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Babalon Rising: Jack Parsons’ Witchcraft Prophecy
Babalon Rising: JaCk parsons’ WitChCraFt propheCy Erik Davis In the forty yearS or so following the death of John Whiteside Parsons in 1952, his name—Jack Parsons from here on out—circulated principally among magic folk, critics of Scientology, and historians of modern rock- etry. In the new century, however, the tale of the SoCal rocket scientist- cum-sex magician has proven a hot commodity, told and retold in a series of articles, biographies, graphic novels, movie scripts, and reality tv shows that have transformed Parsons into one of the most storied figures in the history of American occulture. The superficial reasons are easy to see: with its charismatic blend of sex, sorcery, technology and death, Parsons’ story haunts a dark crossroads of the Southern California mindscape, scrawling a prophetic glyph in the wet pavement of postwar America. Indeed, his tale is so outrageous that if it did not exist, it would need—as they say—to be invented. But if it were invented—that is, if his life were presented as the fiction it in so many ways resembles—it would be hard to believe, even as a fiction. The narrative would seem overly contrived, at once too pulp and too poetic, too rich with allegorical synchronicity to stage the necessary suspension of disbelief. In this essay, I want to explore an unremarked aspect of Jack Parsons’ life and thought, what I will call his magickal feminism. In his 1946 text Free- 165 166 Erik Davis dom is a Two-Edged Sword, Parsons issued a call for women to take up the spiritual, sexual, and political sword—a cry for female autonomy that also eerily anticipated the militant witchcraft that would find historical expres- sion in California over twenty years later. -
[Aleister] Crowley
A REEVALUATION OF TI-IE LITERARY WORKS OF EDWARD ALEXANDER [ALEISTER] CROWLEY A Thesis Presented to The School of Graduate Studies Drake University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts by Charles Nicholas Serra II April 1991 A REEVALUATION OF THE LITERARY WORKS OF EDWARD ALEXANDER [ALEISTER] CROWLEY by Charles Nicholas Serra Il Approved by Committee: ~~.;.,. Dean of the School of Graduate Studies Dedicated to four instrumental people: For Aleister Crowley, who quested after "the light that never shone on land or sea"; for B. H. who provided patronage and patience; for Grace Eckley, who managed to nurse me through; and for L. L., "my Gitana, my Saliya," who has all the answers I lack, now in the ineffable. Unpublished Copyright. all rights reserved. 1991 1 A REEVALVATION OF THE LITERARY WORKS OF EDWARD ALEXANDER [ALEISTER] CROWLEY Table of Contents Page Abstract ., . ............. ..... ... .......... u Section One: Yeats and the Golden Dawn . Section Two: Augoeides, Maturity and Mysticism. ...... .. ..... 17 Section Three: Literary Decline, the War Years 36 Works Consulted. ...... ...... .. ........................... 44 Notes. .......... ....... ............ 49 Textual Appendix. ......................................... IA 11 A REEVALVAnON OF THE LITERARY WORKS OF EDWARD ALEXANDER [ALEISTER] CROWLEY Abstract For the last fifty years the poetry and prose of Edward Alexander [Aleister] Crowley (1875-1947) has been systematically ignored by scholars and critics on the narrow grounds that it deals with the occult sciences, is pornographic, or simply because detractors did not agree with Crowley's personal philosophy or life. Since the mid 1970's, however, academics have become increasingly interested in the mystical and occult content of William Butler Yeats's poetry, praising it for the same characteristics which have always been labeled "defects" in Crowley's work. -
Lon Milo Duquette
