Vox’s posts tagged occult

Evan Long on "Zero Hour Power" with David Eaton, 8/15/08

nobody@vox.com(evanlong) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 18:44:28 +0000

Oxford International Thelemic Symposium

nobody@vox.com(Scarlet Imprint) — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 16:51:15 +0000

Dear Friends,

We have had several requests to publically post the text of the speeches made by Alkistis Dimech and Peter Grey on BABALON at the International Thelemic Symposium.

Some of the material builds upon The Red Goddess though we have more BABALON related work to publish in due course through Scarlet Imprint.

It was particularly heartening to find members of other traditions, in particular Witchcraft, being enthused by the idea of working with BABALON.

We are also delighted to say that we will be publishing essays by Jake Stratton-Kent who spoke on Goetia and the Grimorium Verum, and Charlotte Rodgers who spoke on Blood Magic, in the very near future.

Also great to have David Beth speaking on Voudon Gnosis to close the day.

We were pleased to meet more of our readers, and participate in an event with such vibrancy, vitality and promise of a new occult revival.

Here are the texts in full:

BABALON - Peter Grey

It is dark in the Ephesus cell.
Helena ties the band across her forehead.
Greek letters in the single light of a lamp.
Mystirio.
Before she had lashed in black and draped in chains across Asia.
Stood as the moon on the roof of the brothel in Tyre.
Now dressed in cardinal red and proud purple of this bishopric she is the voices of the thunder perfect mind.
The world soul Sophia, a pythoness curled around the bread of the last supper.
I am ready for them Simon.
The voice of split tongue wisdom flickering lightning like.
The pleroma strobe lit with hissing.
This is the Goddess come to earth.

Listen.

Bernice the Jewish Empress stirs in her villa on the seven heads of hills,
mouth heavy with the communion wine she shares with the conquerors.
A she-wolf giving suck to the divine twins of Jerusalem and Rome.
There is no henbane or haoma in the blood of this dead god.
But power, influence, greed.

In the Temple of Aphrodite the whores dress for war with carmine lips.
A dusk sashay to lure the converts of Jesus the hunchback Christ.
The split fig cunt song of do-what-thou-wilt-with-me.
Do you have that single coin for my lap?

Yet it is John who evokes Her.
John of Patmos.
John stranded on his miserable rock, still unable to escape the low throb in his balls.
John whose words are the bitter sponge they offered to the lips of the Saviour.
John steeped in the hatred of the Patriarchs who saw their god fail them, again and again.
The Temple smashed, the Ark lost, the lions fed.
Prochoros bends his head as John dictates and writes down the words which will poison the world.

‘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 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’

John’s text is accepted as the final word.
The temples of Aphrodite are stripped as clean as Hypatia’s bones,
clam shell scraped by the jabbering monastics.
The whore not holy.

Simon Magus falls from the window on the orders of Paul, has his broken legged body sawn in half. The beloved assistant is not there to unite the severed parts with their guts of lolling silk scarves.
Helena is gone from the oracular Ephesus cell, fled to the walnut tree of Benevento and obscurity. Left and lost to witchcraft.

No-one pursues Babalon like the Magdalene.
Chasing the wrong chalice of mystical Christianity,
not supping from the true wound of menstrual blood.
We lost our Love Goddess to the substitutes in a switched card trick.

Instead we have the Blessed Virgin Mary a cliterodectomy sewn up with the black beard hair ofYahweh.
Never fucked but full of suffering, eyes averted lest the Savior raises a hard-on while he dies on the cross.

Bound into every Bible, John’s words.
Delivered into every hospital, John’s words.
Guilt slipped in the hotel room drawer, John’s words.
An enemy for every prisoner, John’s words.
Repression for the schoolroom, John’s words.
Hatred for Babylon, John’s words.

This is our history of THOU SHALT NOT.
These are the words that will echo out again as the world edges degree by degree into one final Apocalypse.
Are you ready for the Revelation?
The striptease of your vain grades and titles, the loss of order, sense, Will.
The burning black blood of Ereshkigal is making the world a battlefield, a bridal bed.
Our scorched Eden sees BABALON risen on the incense of petroleum and roses and filled with furious Love.

John, we turn your words against you.
Our curse comes out as the last Love song.

The four snaking swastika rivers knotted and dammed in Babylon.
What was Sumeria is looted by American troops.
The Empire never ended.
Caesar’s men now rule a wasteland of depleted uranium and ship home Arkansas boys with shrapnel for legs.
A chalice of abominations , this fertile crescent now waxed pubis bare.
The women go black -veiled not for Tammuz, but Mohammed.

It is here where the first roses bloomed.
It is here that we evoke Her again.

Our fingers scrabble in the broken bricks for the sacred texts until the evening star rises.
Inanna our lady of the great wild bridled lion.
Inanna of honeysuckle sweetness.
Inanna Goddess of Love and War.
Inanna, the Kingmaker come upon us.

Easter is the chamber at the top of the seven-step ziggurat.
Babel wreathed in lightning.
Where language is lost in the thighs of the Priestess become Goddess.
Where divine woman and divine man celebrate their Equinox.

In the bedchamber Venus rings steel sword blue, the morning star of dawn, the gate of the Sun.
But Babylon is fallen, an abode of serpents and unclean things.

