An introduction to J. W. Parsons

                      -= Beloved of Babalon =-

                        ------------------

                 An introduction to J. W. Parsons

                          Part III of IV

   "LIBER 49" contains instructions for the earthing of this Babalon

current in the form or an avatar, daughter or manifestation of 

Babalon, who was to appear amongst us. It would seem that Parsons

was expecting a full-blown incarnation, and not simply the 

inauguration of a force. The second verse of the text declares it to 

be the fourth chapter of "THE BOOK OF THE LAW", and it is worth quoting

this in full:

 "And this is my book, that is the fourth chapter of the Book of the

Law, He completing the Name, for I am out of NUIT by HORUS, the 

incestuous sister of RA-HOOR-KHUIT."

   In terms of content, level of inspiration, and style, "LIBER 49"

is nothing like "THE BOOK OF THE LAW"; and on this basis alone, the

claim can be looked at askance. We could expect, I think, that a 

fourth chapter would evince some sort of continuity with the three 

chapters received by Crowley, and this is not at all evident in

"LIBER 49". However, the key to the claim lies in the reference, in

the quoted passage, to "the Name". The name is Tetragrammaton, IHVH;

and the "He completing" is the He final. On this basis, Parsons

considered it axiomatic that Father-Mother-Son, IHV, was incomplete 

without the Daughter, the He final; this he considered to be Babalon,

the natural complement of Vau, the Son, Horus. Consideration of this

is, I can appreciate, something of a hiccup to a stright narrative of

Parsons and the Babalon Working. However, it is so central to his

thinking that it really ought to be outlined now.

   I can best give the flavour of this by quoting a couple of passages

from one of his essays that has yet to be published. he discusses the 

break-up of patriarchy in the dawn of the twentieth century, and the

beginnings of a new age of Horus. The nature of this is seen as 

disruptive, bringing confusionand terror. He instances two terrible

wars, the atomic bomb, and an increase in epicene and homosexual

tendencies. He continues as follows:

 "But the great event of the aeon, which will bring with it the

possibility of redemption to the whole of the western world, has not

yet been made manifest. We, who contain the knowledge of this event

among Ourselves until the time is right, and who were in fact the 

instruments of its gestation, give these present indications.

The Aeon of Horus is of the nature of a child. To perceive this, we

must conceve of the nature of a child without the veil of sentiment-

ality - beyond good and evil, perfectly gentle, perfectly ruthless,

containing all possibilities within the limits of heredity, and highly

susceptible to training and environment. But the nature of Horus is

also the nature of force - blind, terrible, unlimited force. That is

why the West stands in imminent danger of annihilation. that is why

the West also stands in the possibility of the most rapid and

tremendous evolution that the world has ever know. The balance must

be love and understanding, or else all else fails. Now We have said

enough for this place.

Then let the student read and meditate upon the ritual of Horus, 

constructing the total nature of Horus out of the polyphony of the

component concepts. And, if he dare, let him invoke Horus and partake

of the power and energy that is his right under the New Aeon. And let

him also consider the love whereby Horus may be fulfilled and 

dignified; and meditating on this, let him prevision and invoke that

which is to come."

   I haven't come across any material written by Parsons prior to

the Babalon Working. However, the probability must be that ideas 

similar to this - the need for a complement to Horus - were on his

mind befor 1946.

   A few days after receiving "LIBER 49", Parsons put in hand the 

ritual preparations as indicated in the text. Again in his own words:

 "On March 1 and 2, 1946, I prepared the alter and equipment in 

accordance with the instructions in "LIBER 49". The Scribe, Ron

Hubbard, had been away about a week, and knew nothing of my invocation

of BABALON, which I had kept entirely secret. On the night of March 2

he returned, and described a vision he had had that evening, of a 

savage and beautiful woman riding naked on a great cat-like beast.

He was impressed with the urgent necessity of giving me some message

or communication. We prepared magically for this communication, 

constructing a temple at the alter with the analysis of the key word.

He was robed in white, carrying a lamp; and I in black, hooded, with

the cup and dagger. At his suggestion we played Rachmaninov's

"Isle of the Dead" as backround music, and set an automatic recorder

to transcribe audible occurrences. At approximately 8pm he began to

dictate, I transcribed directly as I received."

   Hubbard's vision sounds a bit too glib to me. It sounds rather like

he'd seen a copy of "THE BOOK OF THOTH" Atu XI, "LUST", showing the

Whore astride the Beast.There would have been at least one copy of 

"THE BOOK OF THOTH" around Parsons' place, I would have thought.

Interestingly, in spite of Hubbard being referred to as "the Scribe",

it was Hubbard who was giving utterance to "astral communications",

and Parsons writing them down. As far as the Babalon Working is

concerned, Hubbard is the joker in the pack, the factor infinite and

unknown. His whole career, both before and after his involvement

with Parsons, shows him to have been a confidence man par excellence.

Events after the Babalon Working, when he effortlessly swindled

Parsons out of thousands of dollars, demonstrate that Parsons was as

readily taken in as anyone. It is surely legitimite for us to wonder,

therefore, to what extent Hubbard's undoubted talents for deceit -

both of himself and of others - coloured the whole Working. This is

not to invalidate it, or to declare it abortive, but to sound a 

cautionary note. After all, Edward Kelly seems by some accounts to

have bees a person of dubious repute, to put it mildly; but this

does not automatically negate the worth of the Workings which he

conducted with John Dee. There is another interesting parallel between

Hubbard and Kelly, as we shall see later.

