Jack Parsons in Kenneth Grant’s “The Magical Revival”

The following are excerpts regarding Jack Parsons from Kenneth Grant’s book “The Magical Revival” – the first of his Typhonian Trilogies, and the foundation of the Typhonian Order. Grant was Crowley’s secretary from 1945 until the latter’s death in 1947. 

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[Page 48]
The ritual assumption of god forms, as taught and practiced in the Golden Dawn, has, nevertheless, a more profound significance than the rehearsal of primitive sociological phases of human behavior, and Crowley’s assumption of the mask of the Beast was no mere gesture of identification with primitive processes. He assumed the role with the magical intent of affirming his identity not only with pre-eval atavisms but with those transcendental powers which, when properly controlled and directed, he was able to incarnate at will. This forms the basis of his magick.

John W. Parsons, head of the Californian Lodge of the O.T.O., (from 1944 until his untimely death in 1952), sums up this magick:

“To go deep you must reject each phenomenon, each illumination, each ecstasy, going ever downward, until you reach the last avatars of the symbols that are also the racial archetypes. ”
“In this sacrifice to the abysmal gods is the apotheosis that transmutes them to the beauty and power that is your eternity, and the redemption of mankind. ”
“Neurosis and initiation are the same thing, except that neurosis stops short of apotheosis, and the tremendous forces that mould all life are incysted-short-circuited and turned poisonous. Psychoanalysis transforms tile false ego symbols, and exteriorizes them into false social symbols; it is a confusion of conformity and cure in terms of group behaviors. ”
“But initiation must go on until the barrier is passed, until the misty bastions of infantile Trawenfells change into the rocks and crags of eternity; the garden of Klingsor into the City of God.”

It does not matter, ultimately, whether the new dimension, the redeeming factor, the “Savior”, is a beast or a god, so long as the formula of Matter is transcended, or, more precisely, so long as the Spirit (Shin) and Matter (Teth) are realized as One.

[Page 107]
John W. Parsons, head of the Pasadena Lodge of the O.T.O. between 1940 and 1945 observed that Kelley’s life of crime, sparked off by the Angel’s communication, resembled closely what occurred to himself while working with the same Aethyr (i.e. the 7th). Parsons invoked this Aethyr in 1945 with appropriate rituals baked up by the powerful sexual magick of the VIII O.T.O. which means that he added his own magnetic emanation to the materials used in the magical ceremony. Shortly afterwards, his scribe absconded his wife and tricked him out of money and possessions. Parsons, who was at the time working in an air-rocket factory, died disastrously when he dropped a phial of
fulminate of mercury. His scribe. however, is still at large, having grown wealthy and famous by a misuse of the secret knowledge which he had wormed out of Parsons.

[Page 136]
Towards the close of Crowley’s life, certain strange events occurred which made it seem likely that the Scarlet Woman had at last appeared. These events did not occur to Crowley direct, but to the head of his magical Order (O.T.O.) in California. This person, John Parsons, performed an elaborate magical operation in 1946 with the object of invoking the Scarlet Woman. He called the operation the Babalon Working, and a creature claiming to be Babalon answered the Call.

It is doubtful whether Crowley ever knew or cared about her advent, for at the time of the Working he was a dying man. She may not have been the Semiramis Crowley had expected but she was certainly as strange and disturbing as any of the Scarlet Women who had assisted the Beast 666. Her name was Marjorie Cameron; further reference will be made to her in Chapter 9, infra.

[Page 157]
It was there that Smith seduced Helen Parsons, the wife of a promising young scientist named John W. Parsons who was known in the Order as Frater 210. Smith had a child by Helen, and a series of entanglements ensued which provoked Crowley to issue an encyclical expelling Smith from the O.T.O.

[Page 161]
Smith, like all magicians engaged in a Magical Retirement, had a familiar spirit or servitor to take care of his bodily requirements. In this case the familiar was Sister Grimaud or Helen Parsons, whom he had seduced some time previously. Jack Parsons had ceased sending money to Helen because he had lost all his possessions to a confidence trickster who had wormed his way into the O.T.O. on the pretense of being interested in Magick.

