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Level 8 - Vociferous
Join Date: Apr 2012
Location: south africa
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Re: aenima- problem 8
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Babalon
From Thelemapedia
Categories: Thelema | Formulæ | Godforms | Thelemic terms
Babalon as depicted in the card "Lust" in the Thoth Tarot deck
Babalon is referred to as the Scarlet Woman, the Great Mother, and the Mother of Abominations. Her godform is that of a sacred whore, and her primary symbol is the Chalice or Graal. Her consort is Chaos, the “Father of Life” and the male form of the Creative Principle. Babalon is often described as being girt with a sword and riding the Beast, with whom Aleister Crowley personally identified. As Aleister Crowley wrote, “She rides astride the Beast; in her left hand she holds the reins, representing the passion which unites them. In her right she holds aloft the cup, the Holy Grail aflame with love and death. In this cup are mingled the elements of the sacrament of the Aeon” (Book of Thoth). In a more general sense, Babalon represents the liberated woman and the full expression of the sexual impulse.
Table of contents [hide]
1 Babalon as the Gateway to the City of Pyramids
2 The Great Whore
3 The office of the Scarlet Woman
3.1 Individual Scarlet Women
4 As the Great Mother
5 Babalon in the Book of Lies
5.1 Crowley's Commentary
6 The Scarlet Woman in the Book of the Law
7 Biblical origins
8 Etymology
9 See also
10 Links of interest
11 References
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Babalon as the Gateway to the City of Pyramids
Within the mystical system of Crowley, the adept reaches a final stage where he or she must cross the Abyss, that great wilderness of nothingness and dissolution. Choronzon is the dweller there, and his job is to trap the traveler in his meaningless world of illusion. However, Babalon is on just the other side, beckoning. If the adept gives himself to her—the symbol of this act is the pouring of the adept’s blood into her graal—he becomes impregnated in her, then to be reborn as a master and a saint that dwells in the City of the Pyramids. This process is beautifully described in the 15th Aethyr of The Vision and the Voice:
As the dancer whirls, she chants in a strange, slow voice, quickening as she goes: Lo! I gather up every spirit that is pure, and weave him into my vesture of flame. I lick up the lives of men, and their souls sparkle from mine eyes. I am the mighty sorceress, the lust of the spirit. And by my dancing I gather for my mother Nuit the heads of all them that are baptized in the waters of life. I am the lust of the spirit that eateth up the soul of man. I have prepared a feast for the adepts, and they that partake thereof shall see God.
The concept contained within Babalon is that of the mystical ideal, the quest to become one with all. This process necessarily requires refusing to deny anything, becoming perfectly passive the world, allowing all experience to come forward, abandoning oneself into the deluge of sensation. Through this, the mystic comes to direct contact with life, formulating the wine of the Graal, being the distilled understanding derived from raw experience. This process clearly has its analogue in the career of the lady of the night.
Babalon is described in various places in the Thelemic texts, but her most edifying appearance is in The Vision and the Voice, as part of the vision which explains the function of the Chalice:
Let him look upon the cup whose blood is mingled therein, for the wine of the cup is the blood of the saints. Glory unto the Scarlet Woman, Babalon the Mother of Abominations, that rideth upon the Beast, for she hath spilt their blood in every corner of the earth and lo! she hath mingled it in the cup of her whoredom.
With the breath of her kisses hath she fermented it, and it hath become the wine of the Sacrament, the wine of the Sabbath; and in the Holy Assembly hath she poured it out for her worshipers, and they had become drunken thereon, so that face to face they beheld my Father. Thus are they made worthy to become partakers of the Mystery of this holy vessel, for the blood is the life. So sitteth she from age to age, and the righteous are never weary of her kisses, and by her murders and fornications she seduceth the world. Therein is manifested the glory of my Father, who is truth.
(This wine is such that its virtue radiateth through the cup, and I reel under the intoxication of it. And every thought is destroyed by it. It abideth alone, and its name is Compassion. I understand by "Compassion," the sacrament of suffering, partaken by the true worshipers of the Highest. And it is an ecstasy in which there is no trace of pain. Its passivity (=passion) is like the giving-up of the self to the beloved.)
—The Vision and the Voice, 12th Aethyr, Aleister Crowley.
The spelling of her Name as 'Babalon' is not revealed until the vision of the 10th Aethyr, where it is used to banish the forces of Choronzon. The discovery of the spelling represents Crowley successfully crossing the Abyss, and entering into the Sphere of Binah, which is also attributed to Babalon.
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