\n authuruuiivc exiimiriiitiiin <»f ike uurld’b iiu»st fast, in a cm tl and in^£icul turnc card V. r.Tirfi Stele op Rp.veaung^ gbvbise a>ju ftcviftsc. PART I Little Bits ofThings You Should Know Before Beginning to Study Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot CHAPTER ZERO THE BOOK OFTHOTH— AMAGICKBOOK? 7^ Tarot is apoA^se^^enty-^ght cards. Tfnrt artfoter suits, as tn fnadcrrt fi/ayirtg sards, ^sjhkh art dtrs%ssdfFOm it. Btts rha Court cards nutnbarfour instead >^dsret. In addition, thare are tvsenty^turo cards called 'Truw^ " each c^vJiUh is e symkoik puJure%Atha title to itse^ Atfirst sight one suould stifrpese this arrangement to he arbitrary, but it is not. Je IS necessitated, as vilfappear later, by the structsere ofthe unwerse, stnd inparikular the Sctlar System, as symMized by the Holy Qabaloi. This xotll be explained In due course.' These a« the brilliantly concise opening words of Aldster Crowley's Tbe Book of Tbotb. When I first read them, 1 vm filled with great o^ectations. Atkst, —I thouj^^ the great mysierics of the Thoth Tarot are going to be explained to me "in due course.” At the time, I considered myself a serious student of tarot, havij^ spent three years studying the marvelous works of Paul Foster Case and his Builders ofthe Adytumd tarot and Qabalah courses. As dictated in the B.O.T.A. currictilum, I painted my own deck oftrumps and dutifully followed the meditative exercises out- lined for each of the twenty two cards- Now, vdth Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot and The Book cfThoth in hand, I knew I was ready to take the next step toward tarot mastery and my own spiritual illuminaiion. -
Liber Samekh
MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE [BOOK 4 (LIBER ABA) PART III] First published Paris: Lecram Press., 1930 Corrected edition included in Magick: Book 4 Parts I-IV, York Beach, Maine: Samuel Weiser, 1994 This electronic edition prepared and issued by Celephaïs Press, somewhere beyond the Tanarian Hills, and manifested in the waking world in Leeds, Yorkshire, England July 2004. (c) Ordo Templi Orientis JAF Box 7666 New York NY 10116 U.S.A. MAGICK IN THEORY AND PRACTICE BY THE MASTER THERION (ALEISTER CROWLEY) BOOK 4 PART III Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law. Celephaïs Press Ulthar - Sarkomand - Inquanok – Leeds 2004 Hymn to Pan [v] ——— ἔφιξ᾿ἔρωτι περιαρχὴς δ᾿ ἀνεπιόµαν ἰὼ ἰὼ πὰν πὰν ὢ πὰν πὰν ἁ λιπλαγκτε, κυλλανίας χιονοκτύποι πετραίς ἀπὸ δειράδος φάνηθ᾿, ὦ θεῶν χοροπόι ἄναξ —SOPH. Aj. ——— THRILL with lissome lust of the light, O man! My man! Come careering out of the night Of Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Io Pan! Come over the sea From Sicily and from Arcady! Roaming as Bacchus, with fauns and pards And nymphs and satyrs for thy guards, On a milk-white ass, come over the sea To me, to me, Come with Apollo in bridal dress (Shepherdess and pythoness) Come with Artemis, silken shod, And wash thy white thigh, beautiful God, In the moon of the woods, on the marble mount, The dimpled dawn of the amber fount! Dip the purple of passionate prayer In the crimson shrine, the scarlet snare, The soul that startles in eyes of blue To watch thy wantonness weeping through [vi] — v — HYMN TO PAN The tangled grove, the gnarléd bole Of the living tree that is spirit and soul And body and brain - come over the sea, (Io Pan! Io Pan!) Devil or god, to me, to me, My man! my man! Come with trumpets sounding shrill Over the hill! Come with drums low muttering From the spring! Come with flute and come with pipe! Am I not ripe? I, who wait and writhe and wrestle With air that hath no boughs to nestle My body, weary of empty clasp, Strong as a lion and sharp as an asp - Come, O come! I am numb With the lonely lust of devildom. -
Jet Propulsion : a Play About John Whiteside Parsons
JET PROPULSION A PLAY ABOUT JOHN WHITESIDE PARSONS A THESIS IN Theatre Presented to the Faculty of the University Of Missouri-Kansas City in partial fulfillment of The requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS By PETER JON BAKELY B.A., Park College, 1992 Kansas City, Missouri 2013 AN ABSTRACT IN JET PROPULSION A PLAY ABOUT JOHN WHITESIDE PARSONS Peter Jon Bakely, Candidate for the Master of Arts degree University of Missouri - Kansas City, 2013 ABSTRACT Jet Propulsion, a two-act drama on the life of John Whiteside Parsons, is the candidate’s thesis, along with the essay “American Weird: Researching John Whiteside Parsons, the Occult Religion of Aleister Crowley and the Formation of the American Space Program.” The essay shows the author’s work