[Page 162]
The case of John (known as Jack) W. Parsons (Frater 210) is, perhaps, stranger still. Imbued with the idea of Kingly Man, as that expression is understood in the Cult of Thelema, Parsons bent his not inconsiderable energies, physical and intellectual, to the discovery of his True Will.

Born on October 2,1914, in Los Angeles, he lived a lonely childhood, due to his parents broken marriage. He spent a great deal of his youth reading and day-dreaming, and nurturing a growing resentment of all interference, especially of the kind posing as “authority”. He developed strong revolutionary tendencies and when he encountered Crowley’s writings – which he first did through Wilfred T.Smith – he was instantly alive to the significance of Thelema. He joined Smith’s Agapé Lodge (O.T.O.), and, at the same time, became a Probationer, 1º=10# of the A.’.A.’.

Shortly afterwards, Helen Parsons had a child by Smith, and because of this Parsons directed his affection to Helen’s younger sister, Betty, who became his mistress and magical partner in the Ceremonies of Agapé Lodge.

While Parsons was engaged in these matters a certain Frater X appeared on the scene, and such was his fascination that Parsons – who had gained admission to the highest grades of the O.T.O. – was persuaded to break his Oath of Secrecy and X came into possession of the secrets of the Order although he was not at any time properly initiated.
These secrets comprise the psycho – sexual and magical techniques to which reference has already been made (21).

Frater X then persuaded Parsons to form a tripartite Trust with Betty and himself. This Agreement was called “Allied Enterprises”. Parsons put the lion’s share of the money into it, Prater X contributing a merely nominal sum, and Betty, nothing at all. Parsons was then persuaded to sell the property which constituted the headquarters of the Agapé Lodge, and on the proceeds-plus the money invested in Allied Enterprises- Frater X and Betty absconded, leaving Parsons under the impres sion that they intended to buy a yacht
which they would eventu ally sell to the advantage of all three.

The yacht was duly purchased, but instead of returning to California, Frater X and Betty sailed round the East Coast together, “living the life of Riley”, as a member of the Order graphically expressed it.

In a letter to Crowley dated July, 1945, Parsons wrote:

“About three months ago I met X, a writer and explorer of whom I had known for some time… He is a gentleman (sic!); red hair, green eyes, honest and intelligent, and we have become great friends. He moved in with me about two months ago, and although Betty and I are still friendly, she has transferred her sexual affections to him.
“Although he has no formal training in Magick he has an extraordinary amount of experience and understanding in the field. From some of his experiences I deduce he is in direct touch with some higher intelligence, possibly his Guardian Angel. He is the most Thelemic person I have ever met and is in complete accord with our principles. He is also interested in establishing the new Aeon, but for cogent reasons I have not introduced him to the Lodge.
“We are pooling our resources in a partnership which will act as a limited company to control our business ventures. I think I have made a great gain, and as Betty and I are the best of friends there is little loss. I cared for her rather deeply but I have no desire to control her emotions, and I can I hope control my own.
“I need a magical partner. I have many experiments in mind… The next time I tie up with a woman it will be on my own terms.”

His wife, Helen, had been filched by Smith; now, Frater X had stolen his mistress. Having lost confidence in women, Parsons decided to attract an Elemental Spirit to take Betty’s place and to assist him in his magical workings.

The instructions which accompany the Eighth Degree of the O,T.O. contain methods for evoking an Elemental, or familiar spirit. It is said to be an easy matter to attract such a spirit because the souls of the Elements desire constantly to be absorbed into the cycle of human evolution, this being the only way in which they can achieve salvation and perpetuity of existence. On being appropriated by a human organism, the elemental finally becomes absorbed in the immortal principle in man. Crowley applies similar
reasoning to the practice of eating animals: “We have a right to eat animals,” he says, “because it is the kindest thing that we can do to them. Thus, and only thus, can we enable them to fulfil their ambition by building up their tissue into that of a higher organism.”

In the matter of calling forth an Elemental Spirit, the Adept is advised on several points:

“(1) That he choose wisely a reasonable soul, docile, apt, beautiful, and in all ways worthy of love.
“(2) That he fall not away from love of the Great Goddess into love of this inferior, but give only as a master and of his mercy, knowing that this also is service to the Goddess.
“(3) That of such familiar spirits he have but four. And let him regulate their service, appointing hours for each.
“(4) That he treat them with kindness and firmness, being on his guard against their tricks.

