This is a raw excerpt from My Babylon – Book Six: Commentary, exclusively for my kick-ass tumblr followers.
Warning! It has a small spoiler.
Number one question I get from readers, “what does 156 mean?” It has to do with a magical practice called gematria.
Way back when alphabets were invented, folks didn’t want to waste time coming up with a separate set of symbols for numbers. So they used the letters instead, assigning them a numerical value. A=1, B=2, C=3, etc., is a simplistic example of this.
Or maybe they weren’t just being lazy. Many occultists believe that words or phrases that have the same numerical value also share some kind of meaning. This can be used for divination, like matching up number with a person’s birthday to determine their traits.
As Legio mentions in Book Five, the most infamous bit of gematria would be 666—the Number of the Beast. Biblical scholars note that Emperor Nero’s name, (Nron Qsr, going from Latin, to Greek, to Hebrew,) adds up to 666. It can also be made to fit the title, Vicar of Rome.
666 also adds up to, Spirit of Sol. Yep, I gave you a clue all the way back in Book Two, when Legio summoned the demons for Aiden’s creation. Along with, seven, the number of heads the beast has. Ten, the number of his horns. Lion, the king of beasts, often associated with Babalon. She is seen riding a lion on the Strength card in the Thoth tarot deck, which also explains them calling him, bearer.
If you want to find out how the values of calculated, I wish you luck. Math has never been my strong-suit, and truthfully, I’ve never used much gematria in my own magical practice. The myriad ways that people have come up with the values for words astounds me.
But I don’t write it off entirely. Good old Uncle Al, who called himself the Beast just to piss off his mother, also adopted the number 666 as his own. When he visited the Cairo museum with his wife in 1904 on their honeymoon, they happened across an ancient Egyptian plaque, called the Stele of Ankh-ef-en-Khonsu, which depicted the images of the Egyptian gods in Crowley’s new religion, Thelema, that had just been revealed to him. The catalog number for this bit of serendipitous inspiration was, you guessed it, 666.
A few of you also know that Crowley’s first wife was named Rose, and that the rose is one of the most prominent symbols of the goddess Babalon. Yeah, I’m not that creative.
As you can guess, if value of a word is important, and that value is determined by the letters, spelling becomes important. Which back in the day, it wasn’t, at least until around 1582, when the creators of England’s proto-dictionaries started calling for uniformity. A shame really, because it leaves the accomplished occultist in a pickle.
Which brings us to John Dee, who was living around the same time. He’s a fascinating figure, one you should really read about because I can’t do him justice here. Besides being a respected mathematician, Dee has been credited with being the first modern “spy,” working in that capacity for Queen Elizabeth, as well as being her court astrologer and alchemist. Dee used to sign his letters to the Queen with two circles, indicating he was her eyes, with a square root or elongated seven over them. Yes, John Dee was the original 007.
It was Dee who received the name of the Red Goddess as Bablon when she contacted him during one of Dee’s seances with his partner Edward Kelly. She told them:
“I am the daughter of Fortitude, 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; for 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 beast of the fields understand me. I am deflowered, yet a virgin; I sanctify 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 sweeter than health itself. I am a harlot for such as ravish me, and a virgin with such as know me not. For lo, I am loved of many, and I am a lover to many; and as many as come unto me as they should do, have entertainment. 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; abstain from the company of other women that are defiled, that are sluttish, and not so handsome and beautiful as I, and then will I come and dwell amongst you: and behold, I will bring forth children unto you, and they shall be the Sons of Comfort. I will open my garments, and stand naked before you, that your love may be more enflamed toward me.”
Dee was a meticulous man, especially when it came to recording his visitations, so it can’t be ruled out as a misspelling of Babylon. Dee believed he got his news from the angels themselves, and they knew how to spell dammit. Crowley ran with that spelling as well for all his works.
My Babylon came very close to being called My Babalon, really should have been. Fear held me back. The last thing I wanted was for some lame-dick to be my first review on Amazon, declaring, “He spelled it wrong on the cover!” The star of Babalon is still there, of course, with the correct spelling. It doesn’t really matter in the end, they are the same being to me.
Oh yeah, 156. That’s the number of Babalon. I’m still confused as to how this number is calculated. When I went to do my scene breaks, on a whimsy I decided to add an Easter egg for those in the know. It’s been the cause of much confusion and speculation by my beta readers. Now you know.
