We have another fifty years until a new prophet emerges. She presents Herself to another Englishman, for on that tiny island we have a unique mélange of an ineffectual and tepid Christian church, and significant magical subcultures, including: Wicca, Druidism, Thelema, Neo-Paganism, Reconstructionists, and chaos magicians. A man dedicated to the old ways, who started a publishing company just to print the book devoted to her. Peter Grey, founder of Scarlet Imprint, knows where the power of Babalon comes from, and he is not afraid.
In The Red Goddess, he says:
BABALON IS LUST, sexual, primal power. Lust knows no limits. Lust violates moral sense. Lust is strength, vitality and joy. Lust is action. Why do we hesitate to call Babalon a Goddess of Love? Love has been bled almost to death, drained to an insipid pink when it should be a shameless scarlet. The commercialized face of Love is the very opposite of Lust, a weak, warm fuzz of nebulous good feeling. The arrows of Eros are no longer barbed, but smothered in sentiment. The hounds of Love are muzzled. It is a product without passion, a stupefying cocoon.
For the first time, Babalon has a purpose. She’s here to rescue love from greeting card companies and bad romance novels. She’s here to rescue women from sexual denial and repression. She’s here to rescue all of us from our monolithic, monotheistic, misogynistic culture.
To approach the Holy Whore is to reclaim our pagan heritage from the distorted lies of Christianity. To some this may sound profoundly Satanic, but this is not the inversion of Christianity that leads down a pathway to the Black Mass, the ill use of goats and truly bad music. This is a breaking of the seals on our pagan past and rediscovering our primal power. It is a journey beyond taboo into the dark places of our souls.
However, later on in The Red Goddess, Peter Grey backpedals and espouses the virtues of the Black Mass.
THE BLACK MASS IS SPIRITUAL TERRORISM, an act of defiance against the dominant Christian empire. Discounted as mere inversion or straight perversion by many witches, magickians and pagans, this is in fact our Tantra. As such the Black Mass deserves a place in the history of Babalon. We should not forget that She is here to bring forth the Antichrist.
Our society is not Hindi, it is Christian beneath the secular gloss. Our taboos and social structure are very different to those of India, so it makes more sense to use our native traditions to achieve our liberation. We may not be medieval peasants, but we all need to destroy our Christian conditioning if we want to be free. The Black Mass is the perfect way to do this. We have all made pacts with the Horned One in childhood, should we not go on from this and join him in celebrations at least one night a year? Why pussy-foot around the subject of the Devil? Why are we afraid to affirm, like the Cathars, that Christ was a false prophet? Surely it cannot hurt to indulge in a little blasphemy? If we are unwilling to consider the Black Mass as an integral part of our magickal history then we are failing to challenge ourselves at the deepest levels.
I think it’s important to look carefully at what is said and unsaid here. I for one, would not advocate spitting venom on Christians. Not only because openly fighting the dominant religious power is suicide, but it violates the principles of that bind us together—the central belief in, “Do as thou wilt.” If I were to vilify Christians for choosing to follow the Prince of Peace, I would be just as guilty as the Evangelicals. While I fail to understand why they would choose the neuter path, good luck to them in their quest.
What is advocated, and what Babalon facilitates, is a breaking down of our own ingrained, oftentimes subconscious, prohibitions. One must be willing to burn a Bible in the comforts of their own temple. Not as an act of denigration, but as a way to destroy one’s own vestigial need to obey. Babalon will, if you give yourself over to her, finally get you to truly accept, in your heart and soul, that nothing is true, and everything is permitted.
Service to Babalon also requires a disdain for those who would misuse power as a means of repression and control. If you do not already track to antinomian tendencies, She may not be the Goddess for you. It’s important to reiterate here that this is not an attack on those victimized by power. Our only duty to them is to let them know how much fun we’re having. Those who follow the witch ways should not seek to replace those in dominion.
What She really wants is complete self-immolation in the cause of complete freedom. Most eloquently, Peter Grey puts it:
We must aim for liberation. Babalon is at war with limitation. For you that may be Christianity or Islam or Capitalist consumerism. Her injunction is simple: Destroy all limits with Love.
This leads us to the ultimate reason why a magician would submit themselves to the ultimate chaos that is Babalon.
For the Apocalypse, of course.
That word, however, has become synonymous with Armageddon, the horror show that leads up to the Battle of Megiddo, where Christ and Anti-Christ slug it out by proxy. I am fairly certain that’s not the end product we seek. To describe what we want, a sea-change in consciousness, a universal acceptance of law of thelema, modern magicians and idealists have adopted the word Eschaton. Eschaton is the end, and a new beginning. Eschaton is acceptance of humans as part of the biosphere, and as spiritual beings. Eschaton is the overturning of current political systems to something of the people.