The Jews bring Her back with them from captivity and have Her beaten by Jeremiah on the anvil of nationalism.

The wisdom of Solomon will not be repeated,
There will be no whoring after Goddess on the temple mount.
With every hammer strike the name changes,
Inanna, Ishtar, Astarte, Ashtaroth, BABALON.
Her face is smoked shulamite dark with the burning cedars cut down from the high places.
She is blamed for the beauty of the daughters of Jerusalem,
thrown as Jezebel to the dogs,
castigated as Salome,
mistaken for the Magdalene,
muddled with the lesser lilith.
Smouldering red with iniquities and the denial of Love,
She knows Her Strength.

She is not destroyed by your history John, but brought with it.
A bloody pomegranate seed pressed in the pages which once tasted recovers the lost dream.

Augmented by the whispers of mandrake, poppy, hemlock, belladonna, hashish, wine.
The rising stench of sex and sweat and sperm and blood and always ever roses.

BABALON is conjured in a monastery nightmare of succubi and dis-embodied cocks.
An inquisitors fantasy tortured from the lips of the lost.
Torn with pincers, boot crushed and hoisted in strappado to the heavens.
This is how Witchcraft learned how to fly.

The wisdom of the Whore is the control of Her body and life.
Irregular attempts are made to break the tyranny of marriage,
To abort the bastard children of mother church.
The Queen of the Sabbat reveals a thin slit of red petticoat beneath the damnable black.

Yet the church shackles woman to misery.
Drags her down from the high places
where she is forced to buy freedom by being fucked in the alleyways.
Sacred sex profaned into possession, for an hour, or a lifetime of slavery.
A litany of rape, murder, abuse.

John Dee, bent in prayer does not hear this.
Kneeling with Kelley he seeks the language of Angels, and receives a revelation liveried green as garlic blades, white as lilies, red as blood and black as bilberry juice.
Unfolding from the showstone, an Empire of Angels that divides the globe for the red headed Harlot on the Lion throne.

Madimi moves through the library stacks.
My Mother will make her house here.

Jesus is not god, no prayer should be made unto Jesus, none shall judge you.

BABALON again from the long dark ages.
BABALON as Kelley, Dee, Jane and Joan exchange places between the sheets.
BABALON in the solve et coagule.
BABALON in the sex sphinx secret of alchemical interchange.

The retort shatters on the stand.
The four fall apart forever.

Kelley plunges from the tower, to his death.
Babel again, and Simon Magus,
a final transformation in the red mercury mess of his shattered shanks.

We pay our debts to BABALON in blood, not gold, and Her cup runneth over.

Who will heed the speech of the Daughter of Fortitude?
Her cross-crystal, golden girdle and naked breasts.

Make your houses clean, for I come unto you again.

Dee’s papers tumble from the secret chest and pass into the Golden Dawn.
Miscoloured, mispronounced, and mystified.

Only Crowley pursues Her into the Aethyr,
Spells Her like Dee, as wickedness.
Storms heaven on pearlescent cocaine wings and sexual excess,
Eats grass like an ox,
Wills, Knows, Dares, and tells.

Yet the Beast remains without a Bridal,
The cat, the snake, the camel, the monster..
Where is the Woman in this menagerie?
Incomplete, Alys kisses the back of his hand preparing for a Love he never surrenders to.
Never finds.

Where is She?

Lady Frieda Harris draws Her for us distilled from the Master’s last breaths.

LUST.

An explosion of red and gold.

Parsons adores Her with pressed black powder charges.
Chanting Enochian, mescaline, amphetamine.
Here is the spirit of the Law, flowing as nectar.
Flowering with the Pasadena roses,
Spreading Her petals on the backdrop of the city of Angels.
Gone West to the new world Dee promised Her.

With huckster Hubbard, Jack strains for Love on this Battlefield Earth.
Despite the elemental mistakes he wins his vision.

Flame is our lady, flame is Her hair.
I am living Flame.

Cameron, miscast, fails to shoulder her role.

Parsons goes after the Witchcraft as a smashed flask of red mercury, as a storm of dust blown across the Mojave desert, as a crater on the darkside of the Moon.

The A-Bomb cracks the Akashic.
The fallout drifts down like sakura.
Babalon unveiled is starmarked by it.

The two thousand year Reich of Horus draws short.
Grant sees the teratomas, but there is little Love in his Craft.
Magick bickers and splits as we tilt past the tipping point.

Our Goddess is not Nuit blue emptiness, but brimful Belsen furnace red.

She tells us:

It is the woman who initiates.
It is Love which transforms.
It is blood which transmits.

Exchange your cakes with kalas cooked to cinders.
For kisses from Her living lips.
Let go of false learning.
Forsake the cult of the severed head.
For BABALON sings in your blood.

The world is drunken and vexed, running on fumes.
A price on everything, a value on nothing.

It is here BABALON, that we evoke thee.
Everything becoming red.
Enochian angels pouring warlike from the watchtowers ,
and the 24 elders of days wondering where their God has gone.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Whore.

BABALON
Here is the vision of a universe composed of burning roses,
Of everything fucking everything.

