Before Bram Stoker, Walpurgis Night belonged to the Witches.
Pardon me for plagiarizing Wikipedia again. After dancing all night with the Faeries, my shoes are in tatters and I am worn out…
History of Walpurgis Night
Historically Walpurgisnacht is derived from various pagan spring customs. Bonfires were built to keep away the dead and chaotic spirits that were said to walk among the living then. This is followed by the return of light and the sun as celebrated during May Day, although bonfires and witches are more closely associated with Easter (especially in Bothnia, Finland) and bonfires alone with midsummer in the rest of Finland.
Saint Walpurga herself was a niece of Saint Boniface and, according to legend, a daughter of the Saxon prince St. Richard. Together with her brothers she travelled to Franconia, Germany, where she became a nun and lived in the convent of Heidenheim, Bavaria, which was founded by her brother Willibald. Walpurga died of an illness shortly after moving the mortal remains of her brother, Saint Winibald on 25 February 779. She is therefore listed in the Roman Martyrology under 25 February. Her relics were transferred on 1 May so that she might be buried beside Willibald, and that day carries her name in the Finnish and Swedish calendars.
A nice bit of etymology for you: Beltane, and alternate name for May Eve, that also covers the entire season between May Day and Midsummer, is named for the Pagan God Bel. Christian missionaries, in their efforts to instill distrust and fear in Pagans to herd them towards Christianity, demonized the old gods, and Bel’s Fires of luck and purification, became Bale Fires with connotations of evil. When Saint Walpurgia’s Feast Day was moved to coincide with Beltane to trick the Pagans into celebrating her martyrdom, the fires became Bon Fires. Bon means good in French.
From Germany, Land of the Brothers Grimm
In Germany, Walpurgisnacht, the night from April 30 to May 1, is the night when allegedly the witches hold a large celebration on the Blocksberg and await the arrival of Spring.
Walpurgis Night (in German folklore) the night of April 30 (May Day’s eve), when witches meet on the Brocken mountain and hold revels with their gods…”
Brocken is the highest of the Harz Mountains of north central Germany. It is noted for the phenomenon of the Brocken spectre and for witches’ revels which reputedly took place there on Walpurgis night.
The Brocken Spectre is a magnified shadow of an observer, typically surrounded by rainbow-like bands, thrown onto a bank of cloud in high mountain areas when the sun is low. The phenomenon was first reported on the Brocken.
—Oxford Phrase & Fable.
Perhaps it was the Brocken Spectre that inspired the Vampire…
Please click the link below.It has a surprise for you!
This is the seventh in a series of posts about my adventures during 2005, leading up to the performance of Paul Green’s play Babalon. The story is full of cloak and dagger, initiatory strangeness, chaos, and hysteria. It shows what can happen on the Magical path if one is not careful…(as if one has choice…)
Directed by occultist, Alison Rockbrand, Babalon was performed on December 5, 2005, at the John Gielgud Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to a sold out audience of London’s finest occultists and magicians. If you want to listen to it, click Radio QBSaul: Archives: Babalon. I played Marjorie Cameron/Babalon. I am called Angela Murrow because I had to hide my identity.
CAMERON/BABALON: (SFX: whispered, reverb) I am the naked brilliance of the
voluptuous night-sky….Come to me..
Priestess/ Nuit
In the end, I had no choice.
Here’s a little back story:
The skinny, blond Hungarian pole dancer who had been my flatmate in Highgate got her thong too far up her _____ and decided she and I were “not friends”. I could never figure this out as I liked her well enough. I had been warned about “Hungarian women living abroad” , but she being a pushy little thing, and life at Oak Lodge on the Heath having sunk into a morass of stormy Kiwi DJ NOISE!!!! made moving imperative. I was also outlining this Vampire novel (mentioned in part 666) and thought hearing the Hugarian language every day would be good research. Besides, living next to Highgate Cemetery was irrisistable. Of course my Vampire/ heroine would begin her adventures in Highgate! Thus was I seduced into giving in to Salamadra’s demands.
Lease up, she moved out. I wanted to stay put, so in a moment of desperation, I talked Kallistratus and Pippi into moving in. I am so glad I did….
I met them when they were working in Camden Lock Market. Journeying to London from far Grantham, in search of decadance, they sold their own line of clothing in an attempt to survive. Hung on outdoor railings, these glamorous togs blew in the wind like black smudges in the English gloom. Business was not that great, so they started working in Fairy Goth Mother, a Goth shop specializing in beautiful corsets and fetish gear.
Fairy Goth Mother, London
They were great friends. Kallistratus had a way with the ladies. “Hello, lovely lady,” was his special greeting.Though he is tall, dark and handsome, I didn’t fancy Kallistratus, though we loved each other dearly. Pippi liked me– perhaps because I was the only woman on earth who didn’t fancy her husband.
