One day, men will look back...and say I gave birth to the 20th century.
The following short excerpt from Chapter XI of Aleister Crowley´s Magick in Theory and Practice, possibly sheds further light on the intentions and philosophical underpinnings of Jack Parsons´ and L. Ron Hubbard´s Babalon Working. The operative word here is possession and with it, a metaphor for occupation (or even adverse possession, also known as ´squatting´) of ´vacant lands´ makes itself manifest.
Chapter XI
Of Our Lady Babalon and of the Beast Whereon She Rideth
The contents of this section, inasmuch as they concern OUR LADY, are too important and too sacred to be printed. They are only communicated by the Master Therion to chosen pupils in private instruction.
...
You take some organism already existing, which happens to be suitable to your purpose. You drive out the magical being which inhabits it, and take possession. To do this by force is neither easy nor justifiable, because the magical being of the other was incarnated in accordance with its Will. And "... thou hast no right but to do thy will." One should hardly strain this sentence to make one's own will include the will to upset somebody else's will!
Yet it might happen that the Will of the other being was to invite the Magician to indwell its instrument.
Moreover, it is extremely difficult thus to expatriate another magical being; for though, unless it is a complete microcosm like a human being, it cannot be called a star, it is a little bit of a star, and part of the body of Nuit.
But there is no call for all this frightfulness. There is no need to knock the girl down, unless she refuses to do what you want, and she will always comply if you say a few nice things to her.
Included in this expatriation of another magical being, is the notion of dispersion or balkanization. Dispersion is a key concept in the understanding of the Dweller in the Abyss or the demon Choronzon--a Demon of Dispersion, which first appeared in the occult system of Enochian magic as conceived by Sir John Dee, court astrologer to Queen Elizabeth in the 16th century. A more detailed account of Crowley´s invocation of Choronzon, which took place in the Sahara Desert near Bou-Sada, Algeria, in 1909, can be found here.
In the system of Thelema, Choronzon is the Dweller in the Abyss, that great spiritual wilderness which must be crossed by the adept to attain mastery. Choronzon is there as the final obstruction. If he is met with the proper preparation, then he is there to destroy the ego, which allows the adept to move beyond the Abyss. If unprepared, then the unfortunate traveller will be utterly dispersed into annihilation.
...
In The Vision and the Voice, Crowley describes Choronzon:
The name of the Dweller in the Abyss is Choronzon, but he is not really an individual. The Abyss is empty of being; it is filled with all possible forms, each equally inane, each therefore evil in the only true sense of the word—that is, meaningless but malignant, in so far as it craves to become real. These forms swirl senselessly into haphazard heaps like dust devils, and each such chance aggregation asserts itself to be an individual and shrieks, "I am I!" though aware all the time that its elements have no true bond; so that the slightest disturbance dissipates the delusion just as a horseman, meeting a dust devil, brings it in showers of sand to the earth.
With occupation and later dispersion, comes the complete physical and spiritual obliteration or evisceration of another human being, group of people or even other life forms. As noted previously, Crowley´s system can perhaps serve as the Microcosm; and thus perfectly compliments the Macrocosm as represented in sections 9-11 of F.T. Marinetti´s Manifesto of Futurism, which was first published in Paris in 1909, the same year as Crowley´s invocation of Choronzon in Algeria.
Further regarding Microcosms and Macrocosms, it it interesting here to note Hermes Trismegistus´ axiom as above, so below, as it relates to the central ´focus´ of magickal ceremony communicated in Chapter VIII of Magick in Theory and Practice:
As said above, the object of any magick ceremony is to unite the Macrocosm and the Microcosm.
It is as in optics; the angles of incidence and reflection are equal. You must get your Macrocosm and Microcosm exactly balanced, vertically and horizontally, or the images will not coincide.
The reversal and metamorphosis of VIII and XI in The Book of Thoth is also of interest, a Strength transforms into Lust and replaces Justice.
Returning to Chapter XI of Magick in Theory and Practice, at the end of this very secretive chapter on Our Lady Babalon, Crowley concludes with the following paragraph:
It is not necessary to say much more than this concerning transformations. Those to whom the subject naturally appeals will readily understand the importance of what has been said. Those who are otherwise inclined may reflect that a nod is as good as a wink to a blind horse.
The horse comment here is possibly a reference to Haitian Vodun (Voodoo) and the concept of the spiritual beings known as Loa:
These are the various spirits of family members; the spirits of the major forces of the universe--good, evil, reproduction, health, all aspects of daily life. Loa interact with the people of earth. They mount
people now and again during religious ceremonies and they give messages, and even cause various good and bad things to happen to people.
The act of mounting and the obvious association with a horse--or the Cheval of the Loa-- is further explained as follows:
Horse
A Loa, possessing a person, is said sometimes to "dance in the head" of that person, but the more traditional expression is that the Loa "rides" the person's head. The person is thus regarded as the "horse" (in French, "cheval" of the Loa.)
...under reconstruction...