Be drunken as the reeling stars.
Adore the whore on hands and knees.
Open your beds and your hearts
Fuck and find Love.

Dakinis eviscerate the fallen Saints for their bridal wear.
The armies mass for battle and She is here.
Babalon is here to bridle, bind, blossom and burn.
Her time is NOW.

Holy, Holy, Holy is the Whore -Alkistis Dimech

But who is this whore?

Babalon, the patroness of sex workers is not just the Goddess of call girls, rent boys the dispossessed and despised.

I want to move on from this initial image of the whore as we have a tendency to get caught in Her fishnets and lipstick and go no deeper into the mystery.

We are all of Babalon. We are all Babalon.
BABALON has been archetyped, stereotyped and hyped - and still remains an enigma to us.
She does not fit neatly into Thelema. For all the voices, Hers is absent from the Book of the Law.
BABALON is entirely other than Nuit.

BABALON is our sex, our body, our world.

She vibrates with raw sexual energy.
This is what makes Her whore.
Mortgages cannot be guaranteed on this kind of Love.
This is a Love which destroys in order to create.
She has claimed whoredom as the domain of the free. Those in the know.
To maintain the status quo, our society has driven sacred respect for sex onto streetcorners, into dungeons, brothels, and kink.

BABALON controls and diverts this sexual and creative energy toward enlightenment.

Society perverts this energy to enslave us.

Even now, in England women are forced into arranged marriages,
Female circumcision is practised.
Rape and domestic violence are common.
America preaches abstinence programmes to prevent AIDS.
Abortion rights are continually under threat.
Islam places its women in slavery.

I hear few complaints about ID cards, a country bristling with cctv cameras, the slavery of a nine to six day propped up on designer coffee and paid for by the starvation wages of the developing world.

Perhaps this is the isolation of I-pod and an always on mobile phone, shivering our reality into sound-bite snippets of gossip.

In the modern retelling of the Tower of Babel myth we are reduced to the paucity of text message speak and emoticons. AC 93s LOL

Do you spend more time online than in meditation?

Is Babalon a photoshop collage rather than embedded in your living flesh?

To Work with Babalon is to have these superficial veils rent.

The eye of the screen is replaced by the passionate presence of the beloved.

Control of people through their sexuality goes hand in hand with exploitation of the world,
and BABALON is the world, is matter.

We are still deluded by the Christian lie that everything is God given for us to use and abuse, and the planet is ravaged.

Our resources are war spoiled, plundered by the greed of industrialisation,
Peoples, languages, flora and fauna are being lost.
But if Amazon one-click ordering still works we have that next book to look forward to. Tomorrow always comes.

We are left with the same bland products and told that consumption is freedom.

Biodiversity is undergoing a genocide to support a society, drunk on oil.

Babalon delights in multiplicity, but this is a diminishing.

John Dee felt that the book of nature was corrupting in his fingers.
That there was an acceleration towards a reckoning, a revelation, the second coming of Christ.
This is what the angels told him, make your houses clean.
The signs were written in the skies, a grand conjunction, a comet, a new star.
And here we are 418 years later. The warnings unheeded.

The signs we have now are more than warnings.
As we map the human genome the world is disappearing under water, fire, famine.
The elements are out of control.

Can you be sure how long we have left?

We have been criticised for suggesting these are apocalyptic times.
Some seem to think that by clicking our heels three times and saying the word of the Aeon of Horus everything will conform to the Thelemic paradigm.
Neither Aleister nor Aiwass predicted global environmental collapse, so perhaps we can ignore these facts:

1 in 4 mammals is threatened with extinction
1 in 8 birds
1 in 3 amphibians
Three quarters of the world’s fish stocks are at risk.

The extinction rate is from 100 to 1000 times higher than at any time in our fossil records.

Our oceans are dying.
Our forests are clear cut.
Our air is poisoned.

Even if we see this as a natural cycle, the planet simply cannot support the burgeoning populations of the developing world and the inflated supersized lifestyles of the developed.

Natural catastrophes, disease and resistance to drugs, artfully constructed wars to support stuttering economies. The world stage has never been so slick, with images, with oil, with blood.

The cup is filling, in torn arterial torrents.

My concern as a Thelemite is we are still reading from Crowley’s dated scripts.
The mass and rituals degenerating into panto with costume and cake.
We must pursue and encourage new work, new voices.
We must allow ourselves to hear new revelations, the voices speaking to us now.

Stop reading from scripts and stray into heresy.
The world is drastically different from when Thelema arose, and we have right-royally fucked up the royal road. There is more to learn by straying, doing what thou wilt requires killing the Buddha, Lao Tzu , Edward Kelley and of course Sir Aleister Crowley. Once you’ve mastered the master, become a god. She is waiting for you.

Dee’s green woman has told us, ‘Nature is preparing for a world without humans’.
BABALON is here at our moment of crisis.
Not another fuck fantasy imploring us towards the divine feminine and the rehabilitation of our divided selves. For Love’s sake She has come to fuck us up,
to shift our awareness,
to transform us radically in an earth from which we have wrenched our own roots and landfilled to oblivion.