process in the writing of the play, as well as the difficulties inherent in finding truthful information regarding Fringe religions and cult personalities and in using that information to create a compelling drama and to produce that drama as part of the Kansas City Fringe Festival. Biographical materials regarding the primary historical persons depicted in the play are included. Appendices of a previous draft of the script and biographical portraits have been included to illustrate the author’s process in creating the drama. iii APPROVAL PAGE The faculty listed below, appointed by the Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences have examined a thesis titled “Jet Propulsion A Play about John Whiteside Parsons,” presented by Peter Jon Bakely, candidate for the Master of Arts degree, and certify that in their opinion it is worthy of acceptance. -
THE BOOK COLLECTING RACKET: a Few Notes on the Abuses of Book Collecting Aleister Crowley Harry W
THE BOOK COLLECTING RACKET: A Few Notes on the Abuses of Book Collecting Aleister Crowley Harry W. Schwartz 1934 Aleister Crowley I have long planned to write a note on Aleister Crowley but have delayed it so as to be able to preface with it his bibliog- raphy upon which I am working. It appears, however, that the work on the bibliography is endless, and as I have received a number of requests for information on Crowley, I print the little I know here. Crowley is perhaps the most libeled and slandered man alive. He has been variously described as a “monster of wick- edness”, “a dirty degenerate”, and “England’s worst man”. Just the other day one of our gutter tabloids smeared over its pages the latest Crowley libel. It appears in this case that an artist’s model by the name of Nina Hamnett wrote a stupid book called Laughing Torso in which she drags Crowley’s name around too freely. He brought suit against her for libel. Of course the newspapers, quickly seeing an opportunity to titillate their readers with the old stories of vice, lechery and drunkenness, spilled their filth. And a few years ago the press carried another story equally absurd. It seems that whenever a poor hack of a journalist is reduced to his last dime he can always earn a couple of dollars by inventing a piece about Crowley. In this article it was made to appear that Crowley was trying to commit suicide. In the space of one week he had flung himself in the paths of speed- ing automobiles twenty times. -
Liber Cordis Cincte Serpente Vel LXV Sub Figura ינדא
Liber Cordis Cincte Serpente vel LXV sub figura ינדא Chapter I [Note: All italic comments belong to the Master Therion unless otherwise noted; all plain type belong to Marcelo Motta] The five chapters refer to the five Elements. 1-Earth, 2-Air, 3-Water, 4-Fire, and 5-Spirit. Each shows its Element in the light of the relation between the Adeptus Minor and his Holy Guardian Angel. Thus in Chapter I the material world or sensible aspect of Nature is shown to be a mere symbolic picture of something altogether different. Of course the elements below Spirit are considered from the point of view of Spirit, since Akasha is the Center, or harmonization, of the lower Elements. Also, the presentations given by O.M. in his commentaries are not as universal in scope as the images in the original: they represent a limitation, the point of view of one Adept, only. The Commentaries are therefore useful as referentials, but candidates must strive to build their own frames of coordinates, which can safely be done only from the verses themselves. Whey, then, write Commentaries at all? There are many reasons. One of them, not the least, is that Religion should be a Science as well as an Art. Sciences need measurement, which depends on fulness of data. The more landmarks available, the easier to build frames, and eventually measurement will become possible. Then, of course, LXV will become obsolete as a religious manual. But by that time its Author, or His disciples, will be ready to produce another just beyond the reach ofmeasurement. -
THE EQUINOX Vol. I No. 7
