From Blondie’s Bowery loft to the esoteric frontier: Gary Lachman’s remarkable journey

Gary Lachman has lived several lifetimes in one. In the 1970s, as Gary Valentine, he played bass for Blondie, writing the music for their first single “X-Offender” and “(I’m Always Touched by Your) Presence, Dear,” which became a UK top ten hit. He lived with Debbie Harry and Chris Stein in the legendary Blondie loft on the Bowery, rubbing shoulders with David Bowie, Lou Reed, and Iggy Pop.

Then he walked away from rock stardom to become one of today’s most distinctive voices on consciousness, occultism, and the Western esoteric tradition, writing over 26 books on subjects ranging from Aleister Crowley to Colin Wilson.

This beautiful short film by his son, Max Jones-Lachman, tells that story, promoting Gary’s new memoir, Touched by the Presence. The four-minute film captures the arc of a life spent searching for meaning — from comic books at age five to Herman Hesse as a teenager, from existentialism in high school to discovering the occult while living the New York punk rock life, and through a decade-long wilderness period before finding his calling as a writer.​

“Touched by the presence is about becoming who you are,” Lachman says in the film. “About bringing forth what is within you and actualizing your potentials.”