Unsolved:Babalon Working
The Babalon Working was a series of magic ceremonies or rituals performed from January to March 1946 by author, pioneer rocket-fuel scientist and occultist Jack Parsons and Scientology founder L. Ron Hubbard.[1] This ritual was essentially designed to manifest an individual incarnation of the archetypal divine feminine called Babalon. The project was based on the ideas of Aleister Crowley, and his description of a similar project in his 1917 novel Moonchild.[2]
Rituals of the working
When Parsons declared that the first of the series of rituals was complete and successful, he almost immediately met Marjorie Cameron in his own home, and regarded her as the elemental that he and Hubbard had called through the ritual.[3] Soon Parsons began the next stage of the series, an attempt to conceive a child through sex magic workings. Although no child was conceived, this did not affect the result of the ritual to that point. Parsons and Cameron, who Parsons now regarded as the Scarlet Woman, Babalon, called forth by the ritual, soon married.[citation needed]
The rituals performed drew largely upon rituals and sex magic described by English author and occult teacher Aleister Crowley. Crowley was in correspondence with Parsons during the course of the Babalon Working, and warned Parsons of his potential overreactions to the magic he was performing, while simultaneously deriding Parsons' work to others.[4]
Liber 49, The Book of Babalon
A brief text entitled Liber 49, self-referenced within the text as The Book of Babalon, was written by Jack Parsons as a transmission from the goddess or force called 'Babalon' received by him during the Babalon Working.[3] Parsons wrote that Liber 49 constituted a fourth chapter of Crowley's Liber AL Vel Legis (The Book of the Law), the holy text of Thelema.[5]
See also
- Goddess movement
- Libri of Aleister Crowley
- Scientology and the occult
- Works of Aleister Crowley
References
- ↑ Urban, Hugh B. (2011). The Church of Scientology: A History of a New Religion. Princeton University Press. pp. 39–42. ISBN 9780691146089. https://archive.org/details/churchofscientol0000urba/page/39. "The aim of Parson's 'Babalon Working' was first to identify a female partner who would serve as his partner in esoteric sexual rituals; the partner would then become the vessel for the 'magickal child' or 'moonchild,' a supernatural offspring that would be the embodiment of ultimate power... According to Parson's account of March 2–3, 1946, Hubbard channeled the voice of Babalon, speaking as the beautiful but terrible lady..."
- ↑ Urban, Hugh B. (2006). "4. The Beast with Two Backs". Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, And Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. University of California Press. pp. 135–137. ISBN 9780520247765. "The ultimate goal of these operations, carried out during February and March 1946, was to give birth to the magical being, or 'moonchild,' described in Crowley's works. Using the powerful energy of IX degree Sex Magick, the rites were intended to open a doorway through which the goddess Babalon herself might appear in human form."
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 Pendle, George (2006). Strange Angel: The Otherworldly Life Of Rocket Scientist John Whiteside Parsons. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 263–271. ISBN 9780156031790.
- ↑ Sutin, Lawrence (2002). Do What Thou Wilt: A Life of Aleister Crowley. Macmillan. pp. 412–414. ISBN 9780312252434. https://archive.org/details/dowhatthouwiltli0000suti/page/412.
- ↑ Nichols, Larry A.; George Mather; Alvin J. Schmidt (2010). Encyclopedic Dictionary of Cults, Sects, and World Religions: Revised and Updated Edition. Zondervan. pp. 1037–1038. ISBN 9780310866060.
Further reading
- Biroco, Joel, ed (April 2002). KAOS 14. London: The Kaos-Babalon Press. http://www.biroco.com/kaos/kaos.pdf. Retrieved 2020-02-18. Entire issue dedicated to the Babalon Working.
- Parsons, Jack (1946). "The Collected Writings of Jack Parsons: The Book of Babalon, The Book of Antichrist, and other writings". Sacred-texts.com. http://www.sacred-texts.com/oto/lib49.htm.
- Parsons, John Whiteside (February 28, 1946). "Liber 49". Hermetic.com. http://www.hermetic.com/wisdom/lib49.html.
- Staley, Michael (1989). "The Babalon Working". Starfire (London: BCM Starfire) I (3). http://www.parareligion.ch/dplanet/staley/staley11.htm. Retrieved 2020-02-18.
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