Cameron as Babalon in Anger's Pleasure Dome
According to Olivia Robertson of the Fellowship of Isis, August 21st is a feast of Ishtar. I have been conscious of it since 1992 when events I will one day write about showed it to be a powerful part of my destiny matrix.
I commemorate it today with some hopefully evocative teaser fragments drawn from my two works in progress. Have lifted all manner of imagery from all over the place. Anyone wanting a namecheck, I'm happy to provide it.
Firstly, extracts from the section on the Babalon Working in Aleister Crowley and the Aeon of Horus.
The Holy Whore
Pondering on the nature of the Aeon of Horus, Jack Parsons (pictured above)concluded that, ‘This force is completely blind depending upon the men and women in whom it manifests and who guide it. Obviously it’s guidance now tends towards catastrophe. The catastrophic trend is due to our lack of understanding of our own natures. The hidden lusts fears and hatreds resulting from the warping of the love urge which underlie the natures of all Western peoples have taken a homicidal and suicidal direction. This impasse is broken by the incarnation of another sort of force called BABALON. The nature of this force relates to love understanding and Dionysian freedom and is the necessary counterbalance or correspondence to the manifestation of Horus.’
In The Book of the Law Ch 1,V22, it is written, ‘I am known to ye by my name Nuit, and to him by a secret name which I will give him when at last he knoweth me.’ The secret name was later revealed by Crowley as Babalon. The difference in spelling to the usual “Babylon” was Qabalistic. Crowley’s version adds up to 156. The name of the ancient city meant “Gate of the Sun.” The most important entrance into Babylon was named after their major Goddess, Ishtar. Babalon can be understood as a channel of solar force through her gate in sexual terms. She could be considered to be the true form of the archetype later corrupted in the mass mind by the Christian Whore of Babylon from the Book of Revelation.
In many ancient cultures, most famously the Babylonian, there was a form of sacred prostitution. The Hierodules, as they were known, were Priestesses of the Goddess. Ishtar was Goddess of love, sex, magic, war, and plenty else besides, in a time when it was accepted as perfectly natural that a woman could harmoniously embody all these things. Christianity has been responsible for a disastrous fragmentation over this. We can see it quite clearly in Revelation where the Whore is depicted as in conflicting opposition to the woman clothed with the sun, a Queen of Heaven type later identified with the Virgin Mary. The Babylonians could accept them as one and the same. Something of the esoteric tradition of the sacred hierodule has remained in eastern Tantric sects where a woman can be the vehicle of the force of the Shakti, the energy of the divine feminine. Crowley was attempting to restore this back into the western mysteries.
From Soldato
Babylon depicted in DW Griffiths' 1916 epic Intolerance.
Crowley saw on one occasion a ‘column of fire is dancing --- the fire is but the skirt of the dancer, and the dancer is a mighty god.’ She said, ‘I gather up every spirit that is pure, and weave him into my vesture of flame. I lick up the lives of men, and their souls sparkle from mine eyes. I am the mighty sorceress, the lust of the spirit. And by my dancing I gather for my mother Nuit the heads of all them that are baptized in the waters of life. I am the lust of the spirit that eateth up the soul of man. I have prepared a feast for the adepts, and they that partake thereof shall see God.’
’This is the Mystery of Babalon, the Mother of Abominations, and this is the mystery of her adulteries, for she hath yielded up herself to everything that liveth, and hath become a partaker in its mystery. And because she hath made her self the servant of each, therefore is she become the mistress of all.’
After the Babalon Working began, assorted Enochian style invocations were performed on a daily basis. The full details are available on a number of web sites. John Carters’ Parsons’ biography Sex and Rockets gives a good summary. On Jan 18th Parsons and Hubbard went out into the Mojave Desert to complete the first sequence of ceremonies.
On their return red-haired, green-eyed Marjorie Cameron had arrived at the Parsons household. Many accounts of the Babalon Working tend to imply that she appeared unheralded and unknown at a spookily appropriate moment in the magickal proceedings. This is not entirely true.
Her family had moved to Pasadena at the wars’ end. There she met someone she had known in the navy who was living at the Parsonage and suggested she might be interested in checking out the “mad scientist” and the social scene around him. She visited in early January 1946 and briefly met Parsons, each registering strong resonance with each other. The date for this is unclear. It may have been after the Working had begun. One account clearly indicates that her credentials for inclusion were immediately recognised with Jack and Ron urgently demanding of her old navy friend that he get her back to the Parsonage.