We have to Work with BABALON.
But it is not for the magician to lie back and be straddled because his dexterity is mental rather than physical.
To meet Babalon on the battlefield or in the bedroom you need conditioning.
It is not enough for the Priestess to slip on a red dress and then put it back in the wardrobe at the rituals end.
How can one even face Her without having worked and sweated and pushed into one’s limits,
let alone expect a kiss from those sweet lips?
She is ever present—now beyond our boundaries, our confines, our thoughts.
She can be held, She is real.
When we exceed ourselves we know that.
And feel Her.
Only when you let yourself fall, going beyond mental, emotional, and physical limits.
Draw your circle with your hips, find Her in ecstacy.

It is not simply an anecdote that Crowley was a mountaineer.
The energy body arises from the physical.
Spirit and matter intertwined.

We are in the world, and in our bodies. Adding and subtracting is not the way to work it out.
Put down your Abracadabacus, IT is in the body.
The missing piece in this burning ground, this Eden, is Love.
I suggest you prepare yourselves.

BABALON is here.

If you want more, we would gently point you to www.scarletimprint.com and Peter Grey's The Red Goddess.

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Silly Season

nobody@vox.com(AlicornsPrayer) — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 20:45:21 +0000

Seems that about this time of the year, the internet gets sillier. Especially on the spiritual sites and boards. Add into that when it's an election year, trying to find a decent discussion sometimes seems a fruitless endeavor. And this year doesn't look as if it's going to be any different.

I belong to a number of on-line sites. Political, Spiritual, and of course...Sharing cooking tricks and recipes as well as POGO. Not to mention, a few blog/journal/diary sites for entertainment purposes.

With October and Samhain (that's Halloween for non-Pagans) just around the corner, the Spiritual discussion boards are hopping with 'newbies' claiming of spooks, hexes, and other 'occultish' going ons. Seems that ghosties and goblins are pestering the poor things. Of course, it's still early in the season in this regard...Give it another couple of weeks and the demon attacks will just be getting into gear. Of course, followed closely behind those appearances will be self-professed vampire and demon hunters ready to dazzle you with their 'expertise' and 'powerfulness'.

The political silliness has been going on for a while though. Since Super Tuesday in fact. But as election day gets closer and closer, the more frequent the 'libs' this and 'cons' that are. Doesn't seem that too many people seem to have the first clue about the actual platforms are...And for the few that do? Those that don't seem to only be able to respond with calling the other a 'Lib' or 'Con' as a response. In this particular time of our history, when one would think we'd all be working towards bringing our people together, seems that where politics are concerned they're more divisive then ever.

Needless to say, because of all the name calling and silliness...Of people not being able to discuss politics on a rational level and only interested in labeling others? I'd rather find something better to do with my time then read the repetitive divisiveness on all the boards.

At least there's POGO, my women's group, and cooking to entertain myself with as well as keep my sanity till the silly season passes. :D

Which reminds me...I have a recipe to share with viewers. I've been playing around again with flavor substitutions, and created a masterpiece. So enjoy! It's a sweet, zesty vegetarian style soup.

Creamy Roasted Butternut Squash-Pear Soup

1 small butternut squash
1 teaspoons of olive oil
4 medium ripe pears; peeled, cored, and diced
1 large onion; finely chopped
1 tablespoon curry powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 tablespoon parsley
3 1/2 cups of chicken broth
1 1/2 cups of heavy cream
Salt and pepper to taste

Cut squash in half, place on oiled foil and bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour or until fork tender. Remove and allow to cool. Remove seeds. Scrape flesh from from the skin and place into a food processor. Puree until smooth.

In a medium soup pot, heat oil and add onions. Saute till tender. Add seasonings and cook 1 minute. Add pears and saute for 4-5 minutes additional minutes. Add chicken broth and bring to boil. Lower heat and allow to simmer 20 minutes or until pears are tender. Add in butternut puree and cream. Stir well.

Add slowly to food processor and blend until smooth. Return to soup pot and heat thoroughly.

Serve with a spoonful of sour cream as garnish if desired.

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Race of giant supermen

nobody@vox.com(egabriel) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 19:43:37 +0000

During the Middle Ages the name was sometimes used to denote Greenland, Svalbard, or Iceland. A municipality in North Greenland was even formerly named Thule after the mythical place. The Thule People, A paleo-Eskimo culture and a predecessor of modern Inuit Greenlanders, was even called Thule people. Nowadays Southern Thule is a collection of the three southernmost islands in the South Sandwich Islands in the South Atlantic Ocean. The island group is overseas territory of the United Kingdom and uninhabited. The concept of Thule was so popular that this mysterious island lent its name to lends its name to the 69th element in the periodic table, Thulium.

It is interesting to note that Nazi occult mystics believed in a historical Thule and Hyperborea as the ancient origin of the Aryan race. They wrote a pile of material stating that mythical Thule, a Nordic equivalent of the vanished culture of Atlantis. They thought that a race of giant supermen lived in Thule, linked into the Cosmos through magical powers. And these inhabitants had psychic and technological energies far exceeding the technical achievements of the 20th century.

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Scarlet Imprint: New title preview Voudon Gnosis

nobody@vox.com(Scarlet Imprint) — Mon, 28 Jul 2008 10:51:27 +0000

Dear Friends,

Just a brief announcement.
We are preparing a new title for publication in October.