“This being said, it is enough; for to have them is but the pains to call them forth from their homes. And the Spirits of the Elemental Tablets given by Dr. Dee and Sir Edward Kelley are the best, being very perfect in their nature and faithful, affecting the human race. And if not so powerful as, they are less dangerous than, the Planetary Spirits; for these are more boisterous, and by disastrous stars easily perturbed and afflicted.

“Call them therefore by the Keys of Enoch as is written in the Book ye know of; and let there be after the Call~ an Evocation by the Wand; and let the Marrow of the Wand be preserved within the pyramids of the letters that make up the name of the Spirit…”

In January, 1946, Parsons wrote again to Crowley and referred to the Operation which he had performed:

“I have diligently followed the VIIIº instructions as (a) creation of new orders of beings with consecrated talismanic images. Possible connective result: increase in writing output; (b) Invocation of Mother Goddess, using Priest’s call in mass and silver cup as talisman; sometimes using suitable poetry such as Venus. Possible connective result: loss of Betty’s affections as preliminary to (c) Invocation of Air Elemental Kerub… in Enochian Air Tablet.”

He goes on to give details of the rite he used; it ended with a command that the Spirit appear visibly in human form before him, as a familiar spirit and as a mate.
Parsons recognized a possible connective result of the Operation in the form of a wind storm which-for the first three days of the Working with the Air Tablet-was excessively violent and “unnatural”. He says that although he bent all his will and scientific knowledge to the correct performance of the rite, “nothing seems to have happened. The wind storm is very interesting, but that is not what I asked for.”

His disappointment was a little premature, however, for a few days later he wrote:

“An interesting incident. Frater X attempted to escape me by sailing at 5 p.m., and I performed a full invocation to Bartzabel (22) within the Circle at 8 p.m. At the same time, so far as I can check, his ship was struck by a sudden squall off the coast, which ripped off his sails and forced him back to port, where I took the boat in custody. I am not greatly impressed, but it is interesting.”

Still not the desired result, but owing to the above he was able to say of Frater X and Betty:

“I have them well tied up; they cannot move without going to jail. However, I am afraid that most of the money has already been dissipated. I will be lucky to salvage $3,00-5,000..”

Then, on February 23, 1946, Parsons wrote triumphantly to Crowley:

“I have my elemental! She turned up one night after the conclusion of the Operation, and has been with me since, although she goes back to New York next week. She has red hair and slant green eyes as specified. If she returns she will be dedicated as I am dedicated!
All or nothing – I have no other terms. She is an artist, strong minded and determined, with strong masculine characteristics and a fanatical independence …”

This woman’s name was Marjorie Cameron. She became Parsons’ second wife and led him deeper into occult waters from which he never emerged. Crowley warned him several times of the dangers he was courting; and in a letter to him, dated March 15, 1946, Crowley wrote:

“I am particularly interested in what you have written to me about the elemental, because for some little time past I have been endeavoring to intervene personally in this matter on your behalf. I would however recall Lévi’s aphorism: ‘The love of the Magus for such things is insensate and may destroy him’. Warns him that because of his sensitiveness he should be more on his guard than the majority of people.”

At about this time, Parsons – in the course of his Magical Workings – contacted an Intelligence that was to disrupt his existence entirely and cause Crowley to write him off as yet another failure.

Between the second and the fourth of March, Parsons recorded what he described as “the most devastating experience of my life. I believe it was the result of the IXº working with the girl who answered my elemental summons.” (23) “I have been in direct touch with One who is most Holy and beautiful, mentioned in The Book of the Law. I cannot write the name at present.”

He received certain instructions from this Intelligence, first directly, then through Frater X, who had returned and who had been forgiven. Frater X acted as a Seer on several occasions when Parsons contacted denizens of other dimensions. Frater X declared that he was overshadowed by an “Angel”, a beautiful winged woman with red hair whom he called The Empress. She guided him at all times and – so he claimed – saved his life on several occasions.