Once they moved in with me, my Gothic Romance flat was transformed into proper a Goth lair. Bats hung from the ceiling, a collection of Living Dead Dolls and Tortured Souls gazed out from the shelves, a picture of Bram Stoker hung over the kitchen table. When the picture fell off the wall, breaking the glass, we all three crossed ourselves and groaned…
Posey, Living Dead Doll
Kundalini Rising
I had a full blown Kundalini Awakening in 1986. This was after clearing my energy fields through 18 months of almost constant meditation. Dramatic, archetypal, hallucinatory images rose and subsided within me for weeks. ( Without LSD, mind you.) My third eye blossomed open, intensifying my psychic abilities, and making me a clear channel for healing energies. Kundalini launched my career as a healer.
Kundalini has another side to it, though. A sexual side. I had become Shakti.
I was attending a talk on Chaos Magic at Treadwells. There was a pleasant looking young man there that I will call G.G. ( he is commonly known as the sitar playing Bulgarian) The next time I was at Treadwells, he came into the shop. When he saw me, he made a beeline for me and gazed into my eyes. G.G. looks a bit like a cross between a Russian Prince in a fairy tale, and a deer. Pretty cute, but I was dazzled by his eyes! They were pale fiery green!
After that, we kept running into each other. One night G.G., and a friend of his followed me home wanting to go to Highgate Cemetery. It was 2 or 3 AM, but what fun! We wanted to go into the cemetery but it was locked. Walking around on the road below the tall wrought iron railings, we found a black kitten, sitting peacefully on a grave, peering out through the bars. Not far along there was a gap in the fence. We broke in and hiked up to Waterlow Park . On this clear autumn night, the moon was full, the trees rustled and dropped their leaves. We lay on the dewy grass looking up at the stars.
Highgate Cemetery
On our way out of the park, a a red fox crossed our path. G.G. knelt down and beckoned it over. Next thing we knew, the fox was sniffing his fingers and letting G.G. pet him.
“Who are you? Saint Francis if Assisi, or something?” I said.
G.G. was to have more encounters with red foxes. Note the color — RED!
I Am Called.
A week or so after I got the Babalon script, I was sitting across a table in a Turkish Restaurant having dinner with G.G. At the same time I saw that his eyes were brown? The kundalini raced up my spine, opened my heart, and spouted out of my crown chakra like a geyser. I was alarmed about this. I am old enough to be G.G.’s mother. Kundalini rising like this can make you fall in love…
And why had I seen those Luciferian green eyes looking out of G.G.’s dark brown ones? Was it my own doing? Or Babalon’s? What was going on?
I still hadn’t decided whether to do the role of Cameron/Babalon. I still did not want to commit. I wanted to write my novel Dark Night, Lily Bright. But at home, the next evening, I felt as if Ophiel had returned. As a huge vortex of energy swirled around me, knocking me over with its force, my feeble Will was overcome. I freaked out! This was too intense for me, guys! Magick that is too strong can make me unstable! Don’t work so hard!
I woke up at 3AM, totally confused, and spent an hour text messaging G.G.
“What is going on? What do you know about it? Why am I compelled to call you?”
I can’t believe he put up with me. He was so supportive! (He worked nights in the Underground, so I wasn’t keeping him up.)
Now I get the picture, but I’m not telling til I’m ready.
Next thing I knew I was at rehearsal for Babalon. I am pretty sure Magick was involved in my decision to agree to be the vessel for Cameron and the Ancient Goddess of Love and War. But I am not sure if it was Magick done by Alison and Pharaon — or Babalon!
This is the sixth in a series of posts about my adventures during 2005, leading up to the performance of Paul Green’s play Babalon. The story is full of cloak and dagger, initiatory strangeness, chaos, and hysteria. It shows what can happen on the Magical path if one is not careful…(as if one has choice…)
Directed by occultist, Alison Rockbrand, Babalon was performed on December 5, 2005, at the John Gielgud Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to a sold out audience of London’s finest occultists and magicians. If you want to listen to it, click Radio QBSaul: Archives: Babalon. I played Marjorie Cameron/Babalon. I am called Angela Murrow because I had to hide my identity.
Pharaon was the constant companion of a gentleman who will henceforth be referred to as the Wizard, or the Wiz if I get lazy. When I first saw the Wizard, and he saw me, we were attending a talk by Gareth Knight at Treadwells. Gareth Knight is one of the great Western Mystery magicians of Britain, author of many books on Arthurian material and the Goddess. This was the second time I heard him speak, the first being shortly after I arrived in London in 1998 when I went to Wales for a Holy Grail Conference starring most of my favorite teachers and authors. Gareth Knight is a shy, quiet man, so to have seen him speak twice is a privilege.
Anyway, Pharaon and the Wiz were sitting together, as always. The Wiz was looking at me, and I had the strange sensation of energy bouncing back, or reflecting back as in a mirror. I didn’t like this feeling. Perhaps he had psychic protection up, but I sensed the vibe had a manipulative undercurrent that was being blocked by me. It is still a mystery…He put me on red alert anyway.
