The Key of the Abyss

358 Pages·2006·2.38 MB·English

by  Anthony Testa

The Key
of the
Abyss

Jack Parsons, the Babalon Working
and the Black Pilgrimage Decoded

with Concordance to Liber Al vel Legis and Liber 49

by Anthony Testa
Copyright 2006 by Anthony Testa

All quoted material copyright their respective copyright holders.
All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever
without written permission except in the case of brief quotations
embodied in critical articles and reviews.
ISBN: 978-1-4303-0160-8

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Supplemental and supporting material at The Tower of Chorazin at
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Updates and additions to this and other writings by the author may be
found at http://www.timestation-z.com/
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And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star from heaven fallen unto
the earth: and there was given to him the key of the pit of the abyss.
And he opened the pit of the abyss; and there went up a smoke out of
the pit, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were
darkened by reason of the smoke of the pit.
– Revelation 9 : 1-2

This book is the Gate of the Secret of the Universe.
– Aleister Crowley, Liber os Abysmi vel Da’ath

For her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths
of life.
- Proverbs 2 : 18 - 19

Babalon is called the Mother of Abominations, for she brings forth the
star and the darkness of the firmament wherein the Dragon is fourfold
in the field of the sixth (Sephiroth), so thereby understand that Her
reflection in the waters of the Abyss is the Dragon.
– Apocalypse of the Coiled Dragon, Chapter IV
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Table of Contents

Part I The Babalon Working
Chapter 1 : The Beginning
Chapter 2 : The Working
Chapter 3 : Dr. John Dee

Part II Invoking the Apocalypse
Chapter 4 : Dee and the Apocalypse
Chapter 5 : Angels of the Apocalypse
Chapter 6 : TO MEGA THERION
Chapter 7 : Angels of the Apocalypse Revisited

Part III The Magical Universe
Chapter 8 : Death Dragon
Chapter 9 : Choronzon
Chapter 10 : The Holy Guardian Angel
Chapter 11 : The Ordeal of the Abyss

Part IV The End of the Aion
Chapter 12 : The End is Not Yet
Chapter 13 : The Work of the Adept
Chapter 14 : Agencies of the End
Chapter 15 : Exegesis
Chapter 16 : The Book of Babalon
Chapter 17 : Aftermath
Chapter 18 : Wormwood
Chapter 19 : New Aeon English Kabbalah and Liber 49
Chapter 20 : Numerical Keys
Chapter 21 : Liber 49 Decoded
Chapter 22 : Formula
Chapter 23 : The Great Old Ones
Chapter 24 : Abomination of Desolation
Chapter 25 : The Witchcraft
Chapter 26 : The Black Pilgrimage
Chapter 27 : Conclusions
Afterward: The Key to the Abyss

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Part V Inner Apocalypse
Chapter 28 : Descent
Chapter 29 : Formulae of Space - Excerpt
Chapter 30 : Demonologies

Theatre of the Abyss

Appendices
Appendix: Excerpts From The Book Of Antichrist
Appendix : Liber 49
Appendix : Brief Introduction to Gematria

Bibliography

Index

Concordance to Liber Al vel Legis

Concordance to Liber 49
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Part I
The Babalon Working
And he cried with a mighty voice, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great,
and is become a habitation of demons, and a hold of every unclean spirit,
and a hold of every unclean and hateful bird.
For by the wine of the wrath of her fornication all the nations are fallen; and
the kings of the earth committed fornication with her, and the merchants of
the earth waxed rich by the power of her wantonness. --Revelation 18, 2-3
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Chapter 1 : The Beginning

1. Parsons
In one of the most celebrated feats in magickal history, Parsons and
pre-Dianetics L. Ron Hubbard (whose role is too complicated to
describe in this short essay) performed The Babalon Working, a
daring attempt to shatter the boundaries of time and space and
intended to bring about, in Parsons' own words, "love, understanding,
and Dionysian freedom [...] the necessary counterbalance or
correspondence to the manifestation of Horus."1

John Whiteside Parsons, usually known to his friends as Jack, was
born in Los Angeles, California on October 2, 1914. Actually, his
given name was Marvel Whiteside Parsons though he seems to have
changed to John at some point2. He was by all accounts, a gifted
chemist and was one of the founders of the Jet Propulsion Lab in
Pasadena, an institution famous for the Voyager missions to the outer
planets, among other things. Parsons worked during the War (World
War II) as a researcher, where he invented a formula for solid rocket
fuel that advanced the American war effort by no small degree3. He
has, among other distinctions, a crater named for him on the (far side
of the) moon and he is still honored at Cal Tech and at JPL as a
brilliant, if eccentric scientist. That Jack Parsons however, is but one
side to the man who would eventually adopt the mantle “Belarion
Armiluss Al Dajjal AntiChrist”.

