User:Panyd/LawofOne

L/L Research is a New Age study group founded in 1955 by Don Elkins (1930–1984) in the context of the then-nascent "Ufology" culture in the United States. Elkins started an "UFO contactee group", which was joined by Carla L. Rueckert (1943–2015) in 1962. Rueckert became a partner in L/L Research in 1968.

In 1973, Elkins and Rueckert produced The Hidan of Maukbeiangjow, an exploitation film surrounding the theme of extraterrestrials visiting earth. In 1980, Rueckert began "channeling" communications from a supposed ancient astronaut extraterrestrial being called "Ra". Jim McCarty (b. 1947) joined L/L Research as third partner, and married Rueckert in 1987.

The records of dialogues of Elkins with the entity "channeled" by Rueckert were published as The Ra Material (also as the The Law of One in later editions) between 1982 and 1998 by Schiffer Books. "Ra" is described as "a group of individual souls" at "a higher level of spiritual evolution". The publishers attribute the authorship to Don Elkins, Jim McCarty, and Carla L. Rueckert.

The book presents "Ra" as being of extraterrestrial origin, and as having visited ancient Egypt and assisted in the construction of the pyramids. "Ra" is claimed to be from the "Confederation of Planets in the Service of the Infinite Creator" and outlines a New Age description of the nature and evolution of consciousness. After Elkin's death in 1984, Rueckert began channeling the "Q'uo group", consisting of three "planetary consciousnesses", "Hatonn, Latwii and Ra". The study group maintained a website at llresearch.org from the mid 1990s, later joined by an "activist website" at bring4th.org.

Jay Kinney, editor of Gnosis magazine in vol. 36 (1995) opined that the material may be worth "a few minutes" of readers' attention for "its sophisticated version of the general doctrine of higher worlds", but also that the nature of the material seemed "readymade for paranoid or moralistic abuse".