After I gave the Grimoire to Kallistratus, we all met up at the famous Goth Pub, the Devonshire Arms, (now the Hobgoblin) in Camden Town. (This pub used to scare me before I found my Dark Side. It is full of Vampires. The owner, Robin, painted all these Tarot images along the walls that are very cool. He shows the most amazing old films and has the best music I heard in London where James Blunt had taken over the airwaves as an alternative to constant HipHop. I have outlined a Vampire novel that begins in the Devonshire Arms if I ever get to it…)
Devonshire Arms
My friend/ Tarot client, Katy, came along as well. Pharaon took a fancy to Katy and decided she was a natural Sorceress. Kallistratus, expecting the author of such a powerful little book to look like Anton LeVay, decide Pharaon looked like a milkman. I mention these people because they all have their parts to play in my near demise…
Vampire meeting at the Dev
Cutting to the chase!
I had arranged a meeting newteen Pharaon and Kallistratus at the Dev because he was looking for actors to audition for a play called ‘Babalon’ to be directed by Alison Rockbrand. I thought Kallistratus might make a good Aleister Crowley. If not, the Goth scene in general, would be a good place to find someone to play Crowley — the most difficult role to cast. Pharaon came with a few fliers calling for auditions. As he was putting one up on the wall, he mentioned that they needed someone with an American accent to play Marjorie Cameron. I told him I had a lot of theater experience, but I was uneasy about getting involved.
“Magic has a very disruptive effect on me. I am writing a novel. I don’t need any horrible upheaval just now.”
“Well, just come read for it. It will be fun. Jack Parsons is my favorite magician of all time.”
“I bought a Grimoire from a milkman…I can’t believe I bought a Grimoire from a milkman…” moans Kallistratus to himself.
“I don’t know…”
“Please, just come an read for it so we can get a sense of it. You can say ‘no’ later.”
“OK.” I didn’t want to admit I had no idea who Marjorie Cameron was, though I had heard of Jack Parsons in passing as someone who was a follower of Crowley and done Black Magic with L.Ron Hubbard.
Alison Rockbrand as Babalon
Later that week:
That evening at Treadwells, I was sitting in a circle with other hopefuls clutching a script handed to me by Alison. This was the second time I had met her. This time she was dressed in office clothing having come straight from work, looking very professional and capable. As we read the through the script, I played Marjorie Cameron, called Cameron, with my usual sense of irony, for laughs.
I did not want to to be in this play! At that point the kind of Magick these folks were into scared me. But I am fearless and a fool sometimes, so I let Alison talk me into taking the script home and at least giving it a good once over.
Script
This was the first page of the script I got. It has a little information about these characters.
SYNOPSIS -CONCEPT & BACKGROUND
Jack Parsons (1914-1952) pioneered the rocket-fuel technology that culminated in NASA’s Apollo missions and Space Shuttle flights. He was also the Californian head of the Order of Oriental Templars, an esoteric group founded by the occultist Aleister Crowley (1875-1947)
who was his mentor and inspiration.
By 1946 Crowley, prophet of the turbulent Aeon of Horus, was slowly dying in an English seaside boarding house. With the assistance of the writer L. Ron Hubbard (1911-1986) and the artist Marjorie Cameron (1922-1995), Parsons performed the notorious “Babalon Working”, a magical experiment allegedly intended to invoke a new entity who would re-focus the energies of the Aeon.
The Babalon Working transformed the lives of the main participants -notably Parsons himself, who suffered a series of personal and career crises, ending with his death in a mysterious explosion -another episode which has been the focus of much speculation.
I’ve done extensive research into the source materials -which are often obscure or contradictory, particularly for the period 1947-52. So BABALON is not a definitive “drama-biog” of Parsons’ life. It is rather a dramatic exploration of the Parsons myth, in all its mysterious paradoxes. The story time covers the years 1938-52.
VOICES & CHARACTERSJACK : John Whiteside Parsons -educated Californian. Frater 210 of the OTO.
ED: Ed Forman – technician at CIT -Californian. Life-long friend of Jack.
CROWLEY: Aleister Crowley, Baphomet, Frater Perdurabo 666, Master Therion, the Great Beast, Supreme Caliph of the Order of Oriental Templars etc etc. In this last phase of his life, Crowley suffered from severe asthma. A 1920s recording of his inimitable voice survives.
FRIEDA: Lady Frieda Harris -artist, wife of Sir Percy Harris, Bart. Crowley’s loyal pupil and patron. In her sixties. Patrician English.. .
SMITH: Wilfred T. Smith. In his fifties. suave Anglo-American. Frater 132. Crowley’s original OTO representative in California.
HELEN: Helen Northrup Parsons, Jack’s first wife. Californian
BETTY: Sara Elizabeth Northrup, Helen’s sister. Later Jack’s mistress.
RON: Lafayette Ronald Hubbard, author, explorer and religious teacher. Mid-West
CAMERON : Marjorie Cameron Parsons, aka Candida or Candy, artist and vessel of BABALON.
