kaos

alerted Staley to the fact that Parsons’ magical partner from Jan 19 to Feb 27 was
obviously Cameron. The only way Staley could have read this without having the truth
dawn on him would have been to assume Parsons was referring solely to his reception
of Liber 49 on February 28 rather than to the entire sequence of events since Marjorie
Cameron turned up on January 18. In fact, one wonders what exactly Staley thought
Cameron’s role in the Babalon Working actually was (interesting to reflect whether this
is a general Typhonian oto misunderstanding as well). Final confirmation that the
magical partner was Cameron appears in a letter Parsons wrote to Crowley on March 6,
1946, in which he says: “I have had the most devastating experience of my life between
Feb 2 and Mar 4. I believe it was the result of the 9 th working with the girl who answered
my elemental summons.” (A reference to 9° sex magick.) The two weeks between Jan
19 and Feb 2 corresponds with the time Cameron said they spent mostly in bed and
chatted incessantly, foreplay for the 9 th you might say.
Parsons’ Liber 49, 77 verses forming part of The Book of Babalon (four verses, 5–8,
missing) presented in the section “Communications”, was received by Parsons alone in
the Mojave desert on February 28, the day after Cameron had returned to New York
for a couple of weeks, during which she ditched her boyfriend Napoleon. It is in verse
23 of Liber 49 that Babalon instructs him to seek her in the Seventh Aire, which was
mentioned earlier in KAOS in that Parsons blundered here in his subsequent invocation
and sought her instead by using the 7 th Call rather than the 25 th Call (ie, the 19 th Call,
or Call of the 30 Aires, with deo substituted for lil, to open the 7 th Aire). It was shortly
after receiving Liber 49, on March 2, that Hubbard as Scribe delivered his famous
chilling prophecy to Parsons: “thou shalt become living flame before She incarnates.”
Given Carter’s correction of the mistake concerning the identity of Parsons’ magical
partner until February 27, it is ironic that on p 139 he says the role of the priestess,
changed to “Babalon” by Parsons, in the enactment of a section of the Gnostic Mass on
March 2 was recited by Cameron. Unless he has other information he has not imparted
it seems to me she was still in New York at that time (a clumsy error since on p 132
Carter says Cameron went to New York on Feb 27 and stayed 2 weeks, which is it to
be?). The Book of Babalon itself gives the impression that the Scribe Hubbard must have
taken the role, or Parsons both roles. The priestess role here is almost identical to Liber
AL I, v 61. Carter on p 142 speculates that Parsons and Cameron took turns reciting
lines from Crowley’s play Tannhäuser in the sixth invocation, again forgetting that he
said she was in New York. If he can’t get basic things like this correct, it does unfortunately
call into question the book’s reliability. For the record concerning Cameron’s whereabouts
at this time, Parsons wrote to Crowley on February 22, 1946: “One thing I seem to have
my elemental. She turned up one night after the conclusion of the operation and has
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