Voudon Gnosis by David Beth.

For those interested in the Voudon Gnostic Workbook and the world of Michael Bertiaux's esoteric voudon, this will prove to be an invaluable guide.

Those wanting all the booknographic details of the publication will have to wait a little while.
Pre-orders will be opening in mid september for our subscriber list.

If you want to get a sense for the text, fuller details can now be found on the scarletimprint.com website.

We can tantalisingly promise that there will be other titles before the end of the year.

In Nomine Babalon

Scarlet Imprint x

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Podcast 50 - Freemasonry and the Western Esoteric Tradition

nobody@vox.com(Occult of Personality) — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 22:33:00 +0000

First, on this the occasion of the 50th episode, I want to express my thanks to all who have listened to Occult of Personality podcasts. It is my humble wish that you may have learned as much by listening to these podcasts as I have by creating them.

——————————————————————————————————

In this 50th episode, we’re joined by Masonic scholar, researcher, and writer Angel Millar. He has an extensive historical knowledge of The Craft and associated fraternal orders and societies. We begin our conversation with the subject of the origins of Freemasonry and the seemingly diverse streams that may have fed it, specifically ancient Mysteries, stone masons, neo-Templarism, Enlightenment philosophies, and Christianity.

"Freemasonry: A History" by Angel Millar

The discussion delves into Rosicrucianism, particularly the Golden Rosicrucians that formed the basis for later Masonic Rosicrucian societies, such as Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia. This material is fascinating for those that enjoys the mysteries of the origins of Freemasonry and Rosicrucianism. Millar does a fantastic job of explaining his perspective based on extensive research displayed in both his first book, “Freemasonry: A History” and upcoming book, “The Forest of Symbols: Freemasonry and the Western Esoteric Tradition” soon to be released by Ouroboros Press.

"The Forest of Symbols: Freemasonry and the Western Esoteric Tradition" by Angel Millar

We also cover topics like Sacred Geometry, the concept of clandestine or irregular Masonry, The Rite of Strict Templar Observance, The Secret Order of the Golden Dawn, and Aleister Crowley’s Masonic adventures.

Rose Croix

relevant links:

Angel Millar

“Freemasonry: A History” by Angel Millar

“A Gentleman and a Scholar”

“The True and Invisible Rosicrucian Order” by Paul Foster Case

“Esoteric Keys of Alchemy” by Paul Foster Case

“Morals and Dogma” by Albert Pike, SacredTexts.com

“Pythagorean theorem: Euclid’s proof“, Wikipedia entry

“The Rite of Strict Observance”

intro music by “HipGnosis”

outro music by The Wailers, excerpt of “Cornerstone”

original link -- http://www.occultofpersonality.com/2008/07/26/podcast-50-freemasonry-and-the-western-esoteric-tradition/

direct link to download .mp3 audio file -- http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/74/0/OoP_Podcast50_Millar_it.mp3

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Fantasy descriptions of the lost continent

nobody@vox.com(egabriel) — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 00:28:41 +0000

Madam Blavatsky book was followed later by other creations of the occult writers. One of them claimed that survivors from a sunken continent Lemuria were living in or on Mount Shasta in northern California. The Lemurians lived in a complex of tunnels beneath the mountain and occasionally were seen walking the surface dressed in white robes.
Later popular novels also repeated the belief that Lemurians inhabit Mount Shasta. Some of the writers linked Lemurians to Ancient Egypt, UFOs and a method of travel called vortex portals to sacred places on Earth and points unknown in the universe.

There were other fantasy descriptions of the lost continent and its inhabitants. For example, Lemuria was posted as the homeland of a reptilian race of creatures, often identified with dragons or nagas. Various bits of mythology and folklore were assembled in support, such as the Cambodian naga traditions. Folkloric claims of Australian aborigines sighting dinosaur-like creatures were also often viewed as evidence.

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Fresh feverish reviews

nobody@vox.com(Scarlet Imprint) — Tue, 22 Jul 2008 10:32:01 +0000

Our google alert brought up another reader review, we thought we'd share with you, the word is spreading:

review

Book Review
The Red Goddess By Peter Grey
Scarlet Imprint,
UK Summer Solstice 2008 edition

I enjoy the mythos of BABALON. There is something about powerful and sexual female energies that sits right with me (having worked in the past with Lilith and Morrigan, whom I still work with). But BABALON is the best aspects of both in a single entity.

So when I heard about this book, I insisted on buying it. Although the first time I heard about it, the first 2007 print run had been done (156 copies) and was sold out in quick time. And then I found a 2008 run being done, 777 copies (I got #63) with 49 hand bound leather editions being made. I bought both (still waiting for the hand bound edition to be finished and then arrive, it will be a few months).

This book is very hard to describe in words in a coherent manner. It is a wondrous mix of history, and gnostic speculation on the behalf of the author, Peter Grey.

He starts with the history of Babalon and her appearance in The Book of Revelations and why she is essentially feared by the Phallo-jealous monotheists. She empowers the freedom of enjoyment, pleasure and powerful-dangerous womanhood.