Wilfred T. Smith, after his expulsion from the O.T.O., and his failure to identify the god within him, conceived an enmity for Parsons and attacked him astrally. On one occasion, Frater X, who had not met Smith, described him as clad in a black robe and having an evil pasty face. An expert with the throwing knife, Frater X pinned the phantom figure to the door with four knives. Later the same night, Parsons was awakened by a feeling of oppression. He heard a distinct sound in the room, though no one but himself was present. A muffled yet metallic voice screamed “Let me go free!” Parsons, recalling the strange events of the evening, gave the License to Depart (24) and freed Smith’s astral body from the transfixing knives.

Parsons looked forward to the result of his secret illumination, which was to occur in nine month’s time with the birth of a magical child “mightier than all the kings of the Earth”, as had been prophesied in The Book of the Law more than forty years earlier. He believed that this child-and not Frater Achad- was to be the child destined to lead mankind to true freedom.

Parsons continued to receive revelations through the agency of his elemental, whom he named Babalon, the Scarlet Woman, and such was the coherence of the material obtained from the spirit world that he claimed that it actually constituted the fourth and final chapter of The Book of the Law.

During the receipt of these communications, Parsons-reduced to penury by the indefatigable Frater X-had been earning his living by working for an aircraft company.
He wrote to Crowley:

“It has now been almost a year since I last wrote-at that time I was near mental and financial collapse. Since that time I have laboriously gained some sort of mental equilibrium and gradually regained something of a position in my old field in a large aircraft company. My one aim is to rebuild myself.”

Crowley, dying slowly in England, was unable to follow the wild stories about
revelations and initiations too secret and too holy even to be mentioned. He replied, on April 19, 1946:

“You have got me completely puzzled by your remarks about the elemental – the danger of discussing or copying anything. I thought I had a most morbid imagination, as good as any man’s, but it seems I have not. I cannot form the slightest idea what you can possibly mean.”

And to Karl J. Germer, his right-hand man in California, he wrote:

“Apparently he, or Frater X, or somebody, is producing a Moonchild. I get fairly frantic when I contemplate the idiocy of these louts.”

Not long afterwards, Parsons took the Oath of the Abyss. He adopted the magical name Belarion, and in 1949 issued The Book of Anti-Christ, which he divided into two parts: The Black Pilgrimage, and The Manifesto of the Anti-Christ. In the first part he alludes to his interior struggles and the ordeal of disillusionment which he suffered in the external world. These were experienced by him when he was stripped of his fortune, his house, his wife, his mistress; all that he possessed. He undertook the Black Pilgrimage when this disillusionment had made him realize the futility and impermanence of phenomena. He had the choice between madness, suicide, and the Oath of the Abyss.

Surviving the ordeals which plunged him into the Abyss for forty days, he took the Oath of Anti-Christ before his erstwhile Superior in the Order, Wilfred T. Smith. In his Manifesto he identifies himself personally with the anti-Christ and declares war upon “all authority that is not based on courage and manhood”, and calls a halt to “the authority of lying priests, conniving judges, blackmailing police”. He further called “an end to restriction and inhibition… conscription, compulsion, regimentation, and the tyranny of false laws”. He claimed that he would bring all men to the Law of the Beast 666: “And in His Law I shall conquer the world.”

Apart from these laudable intentions, other-more esoteric- purposes were declared in the Manifesto which reveals Parsons as an ardent advocate of total freedom, and a loyal though some what fanatical devotee of Crowley’s Thelemic principles. Had he lived he would today no doubt be among the foremost of fighters for individual liberty.

In the ritual instructions which he received in connection with The Book of Babalon, which formed, so lie claimed, the fourth chapter of The Book of the Law, appeared the following:

“She is flame of life; power of darkness; she destroys with a glance; she may take the soul. She feeds upon the death of men. ”
“Concentrate all force and being in Our Lady Babalon. Light a single light on Her altar, saying Flame is our Lady; flame is Her hair. I am flame.”

It was not very long after the Babalon Working that Parsons dropped a phial of fulminate of mercury, and was in truth devoured by flame. (25)

Parson’s papers show that he had the makings of a genuine magician. Apart from his correspondence with the Scarlet Woman, which is of great interest both magically and psychologically, he left some essays on Magick which deserve to be preserved in permanent form.