Jack Parsons and Marjorie Cameron
Born in 1922 during a thunderstorm during which her father had attempted suicide in the mistaken belief that her mother was dying, from an early age Cameron had manifested a powerful individuality that led her to readily identify with the archetype of witch. Her red hair was enough to convince a devout grandmother of her infernal nature. She soon developed natural visionary abilities and an aptitude for art. At seventeen the suicide of a close friend prompted a number of attempts of her own which seemed to further develop her psychism.
During the war she served in the navy and was involved in drawing maps for military operations. She later came to feel a sense of talismanic sigil magic was involved that somehow connected her to soldiers that died as a result of their deployment in accordance with the plans she had been responsible for manifesting. At one point she briefly met Winston Churchill.
The timing of her return to the Parsonage was indeed perfect as was her willingness to immediately engage in what was essentially a sex magick marathon without any real idea of exactly what it was all about. It was only after the whole operation was completed that Parsons explained it to her.
Cameron appeared to exactly fit the requirements of a being capable of both embodying Babalon and conceiving an aeon babe. There is some confusion as to whether she was Babalon herself or simply a kind of elemental force that could birth her and therefore the child would be Babalon. Cameron herself eventually came to feel she was Babalon incarnate. Parsons wrote on a number of later occasions of the advent of Babalon still in the future tense.
The three protagonists got down to some intense magickal business. Hubbard served as the scryer, meaning that he used his developed faculties of psychic vision to commune with the forces invoked by their rituals.
L Ron Hubbard
On the February 28th Jack went back out into the desert alone to invoke Babalon. The result was the transmission of Liber 49, which he considered to be a further chapter of The Book of the Law. Quite how he received it, whether through hearing a voice, or as automatic writing for example, is unclear. Considering his dedication to Thelema and Crowley personally it may seem surprising that he could have thought that the holy scripture could be in any way incomplete. His reasoning is interesting. The famous Hebrew name for God known as the Tetragrammaton has four letters usually rendered in English as YHVH. This has been the foundation of a vast amount of Qabalistic lore. The letters have been designated as symbolic of father, mother, son, and daughter. In Golden Dawn tarot teachings expounded by Crowley they are depicted by the King, Queen, Prince, and Princess cards. Parsons believed that the three chapters of the Book of the Law corresponded to YHV and that Liber 49 completed the daughter H. This has not been generally accepted by Thelemites. Although Liber 49 is a strange and powerful document it is not considered to be on anywhere near the level of inspiration of Crowley’s text.
Returning from the desert he discovered that Ron had experienced a vision of “a savage and beautiful woman riding naked on a cat like beast” who wanted to deliver a message. This seemed very similar to the image of the Lust card from Crowley’s Tarot deck that is a representation of Babalon. For those who think Ron was surely familiar with the imagery and therefore using his writers’ imagination to make up suitable details, what followed, regardless of a Vision and the Voice flavour, and especially in the hindsight of events occurring six years later, should give pause for thought.
Against a background soundtrack of Rachmaninoff’s Isle of the Dead, ritual details emerged from Ron. ‘She is flame of life, power of darkness, she destroys with a glance, she may take the soul. She feeds upon the death of men. Concentrate all force and being in our Lady Babalon. Light a single flame on her altar, saying Flame is our lady, flame her hair. I am flame.’ ‘Dedicate thy soul to her for she shall absorb thee and thou shalt become living flame before she incarnates.’ He added, ‘For it shall be through you alone and no one else can help in this endeavour. It is lonely, it is awful.’
Artwork by Taz.
Perfect Mind
Here are a few verses from Liber 49.
‘I am the Bride appointed. Come ye to the nuptials - come ye now!
My joy is the joy of eternity, and my laughter is the drunken laughter of a harlot in the house of ecstasy.
All your loves are sacred, pledge them all to me.’
And a taster of Parsons’ passionate poem, The Birth of Babalon.
‘She has clothed her beauty in robes of sin
and pledged her heart to swine
And loving and giving all she has
brewed for saints immortal wine.
But now the darkness is riven through
and the robes of sin are gone,
And naked she stands as a terrible blade
and a flame and a splendid song
Naked in radiant mortal flesh
at the Birth of BABALON.
-----
And her whoredom is holy as virtue is foul
beneath the holy sky,
And her kisses will wanton the world away
in passion that shall not die.
Ye shall laugh and love and follow her dance
when the wrath of god is gone
And dream no more of hell and hate
in the Birth of BABALON.’
The most notable Nag Hammadi material containing feminine spirituality is generally known as Thunder: Perfect Mind. It has become increasingly well known in recent years. Interesting comparisons can be made with the Abraxas of Jung and the Babalon mysticism of Crowley and particularly Parsons.
Here are a representative series of extracts from Thunder.
‘For I am the first and the last.
I am the honoured one and the scorned one.
