kaos

his bizarre Antichrist manifesto, and some parts of Liber 49 betray perhaps an imperfect
reception—“Am I thy village queen and thou a sophomore, that thou shouldst have thy
nose in my buttocks?”—but as an occultist Parsons was plugged in to the live current
like few ever are. Carter pronounces his scientific achievements as underrated, and this
is certainly so, but he also believes that as an occultist he was a failure. I don’t personally
believe so, because “failure” too can be a noble inspiration and ultimately depends on
how you look at it. Who knows how many occultists have felt strangely inspired by
Parsons’ and Cameron’s “failure”. In a final letter to oto head Karl Germer, Parsons
wrote tongue-in-cheek of the great successes of his magical workings in terms of acute
psychosis, manic hysteria, and depressing melancholic stupors, and that “satisfactory
progress has been maintained in social ostracism, economic collapse and mental
disassociation”, and that these statements should be taken as “comfort and inspiration
to other aspirants on the Path”. He signs off by saying “you can tell all the little practicuses
I wouldn’t have missed it for anything”. (Practicus is 3° in the A∴A∴)
More confusing is what Parsons expected to achieve beyond attracting his “elemental
mate”. It is easy to think that Marjorie Cameron was the Babalon he sought, and she
herself in later years believed so (either that or she had given birth to “Her” on the
astral, whether Babalon or Daughter of Babalon, it all gets a bit vague), yet Parsons
himself appeared to have been awaiting some form of incarnation who, possibly, would
come to him with a sign or sigil that he would recognise—Crowley supposed from the
reports he had received from others in the oto that Parsons was producing a Moonchild
and felt it was “idiocy”. Parsons was instructed to receive the sign by gazing for an hour
upon a black box he had earlier been told to make, and he would see “a shape, a sign, a
sacred design” appear imprinted on it. He was to construct this sigil in wood. I have
never read anywhere anything further about this sigil or whether it survives. By the sign
he would recognise that “babalon is born!” How this was supposed to pan out is unclear.
Did Parsons expect someone to be born as a result of his Working who when they
reached adulthood would come and visit him flashing a sigil? Possibly, in The Book of
Babalon he is told on March 2, 1946, via the Scribe: “Speak not of this ritual or of Her
coming to any person. If asked, answer in a manner that avoids suspicion. Nor speculate
at any time as to Her future mortal identity.” Or did he expect something much sooner?
Carter says on p 151 that Marjorie Cameron found she was pregnant by Parsons but
had an abortion with his consent (again, without backing it up with a source), and
another abortion later on, which makes one wonder what kind of incarnation he was
seeking and also at what point he confided in her the full extent of his magical objective,
because at first he kept from her that he considered her to be an elemental he had
conjured up to help him fulfil this seemingly hazy objective.
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