The Lawrence Fraternity

The **Lawrence Fraternity** was an esoteric cult created and led by Professor W.A. Lawrence, better known as Father Lawrence, and his colleague Fedor I. Ryibkin.

## Backstory

### Creation

The purpose of the Fraternity's founding was a practical one; Lawrence and Ryibkin desired to carry out more extensive research on memetic agents and the higher planes of existence they draw power from. Their stated goal is for the betterment of humanity, although how exactly memes would be used to this end are unclear.

Since most naturally created memes, also known as Ultra-Influencing Works of any Media (UIW-AMs), are associated with an existing noosphere dweller and are thus unpredictable and hard to control, Lawrence sought to create an artificial noosphere dweller that the Fraternity could theoretically have control over. This would then allow the cult to create UIW-AMs, which would be given their power by this artificial dweller (who is code-named L). To this end, a group of people was gathered and told to manifest a tulpa with a predetermined appearance, name, and personality. This concentration of psychic energy created L, an ever-changing but powerful noosphere dweller that was able to continue persisting even beyond the minds of the individual people that manifested her.

Lawrence stated that they were careful not to invoke any of the existing archetypes when determining L's characteristics, since the archetypes are the most powerful and least controllable noosphere dwellers. However it seems that they inadvertently failed at this, given that the password used to lock the document that contained instructions on how to kill Lila (who is implied to be L) was "FIRSTGOLD", which is a phrase from a sonnet by Dante Gabriel Rossetti about Lilith (who is considered one of the archetypes). Lawrence likely did not realize this mistake until much later, if at all, and remained confident that Lila would not need to be subdued, and that she would not be as powerful and uncontrollable as she ended up being.

### Practices

According to Lawrence, the "Lawrence Method" used to create L and give her power was inspired by Marcel Griaule's research on the Dogon tribe, 'practical' Tibetan Buddhism, Jewish mysticism (Kabbalah), and Modern Satanism. It is possible that other things influenced his methodology as well, such as the Major Arcana of tarot, Carl Jung's archetypes of the collective unconscious, and anti-government conspiracy theories.

The higher purpose of the Fraternity was never revealed to the members (at least lower ranking ones), as most would probably not willingly be involved in such a dangerous practice just for Lawrence's experiments. Instead, they were led to believe that they were merely communing with a tulpa shared between all members, a beautiful woman known as Lila. To accomplish this, they frequently consumed the hallucinogenic Teth Mushrooms and meditated with yantra patterns.

The Fraternity also oversaw an animal farm somewhere nearby Lawrence's apartment. The animals that were raised there were used as sacrifices for Lila. William originally helped at this farm before becoming more directly involved with the cult, but he did not know what purpose it served, noting that the members didn't eat the animals themselves.

### Demise

Somehow, the actions of the Lawrence Fraternity caught the attention of the FBI, who decided that the Fraternity was not something that should remain in operation. On November 12, a meeting was held in Father Lawrence's apartment, attended by all but two members of the Fraternity: William Clarke and Strupnev. During this meeting, the FBI began a fire that ravaged the building and killed all members of the Fraternity, including Lawrence himself. Detective Yu later confirms that the FBI is responsible for the fire during a conversation with Lila.

## Members

The identities of most members of the Fraternity remain unknown, since they were all killed in the fire before the events of the game. Besides Lawrence and Ryibkin, the only known members are William and Strupnev. Their involvement in the Fraternity indicate that it may have targeted marginalized and isolated members of society, making it easier for them to become indoctrinated and engrossed in the cult's practices.

Lila mentions to Officer Hutchins that Lawrence never made it a high priority to recruit more members into the Fraternity, only allowing those of his inner circle to get involved. Even then, it seems that in truth, Lawrence did not care much for most of them. During the Hierophant ending, he states that William is the only one he wished would not get hurt from the whole situation he had caused.