To quote two small paragraphs:

We are watchers of the dance of veils as Salome, Mary Magdalene, Isis and Astarte display the shrine of the mystery to our hungry eyes. She is a pole dancer, a dollar whore, a catwalk advert for impossibly red lipstick, a beautiful young girl. Your first love.
She is the Sophia of the Gnostics, a Black Madonna, a heroine of the heretic heart.

Both Aleister Crowley and Jack Parson's get a good lot of mention throughout the book, although in itself, it is not a Thelemic portrayed idea within the pages. Infact Grey spends a small amount of time politely attacking Crowley as a person and his documented behaviour towards women, whilst praising his spiritual practices and the path the To Mega Therion paved for the rest of us. In my reading, Grey's approach to Crowley didn't sit badly, although it may annoy or upset Othodox Thelemites partially.

The second third of the book, where the references to the O.T.O and Thelema exist the most follows on the history of Babalon to historical manifestations of her and her worship. Jesus is mentioned, along with Simon Magnus, Jack Parsons and other quite interestingly Iohn Dee, alongside his Enochian discoveries.

The third and final part explores the means to worship and bring Babalon into your life, through ritual practices, ingesting sacraments, sexual acts, bondage, chemicals and even as simple as inhaling the scent of a Damascus rose. But, as warned by the author, bringing Babalon into your life may leave scars, as she is a Goddess of both Love, Lust and War.

And last and not least, before words fail me entirely, the visual presentation of this book is breathtaking. White cover, with the BABALON lamen / sigil pressed into it in red, the bookends in a deep scarlet red, lovely thick stock paper, with smatterings of red text sprinkled throughout. And four gloss plates, illustrating Babalon herself in various forms. The Thoth Lust card by Lady Frieda Harris being the last plate.

I won't recommend everyone buys this, it may not be for them, but at least taste from its pages and get a feel for the Holy Whore, the Scarlet Woman that Rides the Seven Headed Beast.

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Parsons and the Witchcraft

nobody@vox.com(Scarlet Imprint) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 11:17:25 +0000

Dear Friends,

ScarletImprint are deep in the French Alps under a world of thunderstorms and high peaks and writing, writing, writing.

There are six books in progress. We have our Work cut out.

Peter Grey has an extensive essay on Parsons and the Witchcraft published in The Oracle magazine. This is an entirely new piece of writing, which we will publish ourselves in due course.
The Oracle is the only serious occult publication being produced with any frequency in the UK.
The website can be found here: www.oracleoccult.com
Copies can be bought in all UK Occult bookshops or obtained by emailing the editor (address is on the website).
The Oracle is the result of the tireless work of David Blank, one of the unsung heroes of the current revival. David is a true gentleman, modest and intensely dedicated to his work, a highly personal practice of sorcery. ScarletImprint hope to be publishing a piece from him later this year to bring much needed attention to his path.

The Red Goddess is continuing to make an impact, garnering lovely reviews and a steady stream of emails and orders.

We will be emailing our subscribers soon with details of our next confirmed publication, watch your inbox.

In Nomine Babalon

Scarlet Imprint x

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Podcast 49 - Louis Sahagun and the "Master of the Mysteries"

nobody@vox.com(Occult of Personality) — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:19:37 +0000

Writer and reporter Louis Sahagun joins us to discuss his amazing new book, “Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall” available from Process Media. Louis’ book is an incredibly well-researched and revealing a biography of Manly Hall that contains so many previously unknown facts and stories that it is simply amazing. This book is a must-read for anyone that considers themselves a student of Hall and his work, or is simply interested in how a man came from almost nothing and made himself into one of the greatest teachers of his generation.

Louis Sahagun's "Master of the Mysteries"

Our conversation begins by discussing how Louis came to know Hall and his work and describes his approach to writing the book as a history of Hall and the city of Los Angeles growing up together. Next, we talk about Manly Hall’s early life and how he began his career as a teacher and seer. In the early years, Hall was identified with Rosicrucianism, as were some of his contemporaries, including Max Heindel’s widow, Augusta, and H. Spencer Lewis. We get into Hall’s history as a Freemason and how this affected the subject matter of his writings and lectures. We trace the progression from writings on Magic, Tarot, Alchemy, and Freemasonry to his later works on mysticism, meditation, Eastern philosophy, and comparative religion. We also discuss the later years and Hall’s very mysterious death at the hands of the man who was supposed to be his friend and aide. Hall’s accomplishments are legion, including the hundreds of books, thousands of lectures, and the Philosophical Research Society that still stands as a living monument to the Wisdom of the Ages compiled by Hall during his lifetime.

PRS library doors

I would encourage you to obtain and read a copy of Louis Sahagun’s “Master of the Mysteries” (also available from Amazon). It reveals the man behind the mysteries, telling all the details of Hall’s life that, apparently, not even very close friends knew. The result is a portrait of a genius who was driven to accomplish great things, as well as a human being. By doing this, Louis Sahagun brings us much closer to the man and his works - a truly great accomplishment.

