I. VAMA MARGA Foundations Of The Left-Hand Path - staticfly.net

seems to presage impending psychic collapse: "The operation began
auspiciously with a chromatic display of psychosomatic 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." His still unexplained death
shortly thereafter leaves the question of where these symptoms of mania may
have advanced open to interpretation.
A full portrait of Parsons is beyond the scope of this study, but these
preliminary remarks must be made to progress beyond the common
posthumous legend of Parsons as a kind of sex-magical superhero. Some day
the definitive biography of the many sides of Parsons will be written, but for
now, let us extract the most applicable elements of his legacy to the left-hand
path sex magician. Primarily, we have concentrated on those aspects of
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Parsons' magical practice that may be practically applied by the left-hand
path adept to the task of summoning a fit sex-magical partner of either gender
for his or her own Great Work of erotic alchemy. This cannot he understood
without first depicting something of the curious magical environment in
which the self-anointed Antichrist of Kali-fornia developed.
"A Love Cult"
Beginning left-hand path sex magicians may be inspired by this book to form
their own groups for the investigation and practice of erotic alchemy. We
discuss some of the considerations that should inform the development of
one's own sex-magical society in the last section of this study. But there
could be no better illustrative preamble to some of the practical problems that
can potentially arise in sex-magical groups than a brief overview of Jack
Parsons' involvement with the O.T.O. Agape Lodge. Men and women of the
sinister current may sincerely seek liberation from the limitations of societal
and personal sexual politics. But once the organizational factor enters the
picture, as the chronicle below makes clear, you must be prepared to
encounter such pashu behaviors as possessiveness, power struggle, and the
hypocritical pretense that every ordinary expression of lust is of a "spiritual"
nature.
In March of 1941, Wilfred T. Smith, the expatriate Englishman
authorized by Crowley to lead the Agape Lodge in Los Angeles, reported to
the Great Beast concerning a new O.T.O. initiate. Of the 26-year old, Smith
wrote: "I think I have at long last a really excellent man, John Parsons. And
starting next Tuesday he begins a course of talks with a view to enlarging our
scope. He has an excellent mind and much better intellect than myself ...
John Parsons is going to he valuable." This was welcome news to Crowley,
long dissatisfied with the work of his Californian disciples, who he dismissed
as mere "fans." Only six years before his death, and in poor health, the Beast
was anxious that a new generation of Thelemite leadership arise to carry on
his mission.
Another member of the Agape Lodge, the silent film actress Jane
Wolfe, who had studied with the Beast in Cefalu, was equally impressed by
the newcomer, writing of Parsons in her magical diary that "I see him as the
real successor of Therion [Crowley's magical name]."
Based on such enthusiastic reports, Crowley began to consider
Parsons as the logical leader of the Agape Lodge, increasingly distancing
himself from Wilfred Smith, whose abilities he had long held in question.
Just as Parsons had showed an early brilliance in science, conversing
authoritatively as a teenager via telephone with the great German rocket
scientist Werner von Braun, so had magic been a life-long fascination for the
prodigy In 1927, at the age of 13, according to his The Book Of Antichrist,
Parsons attempted to evoke the Devil to visible appearance, an operation that
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