POLICE OFFICER/FBI OFFICER/RADIO ANNOUNCER
and YOUNG CROWLEY
666: Number of the Beast
In those years I was living in Highgate in a wonderful flat ten minutes walk from Highgate Cemetery and about two minutes from the Highgate Tube Station (a very important consideration when renting a flat in London.)
I went home on the tube and read the script, full of inner conflict. The script was really good. So good in fact that I felt I would miss out if I didn’t participate. But I had determined NOT to engage in other peoples’ magic. It just wasn’t safe. I rolled the script up and put it in my bag.
I had to pick up a few things at the corner shop. Squeezing in between the loaded shelves in the tiny store owned by very nice brothers from Sri Lanka, I picked up a few bits and headed for the checkout. Imagine my surprise — NO! Total shock at the amount of my purchases. Up on the face of the old fashioned cash register, big white and shiny, were the numbers 666!
Aleister Crowley
***
Foolish People
BABALON – A Fable of Rocketry, Sex and High Magick Mystery Theatre of the Aether and 93 Fm present Travesty Theatre’s production of BABALON – A Fable of Rocketry, Sex and High Magick on FRIDAY DECEMBER 16 at 8.00
in the Gielgud Studio Theatre at RADA, Malet Street, London WC1
£7.00
On Friday December 16th at 8.00 in the Gielgud Studio Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art , Mystery Theatre of the Aether presents Travesty Theatre’s production of Babalon.
Paul Green’s play, originally written for radio, explores the enigmatic life and mysterious death of Jack Parsons (1914-52), pioneering American rocket scientist, disciple of the magus Aleister Crowley, and passionate devotee of Lady Babalon, the Scarlet Woman of the New Aeon. Alison Rockbrand’s highly stylised production reinforces the resonance of the text with soundscape and visual projections to create unique moments of ritual theatre. There are also elements of dark farce and tragedy as Parsons’ apocalyptic vision is subverted by hostile forces.
Paul Green’s plays include: The Dream Laboratory, The Aleph (CBC Radio Canada); Ritual of the Stifling Air (BBC Radio 3); Powerplay, (Capital Radio); The Mouthpiece (Resonance FM); Terminal Poet (New Theatre Works)
Alison Rockbrand founded Travesty Theatre and the Dead Dolls Cabaret in Montreal. Her productions include the collective creation Mumbo Jumbo: King Leopold’s Opus and a rendition of Macbeth including stylised dance gestures based upon the Kathakali dance tradition in India. In February 2006 she is directing Stuart Draper’s Departure Lounge in the Prompt Corner at the South London Theatre Company.
Tickets for Babalon can now be reserved via the RADA Box Office on 020 7908 4800.
Posted by John Harrigan on December 02, 2005 at 09:39 PM in Magick, Occult, Theatre
This is the fifth in a series of posts about my adventures during 2005, leading up to the performance of Paul Green’s play Babalon. The story is full of cloak and dagger, initiatory strangeness, chaos, and hysteria. It shows what can happen on the Magical path if one is not careful…(as if one has choice…)
Directed by Alison Rockbrand, Babalon was performed on December 16, 2005, at the John Gielgud Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to a sold out audience of London’s finest occultists and magicians. If you want to listen to it,click Radio QBSaul: Archives: Babalon. I play Marjorie Cameron/Babalon. I am called Angela Murrow because I had to hide my identity.
Before I found Treadwells Bookshop in Covent Garden, I had been in hiding from all things Arcane for a few years. This was due a spontaneous, prolonged, and shattering Initiation by the Horned God shortly after I moved into a bedsitting room close to Hampstead Heath. I had also been the target of constant, virulent psychic attacks from, in her own words, The Overseer of All Tarot Readers in London. (It took two years of being back in the States to realize who was behind these attacks. She’s that good.) Apparently she resented my thriving practice as a Tarot Reader in Camden Lock Market, as well as the fact that I didn’t bow and scrape to her. Why would I? As an American, that type of obeisance wouldn’t even occur to me. All the time I was London, I didn’t think of this woman because I so seldom saw her. I thought the Universe was trying to destroy me, that the Goddess, and the Faery Realm, had turned against me. I was wrong.
For the first time in my life, I wanted nothing to do with Magic or practitioners of Magic. This led to a Dark Night of the Soul, for never had I felt so isolated, so cut off from the sources of life and inspiration.
I will tell these stories in more detail in future blog posts.
The Cycle of the Horned God’s Initiation Ends
One of my Tarot clients was an interesting Goth girl from New England. I was telling her how much I missed like minded friends, and she told me about Tteadwells Bookshop. There I would be able to reconnect with the only people I felt I had anything in common with: Magical People and Artists.
It was late 2004, when I started going to talks there. There are so many interesting people speaking at Treadwells. The first talk I attended was with Caroline Wise . She was discussing the Deer Goddess Elen of the Ways. This Goddess, with her antlers and woodland aspect, was very resonant with me. Through the discussion, I gained many insights that brought me back in touch with myself. It was no accident that Elen of the Ways, or the woodland track, led me out of the darkness into which I had been plunged by the Horned God seven years before. Her’s was the feminine end of the cycle of Initiation I had undergone with the masculine Stag God, Cernunnos.
