Ouspensky to Swedenborg to Blake, James, Böhme and Yeats and further down into the arcana of A.E. Waite, Eliphas Levi, Madame Blavatksy, and, through coincidence, Frater Achad.

Appearing at the Lowry's Dollarton shack, Charles Stansfeld-Jones – a white magician and author of Cabbalistic books and treatises under the name Frater Achad – began a long friendship with Lowry, during which time Lowry experimented with astral body projection, I Ching and Yoga, and studied the Tree of Life, a reproduction on which was hung on a wall in the shack. After months of immersion, Lowry ended his experiments for fear of "opening doors which should remain closed." [Originally cited in The Private Labyrinth of Malcolm Lowry, Perle Epstein. New York: Holt, Reinhart and Winston, 1969.]

While Lowry had completed his 1940 draft of Under the Volcano before he met Stansfeld-Jones, he later wrote that met a Cabbalist at a "critical and coincidental moment in the writing of the book."

Above: Frater Achad.

Below, left: Frater Achad's personal lamen, a symbolic representation of the character and powers of the wearer. Note Frater Achad's occult signature of 777 – Aleister Crowley's was 666.

Below, right: Frater Achad's pentacle, showing the various powers he wished to call upon. Crowley wrote that a lamen was a static symbol of the wearer, whereas a pentacle was a more dynamic portrait.

Above: Frontispiece, Q.B.L. or The Bride's Reception.

Above: Excerpt from Q.B.L. showing the expression of the Ten Sephiroth as the TRINITY of TRIADS with MALKUTH pendant (left) and "THE LIGHTNING FLASH" / "THE FLAMING SWORD" (right).