Excerpt from Do What Thou Wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley by Lawrence Sutton
Excerpt from Do What Thou Wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley by Lawrence Sutton (2000, St. Martin’s Press, New York; p. 413 – 415)
In January 1946, Parsons commenced what he termed the “Babalon Working” – a series of rituals conducted by Parsons with the aim of obtaining for himself the VIII ritual instructions by Crowley, entitled De Nuptiis Sedretis Deorum cum Hominibus (On the Secret Marriages of Gods and Men). This ritual is described by Kenneth Grant as containing “methods of evoking an Elemental, or familiar spirit […] On being appropriated by a human organism, the elemental finally becomes absorbed in the immortal principle in man.” Specifically, Parsons sought an air elemental and so employed the Call for the Enochian Air Tablet. He also consecrated a talisman with his own semen.
On February 23, 1946, after a long and often discouraging series of ritual workings, Parsons wrote triumphantly to Crowley: “I have my elemental! She turned up one night after the conclusion of the Operation, and has been with me since, although she goes back to New York next week. She has red hair and slant green eyes as specified. If she returns she will be dedicated as I am dedicated! All or nothing – I have no other terms. She is an artist, strong minded and determined, with strong masculine characteristics and a fanatical independence…” The elemental was named Marjorie Cameron… She became Parsons’ magical partner in a series of further workings, recorded by Parsons in his Book of Babalon – the feminine aspect of the New Eon…
Crowley, in a March 27, 1946 letter to Parsons, warned the younger man of the potential dangers of the work he was pursuing:
I am particularly interested in what you have written to me about the Elemental, because for some little while past I have been endeavouring to intervene personally in this matter on your behalf. I would however have you recall (Eliphas) Levi’s aphorism “the love of the Magus for such beings is insensate and may destroy him.”
It seems to me that there is a danger of your sensitiveness upsetting your balance. Any experience that comes your way you have a tendency to over-estimate […]
At the same time, your being as sensitive as you are, it behooves you to be more on your guard that would be the case with the majority of people.
But it was too late. Parsons had, in early March, already achieved, through an IX sexual working with Cameron, “direct touch with the One who is most Holy and Beautiful as mentioned in The Book of the Law. I cannot write the name at present. First instructions were received direct though Ron [Hubbard], the seer. I have followed them to the letter. There was a desire for incarnation. I do not yet know the vehicle, but it will come to me bringing a secret sign. I am to act as instructor guardian for nine months; then it will be loosed on the world. That is all I can say now…” Parsons believed that the birth of this child (whose physical mother he did not yet know) could lead to the fulfillment of The Book of the Law – the arising of the leader who would bring Thelemic freedom to the world. In the messages he was receiving from Babalon, Parsons now perceived material that could become an as-yet-unwritten fourth chapter of the Book.
All this was too much for Crowley, who was not prone to accept competing prophesies. To Parsons, in April 1946, he wrote in a patronizing tone: “You have got me completely puzzled by your remarks about the elemental […] I thought I had a most morbid imagination, as good as any man’s, but it seems I have not. I cannot form the slightest idea of what you can possibly mean…”
Parsons would break from Crowley… as the younger man would not accept the Beast’s view of the Babalon workings as a failure. By 1949, two years after Crowley’s death, Parsons’ magical operations with Babalon had culminated in The Book of Antichrist, a brief treatise divided into two sections – “The Black Pilgrimage” and “The Manifesto of the Antichrist.” […] The concluding “Manifesto” declared that Parsons – now Belarion the Antichrist – would overturn “the Black Brotherhood called Christianity” and would “bring all men to the law of the Beast 666, and in His law I shall conquer the world.” In an analogy to Christian history (that Parsons did not make), Parsons would become Paul to Crowley’s Christ. As for the awaited incarnation of Babalon, the “Manifesto” declared that she would manifest herself within seven years.
Parsons did not live to see the prophesy fulfilled. On June 20, 1952, while working alone in a laboratory he had created in a garage, Parsons dies in an apparently accidental explosion caused by a dropped vial of fulminate of mercury. Upon learning of his death, Parsons’ elderly mother committed suicide as well.