Elen means Light. In the case of this Woodland Goddess, it is the gentle light that filters through the trees.My time of endarkenment was over…one would think.
Cheska Potter, Elen
Magicians
I went back to Treadwells again and again, thinking I had found a second home. I later found out I had cut quite a dash without realizing it. This was not a necessarily a good thing…
I met all sorts of people there, from Celtic Pagans to Black Magicians. In my years reading Tarot in Camden Lock Market, I had met many Goths and became friends with an amazing couple, Pippi and Kallustratus, who had links with Gothic Satanists. Kallistratus claimed to come from a line of Cuthulu devotees, a magical path based on the. literary works of H.P.Lovecraft. These paths and lifestyles were not my cup of tea. I didn’t understand how the Necrinomicon could be the basis of a religion. As Pippi said about me, “She doesn’t have any evil in her.” It is pretty true despite appearances. It’s just that, as an artist, I have a tendency to go where angels fear to tread….
Out of curiosity, open mindedness, and a quest for material, I allowed myself to get to know various Dark Magicians. They turned out to be extremely intelligent, creative, and quite fun to be around, though I kept a firm limit on how far I would get involved. I am very sensitive, and have to work overtime to keep my psychic boundaries intact, never mind the social ones. After my Underworld Initiation when the Holy Grail erupted form the earth in 1996, I was well aware of the extremely powerful effect magic has on me, and am very careful not to get involved with other peoples’ workings.
It was among these Magicians that I met Pharaon, author of the wonderfully poetic Grimoire, Liber Niger Legionis. This magically inspired book is filled with invocations to Infernal Deities, or Demons. I told P. and K. about it and they wanted a copy. It was a limited edition, beautifully bound by hand. A work of Art. Each one of the 72 Grimoires is dedicated to a certain Demon.
Ophiel
When I went into Treadwells to make the purchase, its author was unexpectedly there to greet me. There were only 3 Grimoires left. The one I chose was dedicated to Ophiel, an Angel of the Air sigilized as a kind of vortex of dark wind. Pharaon happily signed the Grimiore for me, increasing its value for my friends. We had a nice chat and a laugh. I was relieved to find him genuinely friendly and easy to talk to. I took the Grimoire home planning to give it to K. and P. at the Market on the next Monday.
The Grimoire Speaks
When I got it home, I laid the Grimoire on the kitchen table thinking I would take a look at it during dinner. As I was cooking, I my attention was drawn by the sound of tinkling bells. The sound seemed to be coming from the book! I was a bit concerned because I wasn’t up for any more ‘Initiations’. I went into denial for a moment because I wanted to look through the book. It was so well written and beautifully put together. I felt P.and K. would be very pleased with it, but I hadn’t bargained for Magical contact with Demons. The bells continued to tinkle. When I opened the book the sound of soft , dark chanting, far away as if it was in the back of my mind, came through. Then the unmistakable scent of dirty laundry, that I have come to associate with the presence of unclean spirits, wafted up.
Oh, no! What have I gotten myself into now?
Demons and Nightmares
.
Later that night, I was visited by a dream so vivid, it woke me up. A huge, black serpent was in the living room growing larger and larger, unwinding and rewinding its coils, filling the space with breathing, groaning, and menace. Opening one eye, I lay very still. If you can see them, they can see you and I wasn’t sure I wanted Ophiel to know I could see him.
I stole a glance at the clock on the stand beside my bed. It was about 3 AM. I learned in my ordeal with the Horned God, that 3AM-6AM are the true witching hours. These are the hours when the cock crows, the hours when most people die.
As Ophiel breathed, expanded, and contracted in the living room, there were other sounds, voices murmuring. Much of the phenomena that I don’t remember, but it kept me awake in a state of hyper-vigilant fear until dawn. Suddenly I heard all these little chattering baby voices. It felt as if a cloud of tiny spirits had entered my ear and gone into my head! I sat up and decided I had to get the Grimoire out of the flat.
The book was still sitting on the kitchen table. This meant I had to creep quietly out of my room (as if it mattered!) and cross the dark living room where Ophiel still wound in and out, seething and breathing like a black cloud of pollution. The lights from the street lamps came in through the windows, casting shadows on the floor, but the mass of shadows in the center of the room still swirled and oozed. When I reached the kitchen table, I grabbed the Grimoire. I knew it had to go outside, but where?
There was a small balcony outside a door in the wall of my bedroom, but it was often wet with rain. Frantically, I rummaged through a kitchen drawer for a plastic bag, and wrapped the Grimoire in it — it was expensive, and a gift after all! Then I slunk back to my bedroom and placed it outside on the threshold of the door under the eaves. Then I tried to get back to sleep.
Though the book was now outside, wrapped in a plastic Sainsbury’s bag, I still didn’t get any sleep because the phenomena continued. Spirits are not barred by walls or doors. I endured their haunting me until 6AM — the same hour the Horned One vanished had when he Initiated me into his mysteries seven years before.