It is unfortunate that Crowley was too ill to appreciate the situation and all its
implications. He died in Hastings in 1947 before the first act of the drama in California had played itself out. He regarded Parsons as one more failure, and wrote about the matter to Karl Germer on the 31st May, 1946. His remarks were prompted by the reappearance on the scene of Frater Achad, who had written to Germer concerning a series of initiations which he (Achad) was currently undergoing:

“Thanks for yours of May 23rd enclosing one from Frater Achad. It is very good that he should come crawling back to the penitent’s form after thirty years, but I do not quite see how it is going to make up for the time he has wasted on his insane vanity, and you might let him know this view. ”
“I am glad that his submission should have taken place at this moment, however, because his case serves as very useful to quote in discussing the business of Jack Parsons…
“The question of Frater 210 [i.e. Parsons] seems to me very typical. He reminds me up to a point-though he is on a much lower plane than they~ of two men who joined the Order shortly after I took it over: both cases seem to me to have certain significance if applied to the present position of Frater 210.”
“Both (26) cases were alike in this-that after a very short period of training both had more than fulfilled their early promise; they could claim not only attainment, but achievement and that in no small degree. I am sorry that there is no possibility of making any similar claim on behalf of Frater 210.
“The elder of the two men (27) rashly took the oath of a Master of the Temple. He must have failed to expel the last drop of blood into the Cup of Our Lady Babalon, for a comparatively few months later he got an initiation by his own account so marvelous that it superseded our own work altogether. it was, of course, much too sacred for him to give even the least hint of its nature.
“What was the result? From that moment his attainment stopped; his achievement stopped; he never produced anything from that hour to this which was worthy a moment’s consideration. Now, after thirty years he has realized his mistake, he has come crawling back in penitence, but that will not do him the service of filling up the gap of thirty wasted years.
“The second case was really much simpler.. Now, his attainment and his achievement were on the whole of a higher class than that of the other man. But what happened to him? He got into the clutches of a vampire.
“The result was identical; from that hour his attainment stopped; his achievement stopped; he lived a miserable life-the life of a slave under the influence of this appalling old woman, and some half-dozen years ago death relieved him from his sufferings; that is, sufferings of that kind.
“It seems to me on the information of our Brethren in California that (if we may assume them to be accurate) Frater 210 has committed both these errors. He has got a miraculous illumination which rimes with nothing, and he has apparently lost all his personal independence. From our brother’s (28) account he has given away both his girl and his money-apparently it is the ordinary confidence trick.
“Of course, I must suspend judgement until I have heard his side of the story, but he promised me quite a long while ago to write me a full explanation, and to date I have received nothing from him…”

The poet, Victor Neuburg; the soldier, J. F. C. Fuller; the mathematician, Norman Mudd; the Magical Son of the Beast 666, Charles Stansfeld Jones; the Lancashire bricklayer, Frank Bennett; the ritualist, Wilfred Smith; the scientist, John Parsons, are a few of the many who tried-and tried wholeheartedly-to discover the identity of the Hidden God, to discover their True Will and to put their discovery to some use.

(21) See, in particular, Chapter 2, supra.
(22) The Spirit of Mars. See The Equinox I,ix, where this Invocation is given in full.
(23) i.e. Marjorie Cameron.
(24) The License to Depart is given to the Spirit before the Magician banishes it back to its proper dimension. Sec Magick, Chapter xvii, for an account of this operation.
(25) An account of his death appeared in The Independent, a newspaper publicized in Pasadena, California, June 19, 1952.
(26) The two men to whom Crowley refers are Frater Achad (Charles Stansfeld Jones), and Frater Lampada Tradam (Victor B. Neuburg).
(27) Charles Stansfeld Jones.
(28) This brother was Louis T. Culling. He has written several books on Magick.