He had "...a hatred of authority and a spirit of revolution", as well as
an Oedipal attachment to his mother. He felt withdrawn and isolated as
a child, and was bullied by other children. Along with "...the requisite
contempt for the crowd and for the group mores... ", Parsons was a
born outsider and lived his life in full embrace of his karma .

1 John Whiteside Parsons: Anti-Christ Superstar, Richard Metzger, Book of Lies: The
Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult, Richard Metzger, Disinfo 2005
2 Robert Anton Wilson, Introduction to Jack Carter, Sex and Rockets, Feral House 1999
3 Jack Carter, Sex and Rockets, Feral House 1999, especially the chapter Parsons Double Life
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Parsons family seems to have been wealthy, though he makes
reference to the loss of the family fortune. When he was very young
his parents divorced, thus his attachment to his mother. His father
(who also bore the name “Marvel”) left him the infamous house on
South Orange Grove Avenue in Pasadena where he established a sort
of hippie commune decades before the 60’s. Parsons was always a man
ahead of his time. This, of course is the famous – or notorious –
Parsonage where the Babalon Working took place.

In a much quoted letter by Jane Wolfe, a member of the O.T.O. Lodge
Parsons became involved with we have a description of the man by
some who knew him; 26 years of age, 6'2", vital, potentially bisexual
at the very least, University of the State of California and Cal Tech,
now engaged in Cal Tech chemical laboratories developing 'bigger
and better' explosives for Uncle Sam. Travels under sealed orders from
the government. Writes poetry -- 'sensuous only', he says. Lover of
music, which he seems to know thoroughly. I see him as the real
successor of Therion. Passionate; and has made the vilest analyses
result in a species of exaltation after the event. Has had mystical
experiences which gave him a sense of equality all round, although he
is hierarchical in feeling and in the established order.4

Parsons evidently embraced Crowley’s cult of Thelema with all of the
energy and enthusiasm he gave everything in his life. Thelema, the
Greek word for “Will” became the key to Crowley’s new religion,
based on his sacred text, Liber Al vel Legis or as it is more popularly
known, the Book of the Law. This text was “received” by Crowley
(today we would say “dictated” or “channeled”) in 1904 and predicted
the rise of a “New Aeon” or age, the Age of the Child – whom
Crowley identified with the Egyptian god Horus5. This book is in large
part responsible for the theories underlying the current “New Age”

4 quoted in John Carter, Sex and Rockets
5 in the paper Set / Horus by Benjamin Rowe we find; Horus and Set were originally
expressions of the primal duality, the two aspects of Heaven, the day-sky and night-sky. As the
Egyptian mythology was elaborated towards its final chaotic state, their symbolism drifted
away from these absolute poles into the middle ground, first becoming solar, and finally
taking on a variety of solar/martial and zodiacal characteristics. Yet their final form can still
be expressed in a concise symbology, that of the astrological signs of Aries and Scorpio.
Taken whole, their symbolism is that of the primal duality manifesting in its male aspects.
At http://www.totse.com/en/religion/the_occult/sethorus.html
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phenomenon (though its adherents would deny it) and the Aeon, as
Richard Metzger tells us; would be characterized by the magickal
formula of bloodshed and blind force, the tearing down of the
established orders to make way for the new. Crowley held the two
World Wars as evidence of this, but did not see the Horus-force as
evil, rather as embodying the innocence of a hyperactive child who is
like a bull in a china shop.6 The Goddess Babalon does not appear in
the Book of the Law and is not really inducted into Crowley’s
pantheon until his visions in Algeria in 1909. Babalon, Metzger also
says is a Thelemic counterpart of Kali or Isis, was described by
Parsons as, "... black, murderous and horrible, but Her hand is
uplifted in blessing and reassurance: the reconciliation of opposites,
the apotheosis of the impossible." 7

Parsons was a remarkable man, scientist and mystic, chemist and
alchemist. As we shall see, confluence of events that precipitated the
Babalon Working were extraordinary but, in relation to Parsons life as
a whole, no more extraordinary than the man himself.

6 John Whiteside Parsons: Anti-Christ Superstar, Richard Metzger, Book of Lies: The
Disinformation Guide to Magick and the Occult, Richard Metzger, Disinfo 2005
7 ibid
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