***
This was just the beginning of my association with Pharaon and his magical associate, Alison Rockbrand, talented director of Babalon.
This is a creatively re-edited bit from Kenneth Anger’s film Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome, based on Crowley’s Babalon Working. In this scene, Marjorie Cameron plays Kali, Goddess of Death and Rebirth, for Transformation of the soul. I studied this film when I was preparing to play Marjorie Cameron, though the Babalon that I portrayed was very different.
Subscribe to my email list for updates of the Babalon Diaries.
This film gives some idea of the energies I was dealing with as things heated up for the Play.
This is the fourth in a series of posts about my adventures during 2005, leading up to the performance of Paul Green’s play Babalon. The story is full of cloak and dagger, initiatory strangeness, chaos, and hysteria. It shows what can happen on the Magical path if one is not careful…(as if one has choice…)
Directed by Alison Rocbrand, Babalon was performed on December 16, 2005 at the John Gielgud Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to a sold out audience of London’s finest occultists and magicians. If you want to listen to it, click Radio QBSaul: Archives: Babalon. I play Marjorie Cameron/Babalon. I am called Angela Murrow because I had to hide my identity.
Treadwells Bookshop
Treadwells Bookshop, Covent Garden
Treadwells Bookshop in Covent Garden is gathering place for esoteric people of all stripes. The owner, Christina Oakley-Harrington, holds fascinating talks and workshops in a small open space in the basement. Often transformed with draperies, altars, ritual tools, even a coffin when the vampires want to do a reading, this Temple of Arte is the venue for weekly lectures, workshops and events that attract magical people from all over the world..
One August night, Christina was hosting an interesting event that would bring me into contact with an unexpected destiny. This event was to be a consecration of a Grimoire dedicated to the Infernal Powers called Liber Niger Legionis, Grimoir of Phaoron.
Grimoire
Before this I had steered clear of the dark powers, but I was working on a novel, Dark Night, Lily Bright, in which the Sorceress Lianna Hedegwicke, was a practitioner of the Elizabethan Magic and demonology. I wanted to learn as much as possible about the psychology of those attracted to the Left Hand Path, and find out what techniques they used to invoke spirits. The consecration of a Grimoire was an opportunity to do a little research. Naughty me, but the writer’s mentality is such.
As I descended the narrow Georgian stairs of Treadwells the smell of incense told me preparations were being made. I had never seen the room decked out like this before! The walls were hung with long swathes of red and black cloth, the black draped altar was facing the South wall, placing the Magician in the North, facing the fiery South. (The desire of the Magician to bring the Fire Element to him in order to invoke infernal spirits is obvious. In Left Hand cosmology, Fire is the element of Satan).
There were a few people sitting in a half circle of chairs facing the altar. At the center of the altar was frightening horned mask, and on its horns lay the Grimoire, bound in black leather with a reversed red pentagram embossed in the center. Candle branches illuminated the darkness with sputtering and smoky lights. A slim girl in tight black clothes, with a cloud of dark curls around her pale pretty face, paced around the room trying to keep us entertained, while some creepy ambient music clashed and thrummed to create an atmosphere of incipient chaos.
Liber Niger Legionis
Phaoron was late, as I was his habit I would learn….The guests sat patiently. One man kept talking to me about something to do with sigils — a subject I didn’t understand very well at the time. His chatting me up his was wearing thin when Phaoron finally arrived flustered, but with no need of a wardrobe change.
The Ritual began with Pharaon reading from the Introduction to his little black book.
It was worth waiting for, for Pharaon’s writing was sheer poetry, his deep connection to the demonic world that would inspire my research.
Babalon sigil
Review
Here is a review of the Grimoire from the website of the Chaos Magical Theatrical Group, Foolish People. Their director, John Harrigan, is a talented magician himself.
They often perform at the Horse Hospital in London.
The Grimoire of Pharaon:
Sorcery, Chumbley, Spare, Chaos
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
£350
First Edition: Octavia Press 2005. Hardback 162pp. Author: Pharaon. This copy is Number 4 of the numbered limited edition of only 36 copies. It is signed and sigilised by the author. In this first edition, sigils to 36 daemons were individually produced. Copy 4 is dedicated to Samael; this unique sigil is starkly remarkable. The book’s content consists of an original grimoire, though it is evident that inspirations are drawn from Austin Osman Spare, Kenneth Grant and Andrew Chumbley. The grimoire presents an original system of Gnostic sorcery, which is both practical and cosmological. Eschewing the traditional esoteric cosmology that describes the Supernal or Divine that is in opposition to the Infernal, it instead it regards the ‘hostile’ or ‘demonic’ forces as being inherently illusory, indeed that which is the illustory itself. The response to this insight is the spiritual aim, what Pharaon calls ‘Black Gnosis’. In it, the sorcerer apprehends mystically the transience of identity. As the infernal (illusory) nature of reality is identified, one is enabled to ford the currents that underlie it, recognizing their sentience and power. In this system, the sorcerer becomes a mirror for that which is beyond. As the author draws upon the entire magical tradition, the Daemons summoned are traditional ones, ones that most will recognize. It is their relevance to postmodern reality that is emphasized, however. The author is transgressive, fiercely iconoclastic, and solitary; despite the fact that Infernal Sorcery is explicitly referred to as Cainite and relates to the work of Andrew Chumbley, the author is not a member of his Cultus Sabbatai, but instead works independently. The book, after outlining and instructing the system of Gnosis and magical practice, lists the 36 daimons, with their natures, their meaning and relevance to the system and sigil. The first edition, in which only 36 copies were printed, has become highly sought after even within the first six months after its release. Issue points distinguishing it from the second edition are the upright direction of the cover pentagram, and the particular decoration of the endpapers.