Next:  Jack Parsons in Kenneth Grant’s “Aleister Crowley and the Hidden God”

29 Jan 1950 – Dee’s Skrying, Hubbard Mention

29 Jan 50

I have the text of Dee’s skrying in the 7th Aire, as he said “so terrified me that, beseeching God to have mercy upon me, I finally answer that I will from this day forward meddle no more herein.” The voice, speaking from Kelly, resulted in a sinister dissociation of Kelly’s personality. The parallel with my own working with Ron is appalling. After this Kelly robbed Dee, absconded with his wife, and developed a criminal confidence career. This is the voice:
“I am the daughter of Fortitude. (La Force = Babalon) and ravished every hour from my youth. For behold, I am Understanding, and Science dwelleth in me; and the heavens oppress me. They cover and desire me with infinite appetite; few or none that are earthly have embraced me, for I am shadowed with the Circle of the Stars, and covered with the morning clouds. My feet are swifter than the winds, and my hands are sweeter than the morning dew. My garments are from the beginning, and my dwelling place is in myself. The Lion knoweth not where I walk, neither do the beasts of the field understand me. I am deflowered, yet a virgin, I sanctifie and am not sanctified. Happy is he that embraceth me: for in the night season I am sweet, and in the day full of pleasure. My company is a harmony of many symbols, and my lips are sweeter than health itself. I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with such as know me not. Purge your streets, O ye sons of men, and wash your houses clean; make yourselves holy, and put on righteousness. Cast out your old strumpets, and burn their clothes and then I will come and dwell amongst you; and behold, I will bring forth children unto you, and they shall be the Sons of Comfort in the Age that is to come.”

In view of the fact that this MSS was unknown to Hubbard and I [sic], the parallelism is really extraordinary. I have found another prophecy in Khaled Khan which I shall send later.

The voice is of course disembodied, and the problem to furnish an appropriate body. The formula, it would seem, is that of Inanna descending (or the Pistis Sophia). At the first stage she takes off her clothes, the soul, and so on until she stands completely naked before Anunnaki, the eyes of death, with only love in her heart, and this is what ascends in her cast off garments.

It is all a matter of devotion – of willed inversion. The Bornless One (Liber Samekh) is a Sumerian ritual of the same period. If you can listen to primitive chants, Zuni, Vaadon [?], Ashanti – they may be of some use. I have some ethnic records that are really unusual, and invaluable in establishing connection.
I cannot overemphasize the danger to health, character, life and sanity if the whole mystical doctrine is not properly understood – if the will is not properly dedicated.

The way to individual initiation has never been closed – you simply see the dross and the gold, and exchange the one for the other, and keep your counsel, save where it will do some good. But the way to racial redemption has been opened but rarely by those rare, intense, passionate souls that range far beyond ordinary initiation, into realms that no man knows.

There is really not much else that I can think of. You have the techniques and the essential information – the rest is up to you. But I do not want to tincture your work with my own predilections. I can see something dimly – but it is so strange, dangerous, fantastic, that I do not now wish to even think too far on it. You understand the link between us in this work – it is fraught with all sorts of hazard, and mistake would involve us both in disaster. For over two thousand years now everyone who tackled this job has made a fool of themselves – it is time someone was making more sense.

Love, Jack

15, 16 Jan (1950, presumed) – Hotel Raleigh – Methods for Invoking

[Hotel Raleigh, Washington, D.C. letterhead] Jan. 15 [1950?]

Dear Candida

93.

I am enclosing the 7th Aire. Copy it into a permanent note book along with any other rituals you intend to use. You should have the plan in detail, order of rituals, layout of temple, procedure etc. I will send you the ritual of the Bornless One, probably in a small Goetia, since it is rather long to copy. It is a very ancient, potent & dangerous ritual, often used by bold magicians in the Guardian Angel Working. It is useful as a preliminary in almost any sort of work, causing a tremendous concentration of force. It is, however, liable to produce dangerous side phenomena and sometimes permanent haunting in an area where it is repeated, & is for this reason often avoided. Never do it without banishing & opening the temple, then closing and banishing again. I’m tired from the trip and will myself close now.
——

Jan. 16

Method of invoking

1. Banishing pentagram

2. Opening Hexagram

3. Ritual (may be preceded by Bornless One, or other preliminary invocation).

Then, for a superior force (god)

a. Supplication of the force
b. Description of the Force
c. Identification (or union) with the Force.

