Crowley is reported to have said that 'Lam' was "drawn from life". Whilst in New York he certainly advertised for 'freaks of all sorts' to model for him. However, it seems doubtful that 'Lam' was one of those who accepted his invitation to submit a photograph of themselves. But could his drawing of 'the Lama' be based on a memory of somebody he met or a 'still life' of a work of art he had seen?

The fourth of the Seven Masks evokes the traditional metalwork techniques used in Tibet to create images and ritual objects; copper inlaid with gold, silver and brass, often set with coral and turquoise. Crowley would have been familiar these from both his climbing expeditions in the Himalayas and his wanderings in Yunnan which had a long established ethnically Tibetan community.

In the early 20^th century, Tibet was still a place of magic and mystery. Written in 1914, Sax Rohmer includes in his popular history of magic, The Romance of Sorcery, accounts of 'eye-witnesses of some of the phenomena at the command of the Lamas of Tibet'. Significantly, Rohmer adds "the arts of Tibet are indissolubly bound up with the fame of Madame Blavatsky". In the light of this remark, Crowley's publication of his 'Lama' as the frontispiece of his commentary on Blavatsky's The Voice of the Silence requires little further explanation.

Blavatsky's claims to have lived in Tibet for seven years and to have received secret teachings from Tibetan lamas always were and still are hotly disputed. Crowley expressly states that he didn't believe that she had ever been to Tibet. But the legend of Blavatsky's visit to Tibet was enduring. It inspired the pioneer explorer Alexandria David-Neel (1898-1969), who had been a Theosophist in her youth, to illegally enter Tibet in 1916. There she met the Lama from whom Blavatsky claimed to have received her ancient secret books; the Panchen Lama at Shigatze. David-Neel did not reach Lhasa until 1924, publishing an account of her travels appropriately under the title Magic & Mystery in Tibet in 1929.

David-Neel returned to Tibet in 1937. But it was the iconic film of that year, Lost Horizon, that best captured the popular 'myth' of Tibet. In this story the hero and his party are rescued from a plane crash in the Himalayas on their way home from China and taken to Shangri-La, an idyllic valley hidden in the mountains. Shangri-La is presided over by a wise, centuries-old High Lama whose life has been magically extended until Fate directs towards him a successor, a person suitably knowledgeable in the ways of the modern world but who will preserve Shangri-La's secret. It is this legendary 'Shangri-La' that powerfully resonated with Crowley. But, in his version, Crowley brings the secrets he has received from his wise old Lama to the modern world.