“The 21st century has an extreme reminiscence to the 21st year of a person’s life. It is a year of coming of age … when a person becomes an adult… Mankind has not the right to take a beautiful world with all its privileges and opportunities and turn it into a purgatory. This situation should remind Freemasons that they have something to live for. We have the power to build worlds, the wisdom to govern them, and the divine right to inherit the earth and preserve it in good condition in order to pass it on to our descendents as a place of happiness, usefulness and security for thousands of years to come. We’re not asking for treason. We’re not asking for disobedience. We’re only asking … that in every way possible, when they have the choice, stand for truth and, if necessary, take a little punishment for it.”
- Manly Palmer Hall, 26 May 1990, Scottish Rite Temple, Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, California (p. 1-2 of Sahagun’s “Master of the Mysteries”)

relevant links:

“Master of the Mysteries: The Life of Manly Palmer Hall” by Louis Sahagun (also available from Amazon.com)

“The Great Work of Manly Hall”

“The Mysterious Career of Manly P. Hall” by Mitch Horowitz in episode 6 of Sub Rosa magazine

“Podcast 21 - Mitch Horowitz” - Mitch and I spend the last portion of the show discussing Manly Hall

The Manly P. Hall Archive

Philosophical Research Society

University of Philosophical Research

“The Secret Teachings of All Ages” by Manly P. Hall

“Lectures on Ancient Philosophy” by Manly P. Hall

“The Secret Destiny of America” by Manly P. Hall

“The Lost Keys of Freemasonry (Also Includes: Freemasonry of the Ancient Egyptians / Masonic Orders of Fraternity)” by Manly P. Hall

“Road to Inner Light” by Manly P. Hall

intro music by HipGnosis

outro music by The Doors, excerpt of “Riders On the Storm”

original link -- http://www.occultofpersonality.com/2008/07/09/podcast-49-louis-sahagun-and-the-master-of-the-mysteries/

direct link to download .mp3 audio file -- http://www.occultofpersonality.com/podpress_trac/web/72/0/OoP_Podcast49_Sahagun_it.mp3

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Seeking answers…

nobody@vox.com(trikked) — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 15:01:29 +0000

I seem to be going through one of those transitionary periods where doubt is the greatest force that pervades everyday existence. This doubt is not only a force from within, but is also a force to be seen and heard in the world around us. Doubt is everywhere at the moment: political doubt, economic doubt, religious doubt, etc.

Coincidentally my own world has been thrown into confusion over the past few years. No longer able to cocoon myself from the 'real' world within a semi-comfortable universe of my own construction, I am, shockingly enough to my own self, a being and a personality still in development. In alchemical terms I am going through another stage which can be assumed to be equal to the Blackening or Nigredo:

The blackening is about depression, the melancholia, that is often the initial stage causing one to slow down and examine life, that brings one into therapy, and that deepens when one encounters the shadow side of personality. The shadow is the inferior part of the personality; sum of all personal and collective psychic elements which, because of their incompatibility with the chosen conscious attitude, are denied expression in life and therefore coalesce into a relatively autonomous 'splinter personality' with contrary tendencies in the unconscious. The shadow behaves compensatorily to consciousness; hence its effects can be positive as well as negative. The encounter with the shadow is invariably experienced as a mortificatio: dark shadow aspects of the Self have to be confronted and assimilated into consciousness; the feelings of guilt, worthlessness and powerlessness have to be suffered, taken on and worked through. As a prelude to resolving conflicts and warring elements in the psyche, a cleansing process was required involving an examination and withdrawal of projections. The nigredo stage was known by the alchemists to be dangerous: poisonous vapours of lead and quick silver (mercury) were generated or the vessel itself might explode due to over-heating. Safety apart - the alchemist, paradoxically, had to observe the value of patience in order to move the work on.

Now, obviously, I am not an alchemist, but I am able, conceptually, to use Alchemy as a visual and theoretical point of reference, and much of the psychology of Alchemy resonates with my own sense of being. (I explored the ideas of alchemy when I was at art college, when I was still naive enough to believe in the mystical and the spiritual).

But for a while now I have been a rationalist only. I think that taking a rationalist approach to all things in life has allowed for me to lose touch with my emotional self, a part of me that has now come back with avengeance.

Until today, perhaps, when I coincidentally found an Amazon recommendation, specifically for me, entitled The Three Books of Occult Philosophy: A Complete Edition. I thought I would have a look just to reconsider expanding my lately forgotten-about Occult library. The introductory sentence more than struck a chord:

Seeing there is a threefold world, elementary, celestial, and intellectual, and every inferior is governed by its superior, and receiveth the influence of the virtues thereof, so that the very original, and chief Worker of all doth by angels, the heavens, stars, elements, animals, plants, metals, and stones convey from himself the virtues of his omnipotency upon us, for whose service he made, and created all these things: wise men conceive it no way irrational that it should be possible for us to ascend by the same degrees through each world, to the same very original world itself, the Maker of all things, and First Cause, from whence all things are, and proceed; and also to enjoy not only these virtues, which are already in the more excellent kind of things, but also besides these, to draw new virtues from above.

So, expand the library, read a bit of tosh, and hopefully creatively explore some of the doubt, as well as the growing belief, within myself, with a view to uniting the soul (ie, the anima) with the revitalised materia to produce the glorious stage of many colours - called the 'peacock's tail'.

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Psychic Kids

nobody@vox.com(Corky Thatcher's Rap Video) — Sat, 05 Jul 2008 01:02:48 +0000

I've recently began tuning in to watch this show called Psychic Kids" on A&E. The commericals did a good enough job of piquing my interests and I gave in. While it's a nice way to be entertained for an hour, some things about it just bother me.