For a lesser force (spirit, angel, demon, elemental)

a. Supplication of a superior force (appropriate god)
b. Description of a superior force.
c. Identification with superior force.
d. As superior force, invocation and command of lesser force.

4. Closing Hexagram

5. Banishing pentagram.

For gods, an appropriate altar is used. For the rest, the magician stands within an appropriate circle, and invokes the force into a triangle. In any case the appropriate weapons, perfume, colors, should be used, the names and signs of the appropriate angels, planets should be drawn or written on talismans.
The magician should be robed and wear the sign or talisman of the highest force appropriate to the invocation. He should exhibit this when it is necessary to command, and (except in the case of Gods to whom it is inappropriate) a sword which he should not hesitate to use on anything or anyone who threatens to intrude or break the ritual. Once started, a ritual must not be stopped for any reason. It should be done in a secluded place, and no one should enter who has not been tested and consecrated by the magician.
The invocation of Gods (which pertains to a higher magic) is subtle and subject to individual variation and personal composition.

The invocation of lesser forces is exact, and, since love does not usually enter in so much, in one sense far more dangerous. In the higher work you are actually wooing the god – it is an act of art. In the lower you are compelling, it is an act of science.

The state in a proper working is indescribable but unmistakable. It is essential that everything be prepared and learned properly well in advance, since when things start to happen much of the work will have to go on automatically.

The primary methods are:

1. Goetia (Demonic)
2. Planetary (Clavicle)
3. Enochian (Elementals and Aires)
4. Solar (Guardian Angel)

I have found the Enochian the best (although complicated). The Tarot corresponds to the Enochian system obtained by Dr. Dee – the Trumps to the Aires and the courts to the Gods, Seniors and Angels and the numbers to the lesser angels.

Probably you can use the Tarot alone if you follow the following steps.

1. Consecrate the appropriate weapons to Earth, Air, Fire and Water. (The Sword also to Mars and Bartzabel.)

2. Consecrate the appropriate card as a talisman.

3. Construct the entire ritual. Invoke the card down from the appropriate trumps, and across by the appropriate correspondences. Don’t forget the material link and vital fluid. Blood will do in a pinch.

4. Fast, for the day before starting.

5. Consult the cards first to see if the ritual is appropriate and correct.

6. Remember that the Tarot is a great and sacred arcanum – its abuse is an obscenity in the inner and a folly in the outer. It is intended for quite other purposes than to determine when the tall dark man will meet the fair rich widow.

But the master don’t give a shit for that. He will tell the yokels fortunes till the cows come home, if it suits his purposes.

93 93/93
Love, Jack

LETTERS TO MARJORIE CAMERON

 

Note: The transcripts of these letters were sourced from the now-defunct babalon.net (viewable via webarchive.org) and contain the citation:

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN JACK PARSONS
and His “Elemental”, Marjorie Cameron
Edited by Cameron and Hymenaeus Beta (Fra. Superior, OTO)                    ©1989 Marjorie Cameron Parsons Kimmel                                                          Revision 2

The typed manuscript notes are given a title page:

Letters of Jack Parsons to his wife Marjorie Cameron Parsons                  5 Oct 1949  to  12 Feb 1950                                                                                            (Typed by Jane Wolfe (Soror Estai) from the holographs in the possession of M C Parsons in 1954 and recopied from the typescript here in 1954)

Handwritten notations: “Letter #2 Admirable” ( 22 Jan 1950 assumed – Ed.) and below, “Are Extremely good

5 Oct 1949  – Extract Only – On the Babalon Working

15, 16 Jan (1950, presumed) – Hotel Raleigh – Methods for Invoking

22 Jan 1950 –  The Roosevelt – On Gnosticism and Magick

27 Jan 1950 – On Disaster and Tragedy

29 Jan 1950 – Dee’s Skrying, Hubbard Mention

1 Feb 1950 – Advice on Astral work

6 Feb 1950 – On spiritual mythology

8 Feb 1950 – The nature of Magick

9 Feb 1950 – On gods, and spiritual independence and growth

12 Feb 1950 – On gods, cont.

 

 

 

OF FAMILIARS

Of Familiars

To the adept who has established his balance in the sixfold star, and partaken of the nature of understanding, the service of familiars may be entertaining, instructive and even evaluable towards the attainment of the great work. I quote from a certain secret document pertaining to the subject.
“The Threefold work of the adept is a probation and preparation for illumination, and also for its own sake, and the permanent and practical value of its effects, is as follows:

1. Devotion to the highest intensified on all planes until it culminates in conjugal unions (as shown in Chapt. VII). And the soul is to beget itself as a child for a new incarnation upon the body of the great goddess, as it is written. “O thou that hast formulated thy father and made fertile thy mother”.

