-= Beloved of Babalon =- ------------------ An introduction to J. W. Parsons Part IV of IV It is hard to know in greater detail just what did go on at this time. I have seen a letter which Crowley wrote in January 1946 - some weeks prior to the Babalon Working - in which he names someone other than Parsons as Grand Master of Agape Lodge. Be that as it may, I have also seen a reference to Parsons being called to account, at a special Lodge meeting, over certain things with which his colleagues were unhappy - such as coming up with a text which purported to be the fourth chapter of "THE BOOK OF THE LAW", an act of heresy for which he was lucky not to be burned at the stake. It is certain that he departed the O.T.O. at around this time, though he continued to regard himself as a member of the A.'.A.'. He remained on friendly terms with many of his colleagues, and he continued to correspond with Germer until his death. Not so with Crowley, however. Crowley must have been bitterly disappointed with Parsons. He had had a high regard for his abilities, as well as a keen awareness of faults such as impulsiveness and recklessness - faults which, as Crowley now saw it, had led to an inevitable downfall. Two short letter extracts show this disappointment - both, as it happens, to Louis T. Culling. In the course of a letter dated October 1946, he said: "About J.W.P. - all that I can say is that I am very sorry - I feel sure that he had fine ideas, but he was led astray firstly by Smith, then he was robbed of his last penny by a confidence man named Hubbard." His last words are in the course of a letter of December 1946: "I have no further interest in Jack and his adventures; he is just a weak-minded fool, and must go to the devil in his own way. Requiescat in pace." Although Parsons and Hubbard went their separate after the court settlement, that is not quite the end of the story as far as Hubbard is concerned. Mention was made above a further parallel between Hubbard and Kelly. In the course of a letter in January 1950, Parsons drew attention to an interesting similarity. In the course of the Babalon Working, the rituals included the Enochian Call of the Seventh Aire. This was in line with a passage in "LIBER 49", where Parsons was urged to "...seek me in the Seventh Aire". Parsons continued: "I have the text of Dee's skrying in the Seventh Aire, which as he said "...so terrified me that, beseeching God to have mercy upon me, I finally answer that I will from this day forward meddle no more herein". The voice, speaking from Kelly, resulted in a sinister dissociation of Kelly's personality. The parallel with my own Working with Ron, is appalling. After this Kelly robbed Dee, absconded with his wife, and developed a criminal confidence career. This is the voice: "I am the Daughter of Fortitude, and ravished every hour from my 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; few or none that are earthly have embraced me, for I am shadowed with the Circle of the Stars, and covered with the morning clouds. My feet are swifter than the winds, and my hands are sweeter than the morning dew. My garments are from the beginning, and my dwelling place is in myself. The Lion knoweth not where I walk, neither do the beasts of the field understand me. I am deflowered, yet a virgin; I sanctify, and am not sanctified. Happy is he that embraceth me: for in the night season I am sweet, and in the day full of pleasure. My company is a harmony of many symbols, and my lips sweeter than health itself. I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with such as know me not. Purge your streets, O ye of men, and wash your houses clean; make yourselves holy, and put on righteousness. Cast out your old strumpets, and burn their clothes, and then I will come and dwell amongst you; and behold, I will bring forth children unto you, and they shall be the Sons of Comfort in the Age that is to come. In view of the fact that this MSS was unknown to Hubbard and I, the parallelism is really extraordinary. I have found another prophecy in "KHALED KHAN", which I shall send later..." Quite how much of this is true, I don't know. The passage as quoted in the letter does differ in some ways from the passage as published in Meric Casaubon's selection of the Dee diaries, "A True and Faithful Relation of What Passed For Many Years Between Dr John Dee and Some Spirits", published in 1659. For instance, the concluding phrase "...in the Age that is to come" does not appear. Also, I have yet to ascertain how true the account is of Kelly's exit from Dee's life and his subsequent career. Nevertheless, it is an intriguing thought the Hubbard's life could have been disrupted through the Babalon Working. After reading the critical biography about Hubbard ("BARE-FACED MESSIAH", by Russell Miller) it seemed to me that the time with Parsons was a definite watershed for Hubbard. Prior to it, he seemed basically a colorful, mendacious eccentric; after it, he seemed to slide into insanity. There is no sharp dividing line, but the difference is clear. In 1969, the "Sunday Times" newspaper published an article on the lines of "Founder of Scientology involved in Black Magic", in which they recounted details of the Babalon Working. The article was based on details gleaned from the Gerald Yorke Collection at the Warburg Institute, to which the reporters had gained access. Hubbard instituted legal proceedings for libel, and the "Sunday Times" for reasons of their own decided not to fight it. Subsequently, Yorke withdrew from the Warburg those papers relating to the Working. They were incidentally, returned some years ago, following Yorke's death, but are under a 25-year seal. At the time of the action, the Church of Scientology made a sataement alleging that Hubbard had been sent in as an FBI agent to break up a "Black Magic group" which had included several prominent scientists. The operation had, they continued, succeeded beyond the wildest expectations: he rescued a girl that they were "using", and the group was dispersed and never recovered. The activities of Parsons during the next few years are not at all clear. I have only been able to catch glimpses through letters and the like. In 1948 Parsons lost his security clearance to perform classified government defense work, and for a man of his profession this was the virtual withdrawal of his livelihood. This action was stated to be "because of his membership in a religious cult... believed to advocate sexual perversion...organised at subject's home...which had been reported subversive". Parsons commented later that he was suspended on charges of belonging to the O.T.O. and circulating "LIBER OZ". Parsons defended himself in closed court, and the charges were dropped. In the meantime, Marjorie Cameron left him; their estrangement lasted several years. What lay behind this rift I do not know, but it did seem final at the time. In the document referred to earlier, "ANALYSIS BY A MASTER OF THE TEMPLE", he makes the following allusion - again, he is speaking in the third person: "Candy appeared in the answer to your call, in order to wean you from wetnursing. She has demonstrated the nature of woman to you in such unequivocal terms that you should have no further room for illusion on the subject. The suspension and inquisition was my opportunity - one of the final chains in the link. At this time you were enabled to prepare your thesis, formulate your Will, and take the Oath of the Abyss, thus making it possible ( although only partially) to manifest. The exit of Candy prepares for the final stage of your initial preparation." "Candy" is short for Candida, the Magical Name of Marjorie Cameron. There was a reunion in late 1949 or early 1950, and they resumed living together as man and wife. As mentioned earlier, Parsons still considered himself a member of the A.'