LIBER E. SUPPLEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN ASANA 1. The Dying Buddha. These three recumbant positions are 2. The Hanged Man. more suitable fore repose after medi- 3. The Corpse. } tations than for meditation itself. 4. The Arrowhead. These positions with bowed head are suitable 5. The Bear. for Asana and for meditation, but not for 6. The Ivey. Pranayama. 7. The Parallelogram. } This page is reserved for Official Pronouncements by the Chancellor of the A∴A∴] Persons wishing for information, assistance, further interpretation, etc., are requested to communicate with THE CHANCELLOR OF THE A∴A∴ c/o THE EQUINOX, 3 Great James Street, W.C. Telephone: CITY 8987, or to call at that address by appointment. A representative will be there to meet them. Probationers are reminded that the object of Probations and Ordeals is one: namely, to select Adepts. But the method appears twofold: (i) to fortify the fit; (ii) to eliminate the unfit. The Chancellor of the A∴ A∴ views without satisfaction the practice of Probationers working together. A Probationer should work with his Neophyte, or alone. Breach of this rule may prove a bar to advancement. Some of the weaker brethren having found the postures in Liber E too difficult, the pitiful heart of the Præmonstrator of A∴A∴ has been moved to authorise the publication of additional postures, which will be found facing this page. An elderly, corpulent gentleman of sedentary habit has been good enough to pose, so that none need feel debarred from devoting himself to the Great Work on the ground of physical infirmity. -
Aleister Crowley-Meditation
BOOK 4 by Aleister Crowley PART I MEDITATION THE WAY OF ATTAINMENT OF GENIUS OR GODHEAD CONSIDERED AS A DEVELOPMENT OF THE HUMAN BRAIN Issued by order of the GREAT WHITE BROTHERHOOD known as the A.'.A.'. "Witness our Seal," N.'.' "Praemonstrator-General" {Diagram: A.'.A.'. seal} PRELIMINARY REMARKS EXISTENCE, as we know it, is full of sorrow. To mention only one minor point: every man is a condemned criminal, only he does not know the date of his execution. This is unpleasant for every man. Consequently every man does everything possible to postpone the date, and would sacrifice anything that he has if he could reverse the sentence. Practically all religions and all philosophies have started thus crudely, by promising their adherents some such reward as immortality. No religion has failed hitherto by not promising enough; the present breaking up of all religions is due to the fact that people have asked to see the securities. Men have even renounced the important material advantages which a well-organized religion may confer upon a State, rather than acquiesce in fraud or falsehood, or even in any system which, if not proved guilty, is at least unable to demonstrate its innocence. Being more or less bankrupt, the best thing that we can do is to attack the problem afresh without preconceived ideas. Let us begin by doubting every statement. Let us find a way of subjecting every statement to the test of experiment. Is there any truth at all in the claims of various religions? Let us examine the question. Our original difficulty will be due to the enormous wealth of our material. -
A Syllabus of the Official Instructions of A∴ A∴ Hitherto Published
A SYLLABUS OF THE OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS OF A∴ A∴ HITHERTO PUBLISHED THE publications of the A∴ A∴ divide themselves into four classes. Class “A” consists of books of which may be changed not so much as the style of a letter: that is, they represent the utterance of an Adept entirely beyond the criticism of even the Visible Head of the Organization. Class “B” consists of books or essays which are the result of ordinary scholarship, enlightened and earnest. Class “C” consists of matter which is to be regarded rather as suggestive than anything else. Class “D” consists of the Official Rituals and Instructions. Some publications are composite, and per- tain to more than one class. CLASS “A” PUBLICATIONS LIBER I.—Liber B Vel Magi. This is an account of the Grade of Magus, the highest grade which it is ever possible to manifest in any way whatever upon this plane. Or so it is said by the Masters of the Temple. LIBER VII.—Liber Liberi Vel Lapidis Lazvli, Advmbratio Kabbalae gyptiorvm Svb Figvrâ VII, being the Voluntary Emancipation of a certain Exempt Adept from his Adeptship. These are the Birth Words of a Master of the Temple. The nature of this book is sufficiently explained by its title. Its seven chapters are referred to the seven planets in the following order: Mars, Saturn, Jupiter, Sol, Mercury, Luna, Venus. LIBER X. Liber Porta Lucis. This book is an account of the sending forth of the Master by the A∴ A∴ and an explanation of his mission. LIBER XXVII.—Liber Trigrammaton, being a book of Trigrams of the Mutations of the TAO with the YIN and the YANG. -
