"To walk the path of BABALON is to seek to allow oneself to experience existence as pure sensation, suspending value judgments of pleasure-pain, good-bad, attractive-repulsive by which we commonly limit and define our everyday human experience. To walk the path of BABALON is to seek to allow oneself to totally yield to sensations of pleasure and desire in encountering all facets of existence, without fear of the dissolution of "I". To walk the path of BABALON is to allow oneself the freedom of initiating passion, within others, within oneself."

My house is filled with the bones of dead prophets. Their voices trail off into the shadows of the night, fore they spoke falsely of me, they knew not my name.

You can worship me in the glades of deep forests, around fires, hair bedecked with flowers, in coloured robes or naked, coupled or apart, exceeding in thy joy unto me. Or thou can come to me in silence, alone, as you will.

The ancient ones knew me and worshipped me. I am the ground on which you walk and the great sea, and the night sky studded with stars. They knew me as Isis, Nuit, Hathor and Sekhet and Cybele, Hecate, Lilith and more. I am black, black studded with gold. I'm purple, and green as grass.

My mansion has many rooms and some are treble locked. In these rooms are many wonders and secret joys. In them you may abide if you have the key. My halls are draped in various colours pleasing to me. I have 30 robes in my cloakroom. The first is yours, the second mine. The rest conceal each other. They are of various colours and majesty. They exist together and are worn apart.

For I am the cup and the true holy grail. I cleanse iniquity with my sacred waters. I am an ocean of comfort and joy. My cup is always full. Drink of it and thou shall be purified and renewed.

Those who know me can never forget and are changed forever.


From "Babalon Speaks" and "The Book of the Holy Lady of the 3-Fold Name" channelled by D. Koons

INVOCATION OF BABALON
Holy Mother, Great and Terrible

"When thy dust shall strew the earth whereon She walketh, then mayest thou bear the impress of Her foot. And thou thinkest to behold Her face!"

How can that which is buried in the pyramids behold that which descendeth upon its apex?

Despair! Despair! For thou mayest deceive the Virgin, and thou mayest cajole the Mother; but what wilt thou say unto the ancient Whore that is throned in Eternity? For if She will not, there is neither force nor cunning, nor any wit, that may prevail upon Her. Thou canst not woo Her with love, for She is love, and She hath all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo Her with gold, for all the kings and captains of the earth, and all the gods of heaven, have showered their gold upon Her. Thus hath She all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo Her with knowledge, for knowledge is the thing that She hath spurned. She hath it all, and hath no need of thee. And thou canst not woo Her with wit, for Her Lord is Wit. She hath it all, and hath no need of thee. Despair, despair! Nor canst thou cling to Her knees and ask for pity; nor canst thou cling to Her heart and ask for love, nor canst thou put thine arms abut Her neck, and ask for understanding; for thou hast had all these, and they avail thee not! Nor canst thou win Her with the Sword, nor canst thou win Her by the Serpent, for it was the Serpent that seduced Her first! Despair, despair!

O thou who art the great sea and the way between the waters, gate of all life, hear me, for I attain to thee, as I behold the Image of Love in thy Face.

Thou art She who hast created all in thine image, for are not all souls female before the Lord? Therefore is Motherhood the symbol of the Masters! Thou who hast torn open thy breast to nourish thy children, and received thy children’s blood in the Great Return; great Queen of cycles, womb and tomb of all life, which emanates from thee. Thou art a great queen indeed, awesome in thy countenance, known and unknown, the bed of a harlot, and the dwelling of them that are fallen!
Yea, before thee all the most holy is profane, O thou desolator of shrines! You are She that rideth forth on the back of the Beast, of seven heads and ten horns. I see thee dressed in purple and scarlet, decked with gold and pearls and rich jewels, carrying aloft thy golden cup in which reside all the abominations of the earth...there shall be no more red roses, for you hath crushed the blood of all things into your Cup!

Thou who art entirely beyond my conception so that there is nothing in my mind on to which it can cast a symbol, even as the emptiness of space is not heated by the fire of the Sun. So pure is thy light that it preventeth the formation of images, and therefore have men called you Darkness. Thou art thine own destruction! Open the mysteries of your creation, and make us partakers of the undefiled knowledge!

Thou art the MYSTERY of MYSTERY, seven letters hath thy holy name. Thy name falls down through the heavens and the ages: *
*
*
*
*
*
*
Open the tomb of thy being to we who seek thy knowledge. Appear thou glorious upon the throne of Creation! I behold thee in every living thing, in the coals of the fire, in the light that dances in the eyes of the brethren and the sisters,, in the up and the down and the sideways, the rhythm and the rhyme, in all and naught.

With the wine in your cup hath you mixed the lightnings, and you hath carved your bread with a sharp sword. With your folly hath you undone the wisdom of the Magus, even as with your judgements hath you overwhelmed the universe. You hath eaten the pomegranate in the House of Wrath, and you have crushed out the blood of your mother between millstones to make bread. There is nothing you hath not trampled beneath your feet. The is nothing of which you hath not set a garland upon thy brow. All things are wound about thy waist as a girdle. All things are hidden in the Cave of your Heart. You hath slain all things, as you are innocence. You have laid with all things, as you are Untouched Virginity. You have given birth to all things, as you are death! Stainless are your lips, for they are redder than the purple of the vine, and of the blood wherewith You are Intoxicated. Stainless is thy forehead, for it is whiter than the wind and the dew that cooleth it.
You are light, and night, and that which is beyond them! You are speech, and silence, and that which is beyond them! You are life, and death, and that which is beyond them! You are war, and peace, and that which is beyond them! You are weakness and strength and that which is beyond them.

