Bare-Faced Messiah (PDF) - Apologetics Index

Come unto me, to me! Sing the rapturous love songs unto me! Burn to me the perfume! Drink to
me for I love you! I am the blue-lidded daughter of sunset, I am the naked brilliance of the
voluptuous night sky . . .'
With passions mounting, the three black magicians intoned a chorus: 'Glory unto the Scarlet
Woman, Babalon, the Mother of Abominations, that rideth upon the Beast, for She hath spilt their
blood in every corner of the earth and lo! she hath mingled it in the cup of her whoredom . . .'
The scribe remained at the altar declaiming and describing what was supposed to be happening
on an astral plane while the high priest excitedly inserted his 'wand' into the scarlet woman and
they began copulating furiously.
At midnight the unholy troika retired to bed, exhausted. Next morning one of the lodgers in the
house disturbed Parsons while he was meditating in the temple - he flew out in a rage and put a
curse on the man, who, he said, was very soon taken ill. After this incident, Parsons confessed that
he succumbed to a black mood. His temper cannot have improved when he discovered that the
roof of the guest-house had caught fire and been partially destroyed the previous night while he
was otherwise occupied. He darkly deduced that the fire had started at the very moment, during the
night's black festivities, when he had smashed an image of Pan.
'That evening,' Parsons wrote, 'the scribe and I resumed our work.' This time a white sheet
smeared with menstrual blood was laid out on the floor of the temple and a red star, cut from the
high priest's robe, was symbolically burned on the altar. As Parsons performed the 'Invocation of
the Wand' on the naked body of the scarlet woman, the scribe droned: 'Embrace her, cover her with
kisses. Think upon the lewd lascivious things thou couldst do. All is good to Babalon. All . . . The
lust is hers, the passion yours. Consider thou the Beast raping.'
On the third and final day, the rituals began four hours before dawn and ended with a long poem
titled 'The Birth of Babalon' extolling 'holy whoredom':
Her mouth is red and her breasts are fair and her loins are full of fire,
And her lust is strong as a man is strong in the heat of her desire,
And her whoredom is holy as virtue is foul beneath the holy sky,
And her kisses will wanton the world away in passion that shall not die.
Ye shall laugh and love and follow her dance when the wrath of God is gone,
And dream no more of hell and hate in the birth of Babalon.[18]
In the 'Book of Babalon', Parsons was completely convinced that the magic had worked and that his
scarlet woman would be delivered of a moonchild in nine months. 'Babalon,' he wrote confidently,
'is incarnate upon the earth today awaiting the proper hour of her manifestations.'[19]
But in his 'Magical Record' he was less assured: 'For the last three days I have performed an
operation of birth, using the air tablet, the cup and a female figure, properly invoked by the wand,
then sealed up in the altar. Last night I performed an operation of symbolic birth and delivery. Now I
can do no more than pray and wait.'[20]
On 6 March, Parsons sat down to compose a letter to his Satanic Master in England, apprising him
of the momentous events that had recently taken place. 'I can hardly tell you or decide how much to
write,' he began. 'I am under command of extreme secrecy. I have had the most important,
devastating experience of my life . . . I believe it was the result of the IXth degree working [the class
of sexual magic designed to produce a higher being] with the girl who answered my elemental
summons. I have been in direct touch with One who is most Holy and Beautiful as mentioned in