I am the whore and the holy one.
I am the wife and the virgin.
I am the silence that is incomprehensible
You who deny me, confess me,
and you who confess me, deny me.
You who tell the truth about me, lie about me,
and you who have lied about me, tell the truth about me.
For I am knowledge and ignorance.
I am shame and boldness.
I am shameless; I am ashamed.
I am strength and I am fear.
I am war and peace.
Give heed to me.
I am the one who is disgraced and the great one.
Give heed to my poverty and my wealth.
But I, I am compassionate and I am cruel.
Be on your guard!
I am the one whom they call Life,
and you have called Death.
I am the one whom they call Law,
and you have called Lawlessness.
And take me to yourselves from places that are ugly and in ruin,
I am the union and the dissolution.’
Remember that Parsons and Hubbard ran into problems when thy entered an Enochian zone where the Elizabethan occultists had encountered a female force very reminiscent of Babalon. Edward Kelly described her appearance. ‘All her attire is like beaten gold; she hath on her forehead a cross crystal, her neck and breast are bare unto under her dugs: she hath a girdle of beaten gold slackly buckled unto her with a pendant of gold down to the ground.’ Her words look rather extraordinary when placed alongside Thunder and the Babalon material.
‘I am the daughter of Fortitude, and ravished every hour from my youth. For behold I am Understanding and science dwelleth in me; and the heavens oppress me. They cover and desire me with infinite appetite; for none that are earthly have embraced me, for I am shadowed with the Circle of the Stars and covered with the morning clouds. --- My garments are from the beginning, and my dwelling place is in myself. --- I am deflowered, yet a virgin; I sanctify and am not sanctified. --- I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with such as know me not.’
Marjorie Cameron (who referred to herself by her surname only) went on to walk a suitably unusual unique personal path slightly off the consensus radar. She memorably appeared in Thelemic film-maker Kenneth Anger’s Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome in 1954 (see above photo), of which more later. On the underground film circuit she met the young Dennis Hopper. Not one to do things by halves, she married Sherif Kimmel, a man of such intensely varying mental states that he became the inspiration for the McMurphy character in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Over the years Cameron developed a strong reputation as artist and powerful witch woman, before dying in 1995.
From the chapter Pact with the Devil in Avalonian Aeon here is some previously unpublished material linked with the work of Andrew Collins, the quest for the seventh sword and the stirrings of what led him to write his masterpiece on the Nephilim, From the Ashes of Angels. It highlights the spectacular psychic magickal work of Deborah Benstead.
In a Sumerian city there had once been a temple built over and around a deep cavern that emitted gas that burned blue. The flame was considered to be a gateway to the source of knowledge and creation from whence was born the mother of all. It was a supremely magically potent place governed by powerful taboos. Profane outsiders who somehow glimpsed it could be punished by death. Debbie felt that it was somehow possible for specially prepared adepts to physically stand inside the flame and not be burnt. It could only be carried by a sacred priestess from one place to another. Not only were they able to physically light fires from the original, they also had inner techniques, perhaps analogous to Kundalini Tantra for somehow carrying the flame within them.
There is one blue flame reference that has found it’s way into popular culture and could be seen as a possible stimulus for Debbie’s ideas. It features in the movie of H Rider Haggard’s novel She, made by Hammer with Ursula Andress in the title role in 1965. Queen Ayesha remains eternally young through having stepped into a mysterious blue flame. It wasn’t blue in the original novel however and is never actually referred to as such in the movie. It’s simply an imaginative special effect to suggest the periodic coolness of the flame at times of special heavenly alignments that allow someone to stand within it.
Although the group were unaware of it at the time, there are known examples of natural gas fissure flames becoming the focus for temples in more than one tradition. Jyalamukhi in the foothills of the Himalayas is a major Hindu goddess shrine. In some versions, its blue flame is considered to be the tongue of Kali. More significant in retrospect for Andy’s future work was the number of such places in Azerbaijan that had a link to the ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism.
Some great political and religious tumult in Sumeria changed everything. It seemed like the end of the world and that Tiamat would destroy the Temple of the Blue Flame in anger. There was something dangerous about the knowledge held there, which included elements of what would later become the Qabalah, something about their origins, which put them in peril. A priest prince of Mardek and Dagon kidnapped the highest priestess who carried the flame within. It was believed that the flame was about to be corrupted and turned red and this was the only way to save it. He left with a large group, travelling in the direction of Egypt with the intention of recreating the temple there. Fragments of this saga had been glimpsed around the turning of the year. The third Key had been seen in blue flame. The departing group had it with them in some sense. An epic journey began.