.A.'. In December 1948 he took the Oath of Magister Templi, and the name Belarion, Antichrist. This oath was taken in the presence of Wilford T. Smith, with whom he had evidentaly retained some sort of relationship. In 1949 he issued "THE BOOK OF THE ANTICHRIST". This is a short text, and in it he relates how he was stripped of everything that he was, and then rededicated to Babalon. This was, he considered, a recharging of the current generated by the Babalon Working. He also pledged that the work of The Beast 666 would be fulfilled, and he seems to have seen that the work as being, at least in part, a subversion of Christian ethics. He further prophesied that within seven years Babalon would manifest, so bringing his work to fruition. In September 1950 his employment at Hughes Aircraft Corporation was terminated. He was found to be in possession of a number of classified documents - several of them, as it happens, being co-written by him and dating from his days at Cal. Tech. A lengthy investigation by the State Attorney followed in which the FBI were involved. Parsons it emerged, was hopeful of finding employment in Israel. To this end he was seeking to pursuade them of the case for building a jet-propulsion factory complex, and had been using the documents for backround information. It was eventually concluded that there were insufficient grounds for prosecution, many of the documents containing information that should by then have been declassified anyway. However, there were reprocussions. The Appeals Board, who had reinstated his security clearance in March 1949, informed him that in their view he no longer had the requisite honesty and integrity; accordingly, the clearance was again withdrawn in January 1952. This would have been the end of Parsons' career in that particular scientific area. From some incomplete essays that survive from this period, it seems that Parsons was working towards building up some sort of teaching Order with a Thelemic core, but relating to paganism and witchcraft, and was preparing papers of instruction for such an Order. By profession he was now building his own chemicals practice. He had sold the main part of his property - the mansion itself - for redevelopment some time earlier, and occupied the coach-house. The garage he had converted into a labratory, equipped with chemicals and equipment. There was a plan to move to Mexico for awhile, both to pursue mystical and magical research and to further his chemical practice. He and Cameron had actually vacated the coachhouse, Parsons went back and forth over the course of several days, moving out his chemicals onto a trailer. On one such visit, on the afternoon of 17 June 1952, he dropped a container of fulminate of mercury, a highly-unstable explosive. The resulting explosion was powerful and devastating, destroying most of the coachhouse. Parsons was seriously injured; horrifically enough, though, he was still conscious when rescuers got to him. He died an hour later, in hospital. Controversy has remained over his death. Many regarded it as highly unlikely that a scientist of his experience could so mishandle such a powerful explosive. During those last days he wrote what was probably his last letter, to Karl Germer. It is bizarre, and merits quoting in full, it perhaps casts light on his frame of mind at the time: "No doubt you will be delighted to hear from an adept who has undertaken the operation of his H.G.A. in accord with our traditions. The operation began auspiciously with a chromatic display of pscho- somatic symptoms, and progressed rapidly to acute psychosis. The operator has altered satisfactorily between manic hysteria and depressing melancholy stupor on approximately 40 cycles, and satisfactory progress has been maintained in social ostracism, economic collapses and mental disassociation. These statements are mentioned not in any vainglorious spirit of conceit, but rather that they may serve as comfort and inspiration to other aspirants on the Path. Now I'm off to the wilds of Mexico for a period, also in pursuit of the elusive H.G.A. befor winding up in the guard (room) finally via the booby hotels, the graveyard, or ---? If the final, you can tell all the little practicuses that I wouldn't have missed it for anything." No one. Once called 210. The manner of Parsons' death brings to mind the association of Babalon with flame. The lenghty passage quoted earlier from the "THE VISION AND THE VOICE" uses the idea of flame, as did the material communicated during the Babalon Working. The passage "...for She shall absorb thee, and thou shalt become living flame befor She incarnates..." is particulary haunting. In some of his letters written in the years after the Babalon Working, Parsons seemed to be expecting a violent death, and he almost certainly had this similar passages in mind. A fragment survives from an earlier version of "THE BOOK OF BABALON", which is interesting in this connection: "...because of this mystery BABALON is incarnate upon the earth today, awaiting the proper hour for Her manifestation. And this my book, that is dedicated to Her, is preparation and a portent for that time. And in that day my work will be accomplished, and I shall be blown away upon the Breath of a Father, even as it is prophesied. And thus I labour lonely and outcast and abominable, and he-goat upon the muck heaps of the world. Yet I am content with my lot, since though I am clothed with barncloth, yet shall I come in power and purple, for of this also am I contemptuous. Yea, I am." Whatever the truth of this matter, Jack Parsons has remained over the years a figure of fascination to many. I have attempted in the course of this essey to summarise the events of the last fifteen or so years of his life. A more considered evaluation of his life and work requires a lot more research and experience, and remains a labour of love for someone. To that person. "BELOVED OF BABALON" is offered as a foundation. ---------------------- * Conclusion of "PARSONS.IV", part IV of IV. [] The above text, and associated files, were taken from a Thelemic publication, "StarFire" magazine. The "PARSONS.I - IV" files were authored by Michael Staley. - A:E: