Sex and Rockets

by John Carter

  Parsons first invoked the “Pentagram of Air,” a five-pointed star traced in the air with the dagger. It starts at the upper right-hand point of the star, representing water, goes left towards air, then traces the remainder of the star through fire (lower right), spirit (top), earth (lower left), then back to water. As he proceeds in the ritual, the magician must visualize the outline of the pentagram in brilliant purple (different for each element invoked) as well as the symbol of air in the center. This ritual includes the oft-heard recitation invoking the four archangels as representatives of the four cardinal directions, and hence the four elements. “Before me, Raphael; Behind me, Gabriel,” etc.

  Parsons probably should have invoked with the hexagram next, which is the way the rite usually goes, but he does not record this being done. It may be that he assumed this step was understood, or that he deliberately left it out of his writing to deter prying eyes from repeating his operation. There are hexagrams invoked later in the operation, during the invocation of the “Six Seniors,” and he may have felt these were sufficient.

  Next Parsons recited from memory the “Invocation of the Bornless One,” a short invocation translated by Crowley and appearing at the beginning of his and Mathers’ translation of the Goetia, or Lesser Key of Solomon. It starts:

  Thee I invoke, the Bornless One.

  Thee, that didst create the Earth and the Heavens.

  Thee, that didst create the Night and the Day.

  Thee, that didst create the Darkness and the Light.

  Thou art Osorronophris, whom no man hath seen at any time.

  Thou art Jabas.

  Thou art Japos.

  Thou hast distinguished between the Just and the Unjust.

  Thou didst make the Female and the Male.

  Thou didst produce the Seed and the Fruit.

  Thou didst form Men to love one another, and to hate one another.

  I am Mosheh [Moses] Thy Prophet, unto whom Thou didst commit Thy Mysteries, the Ceremonies of Ishrael [sic].

  Thou didst produce the moist and the dry, and that which nourisheth all created Life.

  Dear Thou Me, for I am the Angel of Paphro Osorronophris; this is Thy True Name, handed down to the Prophets of Ishrael…”

  The original invocation is traditionally ascribed to Moses, but it bears an Egyptian flavor reflecting the mysteries of Egypt, into which the Bible says Moses was initiated. Later versions “corrected” some of the spellings to bring them in line with Crowley's work: “Osorronophris” became ASAR UN-NEFER (a form of Osiris), for example. It would have been this corrected version that Parsons used. The complete text can be found in “Liber Samekh” in Crowley's Magick, and represents the lengthy rite Crowley used at Boleskine to attain to the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel and thus to the 6° = 5▫ of the A∴A∴, in the version quoted above. Although evidently undocumented, it is possible that success during this ritual would have allowed Parsons to claim the 6° = 5▫.

  Parsons next recorded a “Conjuration of Air,” a “Consecration of the Air Dagger” (apparently a redundancy), and the Key Call of the Third Aire, the latter of which is not to be confused with the element Air. The dagger is one of the four standard magical weapons used by the magician. The other three are the pentacle (or disk), the cup, and the wand.11

  It seems that Parsons actually recited the “Third Key” (or Third Call), which is different from the Key Call of the Third Aire, as there is only one Key Call for all 30 Aires. However, the Third Call is appropriate to summon EXARP, the Angel of the Air Tablet, so it seems to have been a mistake in nomenclature only. In other words, Parsons used the correct call but called it by the wrong name in his notes. The Third Key, in English, is:

  Behold! Saith your God! I am a circle on whose hands stand twelve Kingdoms. Six are the seats of living breath: the rest are sharp Sickles, or the Horns of Death. Wherein the creatures of earth are and are not, except in mine own hands; which sleep and shall rise!

  In the first I made ye stewards, and placed ye in twelve seats of government: giving unto every one of you power successively over the 456 true ages of time: to the intent that from the highest vessels and the corners of your governments you might work my Power, pouring down the fires of life and increase continually on the earth. Thus you are become the skirts of Justice and Truth.

  In the name of the same your God, lift up, I say, yourselves!

  Behold! His Mercies flourish, and His Name is become mighty among us. In whom we say: Move! Descend! And apply yourselves unto us as unto the partakers of His Secret Wisdom in your Creation.

  All this invocation should have been done from memory. Next was an Invocation of God and of the King associated with the Air Tablet. The Secret Name of God associated with the Air Tablet is ORO-IBAH-AOZPI, meaning “He who cries aloud in the place of desolation.” The King associated with the Air Tablet is named BATAIVAH, which means “He whose voice seems to have wings.” These odd names are all formed from the letters on the Enochian tablets taken in different order, much like a seek-and-find puzzle in the newspaper.

  Parsons next invoked the Six Seniors of the Air Tablet, whose names are HABIORO, AAOZXAIF, HTNMORDA, AHAOZAPI, AVTOTAR, and HIPOTGA. They are equivalent to the “airy” parts of Mars, Jupiter, the Moon, Venus, Mercury, and Saturn, respectively—six of the seven “planets” visible to the naked eye, the seventh (the King) being the Sun, the same as the seven days of the week, albeit in a different order. The Kings and Seniors are each invoked with their own special hexagram, in this case a Hexagram of Air. Thus Parsons drew seven consecutive hexagrams in the air, visualizing the appropriate names and colors and pronouncing the names, then addressing each in turn, individually, with certain Enochian greetings. Again, from memory.

  The next step is rather hazy in the record. Parsons says he invoked “blank by blank and blank to visible appearance.” OTO scholars have filled in the first and last blanks, but the middle one remains a mystery. This first is written as RDZA, by which is surely meant ARDZA, Enochian for “He who protects,” one of the “Calvary Cross” names, another long series that forms a certain pattern of letters traced out on the four elemental tablets.

  ARDZA is the name that controls the force of the “Air of Air” (upper left) quadrant of the Air Tablet. This force, not recorded by Parsons, is named IDOIGO, “He who sits on the Holy Throne.” Since the upper left is where the letters ARDZA (in Enochian) appear on the Air Tablet, the proximate name IDOIGO is probably what Parsons left unrecorded in the middle blank, as that is the only possible complement to ARDZA in this rite.

  The last blank is filled in with the name EXARP, again the Angel of the Air Tablet, who controls all forces associated with the element of Air, the Kings and Seniors being invoked merely to preside over the rite. Parsons would have been facing the direction of the prevailing winds in Pasadena while invoking EXARP and, indeed, throughout the entire ceremony.12

  The next statement is the simplest in Parsons’ magical record, yet it is also the most important. Parsons merely writes, “Invocation of wand with material basis on talisman,” the “material basis” of which is the “Marrow of the Wand,” the Wand, of course, representing the penis or phallus of the magician, while the Marrow is the semen. During the rite, the magician is to invoke the spirit and, while concentrating upon it, masturbate over the talisman. Parsons here was “energizing,” even “fertilizing” the little parchment square bearing the chosen square from the Air Tablet, the form sympathetic magic takes: a symbolic fertilizing of Parsons’ desire through a very literal application of the usual means of fertilization. Crude, perhaps, but traditional.

  Parsons then wrote “Invocation with [Air] Dagger,” presumably an invocation of the elemental he wished to attract, although he does not say. Lastly are the “License to Depart,” a purification, and the banishings, which are a sign that the rite is over. The License to Depart is in the Goetia, or Lesser Key of Solomon, which Mathers and Crowley had translated years earlier. Th
e first English-language edition appeared in 1903.

  The License to Depart runs, “O thou Spirit N. [name of spirit, in this case EXARP], because thou has diligently answered unto my demands, and hast been very ready and willing to come at my call, I do here license thee to depart unto thy proper place; without causing harm or danger unto man or beast. Depart, then, I say, and be thou very ready to come at my call, being duly exorcised and conjured by the sacred rites of magic. I charge thee to withdraw peaceably and quietly, and the peace of God be ever continued between thee and me! Amen!” The invocation also occurs in Crowley's later Magick, as well as in other texts by various authors.

  Banishings are as equally involved as the invocations, as they involve recreating (or, rather, “erasing”) the various hexagrams and finally the pentagram in reverse of the original way they were traced. i Needless to say, this is a very long ceremony, lasting at least an hour, and again, all from memory. All the Kings and Seniors have to be banished, one at a time. Interestingly, the procedure outlined here from the initial pentagram to the final banishing is slightly different from the textbook Enochian invocations. Parsons must have improvised somewhat.

  In 1943, Parsons had published a brief poem in the Oriflamme, an OTO publication:

  I hight Don Quixote, I live on peyote,

  marijuana, morphine and cocaine,

  I never know sadness, but only a madness

  that burns at the heart and the brain.

  I see each charwoman, ecstatic, inhuman,

  angelic, demonic, divine.

  Each wagon a dragon, each beer mug a flagon

  that brims with ambrosial wine.

  As documented by John Symonds and Robert Anton Wilson, narcotics and hallucinogens were a basic staple of Crowley's magical diet, as they exist in esoteric ceremonies of several religions. Crowley recorded using these drugs in his Confessions, as well as in the published portions of his Magical Record. Within the world of magick, it is well known that it is easier to induce astral vision when one alternately dulls and excites the senses by chemical means. Indeed, the role of drugs in magick is common, and it is fairly certain they were a part of the Babalon Working. In The Book of Law, (AL II:22), for example, Crowley wrote, “To worship me [Nuit] take wine and strange drugs whereof I will tell my prophet, & be drunk thereof!” In addition, Helen Parsons Smith told an interviewer that Parsons got into drugs after their split in 1943, the same year he wrote his Don Quixote poem and three years before the Babalon Working. Apparently she had been his anchor to reality, and, once she was gone, he was wide open to just about anything. She continued to follow the path of white magick, she said, while he turned down another, darker path.

  Parsons’ drug use also manifests itself in “Narcissus,” one of his poems from his later collection Songs for the Witch Woman, which is dedicated to Cameron, the woman Parsons would claim to be the elemental he had purportedly invoked during the Babalon Working. “Narcissus” reads:

  Drug me with drugs

  Slow acting, sensuous, sweet,

  Co-mingle gin and musk,

  Hashish and amber,

  Let me drink and breathe

  And hear slow, devious music

  Until aroused

  To subtle, languorous moods,

  Until I see

  Ochre and mazarine and purple

  Emit lascivious sounds.

  Then I shall go

  Through dark and gothic ruins,

  Gray and golden mists

  Down to a forest, green

  With an old dream.

  I shall go naked

  And magnolia and oleander

  Datura and jasmine,

  When blossoms will open and vaginally flower

  In infinite time, for a relative hour,

  Whose white, subliminal flowers

  Will caress my breasts.

  And I shall perform stately

  Phallic arabesques

  In the moonlight,

  Pale and white.

  The possibly drug-enhanced working continued the evening of January 5, when Parsons noted “a strong windstorm beginning suddenly about the middle of the first invocation,” which was no surprise, as EXARP is the Angel of the Air Tablet. In writing, the “first invocation,” Parsons was referring to the fact that he repeated the entire rite after finishing it the first time. The entire process took a full two hours, such that Parsons must have been reciting at break-neck speed to finish so soon.

  On January 6, Parsons continued the invocation, which means he ran through the entire rite twice. The windstorm also continued. On January 7, he invoked twice more, and the wind subsided. At this point he began playing Sergei Prokofiev's Violin Concerto No. 2 as background music; the actual recording of which is still available to the diligent searcher.13

  The working continued, and on January 8 Parsons wrote, “Invoked twice, using blood” (presumably as a substitute for the “material basis” of January 4, or else applied to the Wand directly à la Crowley's Mass of the Phoenix).

  On January 9, he wrote, “Invoked twice, replenishing material basis,” which evidently means he did not apply the “material basis” (semen) to the talisman (the little parchment square) on the nights of the 5th through the 8th. In this sex magick, it seems he “invoked the wand” (gained an erection) but deliberately denied himself release so the secretions (sperm) created would be absorbed by the body, a practice found in tantra. This “magical masturbation” was evidently carried out in front of the Scribe, i.e., Hubbard.

  On January 10, Parsons invoked twice and retired to bed around 11 p.m. He was awakened at midnight by nine loud, unexplainable knocks.14 When Parsons got out of bed to investigate the knocks, he noticed a lamp lay smashed on the floor, which should have been taken as an omen, as it is not the desired result and represents a magical misdirection of energy. Parsons recognized as much in his record, but continued regardless. Considering Hubbard was the Scribe during this ritual, it is an interesting coincidence that HUBARD means “living lamps” in Enochian, as is the fact that a knocked-over lamp features in Dee and Kelley's enterprise as well.

  On January 11, Parsons wrote, “Invoked twice, using blood,” and on the 12th, “Invoked twice. A heavy windstorm.” The invocations and the windstorm both continued on the 13th.

  January 14 was the second-to-last day of the working—a very interesting day. As Parsons began invoking at 9 p.m., the electricity went out. Parsons records that “another magician who had been staying in the house and studying with me was carrying a candle across the kitchen when he was struck strongly on the right shoulder, and the candle knocked out of his hand.” According to Cameron and others, this other magician was Hubbard, which is odd in that Hubbard was consistently referred to as “Scribe” throughout Parsons’ record of the Babalon Working, rather than “magician,” indicating the record may have been garbled here.

  He [the other “magician”] called us [the “us” apparently referring to Parsons and some unknown other] and we observed a brownish yellow light about seven feet high in the kitchen. I banished with a magical sword, and it disappeared. His [the other magician's] right arm was paralyzed for the rest of the night.

  The final day was January 15, when Parsons wrote:

  At this time the Scribe [Hubbard] developed some sort of astral vision, describing in details an old enemy of mine of whom he had never heard [Captain Kynette, the car-bombing cop?], and later the guardian forms of Isis and the Archangel Michael. Later, in my room, I heard the [nine] raps again, and a buzzing, metallic voice crying “let me go free.” I felt a great pressure and tension in the house that night, which was also noticed by the other occupants. There was no other phenomena, and I admit a feeling of disappointment.

  Parsons sleepily performed the License to Depart, and the spirit was free to return to its home. In his record of the working Parsons wrote that the “tension and unease continued for four days” and that he didn't know what to do next.

  Around this time
, Jane Wolfe wrote to Crowley, “Last evening, when Jack brought me these various papers for me to post to you, I saw, for the first time, the small boy, or child. This is it that is bewildered, does not quite know when to take hold in this matter, or where, and is completely bowled over by the ruthlessness of Smith—Smith, who has a master hand when it comes to dealing with this boy.”

  Also around this time, Wilfred Smith described his own state to Crowley:

  Ill started, ill maintained, ill terminated. The shrine is desolate of the divine; has ever been; and I am completely empty; so much so, I do not know if I write accurately about myself. In fact I don't know anything at all. Have nothing; am nothing…

  The worst of it is, I have some years yet to go and the prospect of having to live with myself is—I assure you—not at all pleasant. For I can't see but that my brain will continually flog me till I go to sleep once and for all. I have ill understood your dealings with me these many years, and I am no better informed at this moment.

  And Parsons wrote Crowley, “I have diligently followed the VIIIth Degree instructions as (a) creation of new orders of beings with consecrated talismanic images. Possible connective result: increase in writing output [a reference to Freedom Is A Two-Edged Sword?]; (b) Invocation of Mother Goddess, using Priest's call in [Gnostic] mass and silver cup as talisman [for the material basis?]; sometimes using suitable poetry such as Venus. Possible connective result: loss of Betty's affections as preliminary to (c) Invocation of Air Elemental Kerub [Cherub]…in Enochian Air Tablet.” The “suitable poetry” is not recorded in his account of the working. The rite ended with Parsons commanding the elemental to appear in human form.

  The “Kerub of the Air” of Air quadrant is called ERZLA. There are four Kerubs for each of the four Tablets, and 12 Lesser Kerubic Angels and 16 Lesser Angels for each as well, part of the complicated (but highly structured) system.