   The Workings arising from "LIBER 49" continued for several nights,

and they contained instructions for futher rituals. These rituals 

were intended to facilitate the earthing of Babalon. Some of the 

communications received in the course of these Workings are of a

fierce, intense beauty, as a few excerpts will illustrate:

 "She is flame of life, power of darkness, she destroys with a glance,

she may take thy soul. She feeds upon the death of men.

The first ritual. Tomorrow the second ritual. Concentrate all force

and being in Our Lady BABALON. Light a single flame on Her alter,

saying: Flame is Our Lady, flame is Her hair, I am flame.

Display thyself to Our Lady; dedicate thy organs to Her, dedicate

thy heart to Her, dedicate thy mind to Her, dedicate thy soul to Her,

for She shall absorb thee, and thou shalt become living flame before

She incarnates. For it shall be through you alone, and no-one else

can help in this endeavour."

   The rituals used included, for the most part, passages adapted from

Crowley's works. For instance, there is material drawn from "THE 

GOTHIC MASS", "THE VISION AND THE VOICE, and "TANNHAUSER". this is not

plagiarism on the part of Parsons. The rituals had to be drawn up

quickly, and these passages were to hand. Parsons had a beautiful and

lucid writing style of his own, and would have been more than capable,

in different circumstances, of devising his own inovations.

   Some of the communications received in the course of the Babalon

Working have very forceful sexual expression, bordering on the

rapacious. Consider, for instance, this passage:

 "In verse seven verses of seven lines, seven magick words. Stand

and chant seven times. Envision thyself as a cloaked radiance

desirable to the Goddess, beloved. Envision Her approaching thee.

Embrace Her, cover Her with kisses. think upon the lewd lascivious

things thou couldst do. All is good to BABALON. All.

Then rest, meditating on this:

Thou as a man and as a god hast strewn upon the earth and in the

heavens many loves. These recall; concentrate, concentrate each

woman thou hast raped. Remember her, think upon her, move her into

BABALON. This verse shall be used in worship when She appears.

Then meditate upon thy desire, think upon Her, and, touching naught,

chant these verses. Recall each lascivious moment, each lustful day,

all set then into the astral body, touching naught.

Preserve the material basis... The lust is Hers, the passion yours.

Consider thou the Beast raping.

Leaving thy casual loves - all belongs to BABALON, thy lust is 

BABALON's. She is with thee three days. The sign is Hers, secret, 

and no man knows its correspondences. Guard."

   We should be wary of seeking to draw too close an anology between

differing systems, and particularly between deities from those

systems. Bearing this in mind, however, an analogue does does suggest

itself between Kali and Babalon; perhaps Babalon is more sexually

loaded. In any case, all are aspects of the One Goddess, and Babalon

is a particular aspect of Nuit. Verse 22 of the first chapter of

"THE BOOK OF THE LAW" says "Now, therefore, I am known to you by

my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I shall give him when

at least he knoweth me...". This secret name was the correct spelling

of Babalon, which was given to Crowley whilst he was scrying the 12th

Aethyr; until then, he had been using the Biblical form - "Babylon".

By Gematria, Babalon enumerates as 156; and in a note to his account 

of the 12 Aethyr Crowley tells us that "the formula of 156 is constant

copulation or samadhi on everything". It is the blind, sexual passion

that carries all before it - dionysian. There is a close connection

between Babalon and Pan. In a note to the account of the 2nd Aethyr,

Crowley observes:

 "From this it would appear BABALON (who is speaking through one of 

her ministers) is the feminine (or androgyne) equivalent and not

merely the complement of Pan. This is shewn in many of her images."

   This is echoed elsewhere by Parsons, who wrote:

 "But I say thet thet perfect image in the heart of man is patterned

by the awful lust in space-time that shapes all women, the insatiable

and eternal lust of Pan that is BABALON."

   After the Babalon Working had been concluded, all that Parsons 

could do was wait. He had been told that the Operation had succeeded,

that conception had occurred, and that in due course the avatar or

Daughter of Babalon would come to him, bearing a secret sign that 

Parsons alone would recognise, and which would prove her authenticity.

Hubbard, though, had rather more mundaneconsiderations on his mind,

and several weeks later he and Betty absconded with a vast amount

of Parsons' money. This amounted to many thousands of dollars as an

investigation in Allied Enterprises, a fund set up by Parsons, Betty

and Hubbard, and into which Parsons was pursuaded to sink most of his

savings. Parsons eventually managed to track them down, and recovered

a fraction of his money after taking legal action. Parsons had no 

further contact with either Hubbard or Betty after this.

   He was, though, beset with other problems. Preoccupied with the 

Babalon Working as he had been, he neglected his duties towards 

Agape Lodge and its members. This was perhaps the final straw for

many of his peers. I get the impression that many of them considered

him something of a prima donna, were tired of his waywardness, and 

saw an opportunity to cut him down to size. The various members of

the Lodge never seemed to have much compassion in telling tales on

each other to Crowley, and he received reports from several different

sources on this latest escapade of Jack Parsons. From these reports,

Crowley concluded that Parsonos' flaws had finally overcome his

promise, and that Parsons was a gullible fool beyond redemption. He

was, furthermore, infuriated by Parsons' intimations that, in the 

interests of secrecy, he could not provide a full account of what

had transpired during the Babalon Working. Parsons was suspended

from his position as head of the Lodge, and departed soon after.

                           -----------------

      * This concludes "PARSONS.III", part III of IV.