The Babalon Working was a series of magical rituals performed in 1946 by Jack Parsons, rocket scientist and Lodge Master of the Agapé Lodge of the Ordo Templi Orientis and L. Ron Hubbard, founder of Scientology. 1
From the magical record of Jack Parsons:
Jack Parsons and Marjorie CameronL. Ron Hubbard (ca. 1947)
This book contains the record of a magical experiment relating to the invocation of an elemental, the thereafter of the Goddess or Force called BABALON, and the results thereof.
An appendix contains some details of the method, published for the first time. The contents should be clear enough to those who are prepared for understanding, and a little study and effort should make it so for those who desire understanding. For the rest, each will no doubt interpret it in accord with his own predilections.
A note on the underlying philosophy. The present age is under the influence of the force called, in magical terminology, Horus. This force relates to fire, Mars, and the sun, that is, to power, violence, and energy. It also relates to a child, being innocent (i.e. undifferentiated). Its manifestations may be noted in the destruction of old institutions and ideas, the discovery and liberation of new energies, and the trend towards power governments, war, homosexuality, infantilism, and schizophrenia.
This force is completely blind, depending upon the men and women in whom it manifests and who guide it. Obviously, its guidance now tends towards catastrophy.
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 underly 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.
It is indicated that this force is actually incarnate in some living woman, as the result of the described magical operation. A more basic matter, however, is the indication that this force is incarnate in all men and women, and needs only to be invoked to free the spirit from the debris of the old aeon, and to direct the blind force of Horus into constructive channels of understanding and love. The methods of this invocation are described in the text.
The background of this material may be found in the Book of the Law, the Comment thereon, and other writings of Aleister Crowley; also in various magical, anthropological, psychological, and philosophical texts. These are all necessary to an understanding and use of the material.
One further point. It should be remembered that all human activities, after the vital functions are fulfilled, arise from the need to love or to be loved. It is therfore quite literally true that in understanding (i.e. that which embraces all categories of love) is all power given. A grasp of the principle of bipolarity should make this clear.2
Parsons and Hubbard used a system of Enochian Magic, which included sex magic.
Enochian Magic is one of the most controversial aspects of Rosicrucian Magic. Israel Regardie warned that “It is a very powerful system, and if used carelessly or indiscriminately will bring about disaster and spiritual disintegration.” Paul Foster Case considered the Enochian system to be hopelessly tainted, and removed Enochian Magic entirely when he reformulated Golden Dawn material into his B. O. T. A. Donald Tyson has even suggested that Enochian Magic was revealed to John Dee as a means of setting in motion the destructive forces of the apocalypse, as described in the book of Revelation in the New Testament.3
Hugh Urban in Magia Sexualis, described Crowley’s use of sex magic as a powerful means to shatter the the limited rational mind and finite human ego.
However, the ultimate goal that Crowley sought through his sexual magic went far beyond the mundane desire for material wealth or mortal power. In his most exalted moments, Crowley believed that he could achieve a supreme spiritual power–the power to conceive a divine child, a godlike being, who would transcend the moral failings of the body born of mere woman. This goal of creating a divine fetus, Crowley suggests, lies at the heart of many esoteric traditions, from ancient Mesopotamia to India to the Arab world:
This is the great idea of magicians in all times–To obtain a Messiah by some adaptation of the sexual process. In Assyria they tried incest….Greeks and Syrians mostly bestiality…. The Mohammedans tried homosexuality; medieval philosophers tried to produce homunculi by making chemical experiments with semen. But the root idea is that any form of procreation other than normal is likely to produce results of a magical character.
Sex magic, particularly in its transgressive, nonreproductive forms, can thus unleash the supreme creative power: the power to create not an ordinary fetus, but a magical child of messianic potential.4
Crowley indeed suspected Parsons and Hubbard of attempting to create such a magical child or “Moonchild.” In a letter to Karl Germer, Crowley wrote:
Apparently he (Parsons), or Hubbard, or somebody, is producing a Moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these goats.5
Parsons, J. (1946). Liber 49 The Book of Babalon. THE COLLECTED WRITINGS OF JACK PARSONS ↩
Griffin, D. J. (1999). The ritual magic manual: A complete course in practical magic. Beverly Hills, Calif: Golden Dawn Pub. ↩
Urban, H. B. (2006). Magia sexualis: Sex, magic, and liberation in modern Western esotericism. Berkeley, Calif: University of California Press. Read Chapter 4. ↩
Carter, John, (1999) Sex and Rockets, Feral House. ↩
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 underly the natures of all Western peoples, have taken a homicidal and suicidal direction.