Oh deathless are those who have fed at the breast of the mother of the Universe! Thou art the Original of all Manifestations, the Alpha and the Omega, Thou who art the birthplace of even Us; thou knowest the whole world, yet none know Thee. Thou art both subtle and gross, manifested and veiled, formless, yet with form....who can understand thee? Oh Mother, in hymning thy praise I purify my speech. For it is said:

"What care I for the Father if I but be on the lap of the Mother!" Mater Renuit, Mater Recepit! Thus I proclaim you to the world!

The Star of Babalon
by Jack Parsons

This essay is a surviving fragment of The Book of Babalon which was a book of instructions to the avatar or incarnation of the goddess Parsons expected as a result of his Babalon Working. This essay formed Chapter VII of the original, which is now lost. Another chapter survives but is almost entirely comprised of quotations from OTO (Ordo Templi Orientis) degree papers.

How shall I write of the mystery and the terror, of the wonder and pity and splendour of the sevenfold star that is BABALON, mother of abominations, drunken upon the blood of the saints? For here neither wit nor wisdom, not even will alone, but only understanding and passive love avail.

What shall it avail the adept if he has conquered the fourfold elements, and spelled the riddle of the Sphinx? Here the price is the last drop of his life blood. He must go down like Moses, like Arthur and Tammuz into the dark land, following the swan into Tuonella, into silence and winter and night. And there, before the dark mother of anarchy and abominations he shall be stripped of all power soever, until he is naked and defenceless as a new born child, and in this he shall not prevail unless he yield all willingly, smiting the waters of forgetfulness and partaking of the fountain of life, and of the bittersweet mystery of understanding, and from that dark womb one shall be born again, but is shall not be he.

She is the hag wife that was transformed by the chivalry of Gawain, Kundry that is overcome by the pure folly of Parsifal, Libann bride of Mannan, Life bride of Death. And in overcoming and surrender, and in the Tao that is beyond both of these shall he attain, for She is the way to the crown.

But this mystery passeth speech. The mind reels and the intellect is smitten before even the idea of WOMAN, and the dark Mother of Whom She is the bright shadow. But let the adept meditate on this: there are loves She has loved in this body and others, bright loves and dark loves, gay and sad, pure and perverse. And let him recall these loves in all the joy and sadness of illusion: in the wonder of morning and springtime, the glory of noonday and summer, the splendour of sunset and autumn. And let him distil these by subtle alchemy into the iridescent shape of heart's desire. Then let him consider this, that all men hold in their hearts the image of love, hymned by all poets, painted by all artists and sung in eternally great music. And this is patterned, as some say, after the image of the first love, the mother. But I say that that perfect image in the heart of man is patterned by the awful form in space time that shapes all women, the insatiable and eternal lust of Pan that is BABALON.

Then let the adept meditate upon that demon woman Lilith that devoureth Her own children, Kali, avatar of destruction, Venus, the whore averse, and let him likewise blend that shape to his dream. And let him look upon the Goddess that is the body of the stars, and let him perceive that all these are one. Then, with the serpent's venom in his blood, and the lust unconquerable in his heart, let him invoke BABALON, yea, let him invoke BABALON.

And the adept will partake somewhat of this mystery in the continued devotion to any deity, since all gods are one.

Now it may be that the adept may have a mate upon the plane of earth, or among the elementals; and if he will, let him conceive of this mate as partaking of the nature of his deity, for herein is a subtle and beautiful practise of love. But woe unto him that confuses the planes, worshipping an image of clay while the sanctuary lies desolate and abandoned. For if his love be pure he shall attain the Infernal Rose, and partake of the sacrament of the Lord of the Love, even as I, my brothers, even as I.

Now there is another mystery concerning BABALON that has been made known to me by my magical studies, and that is this, that BABALON is now incarnate on the earth in the form of a mortal woman. I do not know in whom or where She is incarnate. I do not know where or when She will manifest. That She is incarnate and that She will manifest, a banner before armies and a judgement of nations, I do know. There exists pertinent material on the subject which will be made available at the proper time. I may sat no more on the matter at present.

Beyond this it is abundantly evident that the spirit of BABALON stirs in the women of the world. The demand for increased freedom, the rejection both of the tyrannical husband and the child lover, the increase of feminine polygamy and lesbianism, all indicate the development of a new type of woman, who will have a whole man or none. It is the business of the magician to develop himself into a man sufficient for the new woman that his own magical lust has engendered. It is his business to become a priest in order that She may become the availing sacrifice that Her nature demands. At the last it is a high mystery of the lance and the grail. It cannot be taught. Magick is a path, but for the end of the path there are no words, there is no language.


"The Star of Babalon" by John Whiteside Parsons was published in Freedom is a Two-Edged Sword (Oriflamme 1), Ordo Templi Orientis, New York in association with Falcon Press, Las Vegas, 1989.

Babalon as depicted in the Book of Revelations (they called Her Babylon)

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