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
Author: Pharaon
£60.00
Second Edition: Octavia Press 2005. Hardback 162pp. This copy is Number 22 of the numbered limited second edition of only 72 copies. It is signed and sigilised by the author. This second edition features a different decorated end paper to the first edition. Also, compared to the first edition, the pentagram on the cover is inverted, which in fact was the author’s original intent.
Liber Niger Legionis, The Grimoire of Pharaon
Another copy of the second Edition: Octavia Press 2005
£60.00 – Number 36, of the numbered limited edition of 72 only copies
I just saw one of these for sale on Ebay for $1250.00.
This is the second in a series of posts about my adventures during 2005, leading up to the performance of Paul Green’s play Babalon. The story is full of cloak and dagger, initiatory strangeness, chaos, and hysteria. It shows what can happen on the Magical path if one is not careful…(as if one has choice…)
Directed by Alison Rockbrand, Babalon was performed on December 16, 2005 at the John Gielgud Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to a sold out audience of London’s finest occultists and magicians. If you want to listen to it, click Radio QBSaul: Archives: Babalon. I play Marjorie Cameron/Babalon. I am called Angela Murrow because I had to hide my identity.
After putting this post together, I understand what it was about Lucifer, the Gates, and the Whore of Babylon, as shown in the film Ninth Gate, that was so magnetic for me. As a Faery Seer working in Celtic Faery Tradition, I had deep encounters with the Irish Goddess Brighid in her Dark Moon aspect, for it mirrors the phase of the moon at my birth.
For eight years, I led bi-monthly Moon Circles at my house with a group of women friends. Once the Circle was cast we worked with our Animal Familiars and moved into the Otherworld in the manner of a Shamanic Journey. When one moves into the Underworld of Elfhame, encounters with the dark aspect of the Goddess are inevitable. Many people would like spiritual experiences to be bright and sunny and healing all the time. But that cannot be, for everything is cyclical, especially with the Great Goddesses of Nature. If one never experiences the darkness, one cannot spiritually mature. Shock and trauma are needed to shake the character loose of the karmic crud of the past. If the dark side is successfully avoided, the practitioner is not on a spiritual path, but is merely amusing him or herself in a fantasy land that they control.
My attraction to the Nine Gates was resonant with my descents into the Underworld of Faery. But, as was the case when I found out that the Spirits of the Land in London are totally different, more violent and shocking, than those in Seattle, I also found going through the Nine Gates of the Luciferian Path led to a very different form of the Goddess. Lucifer: the Morning Star, Venus, the Angel of Light ( how those images move through the body in their darkness illuminated by green fire!) left his exile in the green Underworld Faery Hill to return to red-gold earth of ancient Mesopotamia where he is the Underworld King. He is accompanied by Babalon, Goddess of Love and War, disparaged deity of the ancient Middle East filtered through the Magickal thought processes of Aleister Crowley.
Lucifer by Blake
Lesson: Do not take lightly the forces of Magic. Pay attention to details if you don’t want surprises. The price of liberation is constant vigilance. Everything is connected.
Lucifer, Faery, & Babalon
Although the experience was overpowering and mind bending, I do not regret my initiation into the Mysteries of Babalon. But the dark side of anything brings, with its endarkenment/ enlightenment, pain, loss, sorrow, even death. There are not many volunteers for that!
The Faery Realm is also “ruled” by the fallen Angel, Lucifer. This Tale of the Nine Gates gives us a glimpse of Luciferian Gnosis at its source. Faery Witchcraft is of the Green Ray of Nature and the Earth. Babalon is of the Red Ray of Blood and Passion. Red and Green are complimentary, or Flashing Colors, on the color wheel. Their juxtaposition charges them both. Their blending results in muddy gray.
Our Lady
The Biblical Source
The “great whore”, of the Biblical book of Revelation is featured in chapters 17 and 18. Many passages define symbolic meanings inherent in the text.
17:4 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: 17:5 And upon her forehead was a name written, MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH. 17:6 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. 17:9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth (King James Version; the New International Version Bible uses “hills” instead of “mountains”). 17:10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space. 17:11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition. 17:12 And the ten horns which thou saw are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast. 17:15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues. 17:18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.