-----
On June 7th, Debbie was in a very deep trance, speaking almost inaudibly. Andy’s constant practice of holding a portable tape recorder near her mouth during such episodes preserved the peculiar words for later inspection. “Black as the sun. Garden. Dark king. She cometh. Tiamareth: the gate. Aden adoreth the bounteous gate. And she offereth fruit of the gate. The seven stave holded the oriflame. Aden put down his stave for the gate. The seventh stave go with Aden. Gilgatr leave with the second stave. Hunra with the third. The path of the dragon Dagon. He is the cord which bindeth your land with mine. By air, by land, by sea, the dragon will fly, maketh the path. The seventh stave must behold the flame. You will find it in the hands of him who adoreth the gate and her bounty of chaos.”
She saw a woman standing in the blue flame, naked save for a large eye design on her stomach. This was the gateway. There were people around pointing staves of some kind at her. Power was flowing between them all. She stepped out of the flame, which seemed to turn black. Behind her was a chasm, a complete black hole. It seemed very real. She approached one of the shadowy figures and touched his stave, transforming it to black. Others turned around in different directions and walked away. It was understood that this was something to do with the dispersal of a lineage of knowledge and the genesis of the black and seventh sword.
------------------------
The name Seven Springs and its significance as source of the River Isis, with the hint of some archaic goddess strata behind the myth of Old Father Thames had evoked all kinds of poetic fantasies in me. The site itself however is far from spectacular, being immediately to the side of a road over the other side of which is a large pub restaurant. From a small car park area, steps lead down to a corner where two walls join, one of which is beneath the levels of the road. A faded Latin inscription, dating from the nineteenth century, was the only acknowledgement of the importance of the place. At the base of both walls can be seen small niches where the springs arise into a stony pool where the water is barely inches deep. After nightfall though, the atmosphere changed. Surrounding trees helped create the feeling of an enclosed zone. It was most conducive to strange magical business. Being beneath road level helped as well. A few small candles were lit and incense burnt.
Debbie soon found that the place served as a gateway into what she called on this occasion, the Scorpion Temple of the Blue Flame. We were invited to each step into it. An option was offered of staying there or stepping back out. Only Debbie and I decided to stay.
Her experience was a bit more intense than mine. She stood at the centre of the blue flame, naked apart from a large eye design on her stomach, becoming one with the original priestesses and their goddess. In that identification a function of manifestation already working through her was amplified still further. Through the flame, outside, could be seen the shadowy presence of seven figures with staffs pointing towards her. She was the pole star around which they revolved. The eye was not just a painted design but a real doorway to the void, to Daath, the womb of the divine feminine where all life comes from nothing. This was a stellar experience in a timeless realm where the usual opposites that help define our consensus reality had dissolved. No up and down or hot and cold. No motion. The distinctions of form and formlessness, being and becoming, had annihilated each other. It was in this realm, in this existential maelstrom, that the seventh sword resided.
A group meditation in Andy’s Black Room on the night of July 6th was a memorable one. Something that had first come into view shortly after the arrival of the third Key of Balance recurred with terrifying amplification. Debbie had been in the usual visionary space seeing something or another from the desert realms of the Middle East but it vanished from view leaving no memory behind. Everything had gone dark. There was a feeling of apprehension, of imminence. A lurking fear. She could hear a guttural humming sound. Something was coming. It was difficult to tell if she was in the room or some visionary space. Breathing became difficult. She opened her eyes. The group were still visible but everything was very dimly lit as if the candles had been extinguished. The velvet curtains were not drawn. The night sky was visible through the window. This comforting glimpse of consensus reality was all too brief. The window frame unbelievably began to dissolve. To her horror, the night seemed to creep and pour itself into the room, pulsating as a tentacled blackness, coagulating to take the form of a nearly ten feet tall humanoid entity. It had three pairs of wings protruding behind it from above its head, and behind its shoulders and back. Some kind of robe was apparent. Long probing fingers. And a strange elongated face, not unlike the famous visage of the Pharaoh Akhenaten. There was a short Babylonian style beard on its chin. The haunter of the dark was entirely black, created from the night, apart from slanted eyes of brilliant burning azure blue. No pupils, no whites, just laser blue. It leaned over her, its face horrifyingly close, a face that seemed to burn itself into the back of Debbie’s retina where it’s stayed ever since. The being spoke in an incomprehensible language whilst making hand passes over her. Debbie felt as if her insides had gathered up into one ball and been pulled out.
Perhaps the reader may appreciate why Avalonian Aeon has been ten years in the making. Another X Woman Blue Flame adept has encountered Dark Angel Michael as well. That brings me back to August 21st 1992 and that is indeed another story.
Laraine Petrillo