What would you do if your child told you that they hear voices and see things that aren't there?

For many parents, the choice is pretty obvious. You take your child to a phsycologist for an evaluation. If the psychologist can make a diagnosis, they will prescribe some type of medication.

Then there are these parents who choose to attribute what's happening to their children as something more mystical and bypass the practice of psychology completely. Their children must be gifted with special powers.

In the episode I watched today where the mothers of two "psychic" kids both explained that they had not sought any psychological advice because they didn't want their kids to be on drugs or get too tied to the identity of being "crazy". It was clear that these two mothers had already developed a point of view about the psychiatric industry that colored the way they interpreted their children's afflictions.

I completely understand where they are coming from though. My wife went through a few years being diagnosed as bi-polar and taking just about every medication out there to treat it. She finally got fed up with what the drugs were doing to her and now only takes an anti-depressant. She's come to have real doubts about whether or not she was really bi-polar to begin with. I also saw how it became her identity after a while and how easy it seemed for her to almost conform to what someone suffering from bi-polar should be like. It was extremely hard for her to go through, and I can see not wanting to put a young child through that.

But what about being labelled as "psychic"?

Watching this show, I've noticed patterns in how these children describe what they're experiencing that leave me unconvinced. It's as though they've been fed this idea that they are gifted and have magical psychic abilities so they have to act the part. As these kids talk, you see thier parents nodding with approval. It's the same type of behavior you see in children who have been diagnosed with mental/mood disorders - they, and their parents, buy in to that identity.

Isn't that just like therapy?

The last part of the show has the show's medium/clairvoyant guy help the children find ways to cope with thier "gifts". Typically, this involves going to a place that is haunted and having them communicate with the spirits. The clairvoyant talks them through what is happening and teaches them ways to control the spirits and how they affect their lives. The final message is always something along the lines of "They'll always see spirits, but we've taught them how to feel normal and live with it."

To me, this sounds dead on like how a therapist will urge a patient to put themselves in situations or around things that distress them in order to learn coping skills. The theory is that you still have those aversions, only now you can deal with them and not let it take over your life.

So if these people bypassed the medical field, what about religion?

I have yet to see a family on this show that has said they first went to their church for help when their kids began to have these supernatural experiences. I'm sure a huge reason is that parents who were devoutly religious would never consult a person who deals with the occult to help their child. This aside, I feel the show completely avoids aknowledging yet another obvious path of reasoning.

Here's what I think is going on. You have a group of people who prescribe to an explanation of the world that is rooted in the occult. You have parents who desperately want to prove their kids are somehow gifted and more special than other children. Desperate enough that they'll put them on a tv show. Then you have children who've learned that when they talk about spirits visiting them, their parents actually pay attention to them in a positive way. It's funny to see how these all feed in to and support eachother.

And one more thing. The way this show is put together plays in to every hokey idea of the supernatural. Apparently, you can only be visited by spirits at night with the lights turned off. I had no idea that ghosts kept to such a tight schedule. The editors also rely heavily on creeepy camera setups and sound effects to give the shots some semblance of scariness. Granted, an old man walking around a house with a couple of kids in the middle of the day is probably not the stuff of great thillers. I just can't believe how they can do all of this with a straight face.

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Blood on the Sheets

nobody@vox.com(Scarlet Imprint) — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:47:46 +0000

Dear Friends,

The first public responses to The Red Goddess are being posted online, and we are thrilled with the reaction, as well as the emails sent to us.

Wanted to share this latest one from Lashtal forums with you all:

I got my copy of The Red Goddess a few days ago and I've done little more than read it since it arrived. It's a gorgeous book. It was expensive (at US$93 incl shipping), but 3/4 of the way through it, I can tell you: Man is it worth every penny! This is a serious piece of business. I'm not a Thelemite, nor a card-carry member of any tradition, but I am a practicing Tantrist and have studied and used various Western and Eastern practices for most of my life. I've never NOT been a devotee of The Goddess. With that as background, I count this as one of the best books I've ever read in the field. Peter Grey is a phenomenal writer. He's obviously well-researched, well-read, and well-practiced, but there's a relaxed, cocky, almost punk-rock style to his prose. There's real heart, gut, and immediacy here, and a kind of intoxicated lyricism -- it's gonzo occultism! But that's all balanced with sound scholarship, big ideas, and a palpable devotion to the subject matter. This is a man who LOVES his Holy Whore. As to do I. I'm so thrilled to be able to add this book as a tool in my devotion.

I can't recommend this book highly enough. I can only hope that after he's exhausted the 777 copies in this edition, he puts out a cheaper general market version. This is few nights in bed with the Goddess (I've been up till dawn the last two nights reading it) that everyone working with Her (or those just interested in knowing what the attraction is) should experience.

On a more tiresome note, the first overpriced copy has sneaked onto ebay.
This is a contraversial book and will scald a few readers into selling it on, that is also a sign of success, the books will all find their rightful owners. We still have plenty of stock left though, and without a marked up price. Again, thanks to our friends who draw our attention to these online listings. We are vigilant.

All our best,

In Nomine Babalon

Scarlet Imprint x

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