The Film: The Gates
One of my favorite things about the film Ninth Gate is flying through the nine gates to this gorgeous music. It has proven to be a Shamanic journey inducer — if you want to go to the Kingdom of Shadows. Click this and you will go straight to YouTube to watch it.
The Place: The Devil’s Tower, Puivert, France
This is the postcard of the castle Corso found in Baroness Kestler’s Book of the Nine Gates. It also shows up on the wall of Balkan’s library, just over his shoulder when he tells Corso how privedged he is. An ancient Cathar stronghold during the Albigensian Crusade, this fortress was called the Devil’s Tower in the film. Corso chases Balkan to this sinister place for the ‘tragic’ climax of the story. And as it burns he is initiated in a scared sexual rite, into the Mysteries of the Goddess as Babalon.
Isn’t it strange, a stronghold of the Gnostic Cather sect who were annihilated for heresy, should become the setting for Luciferian heresy in Roman Polanski’s film? But Polanski knew what he was doing, for the themes of pre-ordination, resonance, and return run through the film.
The Music: sung by Sumi Jo
This music by Kilar Wojciech has a tremendous trance inducing power. It evokes the mystery of the Underworld; the melody transports consciousness into another realm, dark and fiery, ancient and cosmic. When you listen you feel as if you had entered through a mysterious door into Magic.
As an aside, Kilar also wrote the soundtrack for Coppola’s Dracula. He is master of musically evoking the shadowy side of the soul.
Luciferian Gnosis
Awen
The Goddess first appears to Corso as a young, nameless, blond woman whom he calls Green Eyes. The green eyes are a clue to her demonic origins, for green is the color of Faery, and is also the color Lucifer. In Celtic Tradition, the Holy Grail was said to be the emerald that fell from Lucifer’s diadem when he plunged to earth after losing the War in Heaven. Alchemists believed that this green emerald was the Philosophers Stone. Another link with Faery is the girl’s use of her own (angelic) blood to trace the Awen on Corso’s brow, signifying enlightenment.
Though I suppose there some who would see the blood on his forehead as a pitchfork…..
Babalon Returns
She carries a book like the High Priestess in the Tarot, who in older decks, is called The Papess. She waits on the other side of the Abyss and points to the heretics’ Castle of Fire and Light. Her mysteries are sexual but have little to do with procreation. Rather sexual energy, and union with an enlightened partner, is a vehicle that transforms consciousness and builds the Body of Light.
Crowley’s Babalon: Number 159, The Whore of Babylon
Mistress of Abominations
This is the first in a series of posts about my adventures during 2005, leading up to the performance of Paul Green’s play Babalon. The story is full of cloak and dagger, initiatory strangeness, chaos, and hysteria. It shows what can happen on the Magical path if one is not careful….( as if one has choice…)
Directed by Alison Rockbrand, Babalon was performed on December 16, 2005 at the John Gielgud Theatre at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts to a sold out audience of London’s finest occultists and magicians. If you want to listen to it, click Radio QBSaul: Archives, parts 1&2. I play Marjorie Cameron/Babalon. I had to be called Angel Murrow to disguise my identity.
Toth Tarot: Stregnth, Babalon
When I began my Magical Path, I was not drawn to Aleister Crowley. Naturally in the course of my studies, I came across his work. I respected his knowledge, but didn’t like him. I had worked with his Toth Tarot and not found it to my liking, even though I admired the art work of Lady Frieda Harris. While living in Seattle, I didn’t notice her, but the essence of Babalon was there all along just waiting for the right time to surface.
My move to London in 1998 was the catalyst for a major transformation. I was destined to be pulled into the cycle of darkness, to have my head forced under the water of my deepest unconscious mind. The images that crossed my path were no longer the Green Ray Faery Magic that had been natural to me for half my life, but rather those of the Red Ray of Ceremonial Magic, Sorcery, and by extension, Thelema — the school of Aleister Crowley.
John Dee and Edward Kelly
Dr. Dee
The first sign on the road I didn’t know I was taking, grew from my interest in Dr. John Dee. This Elizabethan Magus had always been a favorite of mine since I discovered him many years before in my studies of Elizabethan theater, culture, and magic. John Dee, and his accomplice seer, Edward Kelly, were engaged in contacting the Angels through the medium of the shew stone, an obsidian mirror polished like glass.
The Angels spoke a strange, Magical language that Dee called Enochian. The system of Magic he created around these transmissions is very complex, and in my effort to understand it, I acquired the Enochian Tarot created by Gerald and Betty Schuler and Sallie Ann Glassman. These cards are very beautiful, but I was struck most forcibly by two images. Trump #2: Arn: Babalon, and Trump #9: Zip:The Daughter of Babalon.
2: Arn: Babalon
9: Zip: The Daughter of Babalon
(Sorry about these photos. Someday I will get a proper camera or a scanner so they will look right.)
My fore-shadowing of my Initiation into the Mysteries of Babalon would take another form before I was properly under Her influence. That was my obsession with the Roman Polanski film, Ninth Gate.