Link to the Book of the Law:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/engccxx.htm
Link to the Book of Babalon:
http://hermetic.com/wisdom/lib49.html
Link to The Book of Antichrist:
http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_001/boo
Excerpt from Do What Thou Wilt: A life of Aleister Crowley by Lawrence Sutton (2000, St. Martin’s Press, New York; p. 413 – 415)
In January 1946, Parsons commenced what he termed the “Babalon Working” – a series of rituals conducted by Parsons with the aim of obtaining for himself the VIII ritual instructions by Crowley, entitled De Nuptiis Sedretis Deorum cum Hominibus (On the Secret Marriages of Gods and Men). This ritual is described by Kenneth Grant as containing “methods of evoking an Elemental, or familiar spirit […] On being appropriated by a human organism, the elemental finally becomes absorbed in the immortal principle in man.” Specifically, Parsons sought an air elemental and so employed the Call for the Enochian Air Tablet. He also consecrated a talisman with his own semen.
On February 23, 1946, after a long and often discouraging series of ritual workings, Parsons wrote triumphantly to Crowley: “I have my elemental! She turned up one night after the conclusion of the Operation, and has been with me since, although she goes back to New York next week. She has red hair and slant green eyes as specified. If she returns she will be dedicated as I am dedicated! All or nothing – I have no other terms. She is an artist, strong minded and determined, with strong masculine characteristics and a fanatical independence…” The elemental was named Marjorie Cameron… She became Parsons’ magical partner in a series of further workings, recorded by Parsons in his Book of Babalon – the feminine aspect of the New Eon…
Crowley, in a March 27, 1946 letter to Parsons, warned the younger man of the potential dangers of the work he was pursuing:
I am particularly interested in what you have written to me about the Elemental, because for some little while past I have been endeavouring to intervene personally in this matter on your behalf. I would however have you recall (Eliphas) Levi’s aphorism “the love of the Magus for such beings is insensate and may destroy him.”
It seems to me that there is a danger of your sensitiveness upsetting your balance. Any experience that comes your way you have a tendency to over-estimate […]
At the same time, your being as sensitive as you are, it behooves you to be more on your guard that would be the case with the majority of people.
But it was too late. Parsons had, in early March, already achieved, through an IX sexual working with Cameron, “direct touch with the One who is most Holy and Beautiful as mentioned in The Book of the Law. I cannot write the name at present. First instructions were received direct though Ron [Hubbard], the seer. I have followed them to the letter. There was a desire for incarnation. I do not yet know the vehicle, but it will come to me bringing a secret sign. I am to act as instructor guardian for nine months; then it will be loosed on the world. That is all I can say now…” Parsons believed that the birth of this child (whose physical mother he did not yet know) could lead to the fulfillment of The Book of the Law – the arising of the leader who would bring Thelemic freedom to the world. In the messages he was receiving from Babalon, Parsons now perceived material that could become an as-yet-unwritten fourth chapter of the Book.
All this was too much for Crowley, who was not prone to accept competing prophesies. To Parsons, in April 1946, he wrote in a patronizing tone: “You have got me completely puzzled by your remarks about the elemental […] I thought I had a most morbid imagination, as good as any man’s, but it seems I have not. I cannot form the slightest idea of what you can possibly mean…”
Parsons would break from Crowley… as the younger man would not accept the Beast’s view of the Babalon workings as a failure. By 1949, two years after Crowley’s death, Parsons’ magical operations with Babalon had culminated in The Book of Antichrist, a brief treatise divided into two sections – “The Black Pilgrimage” and “The Manifesto of the Antichrist.” […] The concluding “Manifesto” declared that Parsons – now Belarion the Antichrist – would overturn “the Black Brotherhood called Christianity” and would “bring all men to the law of the Beast 666, and in His law I shall conquer the world.” In an analogy to Christian history (that Parsons did not make), Parsons would become Paul to Crowley’s Christ. As for the awaited incarnation of Babalon, the “Manifesto” declared that she would manifest herself within seven years.
Parsons did not live to see the prophesy fulfilled. On June 20, 1952, while working alone in a laboratory he had created in a garage, Parsons dies in an apparently accidental explosion caused by a dropped vial of fulminate of mercury. Upon learning of his death, Parsons’ elderly mother committed suicide as well.
Link to the Book of the Law:
http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/engccxx.htm
Link to the Book of Babalon:
http://hermetic.com/wisdom/lib49.html
Link to The Book of Antichrist:
http://www.greylodge.org/occultreview/glor_001/boo
www.sacred-texts.com
14. Above, the gemmed azure is The naked splendour of Nuit; She bends in ecstasy to kiss The secret ardours of Hadit. The winged globe, the starry blue, Are mine, O Ankh-af-na-khonsu!
