al-keme | research archive: Belovèd Scarlett

Kenneth Anger: Marjorie Cameron

Late last night in a half conscious state, I attempted to ´slough´ through Michael Staley´s essay Belovèd of Babalon: an introduction to JW Parsons. I have not yet read the books Sex and Rockets or Strange Angel, but I would wager a guess that Belovèd of Babalon might be one of the best resources available on line regarding the history and operation of Jack Parsons´ Babalon Working.

There is quite a bit to plough through in Staley´s essay; and yet again, I am probably putting too much on a full plate already, but briefly, some of the similarities between the Babalon Working...´[as] an earthing of the force of Babalon...´ and the pronouncements of the Italian Futurists in Valentine de Saint Point´s Futurist Manifesto of Lust (1912) are rather striking.

For example, from the Futurists:

Art and war are the great manifestations of sensuality; lust is their flower...woman is equally the great galvanizing principle to which all is offered....The secret cult that man has for her is only the unconscious drive of a lust as yet barely woken. Amongst these peoples as amongst the peoples of the north, but for different reasons, lust is almost exclusively concerned with procreation. But lust, under whatever aspects it shows itself, whether they are considered normal or abnormal, is always the supreme spur.

And from Parsons´ Liber 49:

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 altar, 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.

I have not yet made an attempt to research a conceptual or even political link between Italian Futurism and Thelema, but considering Aleister Crowley was a contemporary of F.T. Marinetti, there must have been at least a bit of cross pollination there. As an additional example--though not as striking as the previous above--compare this passage from Marinetti´s Futurist Manifesto...

We will glorify war- the world's only hygiene- militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying for, and scorn for woman. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, we will fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.

...with this invocation of Babalon from Parsons´ Liber 49 (?):

I am the Grail and the Glory. I am the Mother of Abominations. I am the one whom you call the Law and they have called lawlessness. In my Name is all power given for I am BABALON. I have given myself to everything that lives and my weakness has subdued their strength. I have attained to the union of the One with the Many. And in that union did I understand, therefore am I called Understanding. I am the flames and fuel that shall ignite an obsolete Age.

According to Parsons, during the Aeon of Horus, Horus the Child´s alchemical compliment is the goddess Babalon. Similarly, the Scarlet Women´s (who finds her apotheosis in Babalon or ´Lust,´ as Crowley´s reversal of the major arcana in the Thoth deck, Strength VIII and Justice IX indicate) vehicle in also the god Pan--and thus, Babalon and the Beast are ´conjoined.´ As Staley writes:

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 that that 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.

I am not sure yet how the ´progression´ from Horus the Child to Pan-Dionysus occurs or what aspects are personified--this will need to be clarified at a later time.

L. Ron Hubbard features prominently in Staley´s narrative and I found it rather humorous that someone later edited the essay and asterisked out all references to Hubbard (L.R* H***) and Scientology (Sc***), except for the last few pages, where both references appear in tact. (...go figure...?)

Both Crowley and Parsons refer to Hubbard as a ´confidence man.´ However, previous to being swindled by Hubbard for thousands of dollars, Parsons referred to Hubbard as ...the most Thelemic person I have ever met...in a letter to Crowley from 1945.

Though there might not be an overt connection between Scientology and Scarlett Johannson and it has been previously reported Johansson barely escaped the clutches of recently pronounced Scientology-Jesus Tom Cruise...

Tom Cruise might have tried to recruit Scarlett Johansson to Scientology long before he set his sights on fresh-faced fiance Katie Holmes. MSNBC.com reports that the Lost in Translation star, who was expected to co-star with Cruise in MI:3 but dropped out due to “scheduling conflicts,” attended a private tour of a Scientology center with her would-be co-star before fleeing the building and subsequently the project.

“After two hours of proselytizing,” according to RadarMagazine.com, “Cruise opened a door to reveal a second room full of upper-level Scientologists who had been waiting to dine with the pair, at which point the cool-headed ingenue politely excused herself.”

... it might make one wonder if the most Thelemic person Parsons had ever met, might have had an invisible hand in the rising stardom of what appears to be yet another almost literal Hollywood ´earthing´ of the goddess Babalon--who is the apotheosis of the Scarlet Women.

Filmmaker Kenneth Anger had a highly disturbing, yet extremely honest, take on the subject of Thelemic magick as it related to his cinematic art; a view I am sure propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would have no problem agreeing with:

A follower of Aleister Crowley's teachings, Anger is a high level practitioner of occult magic who regards the projection of his films as ceremonies capable of invoking spiritual forces. Cinema, he claims, is an evil force. Its point is to exert control over people and events and his filmmaking is carried out with precisely that intention.

As Donald Rumsfeld once said in regards to the so-called ´War on Terror:´ After 9/11 the gloves came off. And indeed, the corporate fascists have laced their ´world´ with so many obvious and hideous metaphors for control , that only a sadistic, sociopathic culture hard wired for extinction would not so much as flinch at the increasing intensity of this Atrocity Exhibition.