Babalon


Babalon is a goddess found in the occult system of Thelema, which was established in 1904 with the writing of The Book of the Law by English author and occultist Aleister Crowley. The spelling of the name as 'Babalon' was revealed to Crowley in The Vision and the Voice. Her name and imagery feature prominently in Crowley's Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni.
In her most abstract form, Babalon represents the female sexual impulse and the liberated woman. In the creed of the Gnostic Mass she is also identified with Mother Earth, in her most fertile sense. Along with her status as an archetype or goddess, Crowley believed that Babalon had an earthly aspect or avatar; a living woman who occupied the spiritual office of the 'Scarlet Woman'. This office, first identified in The Book of the Law is usually described as a counterpart to his own identification as "To Mega Therion". The rôle of the Scarlet Woman was to help manifest the energies of the Aeon of Horus. Crowley believed that several women in his life occupied the office of Scarlet Woman, for which see the list below.
Babalon's consort is Chaos, called the "Father of Life" in the Gnostic Mass, being the male form of the Creative Principle. Chaos appears in The Vision and the Voice and later in Liber Cheth vel Vallum Abiegni. Separate from her relationship with her consort, Babalon is usually depicted as riding the Beast. She is often referred to as a sacred whore, and her primary symbol is the Chalice or Graal.
As Crowley wrote in his The Book of Thoth, "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".

Three aspects

Babalon is a complex figure, although, within one particular view of Thelemic literature, she is said to have three essential aspects: she is the Gateway to the City of the Pyramids, the Scarlet Woman and the Great Mother.

Gateway to the City of Pyramids

Within the mystical system of the A∴A∴, after the adept has attained the Knowledge and Conversation of his Holy Guardian Angel, he then might reach the next and last great milestone — the crossing of the Abyss, that great spiritual wilderness of nothingness and dissolution. Choronzon is the dweller there, and its job is to trap the traveler in his meaningless world of illusion.
However, Babalon is just on the other side, beckoning. If the adept gives himself totally to her — the symbol of this act being the pouring of the adept’s blood into her graal — he becomes impregnated in her, then to be reborn as a Master of the Temple and a saint that dwells in the City of the Pyramids. From Crowley's book Magick Without Tears:
and from The Vision and the Voice :
She is considered to be a sacred whore because she denies no one, and yet she extracts a great price — the very blood of the adept and their ego-identity as an earthly individual. This aspect of Babalon is described further from the 12th Aethyr:
The concept contained within this aspect of Babalon is that of the mystical ideal, the quest to become One with All through the annihilation of the earthly ego. The blood spilling into the graal of Babalon is then used by her to "flood the world with Life and Beauty", symbolized by the Crimson Rose of 49 Petals.
In sex magic, the mixture of female sexual fluids and semen produced in the sexual act with the Scarlet Woman or Babalon is called the Elixir of Life. Another alternative form of this Elixir is the Elixir Rubeus consisting of the menstrual blood and semen, and is referred to as the "effluvium of Babalon, the Scarlet Woman, which is the menstruum of the lunar current" by Kenneth Grant.

Babalon's Daughter

One of the most extensive descriptions by Crowley of Babalon's Daughter is to be found in The Vision and the Voice, 9th Aethyr, quoted in The Book of Thoth:

Office of the Scarlet Woman

"This is Babalon, the true mistress of The Beast; of Her, all his mistresses on lower planes are but avatars," said Crowley in The Vision and the Voice.
Although Crowley often wrote that Babalon and the Scarlet Woman are one, there are also many instances where the Scarlet Woman is seen more as a representative or physical manifestation of the universal feminine principle. In a footnote to Liber Reguli, Crowley mentions that of the “Gods of the Aeon,” the Scarlet Woman and the Beast are “the earthly emissaries of those Gods.”. He then writes in The Law is for All:

Individual scarlet women

Aleister Crowley believed that many of his lovers and magical companions were playing a cosmic role, even to the point of fulfilling prophecy. The following is a list of women that he considered to have been scarlet women :
Within the Gnostic Mass, Babalon is mentioned in the Gnostic Creed:
Here, Babalon is identified with Binah on the Tree of Life, the sphere that represents the Great Sea and such mother-goddesses as Isis, Bhavani, and Ma'at. Moreover, she represents all physical mothers. Bishops T. Apiryon and Helena write:

Origins

Whore of Babylon

The Whore of Babylon is referred to in several places in the Book of Revelation, a book which may have had an influence on Thelema, as Aleister Crowley says he read it as a child and imagined himself as the Beast. She is described in Chapter 17:3-6:
Aleister Crowley recorded his view of the Book of Revelation in The Vision and the Voice.

Enochian magic

Another source is from the system of Enochian magic created by Dr. John Dee and Sir Edward Kelley in the 16th century. This system is based upon a unique language, Enochian, two words of which are certainly relevant. The first is BABALOND, which is translated as harlot. The other is BABALON, which means wicked. Some flavour of context in which they appear in can be found in a communication received by Dee & Kelley in 1587: