Babalon, part II (II)
The Book of Revelation
Babylon is referred to in several places in the Book of Revelation in the New Testament (which may have had an influence on Thelema, as Aleister Crowley says he read it as a child and imagined himself as the Beast). She is described in Chapter 17:3-6: “So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns. And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication: And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.”
Enochian magic
Another source is from the system of Enochian magic created by Dr John Dee and Sir Edward Kelley in the 16th century. This system is based upon a unique language, Enochian, two words of which are certainly relevant. The first is BABALOND, which is translated as ‘harlot’. The other is BABALON, which means ‘wicked’. Some flavour of context in which they appear in can be found in a communication received by Dee & Kelley in 1587.
The Babalon Working was a series of magic ceremonies or rituals from January to March 1946 by author, pioneer rocket-fuel scientist and occultist Jack Parsons. The rituals performed drew largely upon rituals and sex magic described by Aleister Crowley. Crowley was in correspondence with Parsons during the course of the Babalon Working and warned Parsons of his potential overreactions to the magick he was performing, while simultaneously deriding Parson’s work to others. A brief text entitled The Book of Babalon or Liber 49 was written by Parsons as a transmission from the goddess or force called Babalon received by him during the Babalon Working. Parsons claimed that Liber 49 constituted a fourth chapter of Crowley’s Liber AL Vel Legis (The Book of the Law).
Crowley also had a vision of the Virgin Daughter of Babalon, which he published in his work The Vision and the Voice, Liber 418 vel Chanokh; and again, in The Book of Thoth (1944, Part Two, Appendix, p.143), under the description of The Virgin Universe.
As I mentioned in my earlier post; Babalon is identified with Binah on the Tree of Life and Binah is a sphere of Saturn.