The Equinox Vol. I No. 9
This page is reserved for Official Pronouncements by the Chancellor of the A\A\] Persons wishing for information, assistance, further interpretation, etc., are requested to communicate with THE CHANCELLOR OF THE A\A\ c/o THE EQUINOX, 33 Avenue Studios, 76 Fulham Road South Kensingston, S.W. Telephone: 2632, KENSINGTON or to call at that address by appointment. A representative will be there to meet them. THE Chancellor of the A\ A\ wishes to warn readers of THE EQUINOX against accepting instructions in his name from an ex-Probationer, Captain J.F.C. Fuller, whose motto was “Per Ardua.” This person never advanced beyond the Degree of Probationer, never sent in a record, and has presumably neither performed practices nor obtained results. He has not, and never has had, authority to give instructions in the name of the A\ A\. THE Chancellor of the A\ A\ considers it desirable to make a brief statement of the financial position, as the time has now arrived to make an effort to spread the knowledge to the ends of the earth. The expenses of the propaganda are roughly estimated as follows— Maintenance of Temple, and service . £200 p.a. Publications . £200 p.a. Advertising, electrical expenses, etc. £200 p.a. Maintenance of an Hermitage where poor Brethren may make retirements . £200 p.a. £800 p.a. ii As in the past, the persons responsible for the movement will give the whole of their time and energy, as well as their worldy wealth, to the service of the A\ A\ Unfortunately, the sums at their disposal do not at present suffice for the contemplated advance, and the Chan- cellor consequently appeals for assistance to those who have found in the instructions of the A\ A\ a sure means to the end they sought. -
Aleister Crowley, 33°, 90°, 95°, the Very Illustrious Prince Patriarch Grand Conservator, 33°, 90°, 95°, Bro
This page is reserved for Official Pronouncements by the Chancellor of the A\A\] Persons wishing for information, assistance, further interpretation, etc., are requested to communicate with THE CHANCELLOR OF THE A\A\ c/o THE EQUINOX, 33 Avenue Studios, 76 Fulham Road South Kensingston, S.W. Telephone: 2632, KENSINGTON or to call at that address by appointment. A representative will be there to meet them. THE Chancellor of the A\ A\ wishes to warn readers of THE EQUINOX against accepting instructions in his name from an ex-Probationer, Captain J.F.C. Fuller, whose motto was “Per Ardua.” This person never advanced beyond the Degree of Probationer, never sent in a record, and has presumably neither performed practices nor obtained results. He has not, and never has had, authority to give instructions in the name of the A\ A\. THE Chancellor of the A\ A\ considers it desirable to make a brief statement of the financial position, as the time has now arrived to make an effort to spread the knowledge to the ends of the earth. The expenses of the propaganda are roughly estimated as follows— Maintenance of Temple, and service . £200 p.a. Publications . £200 p.a. Advertising, electrical expenses, etc. £200 p.a. Maintenance of an Hermitage where poor Brethren may make retirements . £200 p.a. £800 p.a. ii As in the past, the persons responsible for the movement will give the whole of their time and energy, as well as their worldy wealth, to the service of the A\ A\ Unfortunately, the sums at their disposal do not at present suffice for the contemplated advance, and the Chan- cellor consequently appeals for assistance to those who have found in the instructions of the A\ A\ a sure means to the end they sought.