2. Acceptance of the devotion of a lower and partial being, such as a nymph or elemental in such wise that it is thereby redeemed and made a perfect soul through the death which it must pay as the price of union with man.

3. The deliberate and will considered creation of new Orders of Being.

Of the second matter let the adept consider of the following. All races in all ages have legends of magical beings, nymphs, satyrs, fauns, undines, oreads, fairies and such like, also rumors of commerce between these beings and mortals, as of Ben Elohim with the daughters of men, of the fairy Melusine, Thomas the Rhymer, the wife of Du Gueshlin, the origin of Merlin and the familiars of the Magi. Also it is told how one dreaming erotic dreams, how his substance inadvertently escapes from him and the incubus materializes there from (for on all planes matter and energy are never lost, but only transformed.) Also it is told how in the Sabbath of the Witchcraft each took a companion that was not human. Also the matter is discussed with great wisdom in the Books of Paracelsus, and in the Comte de Gabalis.

Now this matter, the invocation of familiars, is one of the easiest matters of magick, and most dangerous. It is easy for the reason further given and dangerous because the adept (who is not truly adept) may be obsessed and overthrown through his weakness in dealing with these beings.
Nonetheless, if he will to risk this danger, these spirits, or even the demons, may be called the methods of the Clavicle of Solomon or of the Goetia, utilizing the same means as those applied to the applied to the elemental tablets. But it is not advised.

There are other means of obtaining familiars, mostly pertaining to witchcraft. One such means is to slay an elemental (animal or other lower being) within a magical circle, thereby appropriating the magical force. Another method is to establish a material connection with the elemental, thereby affirming a magical link. But if the magician be not wary, such links can draw him down to hell. It has been my observation that most marriages are of this nature.

“DE MODO OPERANDI NUPTIAS AMORES”
Amen. This matter is easy, for the souls of the elements desire constantly this salvation. But let the adept beware;

1) That he chooses a wisely reasonable soul, docile, apt, beautiful and in all ways worthy of love.

2) That he fall not away from love of the Great Goddess into love of an inferior, but give only as a master and of his mercy, knowing that this also is service to his high lady above.

3) That of such familiar spirits he have but four, and let him regulate their services appointing hours for each.

4) That he treat them with kindness and firmness, being on his guard against their tricks.

That being said it is enough, for to have them is but the pains to call them forth from their homes, and the sprits of the Elemental Tablets given by Dr Dee and Edward Kelly are the best, being very perfect in their nature and faithful, affecting the human race. And if not so powerful as they are less dangerous than the planetary spirits, for these are more boisterous, and by the disastrous stars easily perturbed and afflicted.

Call them therefore by the calls of Enoch as is written in the Book ye know of, and let there by after the calls an evocation by the wand, and let the marrow of the wand be preserved within the Pyramids of the letters that make up the home of the spirit.

Now unless ye be well skilled in the art of magick ye will not dare call forth the three Great Gods of the whole tablet, or the King Serpent thereof, or the six Seniors majestical, or even the Gods of the Calvary Crosses in the lesser angles.

But the cherubic rulers, yea verily and amen, those are your mates, and ye may yet more safely summon the lesser assistant angels. And those that are in this art novices shall wisely call forth only the Trigramata of the Sub-elements.
And well may I testify to the truth of this matter, for by this means I got an elemental mate (namely his wife Cameron Parsons. See the record of the working which survives. T) and attained the Grade of Accursed Adept, and the vision of BABALON, even as it is written. (See the Babalon Working, which survives. T).

(Remainders of the book, which survives – though incomplete – in typescript in the possession of Karl Germer, not copied.)