From thelema93-l-owner@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Wed Jul 31 13:43:22 1996 Received: from nova.unix.portal.com (nova.unix.portal.com [156.151.1.101]) by jobe.shell.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA27568 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:43:22 -0700 Received: from bitsy.hollyfeld.org (bitsy.hollyfeld.org [38.240.235.1]) by nova.unix.portal.com (8.6.11/8.6.5) with ESMTP id NAA28651 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 13:42:54 -0700 Received: (from majordom@localhost) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.6.12/8.6.9) id QAA11591 for thelema93-l-outgoing; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 16:36:58 -0400 Received: from deliverator.io.com (deliverator.io.com [199.170.88.17]) by bitsy.hollyfeld.org (8.6.12/8.6.9) with ESMTP id QAA11586 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 16:36:39 -0400 Received: from dialup-01-112.austin.io.com (dialup-01-112.austin.io.com [199.170.89.112]) by deliverator.io.com (8.7.5/8.7.3) with SMTP id PAA26467 for ; Wed, 31 Jul 1996 15:04:52 -0500 (CDT) Message-Id: <199607312004.PAA26467@deliverator.io.com> X-Sender: patrik@mail.io.com X-Mailer: Windows Eudora Light Version 1.5.2 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Date: Wed, 31 Jul 1996 15:06:11 -0500 To: thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org From: Patrick Crumhorn Subject: Re: Jack Parsons and his book of Babalon Sender: owner-thelema93-l@HOLLYFELD.ORG Precedence: bulk reply-to: thelema93-l@bitsy.hollyfeld.org Status: RO 93... At 12:50 PM 7/31/96 -0400, Brendan wrote: > Recently I recieved a copy of Jack Parson's The Book Of Babalon and >The Book of Antichrist off another mailing list. They describe a series of >invocations to Babalon and the channeling of the "4th chapter of the Liber AL". >I was wondering if any one knew about these, like if they were done >perchance for real or if it is the rantings of another wanna-be Crowley >incarnate. Well, the operation was certainly *performed* for real, if that's what you mean. Jack Parsons was, among other things, the head of the Agape Lodge of the OTO in California (Bill Heidrick can fill you in on that history), and one of the main honchos of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. He performed a series of operations (along with one L. Ron Hubbard, which is yet another whole story) for the purpose of incarnating an avatar of Babalon. As for "another wanna-be Crowley," A.C. himself did not think very much of Parsons' experiment, according to extant letters. My personal opinion is that Parsons was truly an inspired mage, and the "Book of Babalon" a document with very powerful magickal content. Whether it qualifies as the "4th Chapter of Liber AL" is another thing, but it stands in its own right (rite?) as an "inspired writing." Parsons "accidentally" blew himself to bits a few years after doing this working...proceed with caution if you plan to duplicate his efforts. ;-) For Parsons' own writings, I recommend "Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword," published by New Falcon Publications. For some background regarding the Babalon Working, there is a chapter in Kenneth Grant's "The Magical Revival" (Skoob Books) that gives a good overview. 93 93/93 nogah Patrick Crumhorn patrik@io.com http://www.io.com/~patrik "I'll fire aimlessly if you don't come out." --unknown Hong Kong movie